베드로서신에 나타난 세상 속 그리스도인의 신행일체(信行一體)

Belief and Way of Life in the Letters of Peter

In this article, we try to focus on the inseparable unity of belief and way of life for Christians as 'aliens' in the world as depicted in the letters of Peter. This is important especially for Korean churches considering the anti-Christian activities around the church. Surrounded by the hostile world in the first century, Peter's recipients also needed to take their belief and way of life matched together. To see this unity more clearly, we first study Peter's use of terms for Christian life like 'behavior'(ἀναοτροϕή) and 'doing right'(ἀγαθοιΐα). Also we try to find out the theological reason and purpose of the Christian way of life coming together with the confession of belief: Christians have special calling to be separated to God as 'aliens' in the world, they are saved through and to follow the suffering of Jesus Christ, they are called to be formed according to the eschatological promise word of God, and they are demanded to follow the steps of their Lord to be the living witnesses of the lordship of Jesus Christ. To see the characteristic feature of Peter's teaching, we take two examples of 1 Peter 3:18-22 and 2 Peter 3:1-13. In these texts, we can see the transforming force of commissives of confession and promise. While the 'direction of fit' of assertives (as shown in the words of wrong teachers) is word-to-world, that of commissives (as shown in the enthymeme of Peter in 2 Peter 3:5-7) is world-to-word. Letters of Peter forcefully show that the language of confession and promise has the transforming effects on the thought and life of those who follow the steps of Jesus Christ, the suffering Lord. This is most urgently needed to serve and change the world properly then and now.