Original Research

Hope in the context of suffering and injustice: A contextual pastoral response based on 1 Peter 1:13–25

Amanda L. du Plessis

Received: 03 Sept. 2025; Accepted: 17 Oct. 2025; Published: 17 Nov. 2025

Copyright: © 2025. The Author. Licensee: AOSIS.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract

First and second Peter are often studied as general texts in New Testament scholarship, yet their pastoral value becomes evident when counsellors consider the message of living hope in the midst of suffering and injustice. This article provides an overview of the different components of emotions, the theology and context of suffering, as well as a theological foundation for nurturing hope. It further explores the practical implications of hope in 1 Peter, offering a contextual pastoral response for times of hardship.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article also draws lessons from Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921–1997) and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) on their experiences of suffering and injustice, highlighting insights relevant to pastoral counselling. The goal is to encourage believers to focus their hope on God’s grace and to live a righteous life amid suffering, reflecting the summonses made in the Peter letters.

Keywords: hope; suffering; injustice; contextual pastoral response; 1 Peter; pastoral care.

Introduction

First and second Peter were written between approximately AD 64 and AD 67 with the aim of encouraging believers who had been wronged by society and to give guidance about how to respond to injustice in a Christian way. The original audience was believers who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, especially in Asia Minor, and who were persecuted for their faith. The key verse¹ of the first book is found in 1 Peter 1:7 and underscores the purpose of the letter:

These trails will show that your faith is genuine […] So, when your faith remains strong through many trails, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

The key verse of the second letter is 2 Peter 1:3:

By His divine power, God has given us everything we need to live a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the One who called us of his marvellous glory and excellence.

This verse highlights the intention of the second letter, which was to warn believers about false teachers and to exhort them to grow in their faith in and knowledge of Christ.

Many 1st century believers in Jesus Christ were suffering, abused and persecuted because of their faith. The persecution began in Jerusalem at the hands of Jewish people who viewed believers as members of a sect and spread to the rest of the Mediterranean world. The persecution climaxed when the Roman emperor Nero decided to rid the empire of Christians because they refused to revere the emperor as a god and to worship in pagan temples, and because they exposed and rejected the immorality of the surrounding pagan culture. Although believers were at first not hunted down and killed, they experienced social and economic injustice and persecution.

With these two letters, Peter² shows his deep concern for believers (Huys & Duvall 2011:935). Pastorally, the thematic question of these two letters is, ‘How should a Christian face persecution?’, while the answer that Peter communicates is found in 1 Peter 4:9, ‘Trust and obey’. It is this theme of trusting and obeying that makes the two letters relevant to all believers because the teachings demonstrate contextual pastoral care in action. Peter instructs believers how to address injustice and live faithfully in challenging contexts as refugees in a foreign land; therefore, the backdrop of the letters is one of suffering, loss and deprivation. When believers read these two letters, they must hermeneutically interpret the letters in a similar context.

The two letters were written to remind believers that following Jesus Christ is a costly commitment, but that they should rejoice in their circumstances because they are considered worthy to suffer for Christ (Life Application Study Bible 2019:2178). Peter knew persecution and injustice firsthand. He was beaten, jailed, falsely accused and threatened because of his devotion to Jesus. Peter had seen fellow believers die and scattered all around the world, and because he was an eyewitness of the earthly ministry of Jesus and he knew Jesus personally, nothing could stop his belief and confidence in the risen Christ. It is under these circumstances that Peter wrote the two letters to fellow believers, offering them comfort and hope.

Throughout the centuries, believers have struggled with the theodicy question of why bad things happen to good people. A theodicy³ is an argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil that arises when all power and goodness are simultaneously ascribed to God. The book The City of God⁴ by the Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo was one of the first theological discussions of the theodicy theme. Augustine was convinced that creation – including human beings – was perfect, without any form of evil. Evil only became part of creation because of the fall. Augustine argued that humans were created with a free will to choose between good and evil. A thorough discussion of theodicy lies beyond the scope of this article. However, I mention this because it is the nature of human beings to ask questions such as ‘Where was God?’ or ‘Why does God allow suffering?’ in the face of injustice and pain. It is also these burning issues that motivated the writing of these two letters. Although the letters were addressed to the believers as refugees in Asia Minor, it is equally important to all believers throughout the ages.

The theological-theoretical perspective of this article is taken from a reformed theological paradigm and therefore the point of departure is that human beings can know God through the living Word (i.e. Jesus Christ; Jn 14:6), the written Word (the Bible as an authoritative source) and through nature or creation (Ps 19). God reveals himself to human beings and it is his choice how, when and how much he chooses to reveal. As Christians, we confess that God is incomprehensible but knowable. Luther (Berkhof 1996:29) refers to God as ‘the hidden God’ and ‘the revealed God’, arguing that even in the revealed God, there is still the hidden God – meaning that we cannot ever know God fully. Calvin says that ‘God in the depths of His being is past finding out’ (Berkhof 1996:29). God reveals himself to believers through general revelation, that is through the Word and through special revelation, that is through special insight under the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit. Although believers can know God, they will never have an exhaustive and perfect knowledge of God.

The research question of this article is: What pastoral response to suffering and injustice does 1 Peter 1:13–25 offer in the context of hope? The theme of this article is hope as an indispensable attitude and an anchor for believers in times of suffering, hardship and injustice. The article begins with a discussion of the components of emotions and an explanation of the context and theology of suffering, followed by a theological analysis of nurturing hope in 1 Peter. Thereafter, a brief discussion also draws lessons from Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921–1997) and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (1905–1997) on their experiences of suffering and injustice, highlighting insights relevant to pastoral counselling. The article concludes with a contextual pastoral response about hope in times of suffering and injustice. The aim is to encourage believers to anchor their hope in God’s grace and to pursue a blameless life in the midst of suffering, reflecting the first of four summonses issued by Peter in his first letter.

Different components of emotions

Hope is classified as an emotion, but it is more than an emotion or a feeling. For believers, it is an attitude and a deep understanding of the truth. Despite all our emotions, hope is a ‘mental and psychological change that someone experiences that encompasses the whole process of an emotion’ (Hockey 2019:26). Moors (2009) describes the different components of emotions as:

(a) cognitive component, (b) a feeling component, referring to emotional experience, (c) a motivational component, consisting of action tendencies or states of action readiness (e.g. tendencies to flee or flight); (d) a somatic component, consisting of central and peripheral physiological responses; (e) a motor component, consisting of expressive behaviour (e.g. fight and flight and facial and vocal expressions). These components correspond to functions such as: (a) stimulus evaluation or appraisal, (b) monitoring (which may serve the further function of control or regulation), and (c) preparation and support of action, and (d) action. (p. 626)

This description shows that emotions are more than feelings as they affect all the various dimensions of a human being – spirit, soul, body and behaviour. Emotions are furthermore object-directed (Nussbaum 2001:27). Without an object, the emotion is unnecessary – it is simply a psychological awareness that influences an individual but is in effect useless. For example, in the case of unsubstantiated anxiety, a person may feel real anxiety, influencing the brain and body to prepare for action, although the fears themselves are unfounded. Anxiety causes certain stress hormones, such as adrenaline (epinephrine), noradrenaline (norepinephrine), and cortisol, to be released in the brain and rush through the body to act on the perceived danger. Without a real threat to react to, these hormones have no outlet and make the body sick. In the medical field, these illnesses are referred to as psychosomatic illnesses. If there is no actual object which emotions are directed towards, these emotions are described as subjective. Although the individual may not be fully in touch with the ‘real’ reality, it is the existential reality which is causing that person distress.

Because emotions respond to visible or invisible objects, emotions are also ‘a way of seeing’ (Nussbaum 2001:27) and are interpreted through the frame of reference of human beings. Thus, one’s culture, worldview and religion have a definite effect on one’s emotions. Furthermore, emotions are not universal, meaning that each emotion is not felt in the same way by everyone. These variations arise from the different emotional components that determine the intensity of how human beings experience emotions, ultimately influencing their mental state, particularly in the context of suffering and injustice.

The context and theology of suffering

Believers must interpret suffering considering both the original goodness of creation and the eschatological promise. Human beings are confronted with suffering⁵ in all its different dimensions, contributing to their quest for meaning and purpose in life. ‘Suffering constitutes the raw and immediate challenge to countless concrete lives running desperately short of expectation, characterised by rawness, immediacy and dearth of hope’ (McManus 1999:476). Suffering also includes the quality of misery and pain and the experience of affliction, as it challenges the believer’s image of God, causing many to question his motives and why he allows suffering.

In my many years as a pastoral counsellor, I have always been amazed at how people can accuse God as the only cause of their suffering, as if internal and external factors have nothing to do with it. This links to the theodicy debate, as well as to how believers perceive and understand their faith. McManus (1999) writes:

Suffering challenges us to resist its causes on every front, but when earthly efforts fail, we are held by the mystery of a hidden God in whom life is stronger than death, and in whom human acts of truth triumph beyond earthly limits. (p. 478)

It is in times of suffering that believers must learn to live with the future in mind and to yield to God, while believing in his goodness and finding refuge in him, the hidden God whom they both see and do not see. Believers see God by faith, but seeing does not make the impact of suffering less painful. During pastoral counselling, emotions must be acknowledged before they can be processed and dealt with. It is important that the counsellee is allowed to voice their story during the pastoral conversation because these narratives are contextual. To respond to their suffering is pastoral care and counselling in its most basic form.

Schillebeeckx (1980:764) mentions that ‘suffering over the invisible and hiddenness of God’ indicates pain’s rawness and the longing of believers for an overt relationship with God that will only be possible after Christ’s Second Coming. While believers are on earth, evil and suffering will form part of their lives, but so too will their faith in God and his promises. Schillebeeckx (1980:764) sees that ‘suffering operates as a formative factor’, and it is at once a challenge and a mystery. According to McManus (1999:478), Schillebeeckx’s theology of suffering is linked to the anthropology of Aquinas in explaining the nature of evil and sin. He refers to evil and sin as ‘experiences of negative contrast’. McManus (1999) expresses this idea in the following way:

God is to be found on the underside of even life’s darkest, most threatening experiences. Over and over again, Schillebeeckx argues that, when all worldly evidence attests to the malevolence of reality, God is to be found as mercy at the heart of reality. (p. 481)

This reflects Aquinas’s belief that ‘God has no responsibility for evil, no part in suffering. God is present to human experiences of evil and suffering as the force of pure positivity’ (McManus 1999:482); he also speaks of faith-knowing, which refers to believers’ lived experiences or lived faith experiences that contribute to knowing God. Believers’ images of God unlock the reality of who he is and how he engages with them. Faith is connected to an object – God – and the depth of faith is determined by the depth of knowing God. Believers must view faith according to the different components of emotions, and therefore, faith is an action word (Ja 2:17) and not purely a feeling. Faith is knowledge of and trust in God (Heidelberg catechism, Q&A 21).

According to McManus (1999:484), ‘knowledge of God and knowledge of evil are (often) mutually dependent upon each other’ and just as God is sometimes hidden, evil can also be hidden. Peter warns believers about this quality of evil in the last chapter of his first letter (Pt 1 5:8–11). A balanced pastoral response is to acknowledge the legitimacy of spiritual warfare. Through the whole Bible, we read that evil opposes good in everything through misleading, deceiving and temptations. Today, many people do not believe that the devil – as a personification of evil – exists and that modern society should not believe in ‘old stories’ anymore, but the Word is clear about the existence of the devil. C.S. Lewis (1961) writes:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased with both errors. (p. 41)

Peter cautions believers to be awake and sober, and to be aware of evil as part of life. Another important reference to the influence of evil on believers is found in 2 Timothy 2:26, where Paul indicates that demonic attacks are often directed at the minds of believers. The Word, furthermore, describes the enemy as an opponent (Pt 1 5:8), the one who tempts (Mt 4), misleads and deceives believers (Mt 24:4–5), as a thief (Jn 10:10; Jn 2 1:8; Rv 3:11) and as an accuser (Jn 15:18; Rv 12:10–12). All these attacks of the enemy can be very subtle and hidden but do add to the experience of suffering and injustice in the lives of believers.

Theological background of nurturing hope

For believers, the Bible, prayer and the sacraments are important sources to nurture hope in pastoral care and counselling. Louw (2016:455) describes the Bible as a ‘motivating source of faith and hope for human beings on their quest for meaning’ as it shows God’s actions in the face of human suffering and injustice. The Bible directs human beings to live a responsible and faithful life based on their relationship with God. ‘Its intention is to build trust, confidence, encouragement, and to instil a sustainable mode of hoping’ (Louw 2016:455). Although the Bible is the authoritative source for pastoral care and counselling, pastoral caregivers must interpret it in context and not misuse it to manipulate counsellees. Pastoral care has a bipolar tension because it involves faith as well as life experiences (Heitink 1993:10). In this way, pastoral counsellors work in collaboration with other healing professions.

Prayer is dialogical communication with God (Du Plessis 2016:2). Relationships grow according to the amount of time individuals spend together and through their communication with each other. A Christian’s relationship with God grows in the same way. The sacraments⁶ are practical rituals that involve the confession of sins and strengthen believers’ faith in God.

Foster (1978) writes about inward, outward and corporate disciplines that help believers in their spiritual growth. As an inward spiritual discipline, is it important for believers to understand their identity in God – to know who they are in Christ (as explained in these two letters). This self-image is their deepest layer of self-understanding, as human beings feel, act and react based on how they view themselves. There is a saying that we can only give what we have and nothing more. It is the same when believers experience injustice – what they believe about themselves (their self-view) will determine their response to the injustice. Considering this, the author of the Peter letters expects nothing less than a godly life from believers in the context of suffering. For Peter, believers’ hope is the motivating factor to endure suffering because hope is an expectation of something that God has promised. Christ’s resurrection gives believers a living hope and is their ultimate source of hope.

Hope in 1 Peter

According to Hockey (2019:213), there are five references to hope in 1 Peter (1:3, 13, 21; 3:5, 15). Because of the placement of these terms, it is evident that hope is an important concept in the letter. 1 Peter 1:3 is the first contextualisation of hope: the readers are assured that they have a great expectation from God, which provides the framework for understanding the meaning of hope throughout the rest of the letter. The verse opens with God’s merciful action through Jesus’ resurrection, showing that believers’ hope flows directly from their relationship with God through Christ. God is indicated as the object and the believer as the subject of hope. Because hope is anchored in the resurrection, it implies the judgement of God, which should awaken fear in every believer. Hockey (2019:217) shows that the ‘weight falls on hope, with fear of God being sandwiched between two strong references to hoping in God’ (1:13, 21). Feldmeier (2008) indicates that:

[S]uch a hope is not founded upon the unstable foundation of human expectation and fears, but on the certainty of the trustworthiness of God; it bases itself not on something that one wishes to obtain or avoid, but on God, the basis and content of hope. (p. 67)

Peter assures believers that it is God’s character and past actions that guarantee their future expectation.

Although Peter wrote the first letter at a time when believers’ lives were often in danger, he starts off by encouraging believers to praise God. He reminds them of God’s mercy and their living hope in him, and with this entreaty, he urges them to focus their attention on their faith in God – which gives them their identity in God – and not on their circumstances of suffering and injustice. This correlates with the injunction in Colossians 3:2 (Wilson 2016:4).

Returning to the subject of emotions, they are directed towards a certain object. This means emotions are automatic responses to what believers are experiencing through their senses. The only way human beings can change their emotions is by changing what their mind and thoughts are focused on. When believers shift their focus away from suffering and injustice to their living hope and the promise they have in Christ, their emotions will change accordingly, and when their thoughts change, their attitude and behaviour will also change. Likewise, if their attitude and behaviour change, others’ reactions towards them will also change – it is a chain reaction, and this is why Peter reminds believers that they must live a godly, moral life in the context of suffering and injustice. The internal change process is like the ever-widening ripples caused by a stone thrown into water. It is a spontaneous process of change and transformation.

With the words of verses 1 to 2 as presuppositions, Peter sets the tone for the rest of his letter, emphasising the role of the believer’s attitude towards suffering and injustice (Adams 1978:16). Instead of feeling miserable and lost, Peter reminds Christians about the living hope that they have through the resurrection and that they should consider themselves worthy to suffer for Christ. In response to suffering, they must trust and obey God, and praise and thank him for everything he has done. Peter states that God has mercifully given believers a great hope based on Christ’s resurrection that consists of the inheritance of the fullness of their salvation. Moreover, this inheritance is indestructible and guarded by God (Wilson 2016:5).

After the prelude (1:1–12), Peter starts with the first summons (1:13–25), explaining what it means to hope in the grace of God and to live a righteous life. This pericope underscores the different components of emotions. To have this living hope is not just a cognitive thought or a feeling; it is also a motivation to do good (to act), which will have a positive impact on the body and overall mental state of the believer. ‘There is no other way to be happy in a trial than to trust and obey’ (Adams 1978:18). If believers are obedient to this call, their actions will open the path to God’s power, and they will be a witness for him. Others will look at them and see God in them – it is thus a method of silent evangelism.

In verse 13, Peter writes, ‘prepare your minds for action’. The Greek word that is used here is dianoia – a word that signifies thinking through questioning (Adams 1978:28). This implies that believers must not disregard the impact that injustice or suffering is having on them. It is not a command to simply give all their problems to God and continue with their lives, but rather a thoughtful process of acknowledging their suffering and injustice, and all its consequences, against the framework of their living hope. All actions originate in a decision, even those made impulsively. Yet unless that decision is translated into behaviour, it remains unrealised. Believers must therefore move beyond intention and galvanise their faith into action. Many struggles can be won in the minds of believers. When Jesus Christ prayed in Gethsemane, he was engaged in an intense inner struggle to submit to his Father’s will. Believers do not have all the answers: that is why the helmet of salvation is so important to protect their minds in spiritual battle (Eph 6). The battlefield of the mind shows Christianity’s contradiction with Eastern religions as believers must never clear their minds in a passive, trance-like state, but must instead focus on the hope that is in them. 2 Corinthians 10:3–6 also refers to the battle in the mind of believers and states that they should take their thoughts captive in obedience to God.

When Peter writes that believers should set their hope on the grace to come, it indicates that hope does not come automatically but must be consciously cultivated (Wilson 2016:5). Hope should be nurtured by using the mind to learn Scripture, meditate on God’s promises and apply them to life, leading to spiritual maturity. Peter regards hope as a duty and not merely a privilege. Therefore, for true believers, hope is an attitude that leads to action and behaviour. It operates in a way that is counter-cultural to the post-modern relativism of contemporary times.

Verses 14 to 16 exhort believers to live in obedience to God and not to satisfy their own desires. Those who struggle with anxiety and depression may find it more difficult to resist being led by their emotions, particularly in seasons of distress. Peter speaks ‘profoundly about the need for deliberate mental action in the midst of trial and suffering’ (Adams 1978:34). Although anxiety and depression are recognised as legitimate mental health disorders, believers are still called to acknowledge their emotions and bring their thoughts under the lordship of Christ. Struggling with mental illness is not a sign of spiritual failure or unbelief. On the contrary, when believers seek professional help, they demonstrate obedience to God by walking in the light and truth of their circumstances with humility and responsibility.

The call to live a holy life refers to human beings created in the image of God. Because God is holy, so must his followers be. For this, a thorough understanding of what it means to be holy is important because a wrong perception of holiness can be evil and selfish. Adams (1978:37) states, ‘Fundamentally, both the Hebrew and Greek words have a similar root meaning: separateness’. To be holy means to be set apart for God – it is somebody whom God has separated from others for himself. Holiness or separateness is based on believers’ kinship with God because they have a relationship with him through the blood of Christ which forms the basis of their identity. The Hebrew root can also be interpreted as a wholehearted consecration to God and therefore does not mean that believers isolate themselves from others. Peter calls believers who are struggling with suffering and injustice to remember who they are in Christ and to recognise their family connection with God. In the context of suffering and injustice, it is God’s will that believers must remember their identity and act accordingly. Peter tells the believers in 1 Peter 2:9 that they are God’s very own treasured possessions and even on their worst day, they can be assured that God knows them and cares about them.

Verses 17 to 25 explain believers’ relationship with their Heavenly Father, that they are temporary residents on earth, that they are bought by the blood of Christ, that they are born again and their new life will be eternal in God’s presence. This is their living hope based on the gospel of Christ Jesus. ‘Reverent fear’ (v. 17) refers to the healthy respect believers must have for God, and it is this fear that Peter so wonderfully sandwiches between hope and grace. Fear (or respect) can also be a motivating factor that determines believers’ actions and behaviour. Believers’ lives should be a witness to God – again, it is this silent evangelisation that points unbelievers towards God. Unbelievers may be inclined to honour or dishonour God because of believers’ actions.

Peter encourages believers to love each other with all their hearts. This love is described as true brotherly and sisterly love between believers. The operating verb is agapao that refers to the selfless, unconditional love of God. Hesed love refers to the unbroken blood-covenant love of God, but agapao love shows what Jesus did when he died on the cross for sinners. It is deeper as philia love that indicates interpersonal, emotional love and eros love that indicates physical love between a husband and wife. Agapao love refers to the love that believers must show towards others. Agapao love covers a multitude of sins (4:8) and reaches out to others, far beyond what anyone could do in their own strength. With this injunction, Peter reminds believers to remember their identity in Christ and base their actions on this new identity. This is what makes believers different from non-believers: when believers can live out agapao love, the distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous will be evident.

Being a believer carries responsibility and Peter’s first summons calls believers to focus on God’s living hope and grace, living faithfully despite the injustice and suffering they may be experiencing.

Contextual pastoral response based on living hope

Pastoral counsellors must be agents of hope and transformation in the lives of believers (Louw 2014:50). Although the Peter-letters are viewed as general letters in New Testament studies, their pastoral value cannot be ignored. Pastoral counsellors should therefore carefully analyse these teachings in the letters to understand the circumstances and responsibilities of believers in the context of suffering and injustice. For this reason, I have chosen to look at the lives of two people (Paulo Freire and Viktor Frankl) who both experienced suffering and injustice, one as a refugee who was forced by the Brazilian military regime to leave his homeland in 1964, and the other as a Jew during the Second World War who was deported to Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, where he endured unimaginable brutality. The writings of Freire and Frankl both focus on human agency, and although they use different words than Peter, the similarities between their worldviews are indispensable. Both Freire and Frankl encourage human beings to be empathetic, in other words, to rehumanise themselves. Their insights come after years of reflection on what it means to be human in the context of suffering and injustice, and they acknowledge that there is a difference between being a human being and being human. This subtle shift in emphasis is, to my mind, one of the goals of a contextual pastoral response to nurture hope. Counsellees trust pastoral counsellors with their deepest pain and sorrows – the innermost core of their being – and pastoral counsellors must respond to them with care, sensitivity and agapao love under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Paulo Freire was born on 19 September 1921 in Recife, Brazil, shortly before the Great Depression began in the United States in 1929, rapidly spreading to the rest of the world. At age 11, at the height of the economic crisis and after his father’s death impoverished his family, Freire vowed to ‘dedicate his life to the struggle against hunger, so that other children would not have to know the agony he was then experiencing’ (Freire 1993:12). Freire is known for his model of critical consciousness that was a forerunner of critical pedagogy at educational institutions (TeachHQ 2015 [author’s own emphasis]):

Freire considered education a force for empowerment and liberation. As such, he argued a pedagogical approach should be developed with rather than for the students, especially those who come from oppressed, marginalised populations.

Freire expressed his ideology as equal parts Jesus Christ and Karl Marx. He rejected both a magical Christianity of divine intervention, which led to passivity on the part of the poor, and a theology of social service, which sought only to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Instead, he advocated a spirituality of human action aimed at dismantling oppressive forces and structures. Although he often expressed frustration and disappointment with the institutional church’s failure to take up the prophetic call for the revolutionary transformation of society, he maintained close ties with many Catholic clergy, particularly those associated with Liberation Theology. (n.p.)

The ideology of Freire echoes Peter’s call to believers for dianoia, to critically look at their circumstances in a conscious way and to act; accordingly, they should live according to their true identity and actively engage with society. God is not honoured by passive believers and Freire’s basic assumption is that human beings’ (Freire 1993):

[O]ntological vocation is to be a subject who acts upon and transforms his world and, in so doing, moves toward ever new possibilities of a fuller and richer life individually and collectively. (p. 14)

He views the world not as a static and closed order or a given reality that human beings must accept and adjust to, but as an opportunity to create history and be radically transformed, so that (Freire 1993):

[T]hey are no longer willing to be mere objects, responding to changes occurring around them; they are more likely to decide to take upon themselves the struggle to change the structures of society, which until now have served to oppress them. (p. 16)

Human beings are called on to perceive social, political and economic contradictions, and to act against the evil oppressive elements of reality – this means that they must come out of their comfort zones. Freire (1993:16) describes the unwillingness to act against evil structures as the fear of freedom in a culture of silence. Peter writes that Christ Jesus has provided freedom from and freedom to believers. Freedom from indicates freedom from every sinful structure, system and behaviour; and freedom to indicates freedom to live their lives to honour God through their identity in Christ by taking responsibility for their lives and breaking the culture of silence. Breaking the culture of silence may include being unpopular in the eyes of others when believers stand up against injustice.

An important principle that both Peter and Freire highlight is that the power lies within the oppressed to liberate themselves and the oppressors. The oppressed and the oppressor are dehumanised because both are disobedient to the image they were created in. Believers who experience injustice and suffering must realise that the strength to be freed from their evil persecutors comes from ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (Paul in 2 Cor 4:6) that forms their identity (and heritage) as Christians. Only then will believers be able to transform their reality and not allow themselves to be dehumanised by any system of injustice. Freire (1993:26) calls this an ‘act of love opposing the lovelessness of the oppressors’. For believers, the freedom from does not mean that the injustice will miraculously stop, but it does mean that the power to be controlled by the injustice will have been broken; they now have the freedom to live their lives to the glory of God. What has changed is not their external reality, but rather their internal reality as a way believers think and act in the context of suffering and injustice.

In a similar vein, Peter’s words are reinforced by the Austrian neurologist and psychologist Viktor E. Frankl (2024) in his description of the freedom from and freedom to in his seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning:⁷

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way […] When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves […] Those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how […] Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love, he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualised, but yet ought to be actualised. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualise these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true… Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is but rather must recognise that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life, he can only respond by being responsible.

By reading these words of Frankl, we see something of the living hope that believers have. It is a similar hope that Peter comforts believers within the midst of their trials. While believers may see themselves as victims of their suffering and injustice, they should also realise that they have freedom from and freedom to in Christ. Even though Christians are still waiting for the final fulfilment of God’s plan, they already possess a hope that is alive and active in the present.

One of the first tasks during pastoral counselling is to meet counsellees where they are at (in all dimensions of their lives) and to bring hope to their realities. Bringing hope involves listening to the narratives of counsellees. The opportunity to share their narratives gives counsellees a sense of value – someone listens to me; someone sees me. During their narratives, pastoral counsellors will hear and see their emotions and must respond by showing interpathy. Interpathy (Law 2013:376) is ‘the ability to step out of one’s own frame of reference into another’s, so that one can fully understand from the other’s perspective and world view’. By fully understanding, pastoral counsellors can be agents of hope.

Conclusion

Peter writes his two letters to believers facing suffering, marginalisation and injustice. While often classified as general epistles in New Testament studies, their pastoral value should not be overlooked. In particular, 1 Peter offers a theology of suffering that does not diminish pain but reframes it considering Christ’s own suffering and resurrection. Pastoral counsellors can draw on these letters to support believers who feel overwhelmed by hardship, reminding them that they are not abandoned victims of evil, but bearers of a living hope in Christ.

This article has explored the first of four summonses in Peter’s first epistle, and even within this initial exhortation, the pastoral implications are clear. Peter’s call to holiness and hope aligns with Viktor Frankl’s conviction that meaning is not something imposed from outside, but discovered through personal responsibility, even in suffering. Similarly, Paulo Freire’s insistence that people are not passive recipients of oppression but active agents in their own liberation resonates with Peter’s vision of believers who, despite external hardship, stand firm in dignity and faith.

Together, Peter, Frankl and Freire offer a deeply pastoral lens: one that does not ignore pain but refuses to let it define a person’s identity. In a world still marked by injustice and trauma, 1 Peter’s message continues to speak, calling the faithful not to retreat, but to anchor themselves in Christ and live as witnesses of a hope that is both present and eternal.

Acknowledgements

The author declares that no financial or personal relationships inappropriately influenced the writing of this article.

A.L.d.P. is the sole author of this research article.

Ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the North-West University Faculty of Theology Ethics Committee (NWU-01353-25-A6).

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

The author confirms that the data supporting this study and its findings are available within the article and its listed references.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. The article does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency, or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings and content.

References

Footnotes

1. All biblical references are from the New Living Translation Life Application Study Bible, 3rd edition (Tyndale House 2019).

2. I acknowledge the fact that many New Testament scholars question the authorship and dating for these letters; but because this is not a New Testament study per se but rather a contextual pastoral response on living hope for believers during times of suffering and hardship, a thorough discussion about the authorship and dating is beyond the scope of this article. The article is written from a pastoral counselling paradigm.

3. The word theodicy [θiːˈɒdɪsi] comes from Ancient Greek and means ‘vindication of God’, being a combination of ‘God’ [θεός theos] and ‘justice’ [δίκη dikē]. See Bing Dictionary (2024) at https://www.bing.com/search?q=theodicy+definition

4. For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_God

5. The cause of suffering may be internal or external and affects human beings on various levels, as mentioned in the components of emotions. For instance, the causes of internal suffering could encompass anxiety, depression, relationship stress and difficulty accepting an illness diagnosis. The causes of external suffering may include war, natural disasters, oppression, forced displacement, xenophobia and injustice.

6. A sacrament is a Christian rite which reflects a visible sign of the invisible, spiritual reality of God’s grace. It takes different forms across various Christian denominations. In the Protestant tradition, the two recognised sacraments are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

7. Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997), a Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and neurologist, is best known for developing Logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy centred on the human search for meaning. By the time he was imprisoned during the Holocaust, he had already established himself professionally. His work challenged the reductionist tendencies of modern psychology and called for a rehumanisation of psychotherapy through responsibility and meaning. He criticised the pursuit of happiness as a misguided goal, advocating instead for resilience in the face of life’s unavoidable suffering. See Goodreads (2024) at https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2782.Viktor_E_Frankl and https://viktorfranklamerica.com/viktor-frankl-bio/.