TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

answer: Read. Interpret. Examine. Believe. Understand. The most
common verb with reference to the words of the prophets is Hear,
which includes a readiness to obey. As we prepare to preach from
these canonical texts, this is the verb that must guide our study. Our
first task is to hear what these texts have to say to us, the preachers.
The final goal is to facilitate a hearing of the message of these texts
in the worship of the congregation. We ourselves do not like being
used and don't like for our words to be used. But we appreciate
being listened to.
The congregation needs and deserves to hear what 1 Peter has to
say. I once shared an office with a well-known and beloved teacher
of preaching. Our respective cubicles were separated by only a thin
partition that did not reach to the ceiling. Each of us could not help
but overhear the conversations that transpired in the other
compartment (whence the phrase "overhearing the gospel"?). I once
heard the following from the other cell. A student had chosen a text
from the list in the course syllabus on which a sermon was to be
developed and preached to the class. A week later, the student
returned wanting to change to a different text. "Why?" asked the
homiletics professor. "Because this text doesn't say what I want to
say," said the student without embarrassment, to which the
professor responded, "We get to listen to you all the time. How
about letting us hear what the text has to say this time."
The congregation needs and deserves to hear what 1 Peter has to
say. The reason for this is that the text was written to us. The first
principle of understanding is, "It was not written to us." To pretend
otherwise is to misunderstand. We are not in the first century; we
are not in Cappadocia or Bithynia. But as time went on and this
letter was read repeatedly in liturgy of the churches of Cappadocia,
did they explain to those who had entered the community after the
letter was first received that it was "not written to them" and
dismiss them? Of course not, for the later members nevertheless
belonged to the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church, in living
continuity with the church to whom the letter was originally
addressed. But after a while the historical and cultural situation had
changed, and church leaders had to explain to the "newcomers"
what it meant. All those people who came into the community of
faith later rightly found themselves addressed by 1 Peter and
everything else in the New Testament. If the first principle of
INTERPRETING i PETER AS A LETTER 97