The Suffering Messiahas Christian Ingroup Prototype in 1 Peter

The Suffering Messiah as Christian Ingroup Prototype in 1 Peter

Joyce Wai-Lan SUN

This essay investigates the role and implications of emphasizing Jesus Christ as the Suffering Messiah in 1 Peter for the social identity formation of its targeted readers. It draws upon the insights of social identity theory and social memory theory to analyze particularly three passages in 1 Peter, in which Jesus Christ is underscored as the Sacrificial Lamb (1:13-21), the Rejected Stone (2:4-8), and the Suffering Servant (2:18-25).

The essay concludes that when highlighting Jesus Christ as the Suffering Messiah, 1 Peter is positing the suffering Christ as the ingroup prototype for the Petrine Christian community, to make sense and to reframe its perception of the ongoing social dislocation and estrangements it has to face as a result of its members' conversion to the Christian faith. It is by virtue of their identification and conformity to the prototypical Suffering Messiah that the readers could find the necessary sense of privilege and belonging to stay within the Christian community and to adopt the Christian social strategies called for in the letter. This nicely explains why the socially deprived early Christian groups, such as the Petrine readers, could retain their vitality and persist in professing their faith despite all the disappointing post-conversion experiences of sufferings and ostracisms surrounding them.