Ecclesia and Ethics: Moral Formation and the Church 9780567664006, 9780567664037, 9780567664013

Table of contents :
FC
Half title
Title
Copyright
Ddication
Contents
List of Contributors
Part I Biblical-Theological Foundations for Ecclesial Ethics
Chapter 1 Creation: The Starting Point of an Ecclesial Ethic Dennis P. Hollinger
Chapter 2 The Cross in Paul: Christophany, Theophany, Ecclesiophany Michael J. Gorman
Chapter 3 The Church as Temple and Moral Exhortation in 1 Corinthians Brian Rosner
Chapter 4 Learning from Paul: Centred Ethics that Avoid Legalistic Judgementalism and Moral Relativism Mark. D. Baker
Part II Virtue Ethics, Character Formation, and Ecclesial Ethics
Chapter 5 Habit Matters: The Bodily Character of the Virtues Stanley Hauerwas
Chapter 6 Paul, Ethics and the Church N. T. Wright
Part III Exegesis and Application – Scripture and the Praxis of Ecclesial Ethics
Chapter 7 Did Saint Paul Take Up the Great Commission?: Discipleship Transposed into a Pauline Key Nijay Gupta
Chapter 8 An Ethical Reading of the Story of Gideon-Abimelech for the Korean Church S. Min Chun
Chapter 9 Pride and Prejudice: Community Ethics in James 4.1-12 Mariam J. Kamell
Chapter 10 Discerning, Disarming and Redeeming the Digital Powers: Gospel Community, The Virtual Self, and the Html of Cruciform Love John Frederick
Chapter 11 ‘De Manibus Gladius Corporalis Ablatus Est’: Absolute Pacifism in the Early Church and its Relevance in the Twenty-First Century Aaron C. Manby
Chapter 12 ‘Follow Us as We Follow Moses’: Learning Biblical Economics from the New Testament’s Appropriation of Old Testament Narratives, Practices and Liturgies Michael Rhodes
Chapter 13 ‘You Will Fill Me with Joy in Your Countenance’: Engaging the North American Ecclesial Context with a Narrative Ethical Reading of Acts 2.41-47 and 4.32-35 Douglas A. Hume
Index

Citation preview

Ecclesia and Ethics

Ecclesia and Ethics Moral Formation and the Church

Edited by E. Allen Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen and Janghoon Park

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © E. Allen Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen, Janghoon Park, and Contributors, 2016 E. Allen Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen and Janghoon Park have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-0-56766-400-6 ePDF: 978-0-56766-401-3 ePub: 978-0-56766-402-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jones, E. Allen, editor. Title: Ecclesia and ethics : moral formation and the church / edited by E. Allen Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen and Janghoon Park. Description: New York : Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015040644 | ISBN 9780567664006 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Christian ethics--Congresses. | Church--Congresses. Classification: LCC BJ1189 .E23 2016 | DDC 241--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040644 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

For those who love and serve the church

CONTENTS List of Contributors ix Prefacex List of Abbreviations xii Part I BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR ECCLESIAL ETHICS Chapter 1 CREATION: THE STARTING POINT OF AN ECCLESIAL ETHIC DENNIS P. HOLLINGER3 Chapter 2 THE CROSS IN PAUL: CHRISTOPHANY, THEOPHANY, ECCLESIOPHANY MICHAEL J. GORMAN21 Chapter 3 THE CHURCH AS TEMPLE AND MORAL EXHORTATION IN 1 CORINTHIANS BRIAN ROSNER41 Chapter 4 LEARNING FROM PAUL: CENTRED ETHICS THAT AVOID LEGALISTIC JUDGEMENTALISM AND MORAL RELATIVISM MARK. D. BAKER55 Part II VIRTUE ETHICS, CHARACTER FORMATION, AND ECCLESIAL ETHICS Chapter 5 HABIT MATTERS: THE BODILY CHARACTER OF THE VIRTUES STANLEY HAUERWAS71 Chapter 6 PAUL, ETHICS AND THE CHURCH N. T. WRIGHT87

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Part III EXEGESIS AND APPLICATION – SCRIPTURE AND THE PRAXIS OF ECCLESIAL ETHICS Chapter 7 DID SAINT PAUL TAKE UP THE GREAT COMMISSION?: DISCIPLESHIP TRANSPOSED INTO A PAULINE KEY NIJAY GUPTA99 Chapter 8 AN ETHICAL READING OF THE STORY OF GIDEON-ABIMELECH FOR THE KOREAN CHURCH S. MIN CHUN117 Chapter 9 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: COMMUNITY ETHICS IN JAMES 4.1-12 MARIAM J. KAMELL133 Chapter 10 DISCERNING, DISARMING AND REDEEMING THE DIGITAL POWERS: GOSPEL COMMUNITY, THE VIRTUAL SELF, AND THE HTML OF CRUCIFORM LOVE JOHN FREDERICK153 Chapter 11 ‘DE MANIBUS GLADIUS CORPORALIS ABLATUS EST’: ABSOLUTE PACIFISM IN THE EARLY CHURCH AND ITS RELEVANCE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AARON C. MANBY165 Chapter 12 ‘FOLLOW US AS WE FOLLOW MOSES’: LEARNING BIBLICAL ECONOMICS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT’S APPROPRIATION OF OLD TESTAMENT NARRATIVES, PRACTICES AND LITURGIES MICHAEL RHODES179 Chapter 13 ‘YOU WILL FILL ME WITH JOY IN YOUR COUNTENANCE’: ENGAGING THE NORTH AMERICAN ECCLESIAL CONTEXT WITH A NARRATIVE ETHICAL READING OF ACTS 2.41-47 AND 4.32-35 DOUGLAS A. HUME193 Index207

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Mark D. Baker (Ph.D., Duke University) – Associate Professor of Mission and Theology, Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. John Frederick (Ph.D. in New Testament, University of St. Andrews) – Assistant Professor Of Theology, College of Theology – Grand Canyon University. Michael Gorman (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) – Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore, MD. Nijay Gupta (Ph.D., University of Durham) – Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan College. Stanley Hauerwas (D.D., University of Edinburgh) – Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School. Dennis Hollinger (Ph.D., Drew University) – President and Colman M. Mockler, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary South Hamilton, MA. Mariam Kamell (Ph.D., University of St Andrews) – Assistant Professor of New Testament, Regent College Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Aaron C. Manby (Ph.D. Candidate in Theology and Religion, University of Otago). Michael Rhodes (MA Candidate in New Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte) – Director of Education, Advance Memphis. Brian Rosner (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) – Principal of Ridley College of Mission & Ministry, Melbourne, Australia. Sungmin Min Chun (D.Phil., Oxford University) – Research Fellow at Nehemiah Institute for Christian Studies. N. T. Wright (D.Phil., University of Oxford) – Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, St Mary’s College, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews, and former Anglican Bishop of Durham.

PREFACE This volume is the culmination of an ambitious project begun by a group of Ph.D. students from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) in the latter half of 2012. The idea for a global webinar conference was, initially, a response to the costly and time-consuming reality of transcontinental travel that participation in traditional academic conferences necessitates. Each of the editors recognized, and continues to recognize, the value of in-person meetings for the academic disciplines, yet, they also saw that such events carry price tags, both financial and ecological, that make frequent gatherings impossible. There was a feeling that there should be additional paths for sharing theological and biblical research that could be carried out on a global scale. After teaching New Testament Greek for the Erasmus Academy in the summer of 2012, online and in real-time, John Frederick suggested to Allen Jones and John Dunne the concept of a fully web-based conference that could serve as a supplement to the annual meetings of the more traditional scholarly societies (e.g. SBL, AAR). All three agreed that a conference of this nature could create a space for senior academics, junior scholars and current practitioners to engage each other on issues of theology and the Church, and to do so with minimal costs. Thus, Jones, Dunne and Frederick formed the core team of conference organizers for the inaugural Ecclesia and Ethics conference. Soon after, fellow Ph.D. students Janghoon Park and Eric Lewellen joined the team, adding much-needed logistical support. The following months were spent sending email invitations to highly rated keynote speakers, and to the committee’s surprise and delight, nearly every senior scholar agreed to participate in this new and unprecedented online academic and ecclesial event. Thanks to generous grants from the University of St Andrews’ Centre for Academic, Professional and Organizational Development (CAPOD) and from Corban University, the committee was able to host the initial meetings on consecutive Saturdays in May 2013 (18 May and 25 May ), for which over 200 people registered. Further, with all of the conference costs covered, the committee simply allowed participants to pay their registration fee ($10/£7) to one of three designated charities – WorldVision, Bombay Teen Challenge or The Simple Way Community in Philadelphia. The proceeds/donations raised a total of $2,500 USD for these various ministries. Ultimately, the conference featured fifty original scholarly papers, representing participants from numerous universities, churches and ministries from around the globe. The contents of this book are the edited versions of twelve of these fifty papers. The presentations were attended in real-time by registrants from eighteen different countries including: Scotland, England, the United States, Canada, New

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Zealand, Ireland, Costa Rica, India, Germany, Taiwan, Latvia, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, Iraq and Singapore. Using readily available software, participants and attendees were able to engage in live, transcontinental, crosscultural, constructive theological conversation over the Internet. Both the conference and the contributions to this volume represent an intentional style of scholarship and writing. It is one where deep theological concepts are investigated and developed for the sake of, and in the context of, an academic and ecclesial gathering. The theme of the publication is moral formation and the church, which is approached from a variety of perspectives, theological traditions, and disciplines. The editors desire that the Ecclesia and Ethics conference, and this volume that it has produced, will help to create ties between the many branches of the Christian faith, and that, through this unity-in-diversity, the church might be blessed so that it can in turn be a blessing in new, creative, and sustainable ways. Soli Deo Gloria. Allen Jones John Anthony Dunne John Frederick Janghoon Park Eric Lewellen 31 July 2015

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AB Anchor Bible ACT Acta Theologica AJSL The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures ANBIB Analecta biblica AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch BA Biblical Archaeologist BERO Berit Olam BIB Biblica BIBINT Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament BT The Bible Translator BZ Biblische Zeitschrift BZAW Beihefte zur ZAW CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CC Continental Commentary CEJL Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature DCLS Deuterocanoncial and Cognate Literature Studies DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FCB The Feminist Companion to the Bible FCB 2 The Feminist Companion to the Bible. Second Series FORCED MIGR REV Forced Migration Review FOTL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature HAR Hebrew Annual Review HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament HBS Herders biblische Studien HO Handbook of Oriental Studies/Handbuch der Orientalistik HTKAT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament HTR Harvard Theological Review IBC Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching ICC International Critical Commentary IDS In die Skriflig INT Interpretation INT MIGR REV International Migration Review J CONTEMP AFR STUD Journal of Contemporary African Studies J REFUG STUD Journal of Refugee Studies JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JFSR Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

JHNES JRAS JSJSUP JSOT JSOTSUP JSPSUP JTS KAT LCBI LHBOTS LSTS NAC NCBC NICOT OBT OTE OTL OTS PIBA RB RSOU SBLDS SJT SUBBI VT VTSUP WBC ZAH ZAW ZBK

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Johns Hopkins Near Eastern Studies Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Kommentar zum Alten Testament Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Library of Second Temple Studies New American Commentary New Century Bible Commentary The New International Commentary on the Old Testament Overtures to Biblical Theology Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studiën Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association Revue Biblique Ras Shamra-Ougarit SBL Dissertation Series Scottish Journal of Theology Subsidia biblica Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Zeitschrift für Althebraistik Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zücher Bibelkommentare

Part I B IBLICAL -T HEOLOGICAL F OUNDATIONS FOR E CCLESIAL E THICS

Chapter 1 C R E AT IO N : T H E S TA RT I N G P O I N T O F A N E C C L E SIA L E T H IC Dennis P. Hollinger

Christian faith is Trinitarian: the mysterious oneness of God as three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Despite this creedal affirmation, Christian history, and particularly Christian Ethics, has tended towards a functional Unitarianism. In an article many years ago H. Richard Niebuhr pointed out that though ‘Christianity has often been accused of being a polytheism with three Gods …, it seems nearer the truth to say that Christianity as a whole is more likely to be an association …, of three Unitarian religions’.1 He refers to these three as a Unitarianism of the Father, a Unitarianism of the Son and a Unitarianism of the Holy Spirit. Despite the creedal affirmation, key individuals and movements throughout the Church have tended to accentuate one person of the Trinity, sometimes in reaction to an exclusive emphasis of the others. For example, ‘The Unitarianism of the Spirit arises in protest and reaction against exclusive concern with rational and historical knowledge of God as he is known in nature and in history.’2 Niebuhr’s observation is particularly evident in the history of Christian Ethics, in which theologians and ethicists have frequently forged an ethic of the Father, over against or in neglect of the Son and Spirit; or an ethic of the Son over against or in neglect of the Father and Spirit; or an ethic of the Spirit over against or in neglect of the Father and the Son.3 If we are truly Trinitarian both the foundations and content of our ethic should embody all three persons. As Barth reminds us, ‘God is one and indivisible in His working. That He is Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer does not imply the existence of separate divine departments and branches of authority.’ This is particularly true with regards to the command of God, for ‘If we consider it in its different spheres, and therefore if we here ask 1. H. Richard Niebuhr, ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Unity of the Church’, Theology Today 3 (October 1946): 371–84 (372). 2. Ibid., 379. 3. For a helpful analysis of this with specific reference to Christian Ethics see Richard Mouw, The God Who Commands: A Study in Divine Command Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 150–61.

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particularly about the command of God the Creator, this cannot and must not mean that beside this first there is a second and separate command, that of God the Reconciler and then a third, that of God the Redeemer’.4 Just as ‘Christians play favourites with the members of the Trinity’, Christians also play favourites with regards to the various key parts of the Christian narrative: creation, fall, redemption and consummation.5 As a result we have had and continue to have Christian Ethics of one of these four, frequently to the neglect or minimization of the others. Thus, an ethic of creation has often accentuated a creation orders model in which redemption in Christ and his life and teachings are neglected; an ethic of the fall or sin appeals to a realism in which the way things are is the way things must be; an ethics of redemption focuses on Jesus’ life and example with virtually no reference to creation; and an ethics of the Kingdom trumps the coming reign of God over all other dimensions. As Christian Ethics is flawed when it separates Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so it is flawed when creation and redemption are separated into differing and opposing spheres of ethical appeal. God the Creator and God the Redeemer are one, and thus an ethic of redemption can neither negate nor neglect creation, just as an ethic of creation cannot negate or neglect redemption in Christ, including his life and teachings. Throughout the whole of canonical Scripture the links between creation and redemption are explicit. As Sean McDonough puts it in Christ as Creator, ‘God had created in a definitive act, and had done mighty works of salvation or re-creation in the history of his people Israel. In the eyes of the early Christians these mighty acts had reached their climax in God’s work through his Messiah Jesus.’6 The logos text of John 1 is perhaps the most wellknown example: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1.1-4, 14)7

In similar fashion, Paul holds Christ as Creator and Redeemer together when he says of the Son, ‘In him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth … . He is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head 4. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III–4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961), 32–3. Hereafter, CD. 5. Mouw, The God Who Commands, 150. 6. Sean McDonough, Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 63. 7. Here and elsewhere all citations of the Bible are taken from the New International Version.

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of the body, the Church … . For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things … by making peace through his blood’ (Col. 1.16-17, 19-20).8 Thus, when it comes to Christian Ethics, Barth is certainly right to maintain that ‘the God who meets man as Creator in His commandment is the God “who is gracious to him in Jesus Christ.” He is not then, a new and strange God who could require from man as his Commander something new and strange and even perhaps in conflict with what is asked of him by the God who is gracious to him in Jesus Christ.’9 Theologian Jonathan Wilson has recently suggested that we understand a dialectic of creation and redemption, and thus the doctrine of creation cannot be used to avoid the particularity of Jesus and redemption through him. ‘Any Christian theology is defective if it seeks to find in the doctrine of creation an escape from the scandal of particularity and an escape to a realm that does not require the fullness of knowledge that comes by faith and the hope that looks to the eschaton.’10 Wilson goes on to argue: When the order of creation is separated from the order of redemption and treated as if its purpose and meaning could be discerned apart from redemption, we end up with a bifurcated account of the Christian life, on the one hand, and life within an imagined order of creation that does not bear witness to Jesus Christ, on the other hand. We interpret the way things are now as part of the order of creation and simply try to make the best of the circumstances instead of realizing that the present situation is the way of the world, which has been publicly humiliated and defeated by Christ.11

But just as creation cannot neglect redemption, so redemption cannot neglect creation. Any ethic of Jesus or ethic of the Kingdom must be in continuity with creation, since the work of Christ and his Kingdom is a restoration of creation, a re-creation. Thus, Jesus of Nazareth or his work on the cross does not overturn what God established in creation as a paradigm for humanity. The dialectic of creation and redemption means continuity between creation, redemption and the Kingdom restoration. The only discontinuity resides with sin and the Fall, so that the anomalies and fallen propensities of our world should never become the norm. The fallen condition of humanity and the cosmos yields not a normative realism, but rather a pastoral realism for how we seek to strategically connect fallen humanity to the creational/redemptive norms. 8. There are a host of other biblical texts linking creation, redemption and sometimes the eschaton. See for example Heb. 3.1-3; Rev. 21.1-8; Isa. 42.5-17. 9. Barth, CD III–4, 35. 10. Jonathan R. Wilson, God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 19. 11. Wilson, God’s Good World, 58. Unfortunately in this quote Wilson tends to equate creation and the fallen world, as he speaks of the way things are as if it is part of the order of creation.

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The starting point then of an ecclesial ethic is creation. This in no way sets aside the fuller understandings that may come in redemption and eschaton, but the latter fills out and makes more visible the creation paradigms.12 In what follows I seek to explore five major themes or paradigms from the creation narrative that serve as essential, though not exhaustive ethical frameworks, for believers and the Church. I will, furthermore, seek to briefly show that the creation paradigms13 are affirmed by redemption, eschaton and frequently even the teachings and life of Jesus.

A Good World One of the most striking features of the Genesis account of creation is the repetitive refrain after each day of creation, ‘It is good.’ Then after the creation of humankind in God’s own image, ‘God saw all that he had made and it was very good’ (Gen. 1.21). The pronouncement of the created world’s goodness is most remarkable because it is the material, physical world, and not some soulish, otherworldly sphere of reality. No other ancient account of creation renders this same judgement about the created world. This pronouncement is at the heart of Archbishop William Temple’s statement, ‘Christianity … is the most avowedly materialistic of all the great religions’.14 The affirmation of the material, temporal world is affirmed by three great doctrines of biblical faith: creation, the incarnation and the resurrection of the body. Together these affirm that the created, physical world is not a sphere from which we escape, but a realm to which God calls us in the human vocation and through which we live redeemed lives. Immediately of course one can raise the challenge of the Fall of Genesis 3 in which God’s good world gets distorted. But even after the Fall and the entrance of sin there is still a quality of goodness that inheres in the created world. Thus, as Albert Wolters describes it in Creation Regained, ‘A human being after the fall, though a travesty of humanity is still a human being, not an animal. A humanistic school is still a school. A broken relationship is still a relationship. Muddled thinking is still thinking. In each case, what something in fallen creation still is points to the enduring goodness of creation.’15 Though moral evil now enters 12. I am not contending here that creation theology embodies all that is needed for a Christian ethic, but rather that what is given in creation is not overturned by other portions of Scripture or by other parts of the creation-fall-redemption-consummation paradigm. For example, the Decalogue gives commands that go beyond creation, but even in the Law there are reiterations of much that is given at creation. 13. This analysis will focus primarily from the Gen. 1–2 story of creation, though creation theology is filled out in many other places of Scripture. 14. William Temple, Nature, Man and God (London: Macmillan, 1949), 478. 15. Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2005), 58.

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the human world and the entire cosmos is affected by the Fall, there remains a metaphysical goodness to what God has created. This is perhaps most evident when we think about the big three ethical issues of our time: money, sex and power. While the Fall has distorted the use and direction of these three good gifts of creation, the first biblical affirmation of each is their goodness. ‘Sin neither abolishes nor becomes identified with creation.’ Thus, ‘prostitution does not eliminate the goodness of human sexuality; political tyranny cannot wipe out the divine ordained character of the state … . Evil does not have the power of bringing to naught God’s steadfast faithfulness to the works of his hands.’16 The goodness of God’s creation means that the biblical commands surrounding matters such as money, sex and power are really attempts to affirm their goodness and created telos. It is after all, not money that is the root of all evil but, ‘The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’ (1 Tim. 6.10). Similarly the starting point of a Christian ethic of sexuality is the goodness of God’s gift. Any biblical strictures of sexual character and behaviour are merely attempts to affirm and protect the good, divine gift. This stands in stark contrast to the asceticisms that frequently developed throughout Christian history with regards to money, sex and power.17 The goodness of the created world also means that this world is our place of calling to serve God. Unlike the old gospel song, ‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through’, the biblical song is, ‘This world is my home, a gift of God’s good creation.’ Christian ethics is not a call away from the broken, fractured world, but a call into it. Thus, science, education, law, business, media, farming, finance, politics, the arts, sports as well as the Church are all places of divine calling. Christians, acutely aware of the second part of the biblical story – the Fall, recognize the distortions and idolatrous allurements of these good gifts. But the Christian answer is not a Gnostic withdrawal from this good, and now fallen world, but rather a critical and faithful engagement with His world as God’s viceroys on this earth. Is this goodness of creation affirmed by redemption and the final consummation? I believe that it is. It is certainly affirmed by the incarnation, as God took on human flesh and lived among us in this broken, but good world. The incarnation brings together creation and redemption in powerful ways, for in taking on human flesh God the Son affirms the creation pronouncement and enters our world to bring salvation to humanity through his work on the cross. The writer to the Hebrews brings together creation, Christ and redemption: In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Heb. 1.2-3) 16. Ibid., 57. 17.  For an analysis of asceticism with regards to sex see Dennis Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 44–51.

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God’s entrance into the good world that he created is not incompatible with his work of redemption and purification, or with his presence with the Father in heaven. They are co-extensive with each other. Jesus’ embrace of the goodness of creation is evident in his first miracle, as is often noted in wedding liturgies – turning water into wine in Cana (Jn 2.1-11). The miracle affirms the goodness of what can be garnered from the works of humans cooperating with created nature. That he performs this miracle, thereby revealing ‘his glory’ (v. 11), at a wedding gives his blessing to the institution that is consummated by sexual relations and brings physical children into the world. This miracle is not an escape from the world, but an affirmation to faithfulness within it. The Apostle Paul, in a text repudiating false teachers who destroy the message of Christ and redemption, likewise affirms the goodness of creation: ‘They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good’ (1 Tim. 4.3-4). Redemption and sanctification are not worked out through ascetic denials of the physical world, but within this world that even in its sinful, fallen state is still rendered good by our Creator-Redeemer.

Wonderfully Made: In God’s Image A second major theme in the creation story is the unique creation of human beings in God’s image. This theme too is paradigmatic for ecclesial ethics. Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground’. So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’. (Gen. 1.26-28)

In the Genesis account only humans, both male and female, are created in the image or likeness of God. While all of creation is good and inter-connected, only human beings bear God’s image. There is a set-apartness of these finite creatures from all other parts of the created world. But of course exegetes and Christian theologians have long wrestled with the exact meaning of the imago dei. Numerous interpretations have been rendered.18 18. For a helpful overview of historic interpretations see Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 498. Erickson divides these interpretations into several categories: substantive view, relational views and the functional view.

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In the Medieval Church it was common to see the image as the human capacity for reason, reflecting God’s pure reason. Others have interpreted the image as relationality, for as there is relationship in the divine Trinity, so humans were created relational beings – male and female. Some see the image to be the stewardship role given to humans. As God is sovereign over all his creation, so he has given to his human creatures the role of stewarding and caring for his other creatures and the whole of the created world. Others have viewed the image of God to mean that humans are moral and spiritual beings who alone in his creation can come into personal relationship with God and bear moral responsibility in doing so. Still others have stressed the image to mean that as God is creator, so humans are co-creators who have artistic and creative capacity. And some emphasize that the image of God embodies all of these essential dimensions of human nature. As Nonna Harrison puts it, the divine image is a ‘many splendored image’ and includes various aspects of what makes us human: freedom, spiritual perception, connectedness to God, virtues, royal dignity, a vital connection to the natural world, reason, creativity, personal uniqueness, community, mystery and life.19 If the imago dei is evident in most or all of these features of human nature the implications for ethics are striking. It would imply that humans have a cultural mandate to care for God’s good creation, that they are social beings in that task, and do so as rational, moral beings who bring creativity to the task. The image of God in its essence is not, however, certain human functions, but an ascription of a status conferred by the Creator. As Westermann notes, ‘If no particular quality of man is meant, but simply being man, then this cuts through all differences between men … believer and non-believer.’20 The set-apart designation of humans as image bearers may result in certain functions (i.e. rationality, relationality), but the status is not dependent upon the human achievement of these tasks.21 From a Scriptural standpoint there is one other implication that flows from our creation in God’s image, namely the value, dignity or sacredness of the human person. This is evident for example in the Genesis 9 prohibition of murder: ‘Whoever sheds human blood, by human beings shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made humankind’ (9.6). In similar fashion James uses the image to warn against harming others through the use of the tongue, ‘With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness’ (Jas. 3.9). Both texts appeal back to creation in God’s image to uphold human dignity as a primary guide for treating other persons. Essentially, the human being is an icon (‫ )צלם‬of God. Various Old Testament references prohibit making any image (‫ )צלם‬or likeness of God (Exod. 20.4; Deut. 19.  Nonna Verna Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 5. 20. Claus Westermann, Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 59. 21. See for example Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice in Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 148–57.

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4.16), and this may represent not only a statement about God, but also about humans. ‘The human being is an icon, a kind of representation of God on earth, and in fact was made by God precisely to be the only such representation of God’, having been made in his image.22 Human dignity or sacredness is closely associated with our creation in God’s image and is a rich concept related to a host of ethical issues such as human rights, bioethics, race-ethnic relations and treatment of humans in the workplace. The sacredness of human life according to David Gushee, ‘Means that each and every human being has been set apart for designation as a being of elevated status and dignity. Each human being must therefore be viewed with reverence and treated with the respect and care, with special attention to preventing any desecration or violation of a human being.’23 The Psalmist echoes this special status or set-apartness in God’s image: What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Ps. 8.4-6)

Throughout Christian history some have objected to ethical appeals from the imago dei on grounds that is was destroyed by the Fall, or that Jesus is now portrayed as the image of God. But the fact that the creation in God’s image is still appealed to after the Fall (Gen. 5.1-2; 9.5-6; Jas. 3.9) must mean that while the image of God was marred it was not destroyed. The Psalmist can still echo the reality of the creational image in humans as they are ‘crowned with glory and honour’. Jesus is now the perfect image of God, for ‘The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation’ (Col. 1.15; cf. Heb. 1.3; 2 Cor. 4.4); and we are called ‘to be conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom. 8.29). But none of this implies the negation of the creational image that exists in all humans. Rather, as Gushee argues, ‘It always was the image of Christ in which and for which they were made. He has always defined what humanity is to be.’24 In redemption through Christ, the perfect image, we are able by the power of the Spirit to reflect that image more faithfully. As Ben Witherington puts it, ‘We were created to be the mirror image of God on earth, reflecting the divine character, but also engaging in the divine tasks, in a lesser and approximate sort of way.’ As 22. David Gushee, The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision is Key to the World’s Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 41. 23. Ibid., 24. It should be noted that Gushee does not see human rights flowing from the image of God inherent in humans, but as derivative from God in creating humanity (Gushee, The Sacredness of Human Life, 52). 24. Ibid., 108.

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his redeemed image bearers we are called to reflect the perfect image in Christ, so that as ‘God is holy … so should we be. God is love, and so should we be … . God is merciful and so should we be’.25 Thus, both creation and redemption affirm the unique human creation in God’s image, with its consequent dignity and sacredness. This is confirmed by Jesus’ taking on human flesh and living among us. I do not buy the exact formulation set forth by Bonhoeffer, but he is surely right to link the incarnation and dignity, when he states of Christ, ‘He has become like a man, so that men should be like him. And in the incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Henceforth, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took the form of man.’26 Moreover, Jesus in his teaching confirmed the uniqueness and dignity of humans among the created world, when in affirming the value of a sheep who needs our care, said, ‘How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep’ (Mt. 12.12). Thus, as C. S. Lewis once put it, ‘You have never talked to a mere mortal.’27

Created for Work: A Divine Vocation A third theme that is clearly evident in the Genesis creation account is the establishment of work, a divine vocation. Work is embedded in the very nature of our created humanness. In the creation narrative there is a macro dimension to work, humanity’s mandate to steward creation, and a micro dimension, the individual’s call to work. The macro dimension of work is sometimes called the cultural mandate and is linked to creation in God’s image: ‘Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground’ (Gen. 1.26). After God created the man and the woman in his image, ‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground”’ (1.28). In the verses that follow God gives to them seed-bearing plants, trees with fruit, the beasts of the earth, the birds in the sky and all other living creatures (1.29). These mandates are macro in the sense that God is giving to the human race the role of caring for the world, a work that involves ‘subduing’ and ‘ruling’. It is precisely this language of Genesis 1 that has led some critics to designate biblical faith and Christianity in particular as the major culprit in the environmental crises of our time. Historian Roderick Nash refers to ‘the harsh imagery of absolute domination’, which has led the Christian tradition to ‘understand 25. Ben Witherington III, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament (2 vols; Downers Grove: IVP, 2010), vol. 2, 737. 26. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 341. 27. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 19.

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Genesis 1.28 as a divine commandment to conquer every part of nature and make it humankind’s slave’. This, he argues has served as ‘intellectual lubrication for the exploitation of nature’.28 Other critiques of biblical faith relative to the environment and nature have included the purported body-soul dualism and Christian eschatology with its emphasis, at least in some versions, on a destruction of this world at the end of time.29 But a closer look at Genesis 1 and eschatological texts reveals a stewardship care of the created world. First, we should note that the creation narrative views humans as ‘embedded in creation. For example, the creation of humans does not occur on a day different from the creation of other animals … . And as Genesis 2.7 indicates, the human earth-creature (adam) is made from the earth (adama)’.30 Moreover, the exact meaning of ‘subdue’ and ‘rule’ (some translations have ‘dominion’) is quite different than first meets the eyes. In other texts we find that these words connote a proper service of spheres of responsibility, not an exploitation of them. For example, ‘Psalm 72 speaks most clearly of the ideal king – of one who rules and exercises dominion properly … . Such a ruler executes justice for the oppressed, delivers the needy, helps the poor, and embodies righteousness in all he does. In short, the proper exercise of dominion yields shalom – the flourishing of all creation … . For Jesus, to rule is to serve’.31 Just as creation affirms the work of stewarding God’s good creation, so redemption and a future eschaton reflect not an obliteration of this physical world, but a renewal of it. Romans 8 speaks of creation being ‘subjected to frustration’ (v. 20) and ‘groaning as in the pains of childbirth’ (v. 22), but with the ‘hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God’ (v. 21). Thus, the renewal of creation is part of God’s redemptive plan. A cursory reading of 2 Peter 3.10-11 might seem to imply that since the created world will be destroyed in the eschaton, its current value is minimized: The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives.

But as exegetes like Douglas Moo have pointed out, words like ‘fire’ and ‘destroyed’ in the text need further probing. Fire is frequently used in Scripture as a metaphor for judgement, and ‘destruction does not necessarily mean total 28. Roderick Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 90. 29. For a helpful overview of the various critiques of Christianity and the environmental crises with responses to them see Steven Bouma-Prediger, For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd edn, 2010), 59–71. 30. Ibid., 63–4. 31. Ibid., 64.

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physical annihilation, but a dissolution or radical change in nature’.32 Similarly the language of Revelation 21.5, ‘I am making everything new’ connotes renewal not destruction. As Moo points out, ‘The language of Revelation 21–22 is full of references to the original creation, suggesting that John intends to portray “the reverse of the curse,” a return to the conditions of Eden’.33 Until that Kingdom renewal, humans have been given the task of stewarding and caring for God’s good creation. Not only is there a macro-mandate to care for and work with God’s good creation, there is also a micro-mandate for individual work. ‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it’ (Gen. 2.15). One of the first jobs God gave to the man was the scientific work of classification, the categorizing and naming of the animals (Gen. 2.19-20). The word for work in v. 15, ‫עבד‬, is sometimes rendered work, service or craftsmanship, but at other times is translated worship. Though there are different nuances to the word, ‘A common thread of meaning emerges where work, worship and service are inextricably linked and intricately connected. The various usages of this Hebrew word … tell us that God’s original design and desire is that our work and our worship would be a seamless way of living’.34 Though the Fall impacted work, so that we now experience ‘painful toil’, ‘thorns and thistles’ and ‘sweat of your brow’ (Gen. 3.17-19), work remains a gift of God through which we experience part of what it means to be human. In carrying out our work we help meet the needs of others, care for ourselves and dependents, express our gifts and creativity and carry on the cultural mandate to care for God’s garden, his creation. This creational given is affirmed by our Lord in that the first years of his life he worked as a carpenter, before his three years of itinerant, messianic ministry. Early in his ministry Jesus was in his hometown of Nazareth, and the people were amazed at his wisdom and insights. His vocational identity was evident in their response: ‘Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son?’ (Mk 6.3). Dorothy Sayers once wrote, ‘The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to [moral instruction and church attendance]. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.’35 This is what Paul taught early believers at Colossae with regards to their work, ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving’ 32. Douglas Moo, ‘Nature in the New Creation: New Testament Eschatology and the Environment’, JETS 49 (3) (September 2006): 449–88 (468). 33. Ibid., 466. Moo also notes that ‘the end advances beyond the conditions of Eden in significant ways as well’. 34.  Tom Nelson, Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2011), 26. 35. Dorothy Sayers, ‘Why Work?’, in Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (eds Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 191–5 (195).

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(Col. 3.23-24). Though some Christians have viewed heaven as an escape from work, Jesus in one of his eschatological teachings gives the parable of the talents, in which workers who invested and made use of their talents were given more, while the one who failed to invest it had his taken away and given to others (Mt. 25.14-30). The Protestant Reformers like Luther and Calvin, building upon these biblical teachings, restored the notion of divine calling to include, not just the clergy as in the Middle Ages, but all humans. One’s vocation was a calling from God carried out in the office, classroom, farm and factory. Thus, whereas the monastery had been the primary place of divine calling, now the world and specifically the workplace became the locus for the divine calling. Whereas the monk was the ideal, holy person, now every believer in his or her workplace was called to be holy. The impact upon society at large was momentous.36 The ethical significance of this creation mandate is several fold. First, at a public policy level Christians should favour policies that will enable jobs and work for human beings, realizing that there are a myriad of trade-offs in the public arena. But if work is central to our humanness, reflecting the first work of our Creator, then policies that create jobs and enable work should be emphasized. But second, at a more personal level, each person is called by God to carry out his or her work well for the glory of God and for the common good. Each person should reflect this in his or her own work and enable it in the work of others. Martin Luther King Jr. captured this spirit well when he said, ‘If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep the streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.”’37

Created for Relationship: The Ordering of Marriage, Family and Sex A fourth theme from creation for ethics is that we were created for relationship: the ordering of marriage, family and sex. Relationship with God and relationship with other humans is deeply embedded in the creation narrative and hence within the fabric of our humanness. We have already introduced the idea that part of our creation in God’s image entails relationship. For just as there is a relationship of love in the Divine Trinity, so humans reflect this divine reality in their relationships: ‘So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1.27). This then is followed 36.  The most significant sociological work on the impact of the Protestant Reformation on work and economics is Max Weber’s classic treatment, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner’s, 1958). 37.  Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Facing the Challenge of a New Age’, in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper Collins, 1986), 135–44 (139).

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by the first commandment, ‘God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number”’ (1.28). In the Genesis 2 account of creation we have the first statement that something is not good: ‘The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”’ (2.16). While we frequently take this to be a statement about marriage, it also refers to our relationality and inter-dependence with others. One particular way in which our need for relationship is met is through marriage, and thus God creates for the man a woman, who ‘is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man’ (2.23). Then comes the institution of marriage: ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame’ (2.24-25). What is most clear in these narratives is the way in which marriage, sex and procreation are held together in the good created order. Marriage with physical intimacy and consequent offspring is not the only way to fulfil the relational needs of human beings, but it is one of the primary ways and the three elements come together not as separate entities, but as a whole. Thus, in the creational design children are the fruit of this unique one-flesh relationship of love. Offspring are not the wilful choice of isolated individuals or couples who are not bonded together in marriage. Children are the fruit of love of two who share humanness in common but are differentiated as male and female. The inter-relationship of marriage, sex and procreation presupposes the duality of male-female in the oneness of their shared humanity. Drawing on the Eastern Church tradition, Nonna Harrison puts it this way: God ensures that humans all have the same human nature – that is, in terms of modern biology, they are all the same species – by creating her from Adam. After the first couple, men and women are dependent on each other for their births, that is for their very existence. All boys have mothers, and all girls have fathers. This shows how fundamental the interdependence of family members really is. This means that men and women are united as the same species but are different in ways that enable them to collaborate in procreation and in other aspects of life … . The family’s unity is built on their alikeness, but it is also built on their diversity.38

Barth has argued that ‘man never exists as such, but always as the human male or the human female. Hence in humanity, and therefore in fellow-humanity the decisive, fundamental and typical question, normative for all other relationships, is that of the relationship in this differentiation.’39 This then becomes paradigmatic, not just for marriage and offspring through physical intercourse, but a paradigm for relationship with others who are different than ourselves – oneness with differentiation. 38. Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image, 177. 39. Barth, CD III–4, 117.

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In Genesis 2.24 we have the essential components of marriage. First, there is a change of status, ‘A man will leave his father and his mother’. This change of status is a universal reality with various expressions, but normally includes legal dimensions and community celebrations. Second, there is commitment, ‘And be united to his wife’. In the rest of Scripture this comes to be called covenant, a binding, organic promise that differs from a contract, which is aimed at protection of one’s interests. And third, there is the consummation of the other elements through the physical union, ‘And the two shall become one flesh’. While the oneness goes beyond the physical the language primarily connotes the physical union as the sign of the spiritual and emotional oneness. A couple is never the same again in their relationship, for the one-flesh union ‘indicates a oneness and intimacy in the total relationship of the whole person …, a harmony and union with each other in all things’.40 This good gift of sexual union has a telos or specific purposes as given at creation.41 The first, noted above, is the consummation of marriage whereby the sexual union now sets this relationship apart from all other relationships. Second, is procreation in which offspring are the fruit of this one-flesh union and covenant relationship. God’s creational design is that children come into the world through the most intimate loving relationship among humans – the one-flesh covenant relationship of marriage. Third, is an expression of love. This is clearly evident in the Song of Songs with its explicit celebration in physical love: ‘Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love’ (Song 2.3-4). And fourth, the gift is given for pleasure. This is not only evident in physiological experience, but is affirmed in Scripture such as the Song of Songs and in Proverbs 5.18-19, ‘May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.’ The creation paradigm, which holds marriage, sex and procreation together, is affirmed in redemption and by Jesus. In responding to the Pharisees’ question on divorce Jesus quoted the creation paradigm from Genesis 1, Haven’t you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. (Mt. 19.4-6)

The paradigm is also quoted in Ephesians 5.31 by Paul, who also says that if a man 40. Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 47. 41. For an in-depth analysis of these purposes see Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex, 93–115.

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has sex with a prostitute, he ‘is one with her in body. For it is said, “The two will become one flesh”’ (1 Cor. 6.16). Though Christ and redemption affirm this relational paradigm, what do we do with the eschaton in which Jesus said, ‘The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage’ (Lk. 20.34-35)? We should understand that ‘this in no way denigrates the significance and beauty of physical intimacy on earth. There are good gifts of God to be experienced in this world that may not be part of the eschaton. The finitude or temporality of a good gift does not preclude its earthly beauty and significance.’42 But we should also note that if sex and marriage is a yearning for connection and intimacy, this need will be fully met even beyond comparison in the new age, where we will experience full oneness with the Creator. In a world that is seeing a decrease in marriage, re-definitions of marriage, children born from new technologies, and increasingly children born outside the one-flesh union, the creation paradigm is more relevant than ever. Attempting to apply this narrative to the larger, fallen world can be highly difficult, but for the Church, called to live within the narrative, it is essential.

A Rhythm of Life: Accentuating God-Centredness and Human Protection A fifth theme found in the creation story is a rhythm of life that accentuates a call to God-centred living and human protection. After God finished the work of creation we read: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Gen. 2.2)

God’s own pattern in creation becomes paradigmatic for human beings as evidenced in the Decalogue: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exod. 20.8-11)

42. Ibid., 91.

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‘This instruction to follow the Lord’s example brings into play the most powerful motivating factor in biblical ethics – the appeal to imitate God.’43 In these and other texts on the Sabbath it is clear that God has established a rhythm of life that in many ways brings all of the commandments and designs of God together. There is foundationally, a design to cease from the command of work to remember that God is the ultimate maker and to worship him. Thus, it is reinforcing the first three commands of the Decalogue that are vertically related in relation to the Creator. As the fourth commandment it serves as a hinge to the rest of the commandments, which are horizontally focused, our relationships in the world. The commandment calls for a cessation of work in order to care for one’s own self through rest, but also a care for others. Not only is the individual believer called to enter God’s rhythm but to facilitate it for others, ‘On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns’ (v. 10). This care for others through the Sabbath is actually a call for justice in our treatment of others. In fact in the Deuteronomic version of the command, the grounds for keeping the Sabbath is not God’s action in creation, but his action in freeing the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt: ‘Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day’ (Deut. 5.15). The link of Sabbath to justice is further evident in the Hebrew Sabbath laws regarding the seventh year when the land was to lie fallow to meet the needs of the poor, and the Jubilee year (after seven times seven years) in which land was to be returned to original owners, slaves released and debtors freed from their burden. This rhythm of life established by the Creator’s own activity at creation and reinforced by the fourth commandment puts life in the right perspective. ‘It forbids him faith in his own plans and wishes, in a justification and deliverance which he can make for himself, in his own ability and achievement. What it really forbids him is not work, but trust in work.’44 God has created a good material world, but there is the temptation to trust in that material world for salvation, and exploit it for self-centred purposes. The Sabbath puts a check on that idolatrous pursuit in a fallen world. God created humans in his own image with great dignity and value, and there is a tendency to elevate that dignity and value so as to become homocentric rather than theocentric. The Sabbath questions that pursuit. God created work, marriage, sex, money and power; there is a tendency to turn all of those good gifts into infinite goods, rather than finite goods that serve our maker and fellow humanity. The Sabbath builds in a resistance to that pattern. Thus God gave the rhythm of life to humans for their own good (spiritually, physically and emotionally) and for the good of others and society. In fact the several 43. D. H. Field, ‘Sabbath’, in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (eds David J. Atkinson, David F. Field, Arthur F. Holmes and Oliver O’Donovan; Downers Grove: IVP, 1995), 754–5 (754). 44. Barth, CD III–4, 54.

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attempts in history to change the rhythm by establishing ten-day weeks (i.e. the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution) ended in disaster for humans and society. While Jesus did not much address the Sabbath command, and at times set aside the human-made applications, he did practise the command, and the early church continued the Sabbath, albeit on Sundays in honour of the Lord’s resurrection. There is an eschatological dimension to the Sabbath rest, for in Hebrews we are told, ‘There remains, then a Sabbath-rest for the people of God’ (Heb. 4.9). All that the Sabbath stood for will be fulfilled in the consummation of the Kingdom: worship of and trust in God, true and God-centred care of oneself and justice – the proper care for fellow humans and the rest of God’s creation.

Conclusion An ecclesial ethic begins at creation and does not annul or contradict what God established in creation. The goodness of the created world, humans made in the image of God, the mandate to work, the relational givens in sex and marriage, and the rhythm of life for God-centred living with care for others, are bedrock paradigms for the Christian Church. They are affirmed by redemption in Christ and by the coming Kingdom, when creation will be restored as God originally intended. The sin and fallenness of humanity and our world makes the achievement of that ethic difficult. The increasing tendency today to elevate the way things are to the status of ethical norms makes the challenge even harder. But the norms and paradigms given at creation, and reinforced by the Lord of the Church, remain the norms for our lives collectively and individually. We should not expect that these paradigms and norms will be fully operative in a fallen society, and especially in the context of post-Christendom. But we should expect them for an ecclesial ethic in which Christ, the Creator and Redeemer is head of his Body, and grants to us the joyful presence of the Holy Spirit to empower and endure, for the glory of God the Father.

Bibliography Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics III–4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1961). Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1963). Bouma-Prediger, Steven, For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2nd edn, 2010). Davidson, Richard, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007). Erickson, Millard, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983). Field, D. H., ‘Sabbath’, in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology (eds David J. Atkinson, David F. Field, Arthur F. Holmes and Oliver O’Donovan; Downers Grove: IVP, 1995), 754–5.

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Gushee, David, The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision is Key to the World’s Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). Harrison, Nonna Verna, God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010). Hollinger, Dennis, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009). King Jr., Martin Luther, ‘Facing the Challenge of a New Age’, in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper Collins, 1986), 135–44. Lewis, C. S., The Weight of Glory (New York: Macmillan, 1980). McDonough, Sean, Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Moo, Douglas, ‘Nature in the New Creation: New Testament Eschatology and the Environment’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49 (3) (September 2006): 449–88. Mouw, Richard, The God Who Commands: A Study in Divine Command Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990). Nash, Roderick, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). Nelson, Tom, Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2011). Niebuhr, H. Richard, ‘The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Unity of the Church’, Theology Today 3 (October 1946): 371–84. Sayers, Dorothy, ‘Why Work?’ in Leading Lives that Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be (eds Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 191–5. Temple, William, Nature, Man and God (London: Macmillan, 1949). Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribner’s, 1958). Westermann, Claus, Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974). Wilson, Jonathan R., God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013). Witherington III, Ben, The Indelible Image: The Theological and Ethical Thought World of the New Testament (2 vols; Downers Grove: IVP, 2010). Wolters, Albert, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2005). Wolterstorff, Nicholas, Justice in Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).

Chapter 21 T H E C R O S S I N P AU L : C H R I ST O P HA N Y , T H E O P HA N Y , E C C L E SIO P HA N Y Michael J. Gorman

Introduction I resolved to know and make known among you nothing other than Jesus the Messiah – meaning Jesus the crucified Messiah.2 These remarkable words summarize Paul’s bold claims about the interrelated identities of Jesus, himself as an apostle, and, at least implicitly, all Christian communities and individuals. In their immediate context (1 Cor. 1.18–2.5), moreover, they also imply something profound about the nature of God and of divine activity, and about how we know what we know about God. In other words, in this one sentence from 1 Corinthians we have an indication not only of Pauline Christology, but also of Pauline theology proper (i.e. the doctrine of God), pneumatology, ministry, ecclesiology, spirituality, epistemology and morality – at least. In effect, Paul could not, and we cannot, speak about Christ without also speaking about a wide range of related topics, not least of which is what we today call ‘theological ethics’ or ‘moral theology’. I believe that the church and Christian theology are facing two major questions across cultures: Who, or what, is God? and Who, or what, is the church? For example, is God the omnipotent Western deity of military, political, and economic power? Is the church an arm of the state, or of a particular culture, or an embodiment of that kind of power?

1. The original version of this essay appeared as Michael J. Gorman, ‘Paul and the Cruciform Way of God in Christ’, Journal of Moral Theology 2 (2013): 64–83, and is reprinted here with permission. 2. 1 Cor. 2.2 (author’s translation). Additional biblical texts will be cited in the NRSV translation unless otherwise indicated.

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My thesis is that the cross of Jesus Christ supplies the substance of an answer to both questions, and that it is also the bridge between them. I will argue, in other words, that the cross is not only a christophany (a revelation of Christ’s identity), but also a theophany (a revelation of God’s identity) and an ecclesiophany (a revelation of the church’s identity in Christ and God). I will develop this thesis by examining some of the work of Paul the theologian. But first we must ask what kind of theologian Paul was. I propose five dimensions of him as a theologian for our purposes. Paul is: MM

MM

MM

MM

MM

a messianic theologian, whose entire theological programme is grounded in the conviction that God’s resurrection of the crucified Jesus means that Jesus is both the Messiah of Israel and the Lord and Saviour of all peoples; in Jesus God has inaugurated the messianic, or eschatological, age;3 a theologian of the cross and resurrection, who sees in the cross the representative, reconciling, and revelatory activity of God in his son, which is the central scene in the central act in a grand narrative of salvation; this salvific death is confirmed and completed by the resurrection of Jesus; a narrative theologian, whose Christological narrative carries within it a corresponding narrative spirituality, that is, an account of how participants in the reality of Christ crucified and resurrected ought to live, including concrete practices that derive from the narrative itself;4 an ecclesial theologian, who is confident that God has called the church to be the sign of the new age, and as such it is shaped by the story of Jesus the Messiah in whom the church lives and who lives in the church;5 and a spiritual or even mystical theologian, whose fundamental conviction about individuals and communities being ‘in Christ’ means that Christology inherently has spiritual and ethical consequences (both personal and corporate), as well as theological consequences with respect to our overall understanding of the God encountered in Christ.

3. For a Messiah-centred theology of Paul, see now N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (COQG 4; London: SPCK/Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013). 4. On Paul as narrative theologian, see Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2002); Bruce W. Longenecker (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). On the narrative character of Paul’s spirituality of cruciformity, see my Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). On Paul, narrative, and ethics, see also Stephen E. Fowl, The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul: An Analysis of the Function of the Hymnic Material in the Pauline Corpus (JSNTSup 36; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990). As we will see, the narrative character of Paul’s Christology will also have something to say about theology proper. 5. On the church as the sign of the new age, see also Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God.



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Some theologians and everyday Christians are wary of the term ‘mystical’. Certain earlier accounts of Paul’s ‘in-Christ mysticism’ fell short of a full account of their subject, describing an individualistic communion with Christ that failed to recognize either the corporate or the narrative – and thus the inherently moral – dimensions of Paul’s participationist language.6 With others, I define mystical experience as occasional, or ongoing, encounters with God (for Christians, this may mean specifically Jesus) in which God’s presence, holiness, power and/or love are known in an intimate and transformative way. These encounters lead to renewed commitment to activity in the world.7 We might, therefore, call Paul a mystical-narrative, or a spiritual-narrative, theologian. Encountering the resurrected ‘Christ crucified’ always and everywhere implies ‘cruciformity’, because those who confess Jesus as the crucified Messiah are now, through faith and baptism, ‘in’ him, and he, by the Spirit (received through faith and baptism), is in them, enabling a sort of non-identical repetition of his salvific and paradigmatic story. 8 In this essay, we will explore the implications of these claims about Paul the theologian in more detail, with special emphasis on Paul the mystical-narrative theologian. In doing so, we will see the close interconnections in Paul among the cross, the church, and God – God being the first and most fundamental subject of ‘theology’, but one that is often neglected. First, however, we will define the term ‘cruciformity’ and make some preliminary observations about its significance in Paul, highlighting its mystical and narrative dimensions. We will then explore three moral themes (one at length, two briefly) in Paul in which the story of Christ is interpreted morally as paradigmatic for the Christian life and also theologically as divine action – and the significance of that two-step dance. Finally, along the way we will briefly note some possible implications of Paul’s perspectives for contemporary Christian ethics and praxis.

6. The term ‘in-Christ mysticism’ summarizes the important but ultimately insufficient contribution of Adolf Deissmann to our understanding of the centre of Paul’s experience. See Adolf Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (trans. W. E. Wilson; New York: Doran, 2nd edn, 1926). We should also note that such accounts of Paul’s mysticism have generally failed to recognize the distinctively Jewish character of Paul’s participationist spirituality. For a major corrective to this mistake, see Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, esp. Ch. 9. 7.  See further Michael J. Gorman, ‘The This-Worldliness of the New Testament’s OtherWorldly Spirituality’, in The Bible and Spirituality: Interpreting Scripture for the Spiritual Life (eds Andrew T. Lincoln, J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen; Eugene: Cascade, 2013), 151–70, and the references there. 8. On non-identical repetition, see Stephen E. Fowl, ‘Christology and Ethics in Philippians 2:5-11’, in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (eds Ralph. P. Martin and Brian J. Dodd; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 140–53 (148).

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Cruciformity: Its Meaning and its Mystical and Narrative Character The term ‘cruciformity’, from ‘cruciform’ (cross-shaped) and ‘conformity’, may be defined simply as conformity to Jesus the crucified Messiah. Cruciformity is the spiritual-moral dimension of the theology of the death of Jesus by crucifixion found in Paul, in the rest of the New Testament, and throughout much of the Christian tradition. With respect to Paul, at least, this conformity to the crucified Messiah is not an abstract moral principle but a spiritual or mystical reality. This mystical reality is rooted, paradoxically, in a profoundly this-worldly reality (Jesus’ crucifixion) and produces, no less paradoxically, a variety of very this-worldly results. It will be helpful to summarize the basic roots and structure of this ‘thisworldly’ Pauline mysticism. For Paul, Jesus is the crucified Messiah whom God raised from the dead, vindicating him as Messiah, validating his path of lifelong, self-giving, faithful obedience that led to the cross, and establishing him as the Lord of all who shares in the divine name, glory and worship.9 As the resurrected, glorified and living Lord, Jesus remains the crucified Messiah. Those who respond in faith to the gospel of his death, resurrection, and lordship are baptized ‘into’ him and henceforth live ‘in’ him (see, e.g. Rom. 6.3, 11; 8.1-2; Gal. 3.23-29; Col. 1.27). At the same time, this crucified but resurrected Jesus takes up residence in and among those who live in him (Gal. 2.19-20; Rom. 8.10), such that we can refer to the resulting mystical relationship as the mutual indwelling, or reciprocal residence, of the crucified but resurrected Messiah and his people. To further complicate matters, however, Paul can use the same language of reciprocal residence in reference to believers and the Spirit, who dwells in believers and they in him (e.g. Rom 8.9, 11).10 To add even more complexity to this situation, Paul can speak of the Spirit both as the Spirit of Christ/the Son and as the Spirit of God.11 And, if that were not enough, he can do all of this in the same breath, specifically in the first half of Romans 8. Those who participate in this relationship of mutual indwelling thereby manifest the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit, especially the qualities of faith (or faithfulness) and love that Jesus the Messiah exemplified in his death on the cross (Gal. 5, esp. vv. 6, 22).12 Cruciformity, then, is cross-shaped existence in Jesus the Messiah, what N. T. 9. See, e.g. Rom. 10.8-3; Phil. 2.6-11. 10.  Furthermore, at least once (twice, if Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians), Paul speaks of the church being in both God the Father and Jesus the Messiah and Lord (1 Thess. 1.1; cf. 2 Thess. 1.1). 11. For the Spirit as the Spirit of Christ/the Son, see Rom. 8.9; Gal. 4.6; Phil. 1.19. For the Spirit as the Spirit of God, see, e.g. Rom. 8.9, 11, 14; 15.19; 1 Cor. 2.11-14; 3.16; 6.11; 7.40; 12.3; 2 Cor. 1.22; 3.3; Phil. 3.3; 1 Thess. 4.8. 12. On the intimate link between Christology and ethics in Galatians, which is indicative of Paul’s thought more generally, see the classic article by Richard B. Hays, ‘Christology and Ethics in Galatians: The Law of Christ’, CBQ 49 (1987): 268–90.



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Wright, in his chapter in this volume, calls ‘cruciform authenticity’ or ‘cross and resurrection authenticity’.13 It is letting the cross of the crucified Messiah be the shape, as well as the source, of life in him. It is participating in and embodying the cross. Paul himself might put all this together this way (a paraphrase of Gal. 2.19-20): ‘It is no longer I or we who live our own lives, but it is God’s crucified and resurrected Messiah who lives in me and in us by his Spirit, empowering us to embody his kind of faithfulness and love.’ Because of the relational quality of this reality, we must be careful not to focus on the cross per se, but on the crucified. Furthermore, although Paul can use the language of imitation (e.g. 1 Cor. 11.1), we must distinguish this Pauline spirituality from a simple ethic of imitatio Christi, since Paul’s focus is on the activity of the living, indwelling Messiah, which is at the same time the work of God’s indwelling Spirit. As we will now see, the events that are repeated are constituted by the narrative of Christ’s self-giving faith and love that were quintessentially expressed in his (incarnation and) death on the cross. Cruciformity is, therefore, a narrative spirituality, a spirituality that tells a story, the story of Christ crucified. Fundamental to Paul’s Christology is the narrative poem included in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 2.6-11). Whether or not Paul wrote it (and the older consensus that he did not do so has been gradually disintegrating), he clearly owned it, both internalizing it and proclaiming it as his story, meaning his gospel, or at least one articulation of it. In fact, the importance of this narrative in Paul’s theology and his widespread use of it throughout his letters suggest that we ought to call it his master story.14 Space does not permit an extended analysis of this narrative poem, this epic in miniature, so we will need to limit our remarks to three basic points.15 First, the Christological story as a whole has a clear structure and movement, similar to a parabola: movement from height to depth and back to height. The first part of the poem (vv. 6-8, before the exaltation), in which the Messiah Jesus alone is the actor, has a syntactical and narrative structure that can be described as ‘although [x] not [y] but [z]’ and represented as follows16:

13.  N. T. Wright, ‘Paul, Ethics and the Church’, in Ecclesia and Ethics (eds E. Allen Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen and Janghoon Park; London: Bloomsbury, 2016), pp. 87–96. 14. See especially Gorman, Cruciformity, 23, 88–94, 164–75, 214–15, 366–7. 15. For further discussion, see Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 9–39; N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993), 56–98; Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Ch. 8. 16. For fuller discussion, see Gorman, Cruciformity, 91, 165–74, 186–8, 192, 197, 230–6, 243, 252, 261, 330.

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26 Syntax

Narrative

Sense

although [x] not [y]

though he was in the form of God [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.

possession of status rejection of selfish exploitation of status decision to act in self-giving

but [z]

It is possible to further divide the [z] portion of the narrative into two parts [z1] and [z2], corresponding to Jesus’ self-emptying (incarnation) and self-humbling (crucifixion), but the point in each case is the same: the rejection of selfish exploitation of status in favour of self-giving action. For Paul the Messiah’s incarnation and crucifixion are two stages in a unified act of self-donation, and therefore his death on the cross is not a unique, independent, or unexpected act but rather a continuation of the ‘mind’ expressed in the incarnation.17 Paul reuses, adapts, abridges, and alludes to this narrative structure throughout his letters, both to express his Christology and to describe the nature of apostolic ministry and of general ‘Christian’ existence that is appropriate for those who live in this Messiah.18 Although Paul will most often highlight Jesus’ death when he uses this narrative, he can also point to the incarnation as the warrant for specific Christian practices (e.g. generous giving, as in 2 Cor. 8.9, discussed below). Second, then, already here in Philippians, Paul offers the poem to his readers as the Christological basis for their life together, and this in two ways: Jesus the incarnate, crucified, and exalted/living Messiah is both the paradigm and the provider of the rights-renouncing, others-regarding, cruciform humility and love that are needed for existence in the Christian community. That Jesus is the paradigm of such cruciform love is clear from the parallels between the actions ascribed to him in Philippians 2.6-8 and the communal practices expected of the Philippians that are enunciated in Philippians 2.3-4: ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.’ One could hardly ask for a more succinct application of the Christnarrative to life in Christian community. No less important, however, is the mystical, or spiritual, aspect of this life together. It is an expression of life ‘in Christ’ and of ‘sharing [participation – koinōnia] in the Spirit’ (Phil. 2.1). It is an instantiation of the ‘mind’ of the Messiah Jesus (Phil. 2.5). The transition in Phil. 2.5 between the exhortations in Philippians 2.1-4 and the narrative poem in Philippians 2.6-11 makes this clear. The NRSV translates it, ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus’, but a preferable rendering would be, ‘Have this mindset in your community, which 17. See Gorman, Inhabiting, 9–39. 18. For an example of this pattern in a description of apostolic ministry, see 1 Thess. 2.5-12. The various uses are discussed in Cruciformity.



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is also a community in the Messiah Jesus’.19 In other words, it is by virtue of their being in the Messiah, which means also their participation in the Spirit, that the Philippians will be able to embody in their corporate life the narrative of the Messiah. The indwelling Messiah creates and shapes a community that manifests his presence in concrete practices of Messiah-like love. Third, and perhaps most controversially, the poem suggests that what Christ did is not only rewarded by God but is also a manifestation of Godlikeness.20 An additional valid way of interpreting and translating the opening of the poem in Philippians is by replacing concessive language (‘although’) with causal language (‘because’): Syntax

Narrative

Sense

because [x]

because he was [lit. ‘being’] in the form of God

possession of status

The Messiah’s refusal to exploit his existing equality with God (Phil. 2.6) for selfish advantage does not imply that the essence of deity is the possession of some sort of status (glory, power, etc.) that is, or can be, exploited for the deity’s own self-serving benefit. Rather, although ‘normal’ deities in the pagan world might be expected to act in such a way, Jesus the Messiah’s equality with the one true God, the God known in Israel’s Scripture and history, was displayed in radical self-giving. Implicitly here, then, Paul is associating the activity of Jesus the Messiah with the activity of God (the Father). In other texts, as we will see below, this association is more explicit, with Christ’s death interpreted as an act of divine love (e.g. Rom. 5.6-8; 8.32), and the entire Christ-event as an act of divine reconciliation (e.g. 2 Cor. 5.19). The ethical payoff of this association is that those who become like Christ by the power of the Spirit are instantiating not only the narrative of Christ but also the story of God. To summarize: Paul’s mystical and narrative Christology provides both the framework and the content for his vision of cruciform existence. At the same time, this Christology is inseparably connected to Paul’s theology proper (his ‘doctrine’ of God), expressed in the spiritual reality that existence in Christ is existence in the Spirit of God, and in the narrative reality that what Christ did on the cross was also the activity of God. It is nearly impossible to avoid the conclusion that Paul has experienced God in Christ by the Spirit in a way that can only be described as Trinitarian in nature.21 At the very least, we could speak, as others have, of Paul’s Christological monotheism or Christology of divine identity.22 Here, however, I would suggest that a more appropriate term might be Paul’s theological Christology. 19. For the justification of this translation, see Cruciformity, 39–44. 20. For further exploration and defence of this claim, see Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 9–39. Most exegetes now agree that the poem’s grammar affirms that Jesus possessed equality with God, but the full implications of that affirmation are still being debated. 21.  See further my Cruciformity, 63–74; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Ch. 8. 22. See, e.g. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other

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The remainder of this essay focuses on Paul’s theological Christology: the relationship between God the Father and Christ the Son in Paul’s understanding of the cross and of cruciformity. We will look specifically at the following aspects of this God-in-Christ activity: MM MM MM

the cruciform, reconciling enemy-love of God in Christ; the cruciform generosity of God in Christ; and the cruciform hospitality of God in Christ.

Due to limitations of space (not significance), reconciliation will receive rather sustained attention, followed by much briefer comments about generosity and hospitality. We will consider both what Paul says about God in Christ and about cruciform existence and, at least briefly, how theologians and Christians generally might incorporate the practices Paul describes more fully into the life of the church. In doing this, we will essentially move from a theologically shaped Christology to a Christological shaped (cruciform) ecclesiology and then, therefore, to a theologically shaped ecclesiology. The church, in this approach to Christ, becomes a witness not only to Christ and to life in Christ, but also to God and to life in God (as Paul puts it in 1 Thess. 1.1). That is, Theological Christology → Christological (Cruciform) Ecclesiology → Theological Ecclesiology Christ crucified, in other words, is the bridge between God and the church, revealing the identity of each, and giving the church the privilege and responsibility of representing God, but only inasmuch as it maintains its cruciform shape through cruciform practices.

The Cruciform, Reconciling Enemy-Love of God in Christ Few passages in the Pauline correspondence are as rich or as dense as 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 5, each of which describes the reconciling enemy-love of God in Christ and also provides, either explicitly or implicitly, implications for cruciform existence. 2 Corinthians 5 At the heart of 2 Corinthians 5 is the affirmation that ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself …’ (5.19). There are several significant translational and interpretative problems in this verse that we cannot examine here. One Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), esp. 182–232.



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critical issue is simply the translation and meaning of the opening phrase; is it ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself …’ (NRSV; a sort of instrumental Christology), or, similarly, ‘God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ’ (NAB; NIV), or ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself …’ (more of an incarnational Christology; cf. NRSV; NASB; KJV). In any case, it is probably best to understand the text as a reference to the entirety of the Christ-event (or at least those aspects of it that Paul stresses in his letters), inclusive of Christ’s death (as 5.21 makes clear in the immediate context) but also of his incarnation (especially in light of 2 Cor. 8.9, in the wider context). What is fascinating about this passage is that it is a clear example of how the Messiah’s death is, for Paul, both an act of Christ’s love and an act of God’s reconciliation and forgiveness – that is, of divine love: For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all (hyper pantōn); therefore all have died. 15And he died for all (hyper pantōn), so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them (hyper autōn). (2 Cor. 5.14-15) 14

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us … . 21For our sake (hyper hēmōn) he made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5.18-19, 21) 18

In 5.14-15, Christ is the actor, the one who displayed his love in his death ‘for all’, another way of saying ‘for their sins’ (cf. Rom. 5.6; 1 Cor. 15.3; Gal. 1.4; 3.13; 1 Thess. 5.10). In 5.18-19, 21, God is the actor and apparently even the originator of Christ’s atoning death, as the source of ‘all this’, as the one acting ‘in the Messiah’, and as the one who made the Messiah to be sin, however that is to be interpreted, ‘for our sake’ (cf. Rom. 3.25; 5.8). What both texts have in common, however, is that the goal of this messianic and divine action is human transformation: ‘that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them’ (5.15); ‘so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (5.21b). More precisely, we can say that the goal is transformation into Christ likeness and God likeness. Those transformed by Christ’s death will stop living for themselves and live for Christ, meaning implicitly to live like Christ, that is, with others-centred love.23 Similarly, those reconciled to God by the Messiah’s death will ‘become the righteousness [or ‘justice’; Gk. dikaiosynē] of God’, which, at the very least, means to embody the kind of righteousness or justice that is characteristic of God as displayed in

23. The connections between love for neighbour and devotion to Christ are developed more fully and explicitly in 1 Cor. 8 and Rom. 14.

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Christ’s death.24 In context, this justice is clearly associated with reconciliation, suggesting that the righteousness/justice expected of the community is above all the practice of what we would call restorative justice; that is, bringing people together with God and one another.25 Each of these texts also contains an echo of the narrative structure we found in Philippians 2.6-11. The deep structure, so to speak, of 2 Corinthians 5.14-15 can be summarized as follows: ‘Although the Messiah Jesus could have selfishly ignored the plight of humanity in its self-centred existence, he did not do so but freely and willingly expressed his love for all by dying for them, and now, by virtue of his resurrection, he is able to empower those who believe this good news to live for him by living in love for others, too’. Similarly, 2 Corinthians 5.18-19, 21 could be summarized in these words: ‘Although God was fully aware of humanity’s sins, unrighteousness, and alienation from himself, God did not leave humanity in this condition but entered fully into it in the Messiah, whose death was God’s act of forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation for all.’ In 2 Corinthians 5, then, Paul presents us with brief narrative summaries of the reconciling love of God in Christ and with (even briefer!) summaries of the transformative power and the existential consequences of this divine action. Reconciliation, therefore, is a central aspect of Paul’s understanding of God’s crucified Messiah and therefore of loving, righteous/just cruciform existence ‘in him’ (2 Cor. 5.21). Cruciform reconciliation grounded in this text will have two critical dimensions: forgiveness and restoration. One thinks immediately of the Truth and Reconciliation commissions, and of certain Christian (and other) groups that seek reconciliation between victims of crimes, and/or their families, and those who have perpetrated crimes against them. Such forms of reconciliation require a spiritual depth and power that is also reflected in our text, the source of a love that empowers a person or community to forgive even though it has every right to seek retribution. In this regard, of course, we remember the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania after the schoolhouse shooting in October 2006. Why is it that Truth and Reconciliation commissions and Amish communities appear to be the exception rather than the norm in Christian practice? No doubt there is no single or simple answer to this question. But one wonders whether cruciform reconciliation receives the attention in Christian theological ethics, and in Christian spirituality and theology more generally, that it deserves.26 In 24. On this text, see A. Katherine Grieb, ‘So That in Him We Might Become the Righteousness of God’ (2 Cor. 5:21): Some Theological Reflections on the Church Becoming Justice’, Ex Auditu 22 (2006): 58–80. See also my ‘Justification and Justice in Paul, with Special Reference to the Corinthians’, JSPL 1 (2011): 23–40. 25. I agree with Grieb (‘So That in Him’’) that the ‘we’ of v. 21 refers to the entire believing community, as does the ‘us’ that is the object of reconciliation (v. 18), even if the ‘we’ and the ‘us’ of vv. 18–20 that is linked to ‘ambassadors’ refers only to Paul and his colleagues in apostolic ministry. 26. The general inattention to peace-making in New Testament ethics has been rightly



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this regard, two positive examples of appropriate attention are the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School, with its programmes and publications that foster reconciliation rooted in Christian faith, and the more politically oriented Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.27 One suspects that other similar centres of scholarship and activism are needed. Romans 5 In Romans 5 the subject is once more reconciliation, and its source is again stated both as the Messiah’s death and as God’s activity in that death. These two aspects of the chapter emerge in the following verses: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ … . 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (hyper asebōn). 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (hyper hēmōn). 9Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Rom. 5.1, 6-11) 1

This text possesses several striking features. For one thing, one of Paul’s most distinctive theological themes, justification, is here equated with reconciliation.28 Reconciliation, in turn, is described in the vivid image of dying for people who are unjust, sinners, and enemies of God. The Messiah’s death is here depicted as his own death for (hyper) the ungodly, which should be understood primarily as an act of love (cf. 2 Cor. 5.14-15) rather than as a substitutionary death; as the demonstration of God’s love for sinners; and as the means of God’s reconciliation documented – and to a degree corrected – by Willard M. Swartley in his Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). See also my The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement (Eugene: Cascade, 2014), 132–202, and Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), Chs 5–6. 27. See ‘Center for Reconciliation’, Duke Divinity School, http://divinity.duke.edu/ initiatives-centers/center-reconciliation/ (accessed 1 March 2013); ‘Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies’, University of Notre Dame, 2012, http://kroc.nd.edu/ (accessed 1 March 2013). 28.  The parallels between vv. 1 and 11 make this especially clear. 2 Cor. 5.18-21, with its language of reconciliation and transformation into the justice/righteousness of God, makes the same connection, though perhaps not as clearly (the verb ‘to justify’ not being present, though the noun ‘justice/righteousness’ is).

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and justification of enemies. The syntactical and narrative parallels are quite striking: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (v. 6). But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (v. 8). For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son … (v. 10).

Thus this death ‘for us’ occurred, on the one hand, at the initiative of the Messiah and out of his love for others and, on the other hand, at the initiative of God and out of God’s own love (tēn heautou agapēn) for us. Most importantly here, the Messiah’s death is the demonstration of God’s way of dealing with rebellious humanity – spiritual insurgents, we might say. It is the definitive sign of God’s love for enemies and God’s nonviolent reconciliation of them.29 There is once again, at least at the semantic level, an echo here of Christ’s love depicted in Philippians 2. Although God had every right to allow sinful humans to receive the just consequences of their actions – the divine wrath (Rom. 5.9), God chose not to allow humanity to stew in its own juices forever but rather, in an act of unexpected and unheard-of love, sought his enemies’ reconciliation and ultimate salvation in and through the Messiah’s death.30 What is absent from Romans 5, however, is any explicit call to cruciform existence in the form of loving enemies or practising reconciliation. This lacuna is more a function of context than conviction, however. At this point in Romans Paul has been establishing the need for, and the reality of, God’s rescue of Sin-enslaved humanity through the Messiah’s death and resurrection. Romans 5.1-11 serves as a form of bridging passage to the apostle’s discussion of the existential significance of that reality. Later in the letter Paul will, in fact, draw parallels between the love of God and Christ for enemies and the praxis of those in Christ. But even here there is a hint in that direction, as Paul indicates that ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’ (v. 5). In other words, those who have received the Spirit of God have also received the dynamic love of God and will, implicitly, love others – even enemies – as God in Christ has loved them. This implicit call to enemy love becomes explicit in Romans 12. After a general overview of the new life as the corporate spiritual sacrifice of daily, bodily existence (Rom. 12.1-2) and remarks about the use of gifts in the corporate body (Rom. 12.3-7), Paul introduces the subject of love as a community practice: Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour …. 9

29. See further my Inhabiting the Cruciform God, 129–60. 30. On divine wrath, see Rom. 1.18; 2.5, 8; 3.5.



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Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’. 20No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads’. 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 13

We focus first on the exhortations in v. 14 and vv. 17–21 and then on the creative tension regarding believers and evil that emerges in this passage, especially in vv. 9, 17, and 21. The call to bless rather than curse persecutors (v. 14) is likely an echo of the Jesus tradition preserved in Gospel texts such as Matthew 5.43-48 and Luke 6.27-33.31 If that is true, then we have in Romans a remarkable confluence of the teaching of Jesus and the death of Jesus on the subject of loving enemies/persecutors, for although Romans 5 is not explicitly recalled here, the astute hearer/ reader of the letter will not have forgotten the triple emphasis in that chapter on Jesus’ death as God’s reconciling of enemies. Moreover, Paul is calling his Roman audience to do precisely what he claims to have done himself throughout his cruciform ministry ‘for the sake of Christ’32: ‘When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly’ (1 Cor. 4.12b-13a). Verses 17–21, using the ancient image of heaping coals of fire on people’s heads, offer a prohibition of practices that would contradict the call to bless persecutors. Christians are to hate evil but not return evil to the evildoer. Paradoxically, Paul suggests that the ability to love enemies depends, not on ignoring evil, but on recognizing and naming it. Just as God in Christ named humans as sinners and enemies, Paul’s audience must ‘hate what is evil’ (v. 9) and must be able to name it as such in order not to ‘repay’ it (v. 17) or ‘be overcome’ by it (v. 21). This is precisely what God has done in the Messiah: overcome evil with good. Following the infamous text in Romans 13.1-7 (which might be, in part, a practical example of how to love enemies), Paul returns to the topic of love as the sine qua non of life in Christ, claiming that those who love (by the powerful presence of God’s Spirit – Rom. 5.5) fulfil the divine law (Rom. 13.7-10). Then vividly, in his apocalyptic dialect, Paul calls his audience to disrobe themselves of inappropriate practices characteristic of ‘the night’ and to clothe themselves 31.  There is some scholarly debate about this, since Jewish traditions also preserve texts about enemy love, and Paul may have been influenced by such sources. But since we know he had some access to the Jesus tradition, it is at least as likely that he (also?) knew Jesus’ views on the subject. 32. For 1 Cor. 4.10. Cf. his self-description in 1 Cor. 4.17: ‘my ways in Christ Jesus’.

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instead with ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom. 13.11-14). The wider context, then, suggests that Paul considers non-retaliation and enemy-love as constitutive of being in Christ; they are two of the cruciform practices that are characteristic of the new day, the new creation, ushered in by the Messiah’s death and shaped by it. In addition to being Christ-like practices, however, they are also God-like practices. To be like Christ is to be like God, for God was in Christ, loving enemies, reconciling the hostile world. Cruciformity is, therefore, theoformity. Accordingly, one suspects that Richard Hays is right in his claim that ‘[t]here is not a syllable in the Pauline letters that can be cited in support of Christians employing violence’.33 Hays implies that Paul would not allow us to distinguish between personal and state violence, or between justified and unjustified violence, as in the case, for example, of war. Though I agree with Hays, I would nonetheless like to engage in a thought experiment. How would Paul structure an argument with someone who claims, let us say, the right to the use of violence in self-defence? Paul would not be afraid to name the perpetrator’s evil act as such. He might even be willing, for the sake of argument, to grant the existence, and the Christian appropriation, of the just-war tradition and thus of the so-called ‘right’ of self-defence.34 But then he would almost certainly turn the logical consequence of accepting that tradition, with its implicit right, on its head: [x] Although you have been wronged, and

although you do have an authoritative tradition that gives you the right of self-defence as a last resort, [y] do not make use of that right and thereby return evil with evil, but rather [z] continue in practices that overcome evil with good.

To the pragmatic, Paul (or at least this argument put on his lips) will sound naïve. After all, human beings are not God; they cannot overcome evil at will. Of course not, Paul would say. But then he would add that this is not the point. Christian existence requires conformity to the pattern of God’s action in the Messiah, meaning good in the face of evil, even when logic and moral authority seem to say otherwise. 33. Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996), 331. 34. In 1 Cor. 9 Paul appeals to several possible sources that Christians might use (Scripture, church tradition, common sense) to build the case for the existence of certain rights, just as Christians today might appeal to various sources, and not necessarily only Christian ones, to build the case for something like self-defence, and the right to use violence in self-defence, or the right to go to war (or participate in a just war) more generally. In what follows, and in all the examples in this essay, I am speaking about Christians making arguments about appropriate Christian ethics and praxis.



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That Paul would actually construct such an argument seems quite clear from a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 9, where he offers just this type of Christological moral reasoning for his self-support by tent making and against his being supported financially by Corinthian patrons. In making that case, he argues evangelically and Christologically against the moral norms of apostolic example (vv. 5–6), common sense and cultural practice (v. 7), Scripture (vv. 8–10), spiritual wisdom and ecclesial practice (vv. 11–12), priestly practice (vv. 13–14), and even the teaching of Jesus (v. 14). All of these norms are overturned by the call of the gospel and the cross: … Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ … . 15But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case … . 19For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. (1 Cor. 9.12b, 15a, 19) 12

I am not so naïve or foolish as to think that this one example from Paul, or his hypothetical argument in response to the use of the right of self-defence in war, will become the norm in Christian moral reasoning about complex matters. But I would contend that in a moral universe like ours (especially in the West) that is so dependent on the establishment and exercise of rights, with respect to warfare and much more, Paul offers a uniquely Christocentric and theocentric way of moral reasoning that we neglect to our own detriment. One last example, very briefly: 1 Corinthians 6 When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous [adikōn; NAB ‘unjust’; NIV ‘ungodly’], instead of taking it before the saints? … 7In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged [adikeisthe; NAB ‘put up with injustice’; MJG ‘treated unjustly’]? Why not rather be defrauded? 8But you yourselves wrong [adikeite; NIV ‘do wrong’35; NAB ‘inflict injustice’] and defraud – and believers [adelphous; NAB, NIV ‘brothers’] at that. 9Do you not know that wrongdoers [adikoi; NAB ‘the unjust’; NIV ‘the wicked’] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified [edikaiōthēte; MJG ‘incorporated into the community of the just’] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 1

Note here the call to radical cruciform existence, which is rooted in God’s action (implied in the passive voice used in v. 11b) of washing, sanctifying, and 35. NIV ‘cheat and do wrong’, apparently reversing the order of the Greek verbs.

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justifying sinners, moving them from outside the community of the just into that community. To be in the church is to become empowered by God’s very own Spirit to become like Christ by accepting rather than inflicting injustice.36 This is a radical form of reconciliation, or at least the start of reconciliation, because it nips the cycle of violence or other forms of retaliation in the bud. In a litigious culture, such alter-cultural ecclesial practices bear profound witness to the gospel.

The Generosity and Hospitality of God in Christ The overall ethical-theological point I have been arguing in this essay has two foci: (1) the specific narrative shape of Paul’s cruciform gospel, existence, and moral reasoning; and (2) the theological (i.e. referring to God) character of that Christological, narrative ethic and spirituality. Although space does not permit an extended discussion of other themes that demonstrate the overlap of Christological and theological action, and thus moral reasoning, in Paul, we may briefly mention two significant examples. In Chapters 8 and 9 of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle appeals to his problem children in Corinth to fulfil their commitment to the collection for the church in Jerusalem. He grounds his appeal first of all in the self-giving of Messiah Jesus, using language that echoes his master story from Philippians 2.6-11: ‘For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8.9). Paul also grounds his appeal in the generosity of God, who is himself a generous giver and the one who supplies the needs of those who are generous in return (2 Cor. 9.6-15). Paul concludes his brief discussion of God’s generosity and provision with an exclamation: ‘Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!’ (2 Cor. 9.15) – a clear reference to the gift of Jesus, Son and Messiah. Taking these two chapters together, we see once again what ‘in Christ God was reconciling the world …’ (2 Cor. 5.19) means for Paul on the ground. The Corinthians are to embody the Christ-narrative of generous self-giving (even to the point of renouncing their implied ‘right’ to hold on to their money), which is in turn a narrative of divine giving. The goal of their generosity is, in some unspecified but tantalizing way, economic ‘equality’ (2 Cor. 8.14).37 They will become the justice of God (2 Cor. 5.21; 9.9-10). 36.  For further discussion, see my ‘Justification and Justice in Paul’, revised in Becoming the Gospel, Ch. 7. 37. So NAB, NIV. NRSV’s ‘fair balance’ may approximate Paul’s point, but it aborts the interpretative summons issued by the noun isotēs. For a helpful analysis of the Jerusalem collection as the expression of an unprecedented challenge and alternative to GrecoRoman social and economic structures, see Julien M. Ogereau, ‘The Jerusalem Collection as Kοινωνία: Paul’s Global Politics of Socio-Economic Equality and Solidarity’, NTS 58 (2012): 360–78.



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Once again, I am not so naïve as to think that international economic crises or long-term issues such as global poverty will be solved simply by appeal to Paul’s theological argument for economic justice and ‘equality’ among early Christian communities. Nevertheless, Paul’s argument means that Christians in general, and ethicists in particular, exercise their vocational and existential obligations properly only when they do so within the framework of Christologically construed divine generosity and justice; that is, when they operate with a theological end (justice, shalom) and a theological means (generosity, self-giving) as their starting point. Such a framework will generate economic practices within the Christian community that embody the gospel, challenge the status quo, and serve others in need – whether or not they are Christians.38 As in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, we find in Romans 14 and 15 both Christological and theological grounds for Paul’s call to practices of hospitality within the multicultural (Gentile and Jewish) Christian communities in Rome. At that moment, mutual judgement was the order of the day in Rome, but the Christ-story and the divine actor within it will not countenance such inhospitality: ‘Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them’ (Rom. 14.3). Echoing his own words offered to the Corinthians, he speaks of living for the Lord Christ now and appearing before God’s judgement later as the existential framework within which judgementalism about indifferent matters of diet makes no sense (Rom. 14.7-10). Moreover, … the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness [or justice] and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval. 19Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. (Rom. 14.17-19) 17

Already in Romans 14, the blending of Christology and theology is evident. It becomes much more poignant in Chapter 15: We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. 2Each of us must please our neighbour for the good purpose of building up the neighbour. 3For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, ‘The insults of those who insult you [God, being addressed by Christ] have fallen on me’. … 7Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Rom. 15.1-3, 7) 1

Thus, in this section of Romans, Paul calls the story of Jesus both the paradigm of Christian hospitality and the fulfilment of the divine hospitality initiative itself. 38. The text of 2 Cor. 9.13, ‘sharing with them and with all’ (NRSV ‘all others’) refers to generosity toward both believers and others. Otherwise it would not reflect the divine generosity of the cross.

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Christ’s hospitality (15.7b) is God’s (14.3), and it must now become the church’s (15.7a). As in the case of reconciliation/peace-making and in the case of generosity, the story of Christ is at once christophany, theophany, and ecclesiophany. Paul’s theological Christology and its existential corollaries may again inform contemporary moral reasoning. To return to the fundamental narrative logic of Paul’s spirituality, we remember that ‘although [x] not [y] but [z]’ underlies all of Paul’s accounts of God’s action in Christ and thus of cruciform existence. The Christological logic of Paul might result today in a sentence such as this: ‘although we have the “right” to neglect or even reject certain people because of their status in the eyes of the law, we will not do so because we have been saved by, and now will live by, a different law, namely the law of divine hospitality, the law of Christ’ (cf. 1 Cor. 9.21; Gal. 6.2).

Conclusion This chapter has explored Paul’s notion of cruciformity as the central spiritual and moral dimension of his story of the crucified Messiah. We have considered the distinctive narrative pattern Paul puts forward in a variety of ways, and we have looked at three moral themes – reconciliation, generosity, and hospitality – in Paul’s letters as aspects of his message of cruciformity. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, we have seen that this Christological narrative is inherently and simultaneously also a story about God, and that therefore Paul’s call to cruciformity, or Christoformity, is also a call to theoformity – perhaps even theosis.39 Paul does not speak about Christ’s salvific and paradigmatic death without also speaking of it, both theologically and morally, as the action of God. His is a theological Christology. At the same time, the story of Christ and of God is also the story of the church – what it is, and what it is called to be. The cross is christophany, theophany, and ecclesiophany. The church, we have suggested, needs to take all of the dimensions of this Pauline contribution seriously. It will not be sufficient, if we follow Paul’s lead, to speak about God and morality without also speaking about Christ and morality, or vice versa. And it will not be sufficient to speak about Christ and morality without speaking of the mystical-narrative reality to which he attests in his letters, and which must be embodied in the church, on the ground. In terms of concrete moral consequences, Paul offers a vision of divine enemy love/reconciliation, generosity, and hospitality. Christian ethicists, biblical scholars, and all Christians need to work together to discern the concrete ways in which we can instantiate the story of God in Christ in our own communal practices by the power of the Spirit of the Father and the Son. We may summarize all of this in three phrases: 39. See further my Inhabiting the Cruciform God; Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, Chs. 8 and 10.

MM

MM

MM

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theological Christology – the God-shaped Messiah and the Messiah-shaped (cruciform) God; cruciformity as theoformity – the Messiah-shaped church as the God-shaped church; and mystical-missional cruciformity – the church in the Spirit becoming a living exegesis of the gospel by its ecclesial practices: becoming like Christ, becoming like God, representing God more faithfully to the world.40

The cross, in other words is the revelation of the identity not only of Christ, but also of God and of the church. It is simultaneously christophany, theophany and ecclesiophany.41

Bibliography Bauckham, Richard, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). Deissmann, Adolf, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History (trans. W. E. Wilson; New York: Doran, 2nd edn, 1926). Fowl, Stephen E., The Story of Christ in the Ethics of Paul: An Analysis of the Function of the Hymnic Material in the Pauline Corpus (JSNTSup 36; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990). Fowl, Stephen E., ‘Christology and Ethics in Philippians 2:5-11’, in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2 (eds Ralph. P. Martin and Brian. J. Dodd; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 140–53. Gorman, Michael J., Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Gorman, Michael J., Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Gorman, Michael J., ‘Justification and Justice in Paul, with Special Reference to the Corinthians’, JSPL 1 (2011), 23–40. Gorman, Michael J., ‘Paul and the Cruciform Way of God in Christ’, Journal of Moral Theology 2 (1) (January 2013): 64–83. Gorman, Michael J., ‘The This-Worldliness of the New Testament’s Other-Worldly Spirituality’, in The Bible and Spirituality: Interpreting Scripture for the Spiritual Life (eds Andrew T. Lincoln, J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen; Eugene: Cascade, 2013), 151–70. Gorman, Michael J., The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement (Eugene: Cascade, 2014).

40. See further my Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission. 41. I am grateful to John Frederick and all the Ecclesia and Ethics conference organizers, presenters, and participants for the opportunity to be part of the conference and the book. An earlier version of this essay appeared as ‘Paul and the Cruciform Way of God in Christ’ in the Journal of Moral Theology 2 (1) (January 2013): 64–83 and is used by permission of the journal’s editors.

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Gorman, Michael J., Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015). Grieb, A. Katherine, ‘So That in Him We Might Become the Righteousness of God’ (2 Cor. 5:21): Some Theological Reflections on the Church Becoming Justice’, Ex Auditu 22 (2006): 58–80. Hays, Richard B., ‘Christology and Ethics in Galatians: The Law of Christ’, CBQ 49 (1987): 268–90. Hays, Richard B., The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996). Hays, Richard B., The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2002). Longenecker, Bruce W. (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Ogereau, Julien M., ‘The Jerusalem Collection as Kοινωνία: Paul’s Global Politics of Socio-Economic Equality and Solidarity’, NTS 58 (2012): 360–78. Swartley, William M., Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). Wright, N. T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993). Wright, N. T., Paul and the Faithfulness of God (COQG 4; London: SPCK/Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013). Wright, N. T., ‘Paul, Ethics and the Church’, in Ecclesia and Ethics (eds E. Allan Jones III, John Frederick, John Anthony Dunne, Eric Lewellen and Jaughoon Park; London: Bloomsbury, 2016).

Chapter 3 THE CHURCH AS TEMPLE AND MORAL E X HO RTAT IO N I N 1 C O R I N T H IA N S Brian Rosner

Introduction Paul’s description of the Christians in Corinth as God’s temple in 1 Corinthians 3.16 and 6.19 is one of the most audacious claims in all of his letters. Whereas we might not baulk at the thought of Christians being compared to a grand place of worship, given the numerous impressive cathedrals of Christendom in Europe, the early Christians were a tiny Jewish sect, paling into insignificance even by comparison with the comparatively secure and established Jewish population in the Roman Empire.1 Solomon’s Temple, which I believe Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 3 (see below), was not simply an awesome building. The annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem and its temple were undertaken with the express intention of meeting with God (Ps. 42.2; 63.2; 65.1-2, etc.). According to the theology that grew up around it, the temple’s foundation belonged to the creation itself and the temple would last forever (Pss. 78.69; 125.1). The destinies of the nations would be decided at the temple (Amos 1.1-15; Ps. 99.1-5) and the well being of the whole earth depended on the one who sat on the throne in the temple mount of Zion (Ps. 29.10; 46.1-5; 93.1-4). Nonetheless, commentators generally make little of Paul’s temple theology in 1 Corinthians, beyond noticing its relevance to the immediate contexts in Chapters 3 and 6. This is in part because most do not regard the letter as having a coherent argument or structure. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor writes: ‘The salient feature of I Corinthians is the absence of any detectable logic in the arrangement of its contents.’2 This conclusion turns attention away from noticing connections of any 1. N. T. Wright comments in Paul and the Faithfulness of God (COQG; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 355, ‘Unless we are shocked by … [the identification of] the recalcitrant, muddled, problem-ridden Corinthians [as God’s temple], we have not seen the point.’ He also describes it as ‘breathtaking’. 2. J. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 253.

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sort across the letter. According to this view, in 1 Corinthians Paul treats one topic after another, possibly in the order in which the information about the situation in Corinth came to him via oral (see 1.10-11) and written sources (see 7.1). The very possibility of an image such as the church as temple resonating across the letter is ruled out by prior conclusions. Typically, the theology and ethics of 1 Corinthians is treated according to discrete sections of the letter. A good example is Victor Paul Furnish whose Cambridge biblical theology volume looks at Chapters 1–4, 5–10, 11–14 and 15 separately, with little attention given to themes that span the letter.3 Those who see the letter as having a unified purpose, such as Margaret Mitchell and Ben Witherington, typically read it through the lens of ancient rhetoric, which inevitably takes attention away from Paul’s biblical and Jewish worldview and symbolic universe in which the temple held a central place.4 The letter’s only unifying theme, according to those who see one, is the call to unity introduced in 1.10, which is taken to be the theme statement for the entire letter.5 According to this view, in 1.18–4.21 Paul opposes disunity in the church in general, and in Chapters 5–16 he takes on the issues that must be dealt with before genuine unity can be achieved. 1 Corinthians, then, is Paul’s attempt to urge the Corinthians to come together in unity. In our 2008 New Testament Studies article on the argument and structure of the letter, Roy Ciampa and I instead underscored the central place of the theme of purity in the letter and we pointed to the pervasive theme of the temple. As to the purpose of 1 Corinthians, we concluded that the letter is Paul’s attempt to tell the Corinthian church that they are part of the fulfilment of the Old Testament 3. V. P. Furnish, The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). A partial exception is the theme of belonging to Christ, which he sees as having purchase across the letter. 4.  M. M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992); Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). 5.  Among those who support this view are W. H. Wuellner, ‘Greek Rhetoric and Pauline Argumentation’, in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition (eds W. R. Schoedel and R. L. Wilken; Paris: Beauchesne, 1979), 177–88: ‘[1.10] expresses the main theme of the whole of 1 Cor[inthians]’ (182–3); G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 24: ‘He follows this [1.4-9] with the proposition of the entire letter, summarized in a single sentence’; and most fully Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, whose book is in effect an examination of 1 Corinthians in the light of the thesis that Paul wrote with one overriding aim, that is, to persuade the Corinthian Christians to become unified. She claims that this was the understanding of some of the earliest readers of the letter, including 1 Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, The Muratorion Canon and the early Greek commentators. R. B. Hays, First Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 21, calls unity ‘the fundamental theme of the letter.’



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(OT) expectation of world-wide worship of the God of Israel, and as God’s eschatological temple they must act in a manner appropriate to their holy status by shunning pagan vices and glorifying God as they reflect the lordship of Christ.6 In this paper I focus more tightly on the impact of the temple image and ask specifically, what has the church as temple got to do with Paul’s moral exhortation in the letter? Or to recall the title of this volume, how does Paul’s temple ecclesia relate to his communal ethics? An assessment of the impact of Paul’s identification of the church as God’s temple on his moral teaching in 1 Corinthians involves answering five questions: MM MM MM MM MM

How prominent is the temple theme in the letter? What does the temple have to do with wisdom? What does the temple have to do with purity? What does the temple have to do with edification? What does the temple have to do with glory?

As it turns out, the temple theme is closely related to four of the major ethical imperatives of the letter, namely, Paul’s call to true wisdom in Chapters 1–4, to purity in Chapters 5–7, to edification in Chapters 8–14, and to the glory of God throughout the letter.7

The Church as Temple How prominent is the temple theme in the letter? Is the notion of the church as temple limited to a couple of isolated remarks in Chapters 3 and 6? Several factors suggest that the church as temple is a controlling metaphor in 1 Corinthians with wide application. The way for the theme of the church as temple in 1 Corinthians is, in fact, paved as early as 1 Corinthians 1.2. In 1.2, Paul writes to ‘all those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place’. The description of people as calling on the name of the Lord often occurs in connection with the temple of the Lord (2 Chron. 7.14; Isa. 63.18-19; Dan. 9.17, 19; Sir. 36.17-19; 4 Ezra 10.22). And the expression ‘in every place’, en panti topō, echoes Malachi 1.11 LXX, which (in a context of frustration over the way the Lord is being worshipped in Jerusalem) 6. Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner, ‘The Structure and Argument of 1 Corinthians: A Biblical/Jewish Approach’, NTS 52 (2) (2006): 205–18. For more details see, passim, idem, The First Letter to the Corinthians (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Leicester: IVP, 2010). 7. Previous work on Paul’s cultic metaphors has concentrated on concerns to do with purity, with little or no attention to the connections with wisdom, edification and glory. See e.g. Yulin Liu, Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians (WUNT 2/343; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) and Nijay K. Gupta, Worship that Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic Metaphors (BZNT 175; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010).

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prophesies a future time when God would be worshipped by Gentiles ‘in every place’: ‘From the rising of the sun until its setting my name will be glorified among the Gentiles and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty.’ The echo of Malachi 1.11 in 1 Corinthians 1.2 suggests the Corinthians are part of the fulfilment of God’s plan to be worshipped among all the Gentiles, and it is Paul’s ultimate purpose in writing to them to see them play their part in fulfilling this world-wide eschatological vision. Of course, such universal worship required a reconceptualizing of the nature and role of the temple. You cannot worship God in every place unless the temple is everywhere. A similar development was already underway in Second Temple Judaism, in particular in the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g. 1QS 8.5-10; 9.4-6), where the community was the dwelling place of God.8 It is also reflected elsewhere in the New Testament, in Jesus’ identification of his body as the temple of God in the Gospels (Mt. 26.61; 27.40; Mk 14.58; 15.29; Jn 2.19-21) and the comparison of the church to ‘a spiritual house’ in 1 Peter 2.5. The conception of the community as a temple is actually a sturdy scriptural theme, where God’s indwelling is not just of a sanctuary; God dwells among his people. As Psalm 114.2 puts it, ‘Judah became God’s sanctuary’ (cf. Exod. 25.8; 29.45; Lev. 26.11-12; Ezek. 11.16; 37.26-28). As well as having a long pedigree and some currency, the notion of the church as temple in fact appears as many as four times in 1 Corinthians, appearing in: MM MM MM MM

3.16 – ‘you are God’s temple’ 3.17 – ‘you are that temple’ 6.19 – ‘your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit’ 3.9 – ‘you are God’s field, God’s building’

The fourth example is less explicit and requires some explanation. Which building of God does Paul have in mind? There is good evidence to support an identification of the building of which Paul speaks with a certain biblical temple. According to some, in 1 Corinthians 3.5-17 Paul moves from comparing the church to a field, to a building, and then to a temple. However, in the Pillar commentary on 1 Corinthians that I co-wrote with Roy Ciampa, we argue, building on the work of Greg Beale, that it is not only 3.16-17 that speaks of the temple, but all of 3.5-15 that have it in view. As Beale states: ‘The only other place in Scripture where a “foundation” of a building is laid and “gold,” “silver,” and “precious stones” are “built” upon the foundation is Solomon’s temple’ (1 Kgs 5.17; 6.20-21, 28, 30, 35; cf. 1 Chron. 29.1-7).9 Furthermore, the description of Solomon’s temple combined precious metals with botanical features. Significantly, later Judaism spoke of Solomon’s temple 8. Cf. especially 4Q418 frag. 81:4: ‘Honor him by this: by consecrating yourself to him, in accordance to the fact that he has placed you as a holy of holies [over all] the earth.’ 9. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), 246.



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as a ‘field’ (Tg. Ps.J. 27.27; Pesiq. Rab. Piska 39). And the early Christian Odes of Solomon 38.17-21 describes a ‘saint’ being ‘established’ on ‘foundations [that] were laid’ and also as a ‘cultivation’ that was ‘watered’ by God. These traditions build upon the fact that in the OT ‘the Garden of Eden, Israel’s garden-like promised land, and Israel’s future restoration in a garden-like land were either equated or associated with a temple’.10 In 1 Corinthians 3.5-17, then, Paul is comparing the Corinthians not just to any cultivated field and building or temple, three separate images, but to nothing less than Solomon’s garden-temple. The destruction of Solomon’s temple in 587 BCE that accompanied the Jewish exile to Babylon was the nadir of the nation’s history. To Paul’s mind, its denouement was not the return from exile, nor the building of Herod’s temple, but the existence of a small squabbling band in Corinth of mainly Gentile believers in Israel’s murdered Messiah: ‘you yourselves are God’s temple’. 11 The language of identity formation, ‘you are something’, using Greek este, the second person plural of the verb ‘to be’, is not common in Paul’s letters. Este only appears in the traditional Pauline corpus some forty-five times, and many of these occurrences simply describe the group’s status (e.g. ‘you are not under law but under grace’; Rom. 6.14) or their attributes (e.g. ‘you are full of goodness’; Rom. 15.14) or ask a question (e.g. 1 Cor. 3.4: ‘are you not merely human?’). An explicit labelling of a group with an identity in Paul’s letters, such as ‘you are the temple’, is in fact quite rare. In 1 Corinthians, apart from the four times where he identifies the Corinthians as the temple, Paul names the Corinthians as something just three times: ‘Are you not my work in the Lord?’ (9.1); ‘You are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord’ (9.2); and ‘Now you are the body of Christ’ (12.27). The frequency with which Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘you are the temple’, is indeed striking and hard to ignore. As noted above, it appears no less than four times in the letter, and Paul repeats it in 2 Corinthians 6.16, where he includes himself: ‘we are the temple of the living God’. It is also noteworthy that Paul likely taught the Corinthians that they are God’s temple when he was in Corinth. Ten times in 1 Corinthians, Paul introduces material in the letter with the words, ouk oidate, ‘do you not know?’ Although, on the surface the question could point to ignorance or forgetfulness on the part of the Corinthians, its actual force is probably that of suggesting that the conduct of the Corinthians shows that they have not sufficiently thought through the implications of the following truth, even if they would claim to be familiar with it. What Paul wants the Corinthians to know probably formed part of his original oral teaching to them. What is significant for our purposes is the fact that two of the ten uses of ouk oidate appear in 3.16, the first in the letter, and in 6.19, both of which introduce 10. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 246. 11. Cf. N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 712, on 1 Cor. 3.16: ‘This is no mere metaphor, a random image culled from Paul’s fertile imagination. No ex-Pharisee could write this without intending to say that the founding and building up of the church through the gospel constituted the long-awaited rebuilding of the Temple.’

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Paul’s comparison of the Corinthian believers to God’s temple. The only point that is repeated among the ten increasingly impatient reminders in 1 Corinthians is that the Corinthian believers are God’s temple. Thus, we see it is quite likely that being God’s temple was on the curriculum when Paul taught the Corinthians on his first extended visit. We may also note that this teaching was not peculiar to Paul in Corinth. In Romans 15, Paul explains that he thinks of his missionary work as priestly. Paul’s raison d’être in Romans 15.16 is explained using temple imagery: as ‘a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles’, Paul is to discharge his ‘priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit’.12 To sum up, the importance of the temple theme for 1 Corinthians can be seen in several ways. The doctrine of church as temple appears five times in the extant Corinthian correspondence, reverberating through both letters. It has a long pedigree in Jewish teaching. It was something Paul likely taught the Corinthians face to face. And it is a key to Paul’s own identity and mission as an apostle to the Gentiles.13 In the next four sections of this chapter, we will look at some of the letter’s main ethical commands, asking how, if at all, they connect to the temple theme.

Wise Building What does the temple have to do with wisdom in 1 Corinthians? Paul’s critique of Corinthian factionalism in Chapters 1–4 is all about wisdom. The cross judges the world’s wisdom as foolishness (1.18–2.5) and Paul embodies and preaches a wisdom of the cross and Spirit in its place (2.6-16). As it turns out, Paul’s foundational work in Corinth in establishing God’s temple was done with God’s wisdom. Specifically, Paul’s work of laying the foundation of the gardentemple in Corinth was done as a ‘wise master builder’ (1 Cor. 3.10). The word in question, ‘wise’, sophos, is translated ‘skilled’ in many modern English versions (cf. RSV, NRSV, HCSB, ESV). Thus, the link between Paul’s self-description in 3.10 to the earlier chapters’ treatment of wisdom is easily missed. In one sense, that Paul built with wisdom is hardly surprising, given that ‘wisdom’ is regularly 12.  N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 1509: ‘The temple is perhaps the most haunting symbol for Paul’s underlying missionary aims.’ 13. Liu (Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians) asks whether the theme of the church as temple was comprehensible to Paul’s Gentile converts. He concludes, based on a study of the temples of Apollo, Isis, and Asklepios in Roman Corinth, that Paul’s concern for the purity of the Corinthians as God’s temple would have been readily understood by Jews and Gentiles in Paul’s world. He writes: ‘Paul’s message of temple purity was able to reach his audience, whether Jewish or gentile, without difficulty’ (p. 234). Cf. N. K. Gupta, Worship that Makes Sense to Paul, 220–1: ‘Alongside other ideological domains, such as kinship and politics, cult was such an important part of everyday life for most people in the ancient world that the employment of this imagery would have been striking.’



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associated with ‘temples’ and their construction in the Jewish Scriptures: The repeated requirement for those constructing the tabernacle is that they have ‘wisdom’ (‫חכמה‬/σοφία), often translated, ‘skill’ (e.g. Exod. 31.3, 6; 35.31): ‘I have given wisdom to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you’ (Exod. 31.6). Most significant for 1 Corinthians 3.10 is the fact that Solomon built his temple with wisdom: ‘Huram also said, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who has given King David a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD.”’ In the Wisdom of Solomon 9.8, Solomon asks the Lord to give him wisdom to build the temple in the likeness of the heavenly tabernacle. And in Wisdom 9.17, he repeats the petition: ‘who knows your counsel, unless you give wisdom?’ Not only was Paul’s foundational work in Corinth in establishing God’s temple done with God’s wisdom, Paul’s critique of Corinthian factionalism concerns the type of wisdom Christian leaders employ in their building activities. In 1 Corinthians 3.10, the only place in the opening chapters where Paul addresses church leaders directly, he counsels that ‘each builder must choose with care how to build on it’, that is, upon the foundation that Paul wisely built. The implication is that Christian leaders can build either with the wisdom of the world or with God’s wisdom. The Corinthians were enamoured with the former, but only truly wise building uses materials that will survive. The rest will be burnt up. Wise building of the Corinthian temple, after Paul’s example, which Paul expounds in Chapters 1–2, becomes the criterion of service that meets God’s approval in Chapter 4. As such, Paul’s wise master building of the temple foundation becomes a key moment for both the Christian leaders in Corinth and those who seek to assess them. It draws the first three chapters of the letter to a pointed warning: ‘be careful how you build’. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 1–4, temple and wisdom are closely related.

Sanctification and Purity What does the temple have to do with sanctification and purity? This is the most obvious of the ethical topics in the letter in terms of a connection with the temple theme.14 Some background from Paul’s Jewish inheritance will help draw out the connection. In the Jewish Scriptures, the fact that the Lord has sanctified the people of Israel is a common indicative, grounding the commands related to dealing with the impurity of the pagans in the land. In Leviticus 22.32, the command to hallow the Lord’s holy name and to keep his laws, which separate Israel from the nations’ idolatry and sexual sin, is grounded on the fact that the holy one of Israel 14. Joseph R. Greene, ‘The Spirit in the Temple: Bridging the Gap between Old Testament Absence and New Testament Assumption’, JETS 55 (4) (2012): 717–42 (742): ‘As the locus of God’s presence, the temple exemplifies holiness’.

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sanctifies his people. This logic is applied on numerous occasions with dozens of laws. Likewise, the holiness of the temple is repeatedly underscored in the Jewish Scriptures, as are warnings about maintaining its holiness. As Psalm 79.1 states succinctly, ‘the nations have defiled your holy temple’. The defiling of God’s people and God’s temple often goes hand in hand. Paul’s focus on the issues of sexual immorality and idolatry in 1 Corinthians suggests that purity issues are of great concern to him. Being separate from the idolatry and sexual practices of the pagan inhabitants of the Promised Land also dominates the laws of the Pentateuch, where sin is often conceived of in terms of impurity. Jacob Neusner highlights the place of idolatry and sexual relations in the biblical texts that deal with the question of impurity.15 Correspondingly, Christine Hayes has pointed to a number of Pauline passages that ‘suggest that the impurity of unbelievers, arising from deeds of sexual immorality and idolatry in particular, defiles the holiness of believers’.16 Yulin Liu’s recent study of Second Temple Judaism concludes that, ‘the Temple and its purity are abundantly used by the Jewish authors to address ritual, moral, and eschatological issues. … Temple purity reflects the holiness of God.’17 Further, Judith Lieu speaks of ‘the pervasive rejection of the ways of the Gentiles, epitomized by idolatry and by a range of other “vices” of sexual and intemperate behaviour’ as boundary markers found in much ‘early Christian’ literature. She also sees sexual immorality and eating food offered to idols as ‘scripturally hallowed models of the dissolution of identity’.18 In this way, the worldliness of the Corinthians (of which sexual immorality and idolatry are two critical symptoms), is their biggest problem and is itself a purity issue. Part of Paul’s solution to the Corinthians’ worldliness – the fact that they are acting like mere human beings (cf. 3.3) – is to underscore their sanctified status, as the opening verses of the letter illustrate. In 1 Corinthians 1.2, Paul describes the Corinthians as God’s holy possession in three ways: they are the church belonging to God, sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints.19 So from the very beginning of the letter, living lives in keeping with this pure and sanctified status is a major plank in Paul’s strategy in dealing with their problems. 15. J. Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 13–15. 16. C. E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 93. 17. Liu, Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians, 68. 18. Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 133. 19. R. B. Hays (First Corinthians, 16) compares Paul’s language of holiness and sanctification in 1 Cor. 1.2 to ‘Israel’s priests or the vessels in the Temple’. Cf. N. K. Gupta, Worship that Makes Sense to Paul, 62: ‘The phrase, “those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus” most likely connotes cultic consecration, as in Paul’s almost identical usage of the participle in Rom. 15.16 vis-à-vis the gentiles as an offering’. The holiness language of 1.2 is reprised in 6.10-11, where the Corinthians are described as sanctified and cleansed, recalling their identification as the temple.



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The focus of this strategy is Paul’s identification of the church as God’s temple. In 1 Corinthians, purity issues are reflected in the identification of the readers as the temple of God (3.17: ‘God’s temple is holy’) and the discussion of the moral implications of that understanding. The way that Paul deals with the man who ‘has’ (the word here indicating sexual activity; 5.1) his stepmother in Chapter 5 is a good example. The command to ‘clean out the old leaven’ (5.7) and to ‘purge the evil person’ from their midst (5.11-13) reflects the language of purity concerns. As I have argued elsewhere at some length, the reason that the incestuous man must be handed over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh in 5.5, is given in 3.17: anyone who destroys God’s temple, God will destroy.20 What should be noted here is that what follows in 5.6-8 fits perfectly with this explanation and reinforces the temple theme. Having ‘cleansed the temple’ in 5.5, Paul calls upon the congregation to celebrate spiritually the festival of Passover/Unleavened Bread in 1 Corinthians 5.6-8. That this sequence of events occurred to Paul’s mind may itself testify to the influence of the OT temple motif, since, in the OT, there is an observable link between cleansing or restoring the temple and celebrating the Passover. Following the ‘removal of all defilement from the sanctuary’ (2 Chron. 29.5) in order to ‘re-establish the service of the temple of the LORD’ (2 Chron. 29.35), King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 30 calls upon the people to celebrate the Passover. Similarly, King Josiah, after removing the articles of idolatry from the temple and restoring the sacred ark to its rightful place, ordered the Israelites to celebrate the Passover and observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread (2 Chron. 35.1-19; 2 Kgs 23.1-23). Ezra followed the same pattern. Ezra 6 records first the completion and dedication of the temple (6.13-18) and then a joyous Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread (6.19-22). It is intriguing that, even in the Gospels (Mt. 21.12-13; Mk 11.15-18; Lk. 19.45-47; Jn 2.13-22), as in 1 Corinthians 5, cleansing the temple and celebrating the Passover are connected. Purity concerns are also reflected in Paul’s striking reassurance in Chapter 7 to those Christians married to unbelievers that their spouses are ‘sanctified’. What are the implications of being sanctified, or set apart, for the unbelieving spouse? The church as God’s temple is a key part of the answer. Yonder Gillihan suggests that, among other things, in Jewish literature, those who are thus sanctified ‘have full access to the temple constituted by the sanctified community’.21 This 20.  B. S. Rosner, ‘Temple and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 5’, TynBul 42 (1) (1991): 137–45. Liu (Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians, 145) draws a similar conclusion: ‘The community had the capacity to understand that the expulsion of the sinner and the restriction of table fellowship was to defend the purity of the church as the temple-community.’ Elsewhere he writes: ‘Reading 1 Corinthians 3 and 5 together in a similar scene of judgment concerning purity is not implausible. … In order to restore temple purity, Paul has to use expulsion as a way of removing the defiling source’ (p. 136). 21. Yonder Moynihan Gillihan, ‘Jewish Laws on Illicit Marriage, the Defilement of Offspring, and the Holiness of the Temple: A New Halakic Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:14’, JBL 121 (2002): 711–44 (729).

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is consistent with the standard meaning of the verb Paul uses.22 When used of things it means to ‘set aside someth[ing] or make it suitable for ritual purposes, consecrate, dedicate’, and when used of people it means to ‘include a pers[on] in the inner circle of what is holy, in both cultic and moral associations of the word, consecrate, dedicate, sanctify’ (BDAG). In this case, the sanctification of the unbelieving spouse, while reflecting a special, technical usage of the verb, still seems to suggest that the unbeliever is included in the inner circle, which consists of those who ‘have full access to the temple constituted by the sanctified community’. Thus, the key to the meaning of the two uses of sanctified in 7.14a is found in Paul’s reference to being ‘unclean’ or ‘holy’ in 7.14b. Both ‘holiness’ and ‘uncleanness’ are scriptural terms well known in Second Temple Judaism for their importance with respect to access to God’s temple. Most OT references to holiness are found in cultic-ritual texts. Everything that belongs to the cult is holy. It is this priestly-cultic holiness, which is a central concern in the Qumran literature, in the apocryphal writings, and in Philo and Josephus, and in opposition to the prophetic-ethical holiness, that Paul has in mind here. Michael Newton put it well: ‘Much of Paul’s use of purity terminology centres upon his view that believers constitute the Temple of God and as such enjoy the presence of God in their midst.’23

Edification and Love What does the temple have to do with edification in 1 Corinthians? Without developing the thought, Richard Bauckham has suggested a link between building terminology, including the language of edification, and the church as God’s temple: ‘The frequently used metaphor of “building” the Christian community is probably evidence of the widespread currency of the image of the church as the eschatological temple.’24 In connection with 1 Corinthians, just as Paul ‘built’ the foundation of the Corinthian temple, so also the Corinthians are to continue the work and ‘build one another up’. Not only are there links between wisdom and the temple in Chapters 1–4 and between the church as a holy temple of God in Chapters 5 and 7, the accent on edification in Chapters 8–14 also has links with temple building. The term oikodomeō and its cognates are used in the LXX and NT of literally ‘building’ the temple. To cite some NT examples, in John 2.20, the Jews say of Herod’s temple, that its construction, using the verb oikodomeō, has been going on for forty-six years; and in Acts 7.47, Solomon is said to have built, oikodomeō, 22. Gk. hagiazō. 23. M. Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (SNTSMS 53; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 52. 24. Richard Bauckham, ‘James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13-21)’, in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. Ben Witherington III; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 154–84 (166 n.33).



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God’s house. BDAG defines the term in question as having a literal sense, ‘to construct a building’ and also an extended or metaphorical sense, ‘to strengthen, build up’ or ‘edify’. The language of edification is crucial to Paul’s instructions on spiritual gifts in Chapters 12–14. Paul’s call for the Corinthians to build each other up (oikodomeō) is his major concern in Chapters 8–14, and it is closely linked with love (cf. 8.1 [knowledge puffs up, but love builds up; oikodomē] and Chapter 13). What needs to be noticed is that the groundwork for this metaphorical usage is laid in Chapter 3 with reference to Paul’s own building. Paul ‘built’ the temple in Corinth: ‘According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building (epoikodomei) on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build (epoikodomei) on it’ (1 Cor. 3.10; cf. 3.12, 14). Ephesians 2.22 has the same usage: ‘built (oikodomeisthe) upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone’. A link with building language is also forged in 1 Corinthians 3.9 where Paul says the Corinthians are God’s building, oikodomē. So when we come to Paul’s use of oikodomeō later in the letter, Bauckham’s point rings true. The Corinthians, as God’s temple, are to strengthen the building by building one another up. As late as Chapter 14, the identification of the church as temple in Chapter 3 has not been left behind. Just as Paul was given the grace of God (charin tou theou) to build the foundation of the Corinthian temple (3.10), so too the Corinthians are given grace (charis; 1.4, 7) and grace gifts (charismata; 12.4, 9, 28, 30, 31) to build up (oikodomeō; 8.1; 10.23; 14.4, 17) the church.

Glory and Honour Finally, what does the temple have to do with glory in 1 Corinthians? In short, as the temple of God, Paul finds it imperative that the Corinthians glorify God. Temples, as well as being associated with holiness, were places of glory. In fact, all five biblical ‘temples’ are filled with God’s glory: first, when ‘the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle’ (Exod. 40.34; cf. Num. 14.10; 16.42; Exod. 20.24; 1 Sam. 4.21-22); second, when Solomon ended his prayer of dedication for the temple, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple (2 Chron. 7.1-3); third, with reference to the post-exilic rebuilt temple, Ezra prayed, ‘Blessed be the LORD, the God of our ancestors, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to glorify the house of the LORD in Jerusalem’ (Ezra 7.27; cf. 8.36; cf. 1 Macc. 15.9; 2 Macc. 3.2); fourth, concerning the eschatological temple in Ezekiel, the prophet reports that the glory of the LORD filled the temple (43.4-5 [2x]); fifth and finally, the consummated temple in Revelation is associated with glory – ‘the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power’ (Rev. 15.8; cf. 21.11, 23, 26). As Greg Beale puts it, ‘The purpose of the OT temple … was to house and show forth God’s glory.’25 25. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 252.

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Thus there is no surprise that, having identified the church as God’s temple; glorifying God has a central place in Paul’s moral teaching in 1 Corinthians. As the temple of God, Paul finds it imperative that the Corinthians glorify God. This is evident most clearly in two pivotal commands: Paul tells the church to ‘flee’ sexual immorality and idolatry in 6.18 and 10.14 respectively, and instead to ‘glorify God’ in sexual purity and proper worship, in 6.20 (doxazō) and 10.31 (doxa). But this is just to scratch the surface, for the theme of bringing glory to God pervades the whole letter, using a range of synonyms. Along with the two pivotal commands (6.20; 10.31), the Corinthians are: to boast (or glory) in the Lord (1.31; kauchaomai), not human leaders (3.21; kauchaomai); worship in a fashion that brings glory and not dishonour to God in 11.2-16; and await their own resurrection and glorification (in Chapter 15), which leads to the glory of God, both now and in the age to come, ‘that God may be all in all’ (15.28). What does the temple have to do with glory in 1 Corinthians? As the temple of God, Paul finds it imperative that the Corinthians glorify God.

Conclusion The question of how identity informs behaviour in Paul’s letters, or the connection between the indicative and the imperative as it has come to be known, has a long history of interpretation. Rudolf Bultmann’s 1924 essay helped establish the topic in the study of Paul’s letters.26 What is perhaps surprising is that its corporate dimension has been somewhat neglected. With Romans 6 to the fore, studies have tended to focus on how the individual believer must live in accord with his or her new status as dead to sin and alive to God (the indicative) and present the members of their bodies as instruments of righteousness (the imperative). How the identity of the church, in addition to individual believers, relates to its conduct has been much less of a focus. This paper is a modest attempt to redress the imbalance. The challenge for every student of Paul is to discover in Paul’s thought not only theological coherence but ethical integration. In my view, the Corinthian temple is a central metaphor in 1 Corinthians, and much of Paul’s moral teaching in the letter is consistent with it and flows from it. Because the church is God’s temple, church leaders must build wisely, the church must be pure, and members of the church must build one another up in love and bring glory to God.

26. See my translation of the essay in B. S. Rosner (ed.), Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995), 195–216.



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Bibliography Bauckham, Richard, ‘James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13-21)’, in History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (ed. Ben Witherington III; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 154–84. Beale, G. K., The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004). Ciampa, Roy and Brian Rosner, ‘The Structure and Argument of 1 Corinthians: A Biblical/Jewish Approach’, New Testament Studies 52 (2) (2006): 205–18. Ciampa, Roy and Brian Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Leicester: IVP, 2010). Furnish, V. P., The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Gillihan, Yonder Moynihan, ‘Jewish Laws on Illicit Marriage, the Defilement of Offspring, and the Holiness of the Temple: A New Halakic Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:14’, JBL 121 (2002): 711–44. Greene, Joseph R., ‘The Spirit in the Temple: Bridging the Gap between Old Testament Absence and New Testament Assumption’, JETS 55 (4) (2012): 717–42. Gupta, Nijay K., Worship that Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic Metaphors (BZNT 175; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010). Hayes, C. E., Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Hays, R. B., First Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997). Kennedy, G. A., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). Lieu, Judith, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Liu, Yulin, Temple Purity in 1–2 Corinthians (WUNT 2/343; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). Mitchell, M. M., Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992). Murphy-O’Connor, J., Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Neusner, J., The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1973). Newton, M., The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (SNTSMS 53; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Rosner, B. S., ‘Temple and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 5’, The Tyndale Bulletin 42 (1) (1991): 137–45. Rosner, B. S., (ed.), Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995). Witherington III, Ben, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Wright, N. T., Paul and the Faithfulness of God (COQG; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013). Wuellner, W. H., ‘Greek Rhetoric and Pauline Argumentation’, in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition (eds W. R. Schoedel and R. L. Wilken; Paris: Beauchesne, 1979), 177–88.

Chapter 4 L E A R N I N G F R OM P AU L : C E N T R E D E T H IC S T HAT A VO I D L E G A L I ST IC J U D G E M E N TA L I SM A N D M O R A L R E L AT I V I SM Mark D. Baker

Introduction I will set the stage for the argument of this chapter with some autobiographical reflections. Riding home from church when I was six years old, I looked disdainfully at people mowing their lawns. Not only were they working on a Sunday, they obviously had not gone to church. By observing those who mowed lawns on Sunday, I could draw a neat line between those who belonged to my religion and those who did not. I had the security of knowing that I was ‘in’; my family was among those who were ‘right’. As I grew older, I continued to derive security from the lines I drew. As a teenager I felt morally superior, right, because, in contrast to those around me at school and work, I did not cheat on tests, steal on the job, drink, dance, swear, smoke or do drugs. When in college, I met some Christians who drank occasionally and enjoyed dancing. I faced a dilemma. My definition of Christianity told me that these people could not be Christians. Yet in a number of areas I recognized their faith to be more mature than my own. I had to either change my definition of a Christian or refuse to accept these friends as Christians. I left my legalism behind and drew new lines that would include my friends in the category of good Christians. Over the next several years, I continued changing. I thought I had come a long way from my high school legalism. But had I? I now considered myself right in relation to others because my Christianity included a simple lifestyle, concern for the poor, an openness to gifts of the Spirit, a realization that those who consumed alcohol could be Christians, and a commitment to social justice. Just as I looked down on those who had mowed their lawns on Sunday, I now looked down on those who did not share my new perspectives. Yet, I still lived with the burden of working to stay on the right side of the lines I had drawn. During both my legalistic era and what followed, I clearly articulated a doctrine

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of salvation by grace, but my life was characterized by works-righteousness more than by grace.1 Although, over the years my perspectives on what it meant to be a good Christian changed, my drive to be right and in remained constant. I had torn down one house and built another that looked so different, I never realized that the houses’ foundations were the same. This foundation gave me a judgemental line-drawing spirit that prevented me from experiencing authentic Christian community in either house. My experience displays a common response to legalistic judgementalism and exclusion. I saw the rules themselves as the problem, and saw discarding the rules as the solution. I had not, however, dug deep enough. Both the legalistic exclusion of my youth and the line-drawing judgementalism that I replaced it with continue to find fertile soil in many places in our world today. A contemporary, and growing, response is to reject the whole notion of drawing lines that separate those who are in from those who are out. Although this postmodern approach provides an antidote to judgementalism and exclusion, it creates new problems. When the supreme concern is to not label anyone else as wrong or out, ethics and the community itself quickly become ill defined. Tolerance is a virtue, but when it becomes the supreme virtue it leads to moral relativism or what sociologist Robert Brenneman has called ‘whatever-ism’.2 In essence, this approach still accepts that a drawn line is what determines if someone is in or out, but it makes the line very faint or erases it totally. It does not dig deeper and replace the foundation. We must do more than build new houses on the same old line-drawing foundation. We must excavate and lay new foundations as Paul did when he confronted line-drawing judgementalism in his letter to the Galatians. After presenting a brief overview of the situation that Paul addressed in Galatians, I will borrow categories from missiologist Paul Hiebert that will illuminate the foundation work Paul did, and I will provide guidance in responding to the situations described above.

Galatians 2.11-16: Line-drawing in Antioch Paul writes a letter to the churches at Galatia to confront the practices of a group of instigators who have distorted the gospel and who threaten the unity of the churches by communicating that the Gentile converts must live like Jews. Paul recounts an experience in Antioch that communicates a number of the main themes in the letter. 11

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he

1. I was not alone in this. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey observed that North American evangelicals believe a theology of grace, but do not live it (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997, 15, 33, 203, 263). 2. Robert Brenneman, e-mail to author, 3 February 2012.



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stood self-condemned; 12 for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. 13 And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’ 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.3

This story presents a clear example of line-drawing exclusion. The leaders from Jerusalem communicated through their actions, and perhaps their words, that those who were truly in were circumcised and followed other Jewish traditions such as not eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. Peter, Barnabas and other Jews felt the shame of being on the wrong side of the line and gave into the pressure. Feel the tragedy of this split, of divided table fellowship. Imagine if something like this happened when you were celebrating the Lord’s Supper at your church.4 Paul confronts Peter and reminds him that their place at the table of God’s people does not come through fulfilling certain actions that Jews have used to separate themselves from others; rather it comes through trusting in Jesus’ faithful obedience to God.5 There is not space to explore this passage in depth. Instead, I will simply highlight four key observations: 3. NRSV. In v. 16, I have used the alternative translation offered in the footnotes ‘faith of ’ rather than ‘faith in’. 4. In my opinion, the Lord’s Supper in the early church was not a separate cultic event, but was ‘an entire ordinary meal’ that a Christian community may have eaten each time they came together (see Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, rev. edn, 1994]). Philip F. Esler (The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation [London: Routledge, 1994], 52) prefers to distinguish between table-fellowship and Eucharistic table-fellowship ‘where those present shared, that is to say, actually passed around from hand to hand, one loaf of bread and one cup of wine’. Banks (Paul’s Idea, 81) reports that breaking bread in this way and sharing a cup at the end of the meal, both accompanied by prayers of blessing, was not ‘different from the customary meal for guests in a Jewish home’. In either case, both Banks and Esler agree that Eucharist was a meal the church ate together and it ‘was the most tangible expression of the unity in Jesus Christ of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Gal 3.28)’ (Esler, The First Christians, 53; see Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 83). 5. For an explanation of my interpretation of Gal. 2.16 see: Mark D. Baker, Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace & Freedom (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1999), 97–108.

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First, the problem is not a simple issue of an explicit teaching that salvation is by works. We know from Peter’s sermons in Acts that he preached of salvation as God’s gracious forgiveness. We can assume that leaders of the church in Jerusalem also taught salvation through God’s grace, and the same is likely true of the Judaizing agitators in Galatia as well. Yet Paul accused them of distorting the gospel (Gal. 1.6-10) and of not living according to the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2.14). Similar to what I had done, they articulated a gospel of salvation by grace, but they lived out a line-drawing religiosity of works-righteousness.6 Their pressure on Gentile Christians to conform to Jewish traditions likely left the Gentiles feeling like second class Christians, and it may have implied that salvation was actually through works.7 The problem was deeper than a simple lack of articulation of salvation by grace, and therefore the solution must be more than that as well. Second, Paul does not offer an alternative list of criteria, nor does he argue for a revision to the criteria they are using to draw their boundary lines. Paul sees what I did not when I reacted against legalism. The particular rules are not the problem.8 The problem is the religiosity of line drawing. Third, if the lines are the problem, then erasing them would seem to be the solution, and Paul certainly does erase some lines that were drawn. Paul did not, however, take the postmodern approach and say ‘erase the lines, everyone is in’. In Antioch he did not practise whatever-ism; he confronted Peter. Later in the letter he warns against libertinism (Gal. 5.13), encourages loving confrontation when someone sins (Gal. 6.1) and clearly considers some as outsiders, no longer truly part of the community of faith (Gal. 4.30; 5.4, 9). Fourth, Paul digs below the surface and tears apart the problematic foundation. We see this clearly in Chapter 4. He tells the Galatian Christians that if they follow the ways of the Judaizers, they will be returning to the enslavement they experienced before (Gal. 4.8-9). Clearly paganism and Judaism is not the same thing. Paul is digging below the surface and talking about the stoicheia, or elemental forces of religiosity, that use paganism to enslave, that use Judaism to enslave 6. As it had been in my case, so it was in Galatia. The possibility that people lived a works-righteousness is not ruled out simply because the teachers in some way included words of God’s saving grace in their teaching. For further discussion of how I accept E. P. Sanders’s argument that Paul was not countering an explicit teaching of salvation by works, but also disagree with his conclusion that Paul did not confront a lived out worksrighteousness, see Religious No More, 84–7; E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 180–1, 419–28. 7.  While performing an ethnographic study in a Tegucigalpa barrio I found that, in fact, some of the evangelical churches’ actions of line-drawing religiosity communicated louder than their teaching of salvation by grace. A number of non-Christians told me that in order to become an evangelical Christian they had to first stop sinning and put their life in order (Religious No More, 22). 8. In fact, at the end of the letter he makes the startling statement that ‘neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything’ (Gal. 6.15, see also Gal. 5.6).



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(Gal. 4.3), and in this case, through the Judaizers, that are distorting Christianity into an enslaving religion. Paul proclaims that through Christ there is freedom from the enslavement of line-drawing religiosity (Gal. 1.4; 4.4-7; 5.1). In terms of our metaphor, we could say he proclaims that the Galatian Christians can build a house on a totally new kind of foundation. What does this look like in practice? For help in understanding that, we now turn to Paul Hiebert.

Bounded, Fuzzy, and Centred Sets As a Mennonite missionary in India, Paul Hiebert reflected on the question: when do we consider a person a Christian? It is not a simple question in the Indian context. In writings exploring the question, he argued that how a group conceptualizes church or the category Christian influences how they will answer the question.9 Hiebert borrowed from mathematical set theory to describe different ways to categorize things and people. Bounded Sets One way of categorizing things is to list essential intrinsic characteristics an object must have to belong to the set. Hiebert explained that bounded sets have a clear boundary line that is static and allows for a uniform definition of those who are within the group. He used the example of apples. We can develop a list of characteristics that distinguish apples from other fruits. That serves as a boundary line (see Figure 4.1). A fruit is either an apple or it is not. It may be big, small, green, ripe, rotten, of one variety or another, but if it has the characteristics that define apples, it is inside the boundary line. In society there are many bounded groups: clubs, unions, organized sports teams, associations, etc. In general terms, a bounded group creates a list of essential characteristics that determine whether a person belongs to that group or not. Anyone who meets the requirements is considered in. For instance, I tell my students that they are part of a bounded group – Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary students. They applied, met requirements, were accepted, paid tuition, have an ID card, etc. Maintaining the boundary line is essential for a bounded group. Without a clear boundary, individuals lack security of identity, and the group may disintegrate. What are the characteristics of a church as a bounded set? Hiebert explains that a Christian bounded group will use a list of correct beliefs and certain externally verifiable behaviours to classify the person as Christian or not. In terms of Galatians, the Judaizers display a bounded group approach by asking questions like: ‘Have you been circumcised? Are you believing the right thing and eating 9. Paul G. Hiebert, ‘Conversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories’, Gospel in Context 1 (4) (October 1978): 24–9; Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 107–36. Used by permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2016.

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Figure 4.1

with the right people?’ What I described from my life in the introduction were bounded group approaches to Christianity. Although legalism is clearly an example of bounded group religiosity, it is not limited to legalism. In fact, I have been in churches that were self-righteous about not being legalistic; in essence we made that a boundary line. Bounded group religiosity can also use rituals, spiritual experiences, or beliefs as the basis for drawing lines that distinguish insiders from outsiders.10 A bounded church gives great attention to defining and maintaining the boundary line which clearly separates Christians from non-Christians, or trueChristians from mediocre Christians. The boundary lines not only injure the excluded, but those inside as well. The lines hinder transparency as members find it hard to express their struggles honestly for fear of losing their standing in the church. The boundaries may bind them together, but they can also leave them bound and gagged, unable to share things from the depths of their being. Some people begin to simply categorize others in terms of lines drawn. They are not free to love or be loved at a profound level. A bounded church has the unity of uniformity, but it is a superficial unity. The bounded approach creates churches characterized by gracelessness, conditional acceptance, shame, fear, 10. Tim Day describes six different kinds of religions that people use to try to connect with God (‘Irreligious’, unpublished manuscript). I believe they each also provide distinct ways for bounded group religiosity to draw boundary lines. His list is religion of legalism, ritualism, mysticism, intellectualism, nationalism and idealism.



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lack of transparency, self-righteousness and only superficial ethical change.11 The bounded approach can easily lead people to view God’s love and acceptance as similarly conditional. Before we move on to the next category I want to make a note of clarification about terminology. In critiquing a bounded approach to doing church, Hiebert is not critiquing any and all things that we might call boundaries. Pastors and counsellors use the term in positive and important ways. For instance we talk of having appropriate boundaries in a relationship. That is different than how Hiebert is using the word. Fuzzy Sets A fuzzy set is still a bounded set, but it is one with an unclear boundary line. There may be some sense of who belongs and who does not, but the grounds for distinction are unclear. Blurring the boundary lines may seem like a good strategy for dealing with the negatives associated with line-drawing judgementalism. Actually, however, it is not radical enough. By not rejecting and replacing the entire paradigm, the fuzzy approach alleviates some problems, but it also creates others. A fuzzy set approach produces churches that are less defined, less cohesive and more relativistic. Rather than passionate dialogue seeking to clarify truth, a fuzzy church puts the focus on tolerance. Out of over concern for tolerance, people qualify statements by saying things like: ‘this is just my opinion you may think differently’. I have observed whatever-ism in fuzzy churches when people refrain not only from confronting someone in regard to sinful action, but also rarely describe actions or beliefs as inappropriate. In a fuzzy church people hesitate to talk of the need for personal transformation, let alone conversion. Not only does it feel intolerant, but with only a fuzzy boundary line there is little basis to do so. The moral relativism and pluralism spawned by the fuzzy approach appropriately concerns many Christians today. If blurry lines cause the problem, then the solution would seem to be to get out permanent markers and make the boundary lines clearer and thicker. That too is not radical enough and alleviates some problems while creating others. What is needed, and what Paul articulates in Galatians, is not just a retooling of the bounded approach, but a totally different paradigm – a centred approach. Centred Sets Hiebert states that an alternative approach to defining a group focuses extrinsically on how people relate to a common centre. For instance, whereas an official fan club might have dues and requirements, and thus be a bounded group, anyone who cheers for a particular team would be part of the centred group of that team’s fans 11.  I describe concrete examples that display the characteristics listed in these sentences in the first chapter of Religious No More, 17–33.

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(see Figure 4.2). Some people may be far from the centre, casual fans, but they are headed toward the centre. Therefore, they are part of the centred group. On the other hand, some people may have been active and passionate fans, close to the centre, but after too many losing seasons they have switched their allegiance to another team. Thus they are moving away from the centre and are not part of the centred group. The group is made up of all people moving toward the centre. Those in the group will not necessarily be uniform in characteristics, but they will be heading in the same direction. A distinction can still be made between those who are in and out. This is done, however, by looking at the person’s direction, their relation to the centre, not by looking to see if they have met the standards of a particular boundary line.

Figure 4. 212

We can draw a line between those who belong to the group and those who do not, but the line does not form the group (see Figure 4.3). It emerges as those related to the centre separate from those not related to the centre. Hiebert explains, ‘In set-set thinking, greater emphasis is placed on the centre and relationships than on maintaining a boundary, because there is no need to maintain the boundary in order to maintain the set.’13 In the third diagram we could remove the line and nothing would change because the line does not define the group. 12. Figures 4.2 and 4.3 are drawn, in a slightly altered format, from Hiebert, Anthropological, 112, and are used by permission from Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group. 13. Hiebert, Anthropological, 124.



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Figure 4.3

In a centred church, the centre, God, is the focus – not the boundary. Therefore, the critical question is: to whom does the person offer his or her worship and allegiance? In terms of Galatians we might imagine Paul asking centred questions like: ‘Are you living according to the new creation reality created by God’s action through Jesus Christ? Are you trusting God for your security, or placing your security in certain rituals and beliefs? In which direction are you heading?’ A centred church makes a distinction between Christians and non-Christians. Yet Hiebert observes, the emphasis ‘would be on exhorting people to follow Christ, rather than on excluding others to preserve the purity of the set’.14 A centred church paradigm has two types of change. The first is conversion, entering the set by turning around and heading in a different direction – repentance. The second is movement toward the centre. Conversion is a definite event followed by an ongoing process of discipleship. Operating from the centred paradigm facilitates sincere and deep relationship because unity comes not from uniformity, but from common relationship with the centre. There is space to struggle and even fail. All recognize they are in process – moving closer to the centre. Since their security is in the centre, the centred approach naturally leads people to focus on the centre – Christ. A bounded approach does the opposite. A bounded church may talk of God being the centre of all, but the paradigm itself naturally pulls people’s focus to the boundary line that defines the group and provides their security. 14. Ibid., 125.

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Unlike the fuzzy approach, in responding to the negatives of a bounded church a centred church recognizes the need for a totally new paradigm. By shifting the emphasis to discerning belonging by trajectory and relationship with the centre, the centred church remedies the problems that motivate the fuzzy church to blur boundaries. The centred approach, however, also avoids the negatives that flow from the fuzzy approach. The centred paradigm provides the possibility of conversion, repentance, articulation of right and wrong, a sense of a standard – the centre, and the possibility of calling people to a different way of living. We see Paul operate from the centred approach in the incident at Antioch. He observed Peter acting in a way that was inconsistent with the truth of the gospel. Paul addressed the behaviour itself, but his words to Peter are rooted in a discussion of justification by Jesus Christ’s faithfulness – he does not correct a list of boundary line characteristics. In fact, in this same incident at Antioch, we can see that one of the distinctive aspects of the new creation community is not to use boundary lines of a religious character. When Peter separated himself from the Gentile Christians, he communicated through his actions that they had to meet certain requirements in order to form part of the family of God; he had begun to draw a boundary line. Hence he was not living as part of a centred church. Paul pointed him back toward the centre. Clarifications about the Centred Church Following Jesus, facing and heading toward the centre, has significant implications; one will look radically different than others in society. A centred church does not practise casual or watered-down ethics. The bounded church has the appearance of taking ethics very seriously, but it may be superficial. In bounded churches, many insiders struggle with sin and ignore aspects of the call to discipleship, but since they meet the standards of the boundary line they are considered good Christians. In contrast, the centred approach facilitates profound ethical transformation. A centred church can emphasize behaviour that is not easily measured, as Paul does in his ethical exhortation in Galatians. People in a centred church can risk greater challenges without the fear of what will happen if they do not fulfil them completely.15 In contrast to the spirit of rejection and exclusion that emanates from a bounded church, a centred church has an invitational character. Unlike a fuzzy group, however, a centred church does not practise naïve or universal inclusion. It has a centre, and relationship to the centre matters. Those who have turned toward the centre are included, others are invited, but until they repent and change direction, they are not seen as part of the family of faith. An example from sports helps to clarify this point. A soccer team that is part of a league would likely be a bounded group. It may have tryouts to select the best players. The players must come to practices and wear the team’s uniform in games. In contrast, a centred 15.  For examples of the superficial ethics of bounded churches and the profound transformation in centred churches, see Religious No More, 26–8, 155–9.



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approach might announce that, anyone who wants to play soccer is invited to come to the park Saturday afternoon at 2.00 p.m. If a lot of people come, they will start another game. All will be included. To come will demonstrate an interest in playing soccer (an arrow turned toward the centre). If, however, someone keeps picking up the ball and running with it, others will say, ‘You can’t do that. This is not rugby.’ If the person continues, eventually the others will tell that person they cannot participate until they are willing to play by the rules. That player was not centred on soccer. So too, a centred church invites all, but does not include all regardless of their relationship with Jesus Christ, the centre.

Learning from Paul One thesis of this chapter is that Paul Hiebert’s categories provide a helpful tool for interpreting Galatians. A second thesis is that Paul confronted a bounded approach in Galatia and responded with a centred approach that facilitates a robust ethics rather than opting for a fuzzy approach. Now, using Hiebert’s terminology, I restate the central thesis from the introduction: as a remedy to the negatives of bounded group religiosity we must follow Paul and not merely revise or erase the boundary lines, but respond with a totally new paradigm – a centred approach. In this final section, I will list some things we can learn from Galatians about practising a centred approach. Two preliminary comments: Since Paul confronted bounded group religiosity in Galatia, not a fuzzy approach to ethics, Galatians does not offer direct examples on how to respond to a fuzzy paradigm. I will, however, offer some comments on how what Paul does in Galatians is applicable in that direction as well. Second, while one could go into great depth on Paul’s centred approach in Galatians, I have opted to give more space to explaining the bounded, fuzzy, and centred paradigms so the reader can bring this tool to bear on their own reading of Galatians.16 I will simply offer a list of brief observations that invite further exploration and reflection. MM

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Paul does not see the rules themselves as the problem, nor revision or removal of them as the solution (Gal. 5.6, 13-15; 6.15). Paul goes deeper; he addresses bounded group religiosity as an expression of an enslaving power (Gal. 2.4; 4.1-11; 5.1). Paul communicates clearly what is the centre and puts a strong emphasis on the centre – Jesus Christ and his saving work through the cross that provides freedom from the present evil age (Gal. 1.4; 2.16, 19-20; 3.1, 13-14, 28; 5.1, 6; 6.14-15). Paul undermines the bounded group’s religiosity with their focus on human

16. For a fuller discussion, please see Marcos Baker, Gálatas (Comentario Bíblico Iberoamericano; Buenos Aires: Ediciones Kairós, 2014).

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action by repeatedly emphasizing the centrality and priority of God’s action (Gal. 1.3-5, 11-12, 15; 2.16, 20; 3.25-28; 4.9; 5.1; 6.15). In a centred approach, direction, where one is headed, is significant. Therefore, invitation and calling are important. A fuzzy approach can only offer an anaemic call, but many today long for something more robust. Paul paints a vision and calls the Galatians to a new creation community rooted in Christ the centre (Gal. 2.11-14; 3.26-29; 5.22-24; 6.1-10, 15). The presence of language of turning, conversion, and repentance in this letter is evidence of Paul’s centred approach (Gal. 1.6; 2.10, 19; 3.27; 4.9; 5.4; 6.14). Although a fuzzy approach considers it taboo to call for conversion, Galatians serves as a reminder of the importance of inviting people to turn and head in a new direction. It also reminds us of the importance of joining Paul and proclaiming the possibility, through Christ, of freedom from bounded religiosity and calling for conversion from it. In contrast to the whatever-ism of a fuzzy church, Galatians displays that true Christian love confronts when others walk in ways that are not in sync with the centre – Jesus. Unlike in a bounded church, the goal is not just maintaining the purity of the group within the lines. Thus it is a loving confrontation with the goal of restoration to a trajectory towards the centre (Gal. 2.11-16; 5.2-6, 13-15; 6.1). In contrast to a bounded church’s unity of uniformity, or a fuzzy church’s high inclusivity but weakened community identity, Paul proclaims the possibility of a diverse community unified through a common identity in Christ and his mission (Gal. 2.7-10, 12; 3.26-29). Paul confronts bounded religiosity directly and explicitly states its negative characteristics (Gal. 1.6-10; 2.3-4, 11-18; 4.1-11, 17-18; 5.2-6, 15, 26; 6.12-13). He also warns against the libertinism of the fuzzy approach. Actions matter, and will have consequences (Gal. 5.13, 19-21; 6.8). A centred approach does not reject all use of rules, principles, and imperatives, but they do have a different role and thus a different character than they do in a bounded church. Paul’s approach to giving ethical exhortation lessens the likelihood of readers/listeners experiencing it as bounded religiosity. For instance: Paul’s imperatives flow from the indicative. He speaks first of what God has done before talking of what we are to do; and he devotes more of the letter to the indicative, what God has done, than to the imperative, our response. This makes it difficult to construe human action as earning a response from God or inclusion in the community. Many of Paul’s imperatives do not lend themselves for use in line drawing because their compliance is not easily measured. This includes a strong emphasis on an ethics of character and virtue (Gal. 5.14, 16-24).17

17. N. T. Wright, ‘Faith, Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom’, in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (eds J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 472–97.

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Rather than imposing a static list of comprehensive rules, Paul places his confidence in the Holy Spirit guiding the Galatians (Gal. 5.25).

Conclusion In an arid region of Australia with huge ranches there are two main methods for keeping cattle on the ranch. One is to build a fence around the perimeter. The other is to dig a well in the centre of the property. Instead of investing so much energy building and maintaining the fences of a bounded church, let us dig wells. Let us also avoid the fuzzy church’s mistake of tearing down the fences without digging a well. May we invite people to drink at the well of Jesus.18

Bibliography Baker, Mark D., Religious No More: Building Communities of Grace & Freedom (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1999). Baker, Mark D., Gálatas (Comentario Bíblico Iberoamericano. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Kairós, 2014). Banks, Robert, Paul’s Idea of Community (Peabody: Hendrickson, rev. edn, 1994). Day, Tim, ‘Irreligious’. Unpublished manuscript. Esler, Philip F., The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation (London: Routledge, 1994). Hiebert, Paul G., ‘Conversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories’, Gospel in Context 1 (4) (October 1978): 24–9. Hiebert, Paul G., Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994). Ortberg, John, ‘Category Confusion: Is the question for Christians “Out or In?” or “Farther or Closer?”’, Christianity Today, 14 June 2010. Available online: http://www. ctlibrary.com/le/2010/june-online-only/categoryconfusion.html (accessed 21 July 2014). Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977). Wright, N. T., ‘Faith, Virtue, Justification, and the Journey to Freedom’, in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (eds J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 472–97. Yancey, Philip, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997).

18. I have borrowed and adapted this metaphor from John Ortberg, ‘Category Confusion: Is the question for Christians “Out or In?” or “Farther or Closer?”’, Christianity Today, 14 June 2010. Available online: http://www.ctlibrary.com/le/2010/june-online-only/ categoryconfusion.html (accessed 21 July 2014).

Part II V IRTUE E THICS , C HARACTER F ORMATION , AND E CCLESIAL E THICS

Chapter 5 H A B I T M AT T E R S : T H E B O D I LY C HA R AC T E R O F T H E V I RT U E S Stanley Hauerwas

Why Habits Matter According to Aristotle I am a theologian and ethicist. I have never liked the ‘and’ because I think theology done well is a discipline of practical reason. I also do not like to be known as an ethicist. To be so identified invites questions that can drive you mad. For example, some think that if you teach ‘ethics’ you must be able to answer questions such as ‘Why should I be moral?’ That kind of question seems equivalent to the response offered by many when they discover the person they have just met is a minister. Such a discovery often elicits the confession, ‘I have been meaning to go to church again, but I find that walking in the woods is how I really connect with God’. This confession is meant to be a challenge to those in the ministry to show why this sensitive soul should go to church. But people who present such challenges fail to understand that any minister who knows what they are about would find any attempt to answer them on their own terms uninteresting. How could you even begin to help someone understand that the god they find in the woods is probably not the God the church worships? In a similar way, I find the question ‘Why should I be moral?’ not only uninteresting but also misleading. Any attempt to answer the question cannot help but confirm the presumption that morality is a clearly identifiable set of principles about right or wrong acts. It took me some years but I finally learned to respond to those who wanted me to convince them of why they should be moral with the question ‘Do you like to eat?’ To ask that question challenges the presumption, a presumption legitimated by Kantian-inspired ethical theory, that a clear distinction can be drawn between ethics and, for example, manners at the dinner table. I also think ‘Do you like to eat?’ is a good response because it reminds my questioner that we are bodily creatures whose desires pull us into the significant engagements that constitute our lives. Of course ‘significance’ may be a description of those aspects of our lives rightly associated with being moral. In other words, the attempt to distinguish morality

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from other aspects of our lives may entail judgements about what we take to be significant. I have no objection to such a suggestion as long as those who make it remember that eating is one of the most significant things we do. I should like to think that the response, ‘Do you like to eat?’ owes something to my early attempt to develop an account of character that would help us better understand what it might mean to live well. Character and the Christian Life was published in 1975.1 I made many mistakes in the book, but I had at least begun to grasp that the dualism between body and agency, so characteristic of much of moral theory at the time, could not be sustained if you attended to character and the virtues. Influenced by Wittgenstein, Anscombe, and Ryle, I was trying to avoid accounts of agency that presumed that our ability to act requires an account of autonomy or the will that was not bodily determined. Yet as I acknowledged in the ‘Introduction’ to a later edition of Character and the Christian Life, the account of agency I developed in that book, an account I thought necessary to avoid behaviourism, came close to reproducing the dualism between body and agency I was trying to avoid.2 I had tried to develop an account of agency by presuming that conceptual primitive notion was ‘action’ rather than, as I later learned from MacIntyre’s account in After Virtue, that ‘intelligible action’ not action is the determinative notion if we are to properly understand agency.3 Though I think that was a step in the right direction I find it interesting that one of the mistakes I did not acknowledge in the 1985 edition of the book (and I think it is a mistake that was implicated in my understanding of agency), was my failure to develop the significance of habit for any account of the virtues. To be sure, I had a brief account of habit in which I tried to suggest that Aristotle and Aquinas had a richer account of habit than the modern relegation of habit to the unreflective aspects of our lives.4 I even footnoted George Klubertanz’s still very important book, Habits and Virtues, in which he had drawn on then recent work in psychology to develop an account of habit that distinguished complex 1. Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1975). 2.  Stanley Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985). 3.  Alasdair C. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). For my discussion of this issue see the ‘Introduction’ of Character and the Christian Life (1985), xix–xxi. 4. Hauerwas, Character and the Christian Life, 69. Of course that way of stating the problem, that is, how to distinguish the kind of habituation the virtues name from the unreflective aspects of our lives reproduces presumptions that need to be challenged for a proper understanding of habituation. It is no accident that baseball players must ‘unreflectively’ throw and catch the ball numerous times in order to respond ‘without thinking’ to a ball hit to them or to a throw from another fielder. Such habits are skills that make possible complex forms of action that require equally complex retrospective descriptions if we are to say what ‘happened’.



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from simple habits.5 But it is still the case that in my early work on character and the virtues I did not develop an account of habit that is surely necessary for an adequate account of the virtues. At least, such an account is required for anyone who would draw upon the work of Aristotle and Aquinas. For I should like to think that a question such as, ‘Do you like to eat?’ is one Aristotle might have appreciated given the way he explores happiness in Book One of the Nichomachean Ethics. There Aristotle observes, even though many, i.e. those whom he calls the uncultivated, may associate happiness with pleasure, wealth or honour, such goods cannot make us happy because they are so easily lost.6 To begin by asking someone if they like to eat is a way to remind us that our desire to eat pulls us into life in a manner that we cannot fail to discover there is more to life than eating.7 It is, therefore, never a question whether we will or will not develop habits and virtues, but what kind of habits and virtues we will develop. We are complex creatures constituted, according to Aristotle, by non-rational as well as rational capacities. The non-rational, however, in some way ‘shares in reason’ just to the extent that the non-rational is capable of being habituated (1102b15–1103a10). We eat by necessity, but how we eat is determined by habits that the necessity of our eating requires if we are to eat as human beings. For Aristotle, our nature requires that we acquire a second nature that is constituted by habits. Habits come, moreover, in all shapes and sizes requiring that we develop some habits that make possible our acquisition of other habits. Aristotle often directed attention to how one learned to ride a horse or wrestle to suggest how through repetition our bodies acquire the habits that make complex activities seem ‘effortless’,8 Indeed he not only thought learning to ride or to wrestle to be a good way to begin to acquire habits necessary for the moral life, he thought such activities were what taught the young to become virtuous.9 Aristotle also thought how one becomes proficient in a craft to be quite similar to how one acquires the habits necessary to become a person of virtue. Just as we learn a craft by repetitively producing the same product that was produced when 5.  George Klubertanz, Habits and Virtues: A Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts, 1965). 6. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (trans. Terence Irwin; Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), 1095a15–1095b10. Paginations to Aristotle will appear in the text. 7. I use the language of ‘pull’ to resist the presumption that ‘habits’ are ‘efficient causes’. For Aristotle and Aquinas we are purposive beings capable of acquiring a history through the acquisition of habits. 8. For an insightful account of habit as effortless see Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 73–82. 9. There is obviously a hierarchy that should determine the acquisition of habits in order that we become what we do. How such a hierarchy is to be understood, however, may well vary from one tradition to another. I suspect such a hierarchy in order to be spelled out will require a narrative display.

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we first were learning the craft, so we become virtuous by performing actions that are virtuous. But the analogy with the crafts can be misleading because the relation between the actions that produce the habits that make us virtuous are constitutive of the habit in the way the product produced by the craftsman is not (1105a25–35). According to Aristotle, like actions produce like virtues, but to determine ‘likeness’ is a complex process that presumes common judgements. That is why Aristotle argues that legislators must attend to the training of citizens in the virtues by instilling good habits. A good politic, according to Aristotle, must aim through the law to instil in citizens the habits necessary for the development of the virtues. For it is crucial that the young acquire early in their lives the right habits. That they do so is not just very important, but it is all-important. It is so because if we fail to acquire the right habits rightly we will have a character that is incapable of acting in a manner that makes us virtuous (1103b1–25). Jennifer Herdt observes that Aristotle’s insistence on the significance of early formation of a virtuous person is wrapped in what she characterizes as ‘the mystery of habituation’.10 The ‘mystery’, Herdt identifies, is how the habits a child acquires are at once necessary but not sufficient for their becoming virtuous. For children often learn what they should or should not do for reasons that are not the morally compelling reasons for why they should or should not do what they do. They are, for example, told not to be unkind to their brother or sister because ‘I said so’. Herdt observes, however, that the transition from obeying authority to the acquisition of the habits of virtue is aided by our instinctual desire to imitate our elders. She does not think that our instinct for imitation is sufficient to make us virtuous, but by imitating those who act virtuously we can at least begin to acquire the habits that will produce a firm and unchanging character. Such a character is required if we are to be the kind of person who can act in a manner that what we do is not different than what we are.11 The problem is, how do we make the transition from habits acquired by imitation to the habits necessary for us to be virtuous? – that is, habits that are formed by our having chosen what we have done in a manner that a just or temperate person would act. Herdt suggests that if one’s desires are to be transformed into those of a virtuous person, the person acting must not only act in manner that they not only enjoy what they do, but that the enjoyment that accompanies the act is elicited by the love of the one they imitate.12 I feel quite sure there is great wisdom in Herdt’s suggestion that the relations in which the habits are formed make a great deal of difference, but that still does not seem sufficient to 10. Jennifer Herdt, Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 25. 11. Herdt, Putting on Virtue, 26. Aristotle suggests a person who would act in a manner that so acting they become virtuous must act in a manner that they know what they do as well as acting from a ‘firm and unchanging state’ (1105a–10). 12. Herdt, Putting on Virtue, 28.



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understand how the acquisition of habits are sufficient for making the transition to being a person of virtue.13 In order to explore how we might think further about the ‘mystery of habituation’, I want to direct our attention to Aquinas’ development of Aristotle on habit. I do so because I think Aquinas provides a richer account of the kind of habits necessary for our becoming persons of virtue. Aquinas’ understanding of habituation does not ‘solve’ all the questions associated with a stress on the kind of habits necessary for the development of the virtues, but I hope to show that in drawing on Aristotle’s work he helps us better understand the process of habituation.

Aquinas on Habituation Aquinas develops his account of habit in the appropriately entitled ‘Treatise on Habits’ in the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologica.14 I call attention to the title because the ‘Treatise on Habits’ includes not only Aquinas’ account of the habits, but also his initial account of the virtues: his understanding of how the virtues are individuated as well as interconnected, the role of the gifts of the Spirit, and the nature of sin and the vices. The latter is particularly important to ensure that we not forget that the vices are also habits. That the ‘Treatise on Habits’ includes what in effect is the outline of Aquinas’ understanding of the Christian moral life indicates how important habituation was for Aquinas. Yet it is equally important to recognize that the ‘Treatise on the Last End’ had preceded the ‘Treatise on Habits’, The ‘Treatise on the Last End’ begins with the claim that man differs from the irrational animals because, as creatures who possess will and reason, we can be masters of our actions (I–II, 1). ‘Mastery’ is Aquinas’ description of what it means for us to be able to act in a manner that 13. In an essay responding to the 2nd edition of The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, entitled, ‘The Virtue of the Liturgy’, Herdt observes that a focus on the virtues does not play a prominent role in most of the essays in the Blackwell Companion. She argues that it is appropriate because we have come to recognize that the virtues are not individual achievements but can be sustained only in the context of a community. Accordingly, the task of Christian ethics is not to promote a virtue ethic, but to show how the virtues are in service to growth in human friendship with God. Therefore the virtues are not ends in themselves but constitutive of the life we are called to live with one another and God. The focus on the liturgy is one way to suggest how an ‘imaginative grasp of the whole form of life in which one’s own activity participates’ is required if we are to have the capacity to extrapolate from one situation to another what we must do if we are to act, for example, with courage. Jennifer Herdt, ‘The Virtue of the Liturgy’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2nd edn, 2011), 535–46 (536–37). 14. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (trans. the Fathers of the English Province; Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981). Paginations will appear in the text.

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what we do and who we are is inseparable. It is this ability that enables us to acquire the habits necessary for the virtuous life. Aquinas will distinguish between the intellectual and moral virtues, but it is crucial to note that both the intellectual and moral virtues must be habituated in a manner that they cannot be separated from one another (I–II, 58, 2). Aquinas develops his account of our ability to act in a manner such that habits are formed that make us virtuous by introducing a concept unknown to Aristotle, that is, the will. The will is a rational appetite that makes possible our ability to act in a manner that our actions, by being directed by reason, become our own (I–II, 8, 1). It is extremely important that he not be read, as he is often read, to suggest that the will and reason are independent capacities. The exact opposite is the case. For example, in his fine-grained account of what makes an act an act Aquinas observes, acts of the reason and of the will can be brought to bear on one another, in so far as the reason reasons about willing and, the will wills to reason so that the result is that the act of the reason precedes the act of the will, and conversely. And since the power of the preceding act continues in the act that follows, it happens sometimes that there is an act of the will insofar as it retains in itself something of the act of reason; and conversely, that there is an act of the reason insofar as it retains in itself something of the act of the will. (I–II, l)

For Aquinas, the will and reason are interdependent because every act of the will is preceded by an act of the intellect, but it is also the case that an act of the intellect is preceded by an act of the will (I–II, 4, 4, ad2). Accordingly, Aquinas does not invite the presumption that habit is the result of the will being tamed by reason. Rather, as Herdt suggests, for Aquinas, reason and will are ‘formed in tandem through habituation; the will must learn to conform reliably to reason’s grasp of the good’.15 But reason’s grasp of the good depends on the will being disposed to the good through habit.16 15. Herdt, Putting on Virtue, 83. Herdt supports her interpretation by calling attention to I–II, 56, 3. 16. In his book, The Soul of the Person: A Contemporary Philosophical Psychology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 2006), Adrian J. Reimers draws on C. S. Pierce to develop an account of habit, and in particular, the habituation of will and reason through act, quite similar to my account of Aquinas on will and reason. Reimers emphasizes the bodily character of all action but observes ‘because the act falls under a general description, it admits of development into or subsumption under a habit. We may say that every act, every purposeful motion is at least a nascent habit. It is precisely because of this that the development of habits is even possible’ (The Soul of the Person, 166). Accordingly, reasoning itself is a set of habits ‘by which human beings represent things to themselves as possibly true or false’ (The Soul of the Person, 111). Though the will is infinite in scope, it must be habituated if we are to be capable of self-determination (The Soul of the Person, 161). Reimers’ book is a gold mine for anyone who would reflect on these matters.



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Aquinas uses the language of the soul, but it should be clear, given his account of the will and reason, that the soul and the body are inseparable. The soul names, for Aquinas, that we are bodies destined by our desires to be befriended by God. Accordingly, he understands reason to be rational desire and will to be desiring reason. We are creatures shaped by our desires, desires as basic as our desire to eat, to have a last end. By being so determined, we necessarily acquire habits through our actions shaped by our desires. Aquinas does not think, therefore, we are souls who happen to have a body, nor are we bodies who have a soul. Rather, Aquinas thinks we are ensouled bodies.17 That is why he says that a living body is of a different species than a dead body (I–II, 18, 5 ad l).18 Aquinas understands the soul as the animating principle of the body but, following Aristotle, the soul is also the form of the body. Dana Dillon nicely characterizes Aquinas’ view this way: ‘the soul is the principle of life in the body, and the organizing principle or form of the whole person’ (I 76, 5).19 The significance of our bodies for how we understand the habituation of our desires is particularly evident in Aquinas’ account of the role of the passions. Aristotle had suggested that virtue is about pleasure and pain (1104b15–1105a15), but Aquinas provides an extended account of the passions that enriches what and how pleasure and pain are understood.20 In the process we are better able to 17. Fergus Kerr suggests that Aquinas’ understanding of the body as the form of the soul is quite close to Wittgenstein’s remark in the Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 152, that ‘the human body is the best picture of the human soul’. See Kerr’s, ‘Work on Oneself ’: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Psychology (Arlington: The Institute for the Psychological Sciences Press, 2008), 94. 18. Alasdair MacIntyre, without referencing Aquinas, argues, ‘a corpse is not a human body, just because it no longer has the unity of a human body. The unity of a human body is evidenced on the one hand in the coordination of its voluntary and directed movements, in a way in which different series of movements by eye and hand are directed to one and the same end and in the ways in which movement towards a range of different ends is directed, and on the other in the coordination of its nonvoluntary and nonintentional movements. No such teleology, no such directedness, and certainly no voluntariness characterizes the movements of a corpse.’ See MacIntyre, ‘What is a Human Body?’, in The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays (2 vols; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), vol. 1, 86–103 (88). 19. Dana Dillon, ‘As Soul to Body: The Interior Act of the Will in Thomas Aquinas and the Importance of First-Person Perspective in Accounts of Moral Action’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 2008), 20. 20.  For the best contemporary treatment of Aquinas’ account of the passions see Robert Miner, Thomas Aquinas On the Passions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Miner notes that even though Aquinas dedicates Questions 22–48 of the Prima Secundae of the Summa to the passions, his ‘Treatise on the Passions’ remains the most neglected of his corpus. This neglect, Miner suggests, may well be due to the Kantian reading habits so dominant in our time. See for example John Milbank, ‘Hume versus Kant: Faith, Reason, and Feeling’, Modern Theology 27 (2) (April 2011): 276–97. Milbank observes that ‘Hume

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appreciate how the passions at once make the habituation of our bodies not only possible but also necessary. For, in the words of Kent Dunnington, habits turn out to be ‘strategies of desire’.21 Aquinas provides a more nuanced account of the passions than Aristotle. The passions for Aquinas are movements of the sensitive appetite and are, therefore, to be distinguished from the desires that constitute our animal and rational appetites. Sensitive appetites are quite simply inclinations toward some good that is perceived as pleasant. Aquinas further distinguishes the concupiscible passions from the irascible passions. The passions that ‘regard good or evil absolutely, belong to the concupiscible power; for instance, joy, sorrow, love, hatred and such like: whereas those passions which regard good or bad as arduous, through being difficult to obtain or avoid, belong to the irascible faculty; such are daring, fear, hope and the like’ (I–II, 23, 1). The concupiscible and irascible passions are, so to speak, the engine that pulls the body into engagements by which the acquisition of habits are not only necessary but possible, befitting a being who is destined to have a history.22 Given his account of the passions, we can say to be human for Aquinas is to be a body destined by love. We are created to be creatures of desire for goods known through reason and will, making us agents through the acquisition of habits. Aquinas observes that the very word passion ‘implies that the patient is drawn broke with rationalism by empirically observing that reflection cannot seriously separate itself from habit and that even the most basic assumed stabilities (substance, the self, causation) depend upon habit and not upon sheer intuited “givenness”. But he also began to break with empiricism by allowing (albeit in a highly reserved fashion) that, in being slaves to habit, human beings must acknowledge the workings of a natural power that exceeds our capacity to observe it’ (‘Hume versus Kant’, 281). This issue of Modern Theology consists of papers written for a conference put together by Sarah Coakley dedicated to exploring the role of the passions for our understanding of faith and reason. Other papers from the same conference appear in Faith and Philosophy 28 (1) (January 2011). Together these papers are extremely important for the development of issues raised in this chapter. 21. Kent Dunnington, Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011). Dunnington credits this way of putting the matter to Paul Wadell. 22. MacIntyre put it this way: ‘Agency is exercised through time. To be an agent is not to engage in a series of discrete, unconnected actions. It is to pursue ends, some closer at hand in time, some more remote, some to be achieved for their own sake, some for the sake of furthering some end, and some for both. And to pass from youth through middle age toward death characteristically involves changes in and revisions of one’s ends. Furthermore the ends that one pursues through sometimes extended periods of time are often not only one’s own, but are ends shared with others, ends to be achieved only through the continuing cooperation of others, or ends that are constituted by the ongoing participation of others. And so the exercise of the powers of the body through time in the exercise of agency requires a variety of types of engagements with others.’ See MacIntyre, ‘What is a Human Body?’, 100.



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to that which belongs to the agent’ (I–II, 2). We are moved movers because we are creatures created to be capable of love made evident by our capacity for joy, sorrow and hatred. As beings constituted by such desires, such hopes, means, for example, that courage requires that we will need to be daring given the fears that our loves create (I–II, 23, 1). The passions so understood are the condition of the possibility for the habitual perfection of a power.23 Thus, Aquinas’ contention that the moral virtues such as temperance and courage, that is, the virtues that form the concupiscent and irascible passions, do so by drawing on movements that constitute those passions (I–II, 59, 5).24 A claim that may seem too obvious to mention, unless one remembers such an understanding of actions that instil the habits necessary for our acquiring the virtues, stands in marked contrast with the Stoic contention that the passions are to be, if possible, suppressed.25 In contrast to the Stoics, Aquinas argues that the presence of the passions is a sign of the ‘intensity of the will’ indicating a greater moral goodness than would be the case if the passions were absent (I–II, 24, 3). Aquinas, drawing on Aristotle, describes habit as ‘a disposition whereby that which is disposed is disposed well or ill, and this, either in regard to itself or in regard to another: thus health is a habit’ (I–II, 49, 1). In particular, habits are those qualities that are not easily changed for the very word habit suggests a lastingness that the word disposition does not.26 The enduring quality of habits are the result

23. Miner, Thomas Aquinas On the Passions, 289. 24. Aquinas observes that the body is ruled by the soul just as the irascible and concupiscible powers are ruled by reason, but he notes that the irascible and concupiscible powers do not obey reason blindly because ‘they have their own proper movements’ (I–II, 56, 4, ad3). 25. Martha Nussbaum has argued that the Stoics did not think that all passions are to be eliminated, but only those that are ‘subrational stirrings coming from our animal nature’, which can be ‘cured’ by a philosophical therapy. See her The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 366–72. 26. It would be a fascinating study to compare how William James understands the nature and significance of habit to Aquinas. Some might think James’ account of habit too ‘biological’ compared to Aquinas, but I hope I have at least suggested that habits for Aquinas are rooted at least initially in our most basic desires. I do not think Aquinas would dispute James’ understanding of habit ‘from the physiological point of view’ as ‘but a new pathway of discharge formed in the brain, but which certain incoming currents ever after tend to escape’. See William James’ essay, ‘Habit’, in The Heart of William James (ed. Robert Richardson; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 101–15 (102). Aquinas would have also been in agreement with James’ observation that we are born with a tendency to do more things than the ready-made arrangements of our nerve-centres can handle – thus the need for habits. Aquinas might, however, challenge James’ suggestion that habit diminishes the conscious attention by which our actions are performed. It all depends on what you might mean by ‘conscious’.

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of their relation to acts that are done in a manner that makes the agent good as well as the act good. Aquinas follows Aristotle suggesting that by like acts, like habits are formed (I–II, 50, 1). However, Aquinas provides an account of actions that enriches Aristotle’s understanding of choice and the voluntary. In particular, Aquinas introduces the notion of intention, which is crucial for him to make clear how the means used to achieve an end are constitutive of the end that is pursued; thus the ‘intention of the end is the same movement as the willing of the means’ (I–II, 12, 4). The reason this is so important is it helps us see how, at least if we are to act in a manner that our actions form habits that are virtuous, the very description of the act and the character of the agent are mutually implicated. Thus Aquinas’ argument is that ‘consent’ is crucial for an act to be an act, that is, the necessity of a person ‘to approve and embrace the judgement of their counsel’ (I–II, 15, 3). Our habituation is necessary because our appetitive powers, our desires, are underdetermined. Aquinas observes that the will, by its very nature, is inclined to the good of reason, but because this good is varied in a manner that the will needs to be inclined by habit to some good fixed by reason so that the action may follow more readily (I–II, 50, 5, ad.3). We are beings who need habituation because as we have seen we are composed of potentiality and act, making it necessary to be one thing rather than another. We need habits. God does not.27 Habits are the result of repeated actions because the appetitive faculty can oppose the formation of settled dispositions. But a habit can be directed to a good act in two ways. First a person can acquire, for example, the habit of grammar to speak correctly, but grammar does not ensure the person will always speak correctly, which means they may sometimes be guilty of a barbarism. But a habit in the second sense may confer not only aptness to act, but also the right use of that aptness. Thus the virtue of justice not only gives a person a ready will to do just actions, but also makes them just by their ability to act justly.28 27. Felix Ravaisson in his extraordinary book, Of Habit (trans. Clare Carlisle and Mark Sinclair; London: Continuum, 2008), provides an account of the metaphysics of habit. Ravaisson’s book was written in 1838 in French, but was only recently translated. That may account for why this important book has been so overlooked. Ravaisson, for example, observes ‘that habit is not an external necessity of constraint, but a necessity of attraction and desire. It is, indeed, a law of the limbs, which follows on from the freedom of the spirit. But this law is a law of grace. It is the final cause that increasingly predominates over efficient causality and which absorbs the latter into itself. And at that point, indeed, the end and the principle, the fact and the law, are fused together within necessity’ (Of Habit, 57). Though the language is foreign to Aquinas I suspect the fundamental intuition to be quite similar to Aquinas’ understanding of grace. Later Ravaisson will suggest, ‘Nature lies wholly in desire, and desire, in turn lies in the good that attracts it. In this way the profound words of a profound theologian might be confirmed: “Nature is prevenient grace.” It is God within us. God hidden solely by being so far within us in this intimate source of ourselves, to whose depths we do not descend’ (Of Habit, 71). 28. Justice, according to Aquinas, is an operative virtue. He uses that language because



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Therefore, to have the habits of the second kind means a person not only does the good, but is good. Moreover ‘since virtue is that which makes its possessor good, and his work good likewise, the latter habits are called virtuous simply; because they make the work to be actually good, and the subject good simply’ (I–II, 56, 3). Such is the character of what Aquinas identifies as the acquired moral virtues, that is, the cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and prudence. These virtues dispose us to act for our end insofar as that end can be known by reason, but we have an ultimate end, friendship with God, that exceeds our nature (I–II, 51, 4). To be put on the road to that end, we need the infused theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Just as the moral virtues cannot be without prudence and prudence cannot be without the moral virtues, it is also true that the acquired moral virtues cannot be fully virtues without charity. Thus Aquinas’ claim that only the infused virtues are perfect since they direct us to our ultimate end, but the acquired virtues are virtues in a restricted sense because they direct us to some particular end (I–II, 65, 2). Aquinas, therefore, claims that with charity all the virtues are given to us including what he calls the ‘infused moral virtues’ (I–II, 65, 3). That Aquinas makes this turn may seem to make unclear why he had spent so much time developing his account of habit. Given his account of the infused moral virtues, one can only wonder what to make of the acquired moral virtues.29 Does the introduction of the infused moral virtues make Aquinas’ account of habituation irrelevant? These are complex matters of interpretation of Aquinas’ understanding of the Christian life, but I think Sheryl Overmyer is right to suggest that Aquinas, by introducing the infused moral virtues, does not leave behind the importance of habit and the acquired virtues. Rather the infused moral virtues lack what only the acquired virtues can supply, that is, the pleasure that comes from acting well.30 The infused moral virtues, that is, the virtues formed by charity, provide the habits that make us capable of living lives of joy. John Milbank, in a manner not unlike Overmyer, suggests what Aquinas sees is that our acquired ‘natural’ habits are approximations of supernatural infused habits. All habits in order to be habits require ongoing development, but in order justice is not clearly correlative to a passion, but rather suggests the habitual formation of the will. Justice, like friendship, is the qualification of a relation. Such a ‘qualification’ is surely habitual but what the habit qualifies is not clearly named by Aquinas. The ‘qualification’ entails the formation of practical reason, but surely more needs to be said. 29. For a good account of these issues see Bonnie Kent, Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 24–38. 30.  Sheryl Overmyer, ‘The Wayfarer’s Way and Two Guides for the Journey: The Summa Theologiae and Piers Plowman’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 2010), 91. Aquinas says ‘acts produced by an infused habit do not cause a habit, but strengthen the habit already existing, just as medicinal treatment given to a man who is naturally healthy does not cause a healthy condition, but invigorates the health he already has’ (I–II, 51, 4).

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to become a habit the acquired habits must, so to speak, be made more than they can be on their own by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, ‘habit as fundamental is only explicable as grace, and that for this reason the grace of eternal life which we receive again through Christ – a supernatural infused habit as Aquinas puts it – is, although superadded, paradoxically the most fundamental ontological reality in the universe: the undying force of life itself ’.31 To rightly interpret Aquinas on these matters requires that we not forget that he assumes we are always on the way to being virtuous. Thus, his favourite metaphor for the moral life is that we are wayfarers who are on a journey of the soul to God. Accordingly, the distinction that most determinatively informs his account of the virtues is that between the imperfect and perfect virtues.32 That we are ‘on the way’ to being virtuous means, therefore, that though we may have acquired the habits to be, for example, temperate, unless those habits are shaped by a more determinative way of life they may be a semblance of virtue rather than the virtue itself. Aquinas observes, for example, that a miser may appear to be prudent and even have the virtue of temperance. For the miser may think the satisfaction of lust costs too much. But to have the habits of prudence and temperance determined by the fear of losing control of our wealth cannot be what it means to be virtuous (II– II, 23, 7). Accordingly, we must acquire the habits necessary for us to be virtuous in a manner that the virtues ‘qualify one another by a kind of overflow’, For just as prudence overflows into all the other virtues, each of the virtues overflows to the others in a manner that one who can curb their desires for pleasure of touch, which is a very hard thing to do, will also be more able to check his daring in dangers of death so they will not go too far. In this way ‘temperance is said to be brave, by reason of fortitude overflowing into temperance; in so far, to wit, as he whose mind is strengthened by fortitude against dangers of death, which is a matter of very great difficulty, is more able to remain firm against the onslaught of pleasures’ (I–II, 61, 5). I am painfully aware that I have not done justice to the complexities of Aquinas’ understanding of how habit is fundamental for any account of how we are drawn by God into a life of beatitude. But hopefully I have at least provided a sufficient account that helps us see that Aquinas would have no reasons to resist what we might learn from the neurosciences about the bodily character of our becoming more than we are through the habituation of our desires. Indeed it seems that recent developments in neurobiology that draw on dual process models of thought and activity may well provide an account quite compatible with Aquinas’ understanding of how our complex habits become ‘second nature’.33 31. Milbank, ‘Hume versus Kant’, 288. 32. I am in debt to Overmyer for this important interpretative point about Aquinas’ understanding of the virtues. 33. I am thinking of Michael Spezio’s article, ‘The Neuroscience of Emotion and Reasoning in Social Contexts: Implications for Moral Theology’, Modern Theology 27 (2) (April 2011): 339–56. That said, I am sympathetic to Stephen Mulhall’s argument



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Putting on Virtue Kwame Anthony Appiah, however, in Experiment in Ethics calls attention to work in psychology that seems to challenge the approach to the moral life that Aristotle and Aquinas represent.34 He notes that psychologists have called into question what many take to be the core claim of those that make character central to our understanding of morality, that is, that we are consistent in what we do and do not do. Psychologists have found that what most of us do is not best accounted for by traits of character, but by systematic human tendencies to respond to situations that no one previously thought to be crucial. In other words someone who may be honest in one situation will often be reliably dishonest in other situations.35 He calls attention to experiments by psychologists such as Alice Isen and Paula Levin, who found that if you dropped your papers in a phone booth you were far more likely to have them returned if those who found the papers had just had the good fortune of finding a dime in the coin-return slot. John Darley and Daniel Batson followed up Isen’s and Levins’s study by showing someone slumped in a doorway under distress was less likely to be helped by seminarians if they were told they were late for an appointment. In a similar kind of experiment Robert Baron and Jill Thomley have shown you are more likely to get change for a dollar outside a fragrant bakery than a dry-goods store.36 Such studies, Appiah suggests, challenge the perspective of the virtues, that is, the view that through the acquisition of virtuous habits we can be counted on to act consistent with those habits. In short, human beings are just not ‘built that way’. Appiah quotes Owen Flanagan’s, whom he describes as having long worked at the intersection of psychology and moral theory, maxim: ‘Make sure when constructing a moral theory or projecting a moral ideal that the character, decision processing, and behaviour described are possible, or are perceived to be possible, for creatures like us’,37 Appiah comments by noting that the deep epistemological challenge for a virtue ethic is that no actual virtuous people exist. Appiah, however, does not think this is a decisive challenge to an understanding in ‘Wittgenstein on Faith, Rationality and the Passions’ from the same issue of Modern Theology (pp. 313–24) that suggests that if Wittgenstein is rightly understood, then brain sciences may have little to add to the philosophy of mind. For a fascinating account of the work of Gary Lynch, a neuroscientist whose research attempts to determine how communication between brain cells work to make memory possible, see Terry McDermott, 101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist Quest for Memory (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010). Lynch’s work could be the kind of biology we need to sustain the account of habit I have tried to develop in this paper, but it is equally clear that this kind of research is anything but conclusive. 34. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Experiment in Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 33–72. 35. Appiah, Experiment in Ethics, 39. 36. Ibid., 41. 37. Ibid., 46.

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of the moral life understood as a life of virtue. According to Appiah, a life of virtue is good because of what a virtuous person is, not because of what they do. So a distinction is possible between having a virtue and being disposed to do the virtuous act over a wide range of circumstances.38 He thinks, therefore, it is a mistake to think that virtue ethics is a rival to a deontological or consequential approach to ethics. For a virtue approach is one in response to the question of how we should live our lives rather than a cluster of duties or calculations about what to do in X or Y circumstance.39 Needless to say, I am deeply sympathetic with Appiah’s attempt to defend a virtue perspective, but I find it odd that he seems to have forgotten that the virtues are habits. Of course the habitual character of our lives does not ‘solve’ the problem of our moral inconsistencies. Indeed I should think calling attention to the role of habit should help us better understand why we are so often inconsistent. We are inconsistent because we have not sufficiently acquired the habits that make certain decisions into non-decisions. The inconsistencies identified by psychologists would not have made Aristotle or Aquinas rethink their positions. Indeed they would have expected the kind of behaviours identified by the psychologist because they were acutely aware that often we possess the semblance of a virtue rather than the true virtue. That is why Aquinas thought it so important that the virtues are interconnected. It is not enough that we are courageous, but we must be courageous in a manner that the temperate person is courageous. If courage determines all our actions, we may well live disordered lives. Accordingly, the moral life is never finished requiring, as it does, retrospective judgements about what we may have thought we rightly did but later discover we were self-deceived. A sobering conclusion, but one I think also quite hopeful. For it may be that as 38. Ibid., 61. 39. Appiah, Experiment in Ethics, 63. I am extremely sympathetic with Appiah’s general approach to ethics and, in particular, the stress on exemplification in his most recent book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). He observes that he has spent a good deal of his life trying to get his fellow philosophers to recognize the importance of aspects of our lives about which they may take too little notice, such as race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and nationality and religion. In particular he thinks honour a crucial topic philosophers have neglected, but honour is crucial for our social identities because it connects our lives. Attending to honour helps us to treat others as we should as well as making the best of our own lives. His book is a series of studies dealing with such matters as the end of duelling, how the binding of women’s feet was ended, the suppressing of Atlantic slavery, the recognition of the full humanity of women, each of which turned on the extrapolation of some to discover what honour requires. He argues that we need to reckon with honour because our desire for respect ‘draws on fundamental tendencies in human psychology. And it is surely better to understand our nature and manage it than to announce that we would rather we were different … or worse, pretend we don’t have a nature at all. We may think we have finished with honor, but honor isn’t finished with us’ (Appiah, The Honor Code, xix).



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creatures who must acquire habits to be able to act, we are not thereby condemned to be determined by our past. We dare not forget that hope is also a habit. Hope at once is that which requires the development of habits that makes hope pull us into life. We are hardwired by our bodies to be people of hope. After all, we do like to eat.

Bibliography Appiah, Kwame Anthony, Experiment in Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008). Appiah, Kwame Anthony, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica (trans. the Fathers of the English Province; Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981). Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (trans. Terence Irwin; Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999). Dillon, Dana, ‘As Soul to Body: The Interior Act of the Will in Thomas Aquinas and the Importance of First-Person Perspective in Accounts of Moral Action’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 2008). Dunnington, Kent, Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011). Hauerwas, Stanley, Character and the Christian Life (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1975). Hauerwas, Stanley, Character and the Christian Life (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985). Herdt, Jennifer, Putting on Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). Herdt, Jennifer, ‘The Virtue of the Liturgy’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2nd edn, 2011), 535–46. James, William, ‘Habit’, in The Heart of William James (ed. Robert Richardson; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 101–15. Kent, Bonnie, Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995). Kerr, Fergus, ‘Work on Oneself ’: Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Psychology (Arlington: The Institute for the Psychological Sciences Press, 2008). Klubertanz, George, Habits and Virtues: A Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton, Century, Crofts, 1965). MacIntyre, Alasdair C., After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984). MacIntyre, Alasdair C., ‘What is a Human Body?’, in The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays (2 vols; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), vol. 1, 86–103. McDermott, Terry, 101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist Quest for Memory (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010). Milbank, John, ‘Hume versus Kant: Faith, Reason, and Feeling’, Modern Theology 27 (2) (April 2011): 276–97.

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Miner, Robert, Thomas Aquinas On the Passions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Mulhall, Stephen, ‘Wittgenstein on Faith, Rationality and the Passions’, Modern Theology 27 (2) (April 2011), 313–24. Nussbaum, Martha, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Overmyer, Sheryl, ‘The Wayfarer’s Way and Two Guides for the Journey: The Summa Theologiae and Piers Plowman’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 2010). Ravaisson, Felix, Of Habit (trans. Clare Carlisle and Mark Sinclair; London: Continuum, 2008). Reimers, Adrian J., The Soul of the Person: A Contemporary Philosophical Psychology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press of America, 2006). Spezio, Michael, ‘The Neuroscience of Emotion and Reasoning in Social Contexts: Implications for Moral Theology’, Modern Theology 27 (2) (April 2011), 339–56. Wells, Samuel, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953).

Chapter 6 P AU L , E T H IC S A N D T H E C H U R C H N. T. Wright

These reflections grow straight out of the book, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, and, what I have done here is, partly to summarize bits of Chapter 11 of that book, which is on Paul’s eschatology, and his ethics in relation to eschatology, and then to move on to explore in more detail some of the things that I have already set out in my book Virtue Reborn or, in America, After you Believe.1 Americans among you may be interested to know that though the title of the book is really Virtue Reborn, my American publisher said ‘that will not do because Americans do not buy books with the word, “virtue” in the title’. And so they called it After you Believe, which again, is incomprehensible in the UK. But that is a whole other discussion. Anyway, just to note that the way I come at Paul’s ethics is to see first that his entire theology can be organized in terms of his reworking through the Messiah and the Spirit, of the three major themes of Jewish theology now and then, namely, monotheism, election, and eschatology. Paul, as I have argued in Paul and the Faithfulness of God, developed this new thing that we now with hindsight call ‘Christian theology’ as a significantly different thing from anything pre-Christian Jews, or, indeed, pre-Christian non-Jews did. And, he did this for a particular reason. The messianic communities he founded in the Gospel did not have the normal cultural and ethnic boundary markers that Jewish diaspora communities had. So, how could they then, hold together as united and holy communities, which Paul insisted that they should? My proposal is that Paul’s solution to this was to teach them how to think clearly and wisely, and above all, scripturally and prayerfully, about God, about God’s people, about God’s future, all reshaped around Messiah and Spirit. Within this larger framework, Paul’s eschatology consists basically of the ancient Jewish eschatology thus reworked. This begins with the Messiah’s resurrection. What Israel had hoped God would do for the nation as a whole, God 1.  N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (COQG; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013); N. T. Wright, Virtue Reborn (London: SPCK, 2010); N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010).

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had now done for this one man in advance of all the others. And this gives Paul’s eschatology its distinct ‘now’ and ‘not yet’ shape. That is well known. What is not so well known is Paul’s reworking of another central Jewish hope: the return of YHWH to Zion. This is actually the central theme of Isaiah 40–55, which, obviously, Paul draws on extensively, as well as a vital theme in Zechariah, and Malachi, and elsewhere. The Shekinah had abandoned the Temple at the time of the exile. Nobody – except for perhaps Ben Sirach, whom the early Christians would have seen as a discredited aristocrat – nobody else suggested that the divine glory had in any sense returned. But Paul believed that it had, in the person of Jesus and in the presence of the Spirit. This is the root of Paul’s incipiently Trinitarian Christology and pneumatology. And, of course, it provides what looks like a seriously inaugurated eschatology. If YHWH has come back, then the game is over. Israel is redeemed, renewed humans can take their place, as indicated in Genesis 1 and Psalm 8, and everything in the Garden is now lovely. Except that, of course, it is not. Paul has every bit as solid a ‘not yet’ as a ‘now’. Nearly half his letters are written from prison, and one of the ones that is not speaks at length about all kinds of sufferings and humiliations. He is in constant pain and grief because, though the Messiah has come, his kinsmen according to the flesh have not, by and large, acknowledged him. Creation itself is groaning in travail. Now, Paul addresses all these problems in the same way that he had rethought all the rest of his theology; through the Messiah and the Spirit. That is what he does, not least, with ethics. Over against the older, post-Reformation, dogmatic scheme in which ethics was pushed to the back, lest its incipient self-help, moral effort leak out and contaminate a pure doctrine of justification, I want to locate Paul’s ethics as a central part of his inaugurated eschatology. The challenge is to live within the continuing old world as already citizens of the new, to live in the continuing night of the old world, in the light of the day that has already dawned of the Messiah’s resurrection. This – as I’m going to explain in the second half of this chapter – gives to his ethical thought, the strong flavour of teleology. That is, a goal, already given in the Messiah, is glimpsed in faith, and the character strengths necessary for its attainment are to be practised and developed in the Spirit. I want briefly here to spell out the broader shape of this eschatological ethic, and I want to hint at how Scripture’s authority is a key and non-negotiable part of it. There is not time to tell you more about what I think about the way Scripture is authoritative except to note that there is a new edition of my book on that subject, Scripture and the Authority of God, which will tell you all you might want to know about what I think is going on there.2 Now, Paul insists that the arrival of the eschaton in the present must condition, not least, the Christian’s thinking. He says: ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Rom. 12.2). There is a new pattern of thought – not merely content but also thought a new way of knowing, 2. N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (New York: HarperOne, 2011).



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not according to the flesh, but according to the New Creation as in 2 Corinthians 5. In Stoic thought, logic corresponded to physics, that is, the way you know things corresponds to the way things are. Together they generate ethics. You might say that, for Paul, the physics is the fact of the New Creation launched in the Messiah and the Spirit. Logic is the new way of knowing for which the central term is agapē itself; love – a mode of knowing through which alone the reality of the new world can be grasped. This naturally gives birth to an ethic in which one behaves according to the character of the new world rather than the old, glimpsing in love the way in which the new world is not an entirely different world, creating a private new morality, but is rather the transformation of the old which generates a public theology and an ethic, albeit one which is going to run into trouble as soon as those people who are still resolutely living by the rules of the times discover that somebody is up and about and claiming that the Son has already risen. Paul speaks of this new way of thinking and living in terms of calculating, working out what is, in fact, the case, and then living accordingly. ‘Reckon yourself ’ he says ‘to be dead to sin and alive to God. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies’ (Rom. 6.11-12). Now this has, of course, a negative corollary. If those in the Messiah are the new humans – the genuine new humanity – then styles and patterns of life that belong to the old corrupting and corrupted world must simply be killed off. You cannot, as it were, create a sanctuary for the vermin that are destroying the dung; they must be exterminated. That is the force of Colossians 3, Ephesians 4 and 5, and similar passages. I want to note in particular Paul’s emphasis on ‘no longer living like pagans’ (Eph. 4.17; 1 Thess. 4.5). There is a very interesting image in 1 Corinthians 12. Remember that: ‘When you were ethnic, pagans, Gentiles’, implied ‘You are not part of that world anymore’. It has been all too easy in the brave new world of the so-called ‘New Perspective on Paul’, in one or other of its different manifestations, to imagine Paul simply as a relativist, setting aside not only circumcision and food laws as being too restrictively intolerantly Jewish, but everything else as well. That would be a serious mistake. For Paul, what has happened in the Messiah is New Creation. New Creation means that the projects of Genesis 1 and 2 get back on track. Hence, Paul’s teaching on marriage and sexual behaviour. Here as elsewhere we see how the authority of Scripture worked for Paul’s ethics. He could, of course, appeal to particular, individual passages, but when he is given the chance he develops the structural narrative and shows where the Messiah’s people are in relation to it. Romans 6–8 as a whole – as I have argued in various places – is a sustained Exodus narrative, starting with coming through the water and so leaving slavery behind, being freed; continuing in Romans 7 by arriving at Mt. Sinai, placing the puzzled Torah and its proper and necessary warning of death and sin, and then being led through the wilderness by the pillar of cloud and fire (in this case by the Spirit) to the inheritance, an entire New Creation for which the Promised Land was a deliberate advanced foretaste. Abraham, according to Romans 4, had been promised that he would inherit the world. The Exodus is the means by which this has been accomplished. Paul does substantially the same thing in 1 Corinthians 10, seeing the Corinthian Christians, not merely in a typological relationship

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to the wilderness generation – and that is how it was for them, and we are in a parallel situation – but as a continuous relationship. He says: ‘Our fathers were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea’ (1 Cor. 10.2). Typological parallels are a function of, but not the sum total of, Paul’s use of the ancient narrative. Like many other Second Temple Jews, he is seeing the Exodus narrative itself form the background and the template for the greater liberation still to come: rescued in the continuing exile, spoken of in Daniel 9 as lasting for 490 years, and much discussed in Paul’s own day. The continuous narrative would then reach a point, not by a process of imminent development, but rather as Paul says in Galatians 4, ‘when the time had fully come’. When Israel’s God would step in and do the shocking new thing that he had always promised to do. The deep level of scriptural authority that we trace in Paul is precisely that of the unfinished play. Paul believes that he and his hearers are living in the final act of this play, and they must study the earlier act with great care, not to repeat every speech in those earlier acts – that is how we explain, for instance, the fact that the food laws are no longer relevant – but to discover what sort of a story it is, where it is all going in the first place, and above all what sort of people they must now be in this new exodus, this real return from exile in which they welcome and celebrate the return to his temple of Israel’s and the world’s true God. Now, in all of this, Paul believes that those who are in the Messiah will, and do, actually accomplish the Torah. Not, to be sure, in the ways of circumcision, and Sabbath, and food laws and so on. He explains in Galatians 3 why they are now inappropriate. Those were third act measures in God’s play, and we are now in the fifth act, the messianic act four having fulfilled their purpose. Thus, even in Galatians, but more particularly in Romans, Paul insists in Romans 2 that there is now an uncircumcised people who keep ‘τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου’, the decrees of the law. He says that the Torah of the Spirit of life and of the Messiah (Rom. 8) has set you free from the Torah of death so that the δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου, the ‘just decree of the law’ might be fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. That is a very cryptic phrase in Rom. 8.4, as so often in Paul, but I think it refers particularly to the δικαίωμα that says ‘Do this and you will live’ since the climax of the paragraph, which that verse introduces, is precisely the resurrection (Rom. 8.11). That is, the decree as he said in 7.10, the commandment which was unto life. So, as we see in Romans 8, the mind of the flesh does not submit to the Law, but we understand that the mind of the Spirit will do so. Then in Romans 10, in a spectacular riff on Deuteronomy 30, as is well known in Paul’s day was predicting the eventual covenant renewal and return from exile, Paul declares that the true doing of Torah is in fact confessing Jesus as Lord and believing that God raised him from the dead. This, in turn, is then the foundation for the passages when he declares as in Romans 13 that the whole Law is to be fulfilled by love. Though, it is noticeable that he never includes the Sabbath when listing the commandments, an omission that I believe is to be explained (as with Jesus himself) on eschatological grounds. What God’s temple is to space, Sabbath is to time; both being fulfilled in Messiah and Spirit, transcend their prototypes. The note of present fulfilment of inaugurated eschatology is, of course, only one side of the story.



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For Paul there is always the other side. Holiness does not happen automatically. Some people today often talk as if that were the case so that if holiness does not happen to me automatically I should conclude that it cannot, after all, be required. No! The eschatological gap is to be filled precisely by the formation of character, by moral effort in the present, by obedience, by faithfulness to vocation, by the costly and difficult struggle after a holiness that will anticipate, though it will not itself either earn or affect, the resurrection life of the ultimate future. It is interesting to see how all these debates that are so buzzy at the moment, whether it is about justification or about apocalyptic or whatever, they all have the same shape; and understanding Paul’s eschatology is the key to the whole thing. In Philippians, Paul says, ‘I have not already attained this, nor am I already perfect, I press on to make it my own because the Messiah has made me his own’ (Phil. 3.12). The warnings about certain styles of behaviour whose subjects will not inherit the kingdom makes its own ‘not yet’ point. Nor are such warnings merely threats, the stick as opposed to the carrot; they are analytically true. If God is bringing about God’s kingdom then, as in Revelation, there can be no place there for anything that is then going to corrupt it again before it really gets going. The rule of the present, in other words, is determined by the reality of the future; a future already given in Jesus and empowered by the Spirit. And the Spirit does not come to make us automatons, as I have just said, but rather to set us free. This does not just mean freedom from Torah, sin and death; nor does it mean, as some have absurdly suggested, freedom from actual moral rules. No! The Spirit is given to open up a genuinely human existence in which Christian communities and individuals are to explore fresh and creative pathways that they must think out for themselves. As Paul seems to have thought out for himself a missionary strategy that was not simply a given but seems to have been a result of a creative fusion between biblical imperatives to take the news of Israel’s God to places like Tarshish far away, and a thought out strategy to plant Jesus communities under the nose of Caesar communities with all the implications of fresh engagement – political, social, cultural, religious, and not least, philosophical – that that would bring about. This fusion of a biblical template and mandate with a Spirit-led initiative and freedom (curtailed, of course, by the fact that the Roman authorities did not always cooperate with Paul’s intentions, to put it mildly) is characteristic of the deep level of Paul’s idea of Christian freedom and obedience. The idea of anticipating in the present life, the life of the coming age is not, interestingly, to be applied across the board. Paul sees very clearly, rooted in the scriptural models from Daniel all the way back to Genesis, that God’s true humanity in the Messiah will be set over the world, given the task of judging even angels so he says in 1 Corinthians 6: ‘Well, that is what you are going to be doing. Can you not even decide ordinary human cases like now: Why are you going before secular magistrates?’ But this ironic challenge in 1 Corinthians 6 follows closely the earlier warning from Chapter 4 that one must not judge anything before the time in the sense of a party spirit, which tears the church apart. And in the same manner in Romans 12 and 13, vengeance remains God’s prerogative alone, which in the present (Rom. 13) is delegated to magistrates but not to be

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undertaken by anyone else. So, here the emphasis is not just on the ‘not yet’, but emphatically on the ‘not yet’. So, Paul’s ethic is to be located eschatologically and worked out from there. This brings me to my second and shorter point. Paul’s ethic takes the form of a reborn or radically revised virtue ethic. To be sure, Paul does not have Aristotle’s goal, his telos, that is, eudaemonia (‘happiness’). That notion plays no part in Paul’s thinking. But I suggest that he does have a sense of the resurrected new humanity, the fully-human reality as a sort of equivalent. And when he thinks about Christian character in the present he sees the challenge of developing the character strengths that point and lead towards that goal. Similarly, whereas Aristotle sees virtue development as a lonely, individual task, fitting men for leadership in the army or in politics, Paul sees virtue as a team sport, fitting the whole of God’s people for the fresh tasks of love to which they are called. One can hardly practise agapē, or indeed, kindness or generosity in an enclosed room by oneself. Again, there are indeed some overlaps between Paul and the classical moral tradition. These have been frequently studied. But it would be a serious mistake to repeat the older view that Paul has no real ethic of his own. People used to say until fairly recently: ‘Well, Paul is basically telling you how to be justified so you are set free from the world’s rules.’ And when someone asks him how to behave he simply takes a shovel full of Hellenistic moral commands and tosses them in without too much bother. No, that is wrong. Hellenistic vice lists abound, of course, but none of them mentions sexual malpractice, whereas Paul always does and, indeed, foregrounds it. Likewise, Hellenistic virtue lists abound, but none of them know about humility, or patience, or chastity, or indeed, agapē itself. Finally, it has been characteristic of Protestants to beware of virtue ethics lest they drag the Christian moralist down into self-help works-righteousness. But there is no danger of that in Paul. ‘I worked harder than them all’, he says, ‘but it was not I, it was the grace of God that was with me’ (1 Cor. 15.10), and so on. There is the paradox. And as long as that paradox is in place there is no danger of misunderstanding Paul’s virtue teaching in terms of self-effort. Indeed, you could turn it around. One of the persistent dangers in some kinds of liberal Protestant thought is a renunciation of any moral effort at all so that self-realization rather than taking up the cross becomes the only true morality. Paul would have shuddered. The quest for authenticity, for finding out who I really am, and then trying to be true to that illusive but apparently all-important self is at best a dangerous parody of his position. ‘I am crucified with the Messiah’, he writes, ‘I am however alive, but it is not me, it is the Messiah who lives in me, and the life I now live I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2.20). That is the basis of everything else. What you might call a ‘cruciform authenticity’. Or, indeed a ‘cross and resurrection’ authenticity. So, what sense does it make to speak of Paul’s ethics in terms of virtue? Some people have said, ‘Well, Paul hardly ever uses the word virtue, and when he does he seems just to wave at it from a distance.’ You could, of course, say the same about the word covenant, which I and others have argued is, nevertheless, a good



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term to sum up much of his thought. And even those who try to say that Paul is an apocalyptic theologian have to admit that the word ‘apocalyptic’ does not occur that often in his thought. That is not actually a good way to move from individual words to overarching categories. When it comes to virtue for Paul, I take 1 Corinthians 13 as the prime example: ‘When the perfect is come, the partial will be done away’. Paul has a sense of τὸ τέλειον, the ultimate perfection; a perfection up ahead that will one day be his, and whose constituent parts one must learn as one learns a musical instrument or a language so that they may be properly performed on the coming day. Thus, tongues and prophecies will cease, and even knowledge will be irrelevant in the coming day, but agapē will last into the new world and will be fulfilled there. So, it must be learned and practised in both senses here and now. So too, remarkably enough, must faith and hope. Bishop Christopher Wordsworth wrote a famous hymn declaring: Faith will vanish into sight; Hope be emptied in delight; Love in heaven will shine more bright; Therefore, give us love.

Well, that is not Paul’s view. Somehow, though he does not spell this out, he sees faith as a total trust in God, which will, of course, continue in the New Creation (you will not stop trusting God there). And he sees hope as a total trust in God for all that is to come, which implies, as we should have guessed, that in the New Creation it will not be a matter of lounging around in an endless and timeless bliss, but of a new sort of time with new projects – New Creation, indeed – in which the glorious freedom of the children of God will be put to fresh use in making the new world fruitful and adorning it with fresh beauty in the glad hope that God is at work and will make all things beautiful in his time. So, here we glimpse not only a sense of what one is supposed to be doing in the interval between the Messiah’s resurrection and the last day, but also interestingly why this interval is necessary. There is an analogue to this in Romans 9–11 where, again as I have argued in the coming book, I think Paul argues not only that we can see what God is doing in this strange, dark interval where most of his fellow kinsfolk have not believed the gospel, but also why it was necessary for such an interval to take place. When it comes to ethics the reason is this: the interval is enabling the growth to maturity of human beings who are being fitted to be partners, stewards, image bearers in the ruling of God’s new world. Those he justified he also glorified (Rom. 8.30). And that glory includes, and perhaps here is focused on the sharing of the divine rule over creation. This unexpected interval opened up by the Messiah’s resurrection in advance of the last day has a specific purpose: to allow a space in which there can be formed a genuine human character with renewed minds, Spirit-transformed hearts, and bodily obedience all in tune with one another, and with the Creator. This has its own eschatological purpose which is summed up in Romans 5–8 with that word, glory. The Creator

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intends to put humans in charge of his world at the present chronological gap between the work of the Messiah and final new creation. It is required for such humans to have their character formed, indeed, conformed to the image of his Son so that he might be the first-born over a large family. The mode of the rule over the world is, of course, rethought around Jesus. Because the Creator’s character has been revealed in the crucified Messiah, the normal modes by which the world is run must be stood on their heads as Jesus himself had repeatedly insisted. Instead of pride and power; humility and service. Instead of military victory; the strange power of suffering (something of which Paul never tired of reminding his hearers). Suffering was itself a sign for Paul in his Jewish context, that one was living between the times, caught between promise and fulfilment, between the passing of sentence on the old world and the final disappearance of evil. Hence, we have the Jewish theme of tribulation, which Paul recapitulates in a Christian key precisely as part of his ‘not yet’. That is part of the reason why he can speak, however paradoxically, of suffering setting up a train of character development. Suffering forms character, leading to patience, which means not to despair but to hope (Rom. 5). Again, hope would not have been one of the Greek or Latin virtues. For Paul, character development is above all eschatological because it is derived from the promised future that has already come into the present in the person of the Messiah and the work of the Spirit. As with everything else in Paul, we can trace much of this back to Paul’s Jewish roots. But he is not simply expounding Scripture; he is living its ongoing narrative. Some people have attempted to suggest that his rules to how Gentile Christians should behave were based on the later Rabbinic idea of the Noahide commandments. I do not think that has actually proved successful exegetically. No, the scriptural roots of his theology and ethics cannot be reduced to his retrieval of this or that set of commands. When he quotes even the Decalogue, the point is that the Christian character he is commending and urging will, as it were, take in the ancient commands en route. So, in conclusion – a brief reflection on how we might then interpret scriptural authority in the case of Paul himself. Paul and scriptural authority, that question might be thought a bit eccentric; Paul’s writings are now a part of Christian Scripture. And his primary use within scriptural authority is in his own right, not in his modelling how to use Scripture, as it were, from the outside. Nevertheless, I think we can see what is going on, and I think we can ourselves stand in continuity with Paul in the larger, indeed massive, vision of Scripture within which he operates. The problem in much Western theology, I think – pretty sure the grand generalization, adding one more hostage to fortune to the other ones I have already left lying around the place – is a failure to take seriously the narrative of Israel in the way it was known in the Second Temple period. The narrative of Israel is the middle term in all-biblical thinking. According to a third-century Rabbi, God said ‘I will make Adam first and if he goes wrong I will send Abraham to sort it all out.’ That is the premise of the book of Genesis. But it stands throughout Israel’s scriptures. It is reaffirmed in the vocation to be the royal priesthood in Exodus 19. It is reaffirmed in the Servant Songs, where the servant is the one who



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is going to bring the light to the Gentiles. Then, if Israel will not do it, God will find another way, as Malachi insisted. Paul explained that he had found a way of squaring that circle since the Messiah had offered to God the faithful obedience that Israel should have offered, but had not done so. Thus, God has been faithful to the covenant not only with Abraham, but also through Abraham to the world. God has returned in person as he promised. God has rescued his people from their half-millennium theological exile. God has inaugurated the new age of justice and peace for the world. And God has called and commissioned surprised people like Paul himself to be not merely the beneficiaries of that new age, but its fellow workers. None of this, or the specific detailed thought and light which follows from it, makes any sense without its deep roots in Scripture. For Paul, the authority of Scripture did not mean you could simply go and look up a few true answers, though to be sure there were plenty of them. It did not mean that the God who had this authority was a sort of celestial Wikipedia where you could find out all the things you might want to know. For Paul, the authority of Scripture meant that what had happened in the Messiah was in a much deeper, richer and more all-embracing sense, according to the Scriptures. Understand how the scriptural narrative itself works, the narrative in which Torah itself constituted both history and prophecy with Deuteronomy 31 and 32 still awaiting fulfilment in the first century as Josephus thinks – understand that, the way in which prophecies and psalms came in with further explanation about the Messianic age, how it would be accomplished, what sort of character God’s people would then have – get that straight and it’s all important. If you take it away (this has been done by many exegetes and by many theologians) then we are left simply with asking whether Paul does or does not think that the particular commands of the Law are still valid with all the puzzles and ambiguities that then result. So, Paul himself, in short and in conclusion, stands both as part of the fountain head of early Christian scripture, writing letters to bring God’s fresh order and freedom to the early church, rooted in the covenant with Abraham as now fulfilled in Messiah and the Spirit; Paul stands there, but he also stands as part of the early Christian witness to a sense of the authority of Israel’s scriptures as part of the nuanced and layered framework whose narrative character matches exactly the very notion of divine authority itself as it has been reconfigured around the death and resurrection of the Messiah. This may be the typical sort of thing an exegete would say, but if only more theologians would pay more attention to the actual narrative of scripture itself and how it works, then there might be more chance between exegesis and theology themselves. That is, of course, the sort of thing that both parties in the dispute tend to say: ‘If only you could see things from my point of view, maybe we could sort this out.’ But if theologians, and indeed, exegetes really do want to talk about the authority of Scripture itself as opposed to an abstract entity, which goes by that name, then that challenge is unavoidable.

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Bibliography Wright, N. T., After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2010). Wright, N. T., Virtue Reborn (London: SPCK, 2010). Wright, N. T., Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (New York: HarperOne, 2011). Wright, N. T., Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013).

Part III E XEGESIS AND A PPLICATION – S CRIPTURE AND THE P RAXIS OF E CCLESIAL E THICS

Chapter 7 D I D S A I N T P AU L T A K E U P T H E G R E AT C OM M I S SIO N ? : D I S C I P L E SH I P T R A N SP O SE D I N T O A P AU L I N E K EY Nijay Gupta

Introduction The term ‘discipleship’ is pervasive in church language, and for good reason since Jesus had disciples and called them to go out and make more disciples. What is particularly interesting about the ecclesial use of the language of discipleship is how it is used by believers to refer to a kind of general Christian category that would align with what academics call ‘ethics’. For many churches, denominations, seminaries, and biblical scholars, discipleship is equivalent to Christian obedience to God.1 A cursory look at denominational vision statements will bear this out. The United Methodist Church, for example, claims, ‘The church calls our response to God Christian discipleship’.2 The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America places the following conviction under the heading of ‘discipleship’: ‘To live our lives in and for Christ in both church and society’.3 None of this should be that unsettling since discipleship is central to Jesus’ own theological programme, and the Gospels certainly inspire their readers to take up the cross and follow Jesus wholeheartedly (Mt. 16.24//Mk 8.34//Lk. 9.23). However, the central question I want to raise, particularly in view of the Church (ecclesia) and ‘ethics’, as the focus of this collection of essays, is this: even though a strong case can be made that the term ‘discipleship’ should be a central concept for Christian obedience, are we missing something if it becomes the only way we 1. See N. T. Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); W. Brueggemann, The Word that Redescribes the World: Bible and Discipleship (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006); J. Lunde, Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). 2. ‘Becoming Disciples’, The People of the United Methodist Church, available online: http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/becoming-disciples (accessed 15 July 2015). 3. ‘Discipleship’, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, available online: http://www. elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Discipleship.aspx (accessed 23 May 2013).

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think about Christian obedience? Again, I am not suggesting it is improper to think of Christian obedience in terms of ‘discipleship’; however, it maintains a kind of exclusive status as the language of Christian obedience.4 One might wonder – who cares? Why not allow it to hold this paramount status vis-à-vis ethics? There are, I believe, a number of reasons why this is an important question for the church to address, but I would like to organize the discussion around two historical issues and conclude with a theological one. At the outset here, though, I will simply say that the Christian language of obedience should reflect the language and emphases of Scripture, all of Scripture, and, thus, we would do well to pay attention to how all parts of the Bible talk about ethics and obedience.

Historical Perspectives Let us begin with the historical perspective. While ‘discipleship’ language is ‘biblical’ (in the sense that the word ‘disciple’ appears in Scripture), it is easily demonstrable that it comes from the four Gospels and Acts alone. That means that, as a conceptually distinctive category, the language of discipleship (particularly mathētēs and mathēteuō) is absent from twenty-two books of the New Testament (NT). Put another way, while Matthew, Mark, Luke and John refer to disciples and discipleship; the term ‘disciple’ (mathētēs) is not used even once by Paul, James, Jude, Peter and the author of Hebrews. It is one thing for them not to encourage their readers to ‘make disciples’, as it were, but they seem to go out of their way to refrain from using the language at all. Thus, a central question, if we focus on one important NT writer in particular, is, Did St. Paul take up the great commission (Mt. 28.18-20)? Given what appears to be Paul’s avoidance of the term ‘disciple’, it is difficult to answer this unequivocally as ‘yes’. Famously, French theologian Alfred Loisy once said, ‘Jesus called for the kingdom and the church showed up’.5 Well, he might put the matter under discussion today like this: ‘Jesus called for disciples, and Paul ended up converting sinners into saints!’ All joking aside, if Jesus did call for his own disciples to be disciple-makers as of first priority, why does this language appear to evaporate in the epistles and Revelation? And, of course, what can this observation contribute to the moral life of the church today? To ask why Paul did not ostensibly take up the Great Commission is to engage 4. This may, perhaps, be evidenced by the growing popularity of the expression ‘discipleship-ethics’; see G. Osborne, Matthew (ZECNT; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 160; C. Marshall, Beyond Retribution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 31; D. E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), 5; N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teachings of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 156. 5. A. Loisy, L’Évangile et l’Église (Paris: Fishbacher, 1902), 153.



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in a very old debate about Jesus and Paul.6 Much could be said regarding this debate about whether Paul is a true follower of Jesus or one who distorts Jesus’ message, but I will say that most topics related to that debate swirl around soteriology and the divinity of Jesus himself. While these are important topics, the ones that we have set on the table of discussion on this occasion are rarely considered: ethics, formation, and mission. Again, did St. Paul take up the Great Commission? Interestingly, in 1 Corinthians 1.17, Paul explicitly says ‘Christ did not send me to baptize …’ – a statement that seems to set Paul apart from the work of the twelve disciples as recipients of the Great Commission. How is it possible that Paul was not sent to baptize, but the Matthean disciples were explicitly told to baptize? In order to work through such perplexities, we will need to address these historical questions: First, what does the term ‘disciple’ mean when related to Jesus and the disciples he called? Second, what did Jesus have in mind when he issued the ‘Great Commission’ that called the Twelve (minus one) to ‘go and make disciples?’ Third, what could explain the early Christian movement away from the terminology of ‘disciples’ as demonstrated in its absence from Paul’s letters and the rest of the epistles? To begin with the first question, what did it mean to be a ‘disciple’ of Jesus during his earthly life? The Greek word mathētēs literally means ‘learner’, but in the first century Greco-Roman world it tended to be used with regard to a student who attached himself to an authoritative teacher.7 This is the broader context in which Jesus used the word, but it is quite apparent that he shaped it in his own way.8 Indeed, there is a kind of pattern of use, a technical employment of the term that emerges from close study of the Gospels. Those men that could be considered bona fide ‘disciples’ were people who: (1) were called by Jesus himself; (2) submitted to the authority of Jesus; (3) accepted serious cost (as comes with abandonment of family and livelihood); (4) set out on Jesus’ own mission; and (5) established a community around him. Disciples were, thus, ‘followers’ insofar as

6. See A. J. M. Wedderburn (ed.), Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989); Wrede ranks with the most negative conclusions, infamously labelling Paul the ‘second founder of Christianity’, (see W. Wrede, Paul [Halle, Gebauer-Schwetschke, 1904; ET Boston: Beacon, 1908], 180); for a more positive assessment, see D. Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); T. D. Still (ed.), Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into the Old Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007); J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011); D. Hagner, The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012). 7. The first three chapters of Michael Wilkins’ 1988 monograph offer a helpful background to the NT use of mathētēs, both in view of the Hellenistic as well as Jewish worlds; see The Concept of Disciple in Matthew’s Gospel (NovTSup 59; Leiden: Brill, 1988), 1–125. 8. See H. C. Kee, The Beginnings of Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 399; C. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 203.

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they heeded Jesus’ call and trusted him as a true teacher.9 These characteristics I have mentioned are apparently true of the twelve disciples that were close to Jesus. It appears that occasionally the evangelists could slip into using the word disciple for a wider group, but this is somewhat rare.10 Thus, we can see that the word mathētēs, ‘disciple’, was used as something of a ‘technical term’ in the Gospels, referring to the special set of followers who were called to be with Jesus, to learn his teachings and ways, and to carry out a mission in his name.11 That brings us to the second matter – the Great Commission of Matthew 28.18-20. Mark, of course, records a brief word of commission from Jesus at the end of his Gospel (16.15), but Matthew’s statement is considerably more robust by comparison. What did the Matthean Jesus mean here by ‘make disciples’? According to the pattern of use of the language of ‘disciple’ in the Gospels as mentioned above, only Jesus could ‘make disciples’, insofar as he is the only one who could call them, be with them, train them, and empower them. Obviously, the Matthean Jesus extends, post-Resurrection, the opportunity to be a ‘disciple’ beyond previously restrictive criteria in view of a long-term, worldwide mission – what Richard de Ridder calls a ‘disciple fellowship’.12 As John Nolland puts it, ‘Matthew indicates that the discipleship of the Twelve, though unique and unrepeatable, embodies patterns of discipleship which are of a more general relevance’.13 So, then, how are these worldwide disciples made? What qualifies them as disciples? Jesus goes on to mention baptism and the learning and obeying of Jesus’ teachings. There is a presumption, with these explications, that ‘disciplesat-large’ are those who bear allegiance to Jesus as ultimate authority.14 That brings us to our third question. If Jesus called the Twelve (minus Judas) to go out and ‘make disciples’, and if disciple could now be a term for a broader group of those 9. See D. R. Bauer, ‘The Major Characters of Matthew’s Story: Their Function and Significance’, Int 46 (4) (1992): 357–67; G. Theissen, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 213–16; J. P. Meier, ‘The Disciples of Christ: Who Were They?’, Mid-Stream 1–2 (1999): 129–35. 10. See Jn 6.60. 11. See P. Nepper-Christensen, ‘μαθητής’, in EDNT, 2: 373–4. 12. See R. R. de Ridder, Discipling the Nations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971). 13. J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 1265; similarly see B. Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and his World of Thought (SNTSMS 41; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980): ‘In this passage no distinction is made between the close circle of the eleven disciples and all the disciples of the future. Just as Jesus made disciples, so the disciples themselves are to make disciples’ (p. 109). 14. R. T. France uses the language of ‘allegiance’ (Matthew [TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985], 414); L. Morris talks about ‘commitment’ (The Gospel According to Matthew [PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992], 746); see also D. E. Garland, Luke (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 273. Hagner interprets this especially in view of the language of obedience to Jesus’ teaching and Matthew’s overall concern for righteousness; see Matthew 14–28 (WBC 33B; Waco: Word, 1995), 886.



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committed to Jesus, why is this word (mathētēs) entirely absent from the Christian vocabulary after Jesus’ ministry (aside from Acts, which we will address below)? Why do we not read, ‘Paul, to the disciples in Thessalonica’ or ‘James, the disciple of Jesus, to the disciples in the Diaspora?’ Or why did John not write to the disciples in the seven cities in the book of Revelation? One reasonable proposal is that the early church shied away from the word ‘disciple’ out of recognition and respect for the Twelve. Perhaps many Christians, after Jesus’ resurrection, did not feel it natural to ascribe to themselves the key term used for the initial followers of Jesus that were called by the Master.15 If that is the case, the early church chose to retain that technical sense of ‘disciple’ the word appears to have in most of its occurrences in the Gospels, even in spite of the ‘Great Commission’. A second reason may be that the word ‘disciple’ had a teacher-student association that was quite appropriate for the period of the earthly ministry of Jesus the teacher, but which was somehow no longer appropriate in view of his resurrection and ascension. For the Twelve, Jesus taught them in person, with human words, and they listened and learned as mathētai. Yet, Christians after the ascension knew Jesus in a completely different way, not primarily as Teacher, but as saviour, Lord, and messiah.16 For example, Victor Furnish observes that Paul never refers to Jesus as a teacher. Even in 1 Corinthians 7.10-11, when Paul is responding to issues related to divorce in the Corinthian community, he mentions instructions from Jesus, but does not describe them as ‘teachings’, nor does he call Jesus ‘teacher’, where it might be natural to do so. Furnish writes, ‘It is … significant that he has not employed the name “Jesus,” but one of the church’s titles for Jesus. Neither here nor elsewhere does the apostle refer to Jesus as a “teacher,” or use a phrase like the “teaching of Jesus.” … Here it is Jesus “the Lord” not Jesus the teacher whose authority is invoked’.17 So, what do we make of this? Historically, while the language of discipleship was central to Jesus’ earthly programme of ministry, not long after his death, resurrection, and ascension, the earliest Christians moved away from this terminology in view of other themes, terms, metaphors, and ideas related to Christian 15. The most thorough discussion of this matter appears in Paul Trebilco’s essay on the disciples in his monograph Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Regarding the restrictive use of the word mathētēs, Trebilco writes, ‘I have suggested that Jesus transformed and radicalized the meaning of mathētai, so that it was particularly associated with his call to follow him, which involved literal itinerancy and breaking ties with family and livelihood, as well as danger, hostility, and cross-bearing’ (229–30); See also J. G. Samra, ‘A Biblical View of Discipleship’, Bib Sac 160 (2003): 219–34 (223); cf. H. Weder, ‘Disciple, Discipleship’, in ABD 2: 20710. 16.  See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 229–31: ‘Paul did not see himself, or other Christians, simply as adherents of Jesus; other terms expressed their relationship to the risen Jesus much more adequately’ (p. 230). 17. V. P. Furnish, Jesus According to Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 42.

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obedience, formation, and mission. So, in light of this historical shift, does this mean that it is a mistake for modern churches and Christian organizations to cling so exclusively to this language of discipleship?

The Literary-Hermeneutical Question This brings us to an important hermeneutical question: What role should the Gospels play in the discernment and construction of Christian formation and mission? It might seem apropos to view the Gospels as information important for converting to Christianity, while the rest of the NT is meant to teach doctrine and ethics to young and growing Christians. This perspective has some prima facie logic – the Gospels convey the Gospel while Paul teaches orthodoxy and proper Christian practice. However, there are a number of considerations that point entirely towards a different understanding of the Gospels and of Paul. When one looks at the ostensible purposes of the Gospels, as well as the entire picture of how discipleship language is actually used, it becomes clear that the fourfold Gospel witness is just as important for Christian formation as it is for initial belief. Let us start with the genre of the Gospels. Into what kind of literary category do these documents fit? What kind of ‘book’ is Mark, for example? Obviously, they are called ‘Gospels’, and we treat them today as a literary category in and of themselves, but it is all-but-certain that Mark was the first of this type of genre and, thus, we can still ask what Mark thought he was doing.18 To put the matter another way: if the Gospel of Mark showed up in the mail at the library in ancient Alexandria, on what shelf would a librarian put this volume? The prevailing perspective in NT scholarship accepts that the Gospels fit broadly into the category of ancient biography (bios).19 Now, to best understand why this information is important, we must recognize how ancient GrecoRoman biographies differed from what we expect of modern biographies. Today, we presume that biographies offer neutral, objective reports of the life of an important figure. Whenever we get the impression that the biographer is biased, we immediately write the work off as skewed and corrupted by self-interest and rhetorical ‘spin’. In the ancient world, though, it was expected that the biographer cared about the figure for good or for ill, and that he had some kind of ‘axe to grind’. Also, his intention went beyond merely maintaining a historic record of a 18. See the excellent discussion of genre in L. Alexander, ‘What Is a Gospel?’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels (ed. S. C. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 13–33; more recently J. D. G. Dunn, ‘The Birth of a New Genre: Mark and the Synoptic Gospels’, in Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 45–79. 19.  See R. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, 78; note the important qualifications to this discussion that are made by J. T. Pennington, Reading the Gospels Wisely (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 18–35.



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public figure. The biographical exercise was intended to teach something about life and wisdom in the modern world, no matter how distant the central figure was in the past. David Aune explains this about such works: Ancient Hellenistic biographers and historians … wrote on two levels, combining ideas from their own time with events from the past … Most historians and biographers of the Hellenistic period regarded the past as normative for present conduct, i.e., it provided moral guidance for the present and future. History and biography focused on the past as a source of lessons for the future. Hellenistic history and biography, no less than the Gospels, tended to merge the past with the present … Past and present merge in Gospel narratives because the Evangelists regarded the story of Jesus as an example for Christian faith.20

As Aune points out, if such is true about ancient biographies, at least the same is true for the Gospels. Donald Senior expresses this aptly: ‘the very manner in which Matthew portrays Jesus was surely meant to be exemplary for Christian existence. All of Jesus’ teaching was intended to be instructive … And all of Jesus’ actions – his prayer, his compassion, his sense of justice, his response to suffering – were models for authentic discipleship.’21 More than the example of Jesus alone, the Gospels narrate the lives of the disciples, those followers whose characterization facilitates the readers’ opportunity to step into the orbit of this Jesus-way. In that sense, the Gospels fuse two horizons, the horizon of the earthly Jesus story with his early first-century disciples, and the horizon of the risen Christ with his disciples of every age, especially those disciples facing crises of faith and obedience at the close of the first century. In terms of plot, then, the Gospels are focused on Christ, but the evangelists do not merely shine a spotlight on him as sacrificial victim or saviour of the condemned; rather, Christ is a point of focus insofar as the evangelists construct a world around him, a social reality that is meant to form its readers 20.  D. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 63. Also S. Byrskog: ‘In short, the ancient discussions concerning the proper interplay between what we may call oral history and oral story created among the Gospel writers an ambition to avoid – somewhat like Plato’s Socrates – the polarization between speaking truthfully and speaking persuasively. This ambition found its expression in the form of a historicizing biographic genre which synchronized narratively the pastness of oral history and the encomiastic praise of its main character’ (‘Performing the Past: Gospel Genre and Identity Formation in the Context of Ancient History Writing’, in History and Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr. E. Earle Ellis for His 80th Birthday [ed. S. A. Son; London: T&T Clark, 2006], 28–44 [43]). 21. D. Senior, The Gospel of Matthew (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 63. A wider argument is made by Richard Burridge along these lines, especially in imitation of the actions of Jesus, in his book Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

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who are seeking to establish a stable identity in an unstable world.22 Eugene Boring describes it this way: [I]n Mark Jesus would not be the Christ in any significant way, in any way that mattered, without his relationships to people, principally his relationship to his disciples – and thus how could he be called the Christ at all without his disciples? To be truly the Christ, the Christ must have a people…Christology and discipleship are thus not two topics in Mark, but a single topic, just as the ‘humanity’ of Jesus and the ‘divinity’ of Jesus are not two topics, but can only be talked about together. The question of whether ‘Christology’ or ‘discipleship’ is the principle theme of Mark is thus misplaced, since Mark does not present either in such a way that it can be discussed apart from the other, nor does he permit the reader of his narrative to do so.23

We must, then, be careful not to put at too far a distance from each other ‘salvation’ and ‘ethics’. If the Christ narrated in the Gospels is relational in the way Boring suggests, encountering him is not only ‘redeeming’, but also transformative. He calls his followers not only to rescue them from demise, but also to commission them to walk on the way to the cross with him.24 What we see, then, is that the evangelists treat the original disciples as the prototypes for believers of a later time.25 And this observation leads us back to the question about terminology. If the disciples were meant to be models for Jesusfollowers of later times, why restrict the term mathētēs and reserve it for the official disciples only? Well, actually, it is not entirely true that this term is restricted in 22. This formative dimension is underscored by James Thompson aptly: ‘The achievement of the gospel writers was that the story that they told continued to provide their audience with a coherent vision that would remind them of who they were. The writers recognized the constant temptation for the church to hear other stories and to adapt their ministries to other models. Through the medium of the narrative, the gospel writers confronted the church with its own obligations and destiny. The stories of Jesus and his disciples functioned as paradigms for the later community’ (J. W. Thompson, ‘Ministry in the New Testament’, Restoration Quarterly 27 (3) [1984], 143–56 [149]) 23. M. E. Boring, ‘The Christology of Mark: Hermeneutical Issues for Systematic Theology’, Semeia 30 (1984): 125–51 (143–4). 24. See A. Verhey, The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 182. Ernest Best is, perhaps, one who has worked this perspective out most completely in his work. For example, he writes, ‘The role of the disciples in the gospels is then to be examples to the community. Not examples by which their own worth or failure is shown, but examples through whom teaching is given to the community and the love and power of God made known’; E. Best, Disciples and Discipleship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986), 182. 25. See James Thompson: ‘The fact that [the evangelists] wrote Gospels indicates that the prototypes for the Christian ministry were Jesus and his disciples. The original story was a paradigm for the church at a later period’ (‘Ministry in the New Testament’, 147).



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its NT use to the official disciples only. While the word mathētēs is found exclusively in the Gospels and Acts, and the overwhelming majority of occurrences of the word refer to Jesus’ own circle of disciples that he called, there are some remaining outliers in terms of the word usage. These uses are particularly obvious in Acts. Beginning in Chapter 6, Luke seems to use the word mathētēs rather freely in reference to any and all believers. This application of mathētēs is so distinctive and different from its restrictive use in the Gospels that it caused Gerhard Lohfink to wonder: ‘[W]hat was the true relationship of the disciples to the people of God? Was all Israel meant to become a nation of disciples? Was the circle of disciples the model for the eschatological community of salvation, so that it represented, in anticipation, what the whole people of God was to become, namely a discipleship?’26 Looking at the matter historically, Paul Trebilco reasons that, given the absence of the term in the NT epistles, it is unlikely that the early Christians actually called themselves ‘disciples’, as the book of Acts may lead us to think. Rather, Luke appears to be consciously overlaying or superimposing this language back onto the early believers.27 Why would Luke do this? Trebilco suggests that, ‘By using the same term of “followers of Jesus after the resurrection” [as before], he is able to create a strong link between the time of Jesus and the time of the church and thus to emphasise continuity.’28 To sum up and conclude this literary-hermeneutical section, I wish to underscore the following two points: 1. The early church probably did not use the language of ‘disciples’ for everyday Christians in the first few centuries after Pentecost, perhaps out of respect for the Twelve, or sensing it ill-fitted for the new relationship with Jesus beyond teacher. 2. The Evangelists, finalizing their texts at the end (or in the second half) of the first century, wrote their stories in such a way as to blur the lines between the disciples and all Christians in order to underscore the vitality and relevance of their kerygmatic narratives for the lives of their readers. This is further

26.  See G. Lohfink, Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God (trans. L. Maloney; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1999), 164. 27. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 226. Note J. Meier, ‘The Disciples of Christ’, 160. 28. Trebilco, Self-Designations, 227. John Meier comes to a very similar conclusion: ‘Luke uses the word “disciples” in a way that is never found elsewhere in the NT. In Acts, “disciples” becomes a generic designation of any and all Christians in the post-Easter church of the first century. Luke introduces this new meaning precisely to create a historical and theological link between the time of Jesus and the time of the church’ (‘The Disciples of Christ’, 160). Michael Wilkins argues, alternatively, that Luke’s language should be taken more plainly as the true terminology used of the early Christians. See M. Wilkins, ‘Disciples’, in DJG, 176–82 (181).

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demonstrated in Acts where Christians are referred to as ‘disciples’ while historically this was probably not a self-designation at the time.29 If that is the case, we are left with the remaining theological question – what do we do with Paul? If the evangelists intended to broaden the language of discipleship, to make it a fixed concept regarding formation and obedience under the teaching head of Christ, why does Paul fail to use this language and what does he promote instead? My hope is that this will lead to fresh and balanced ways that the Church can reflect on its mission and maturity.

The Theological Question I think it is safe to affirm, first, the kind of canonical coherence that Trebilco suggests: ‘What we … see happening is that the concept of discipleship is taken up by Paul, and is deepened and modified by being expressed in other language.’30 However, we intend to go beyond this to argue that Paul preferred a different centralizing term or concept of Christian ethics. Christians as Slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ: Paul’s Doulos-ethic There was, probably, a kind of natural historical association with the Twelve that Paul attributed to mathētēs, but there is surely more to the story of the term’s seemingly intentional absence. The best place to begin is, indeed, with Paul’s own encounter with the risen Christ. On the road to Damascus, he is not beckoned by Jesus to be a disciple. He is stopped in his tracks and confronted by the Lord Jesus. He is blinded by the celestial light and led by hand to a place where he would be given instructions. Thus, he does not enter into a teacher-disciple relationship, but what he surely considered a master-slave relationship.31 So, J. C. Beker posits that Paul avoided ‘disciple’ language both because ‘his apostolic call was not based on a prior discipleship’ and ‘because the quality of his illumination was different. No disciple could claim the radical reversal which he experienced from zealous persecutor to zealous witness for Christ.’32 Paul, as standard, refers to Jesus as kyrios (‘lord’ or ‘master’) and never didaskalos (‘teacher’). So, correspondingly, to be ‘in relationship’ with Christ is to become his slave. This may not be as clear of a point when we read certain English Bible translations of Paul’s letters because 29.  I would like to throw in a third brief additional point that the Apostolic Fathers did not shy away from calling Christians ‘disciples’ which may prove that the Evangelists were successful in re-introducing this language to the common Christian vocabulary. 30. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 232; see also R. N. Longenecker (ed.), Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). 31. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 232. 32. J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 6.



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the noun doulos is regularly translated ‘servant’. Many scholars, including myself, are convinced that doulos is best translated as ‘slave’, and this is coming out more clearly in newer translations such as the Common English Bible. Using the language of ‘slavery’ may seem awkward and inappropriate, but I do not doubt that this is precisely the kind of relationship Paul had in mind. Murray Harris is quite right, then, that 1 Thessalonians 1.9, for example, should be translated, ‘You turned to God from idols to be slaves of the living and true God.’ Harris goes on to comment, ‘At their conversion, slavery to idols was replaced by slavery to God.’33 Paul loves to think and speak in terms of dualities: idolatry and true worship, darkness and light, flesh and spirit, ‘formerly’ and ‘now’. To best understand Paul, you must take into consideration what Anthony Thiselton calls the ‘immense cut’ – the slice through time generated by the death and resurrection of Christ that Paul understood to have separated the old age dominated by sin and death, and the time of new creation, guided by the Lord Jesus and filled with the presence and power of the Spirit. Making the transition from one age to the next is a binary leap with no room for other options. You are either under the lordship of Christ or the master of sin. Paul can transpose the formative idea of discipleship, then, into the language of social indentureship. In the Roman world, a slave had one purpose only: to do the bidding of the master. Lest you think Paul too cruel in his employment of this imagery, it should be noted that, while slaves could be, and often were, treated with disdain and disregard, there were cases where slaves could enjoy their work, come to love and honour their master, receive rewards, and even be freed and married to the master. Again, the focus on Paul’s slavery imagery is that the Christian is compelled to obey the master, to serve and honour the rightful Lord. It is not an option, but a reality in light of a natural relationship. They are called to love Christ, but they must not substitute a love-based, ‘friend-like’ relationship for that of a slave. If the Great Commission is about obedience, this appears to be Paul’s dominant model for Christian life – the obedience of a slave to a master. Now, when other scholars have looked deeply into Pauline ethics, they have emerged with key themes such as participation in Christ, sanctification or holiness, new creation, or cruciformity. We should note, though, that Paul’s slavery imagery would not compete with these. Rather it serves as the umbrella under which the others are subsumed. Slavery to Christ is a concept found in almost every Pauline letter, and it happens to be a main self-designation used by Paul in Romans, Galatians, and Philippians. When it comes to underscoring the importance of Paul’s doulos-ethic, much could be said, but we will restrict our time and attention to four key points: (1) slave symbolism is pervasive and prominent in Paul’s letters; (2) it naturally corresponds to his Kyrios-Christology; (3) it is rooted in Scriptural themes; and (4) it reflects his dualistic and apocalyptic vigilance.34 After sketching out these 33.  M. J. Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 1999), 83. 34. See P. Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 32.

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points, I will attempt to reflect on how a particular ‘ethic’ is developed by Paul’s doulos language. As to my first point, any attempt to distil Paul’s ethics must make its case in representative texts. It is easy to do so in this case because Paul uses slavery metaphors at or near the beginning of three key letters (Rom. 1.1, Gal. 1.10, and Phil. 1.1), and it appears at least once in 1 Corinthians (7.22), 1 Thessalonians (1.9-10), Colossians (3.24) and Ephesians (6.5-6; let alone 2 Tim. 2.24 and Tit. 1.1). More important than frequency is the extended discussion in Romans 6.15-18 (cf. 12.11; 16.18) and the model of Christ as doulos in the Philippian Christ hymn (2.5-11, at v. 7). Second, it is prudent to begin a study of Paul’s ethics with the nature of his Christology. While most scholars identify Paul’s key self-descriptor as ‘apostle’ (apostolos), he rarely refers to God the Father or Jesus the Son as ‘Sender’. Rather, his preferred term for Jesus, apart from ‘Christ (Christos)’ is ‘Lord (Kyrios)’. Murray Harris underscores this point: ‘the two words “Lord” and “slave”, Kyrios and doulos, are correlatives. That is, they form a matching pair … they belong together’.35 This is not a casual doctrinal note, but a truth that should be all consuming. Harris goes on: ‘When believers sing or recite the confession “Jesus is Lord”, we are affirming his absolute supremacy, not only over the physical and moral universe, and not only over human history, not only over human beings, whether living or dead, not only over the church, but also over our own lives as his willing slaves.’36 So, for Paul, Christology and ecclesial ethics are linked – insofar as we understand and recognize the true identity of Christ, we properly order ourselves under his rule and obey his sovereign will unswervingly.37 If he becomes anything but Lord in our minds, so correspondingly our true commitment as true slaves will erode. Third, Paul’s slave metaphors can be given special pride of place due to their rootedness in Jewish Scripture, especially Exodus imagery. John Byron has written an excellent monograph that makes this case, so I will only make brief mention here.38 In the Jewish tradition, the concepts of slavery and worship towards God were almost indistinguishable, as translators of the Old Testament 35. Harris, Slave of Christ, 90. 36. Ibid. 37. See V. P. Furnish, ‘The total claim which Christ’s lordship lays upon the believer is a basic and pervasive element of Pauline thought and is implied in almost every paragraph he writes’ (Theology and Ethics in Paul [NTL; Louisville: WJK, 2009], 169). 38. J. Byron, Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity: A TraditioHistorical and Exegetical Examination (WUNT 2/162; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2003). See also R. Horsley, ‘Paul and Slavery: A Critical Alternative to Recent Readings’, Semeia 84 (1998): 153–200 (173–6); C. Barth, God with Us: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 60; E. Käsemann stated, ‘Christian freedom is first of all and always liberation from the yoke of slavery under the powers and forces. Israel’s exodus from Egypt is the model of discipleship that the Master rescues from the chains of fallenness, to set it in his service’ (On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene [ed. R. Landau; trans. R. A. Harrisville; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010], 56).



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will tell you. When Yahweh called Israel out of Egypt, it was not a liberation unto independence. Rather, it was freedom to serve Yahweh as sole master. Paul seems to be working from this Jewish tradition; especially evident in his paradoxical claim in 1 Corinthians 7.22 that slaves are free in Christ and the free are slaves (cf. Gal. 5.13). Fourth, Paul’s doulos imagery is reflective of a kind of apocalyptic perspective that portrays the cosmos as at war and fraught with conflict. Believers cannot merely ‘exist’; they must take sides in this battle. To side with King Jesus means stepping into line and obeying the Sovereign without hesitation. For Paul, too much is at stake, the world is too dangerous, for Christians to merely ‘worship’ Jesus on Sundays and crack open the Bible a few times a week. In any case, Paul would not recognize someone casually ‘choosing’ Christ as if the would-be believer were taking religious bids. Humans, east of Eden, are not ‘free agents’. As Sampley explains, ‘Paul surveys the world around him, and he sees that people have tended to enslave themselves to an improper dependence, whether it be to sin, to the law, or to the elemental spirits. God’s grace in Jesus Christ offers release from such improper slavery and the possibility of another Lord.’39 In other words, Paul urges – ‘if one must be a slave, it is best to be enslaved to the proper master’. So, if Paul’s central ethic, corresponding to the Gospel’s discipleship-ethic, is a doulos-ethic, how is this instructive for Christian behaviour? Unfortunately, Paul does not make this explicit, and there is room for misunderstanding given the tendency for ‘masters’ in the Roman world to mistreat and abuse their slaves. Merely looking for models of proper slavery in the culture at large would be futile, as the master-slave relation tended to be fraught with sins of abuse and discrimination on the master’s side, and resentment and rebellion on the other. However, we are permitted a brief, but instructive glimpse into the reality of how Paul counsels actual slaves in the Colossian and Ephesian household codes.40 While the instructions to slaves in the Colossian and Ephesian household codes are brief (Col. 3.18–4.1; Eph. 5.21–6.9), they develop a basic profile of how slaves should behave. I propose four brief expectations. 39. Sampley, Walking Between the Times, 33. 40. On a side note, some may be reluctant to turn to these letters to inform Paul’s ethics due to their dubious authorship. On this matter, I want to mention three mitigating points. First, the authorship of Colossians is not very strongly disputed by scholars today, and the ethical tenor of the Ephesian household code is not significantly different. Second, scholars are more willing, even if they see Ephesians and Colossians as non-Pauline, not to take offence at the household code, and even see them as slyly subversive. Third, no matter who wrote it, we can still learn much about a doulos-ethic from the Church’s Scripture. Personally, though, I have no qualms with viewing Colossians and Ephesians as Pauline, and I have extensive discussions of authorship issues both in my commentary on Colossians for Smyth & Helwys, as well as a recent article in Currents in Biblical Research. See N. K. Gupta, ‘What is in a Name?: The Hermeneutics of Authorship Analysis Concerning Colossians’, CBR 11 (2013): 196–217; Colossians (SHBC; Macon: S&H, 2013).

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1. Deference – By this I mean that a slave defers to the master. He or she has no value or identity apart from the master. The sole objective is to serve and respect him. Deference means always putting the master first. More than that, it means having concern only for the concerns of the master.41 2. Alignment – the ideal slave aligns him or herself with the goals of the master. He wants to contribute to the master’s advancement, success, and accomplishments (see Col. 3.22-23; Eph. 6.5-6). This is, perhaps, where we might ‘slot’ imitation language, but it is imitation of Christ in proper view of one’s place as slave.42 3. Obedience – the slave understands his or her place in the wider system. In an abusive system this is manipulative, but in the kingdom of God invading a hostile and crooked world, the slave must trust that the master knows best (Eph. 6.7). This is not unlike a military subordinate following the orders from the commander without reservation. 4. Judgement – finally, the slave works fastidiously, with good will and sincerity, knowing that the master has the authority to judge the slave’s work. They may expect reward for loyalty, hard work, and success, but they can expect punishment for insubordination, rebellion, and failure (Col. 3.24; Eph. 6.8). It is undoubtedly difficult for modern Western citizens of democratic nations to imagine unquestionable service to superiors. But in Paul’s world, everyone knew that there were authorities, and there were subjects, and hope was set on finding the right ruler to lead the people with righteousness, benevolence, and wisdom. For Christians today, Jesus is not advisor, counsellor, or neighbourly mentor. He is not even instructor or professor. He is king and master. We are subjects and slaves.

41. This attitude is more implicit within the household code. No doubt slaves felt that tasks given to them by the master were often menial, degrading, or without purpose. It was not their place normally to counsel or direct, but to defer. They must accept the agenda of the master merely because he is master, not necessarily because he is successful or intelligent. 42. See the comment made by E. Best, ‘Mark leaves us in no doubt that the Christian disciples cannot imitate Christ. At every stage where it seems that the disciple goes after Jesus and does what he does, Mark clearly distinguishes between the disciples and Jesus. It is not just that Jesus was the first to walk along the way of humble service to the cross and that men must follow, for Jesus is set in a much more unique position. This comes out in the final programmatic statement with its distinction: all minister to others, only Jesus gives his life a ransom for many, and the many include the disciple who is moved to follow and minister … The example of Jesus is the pattern for the disciple and yet the disciple cannot really be like Jesus; there is a dimension into which he is unable to enter. The disciple of the rabbi in due time becomes a rabbi; the apprentice philosopher becomes a philosopher; but the disciple of Christ never becomes a Christ’ (Disciples and Discipleship, 13).



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Conclusion We are now in a place to reflect on what the above discussion might mean for the church’s ethical language and models. As discussed in the introduction, it is hardly questionable that the Church has latched onto the language and imagery of ‘discipleship’ as its primary ethical focal lens.43 This tends to bend ethics towards the Gospels and Acts where such terminology appears frequently and exclusively. The absence of discipleship language in the epistles and Revelation raises the question – did St. Paul see himself as a disciple-maker, fulfilling the Great Commission? If not, why not? He probably did not see himself at odds with the Great Commission, if he heard it himself, but neither does he seem to follow it as his guiding mission. Rather, if we hear Paul, alongside the Gospels, we have a complementary ethical paradigm – that of the slave towards the Master Jesus. At the end of the day, the cruciform disciple looks an awful lot like the slave of Christ, but having this additional image in mind may help the modern church to avoid attributing to Jesus, what Stephen Prothero refers to, as a ‘gumby-like’ quality that is prevalent in American Christianity. We must resist bumper sticker theology that says ‘Jesus is my co-pilot’, ‘Jesus is my homeboy’, or even ‘Jesus is my best friend’. The Christological testimony of Paul directs our attention to a cosmic Lord. According to Paul, our bumper stickers should say, ‘Jesus is Master’. Gerald Hawthorne has argued that ‘discipleship’ entails such an exclusive and specific kind of concept related to teacher-and-pupil that it bears little relevance to Christian life today. He reasons that since Paul and the other epistle authors forsook the term, it should be abandoned and replaced.44 I think that might take the issue too far. Again, the evangelists seem to have intentionally reintroduced discipleship back into the Christian vocabulary, blurring the lines between the official ‘disciples’, and disciples of all generations. Rather, I want to propose that we pay attention to Paul’s doulos-ethic as a helpful companion to our discipleship language, dual lenses for the church’s moral vision. This kind of addition to the ecclesial ethical imagination can strengthen our desire to ensure holistic and even radical commitment to the Gospel that declares the sovereign rule of Jesus. What recapturing Paul’s doulos-ethic could mean for the church is well-represented by the attitude expressed by Ronald Marshall’s final words in his article on the offence of the cross in the Fourth Gospel: ‘It is just this tough-minded message that the church needs today to overcome the good feelings and “easy-to-digest spirituality” that is dragging it down. It is just this message that will heal the church by helping it become “half as large and twice as strong”.’45 43. See R. B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (New York: HarperCollins, 1996). 44.  See G. Hawthorne, ‘The Imitation of Christ: Discipleship in Philippians’, in Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (McMaster New Testament Studies; ed. R. Longenecker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 163–79 (165). 45.  R. F. Marshall, ‘Our Serpent of Salvation: The Offense of Jesus in John’s Gospel’, Word & World 21 (2011): 385–93 (393). The quote within is from R. Wuthnow, The Crisis in the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 240–1.

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Bibliography Alexander, L., ‘What Is a Gospel?’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels (ed. S. C. Barton; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 13–33. Aune, D., The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987). Barth, C., God with Us: A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). Bauer, D. R., ‘The Major Characters of Matthew’s Story: Their Function and Significance’, Interpretation 46 (4) (1992): 357–67. Beker, J. C., Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). Best, E., Disciples and Discipleship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). Boring, M. E., ‘The Christology of Mark: Hermeneutical Issues for Systematic Theology’, Semeia 30 (1984): 125–51. Brueggemann, W., The Word That Redescribes the World: Bible and Discipleship (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006). Burridge, R., What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Burridge, R., Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). Byron, J., Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity: A TraditioHistorical and Exegetical Examination (WUNT 2/162; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2003). Byrskog, S., ‘Performing the Past: Gospel Genre and Identity Formation in the Context of Ancient History Writing’, in History and Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr. E. Earle Ellis for His 80th Birthday (ed. S. A. Son; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 28–44. Dunn, J. D. G., Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). France, R. T., Matthew (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985). Furnish, V. P., Jesus According to Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Furnish, V. P., Theology and Ethics in Paul (NTL; Louisville: WJK, 2009). Garland, D. E., Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2001). Garland, D. E., Luke (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011). Gupta, N. K., ‘What is in a Name?: The Hermeneutics of Authorship Analysis Concerning Colossians’, Currents of Biblical Research 11 (2013): 196–217. Gupta, N. K., Colossians (SHBC; Macon: S&H, 2013). Hagner, D., Matthew 14–28 (WBC 33B; Waco: Word, 1995). Hagner, D., The New Testament: A Historical and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012). Harris, M. J., Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 1999). Hawthorne, G., ‘The Imitation of Christ: Discipleship in Philippians’, in Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (McMaster New Testament Studies; ed. R. Longenecker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 163–79. Hays, R. B., The Moral Vision of the New Testament (New York: HarperCollins, 1996). Horsley, R., ‘Paul and Slavery: A Critical Alternative to Recent Readings’, Semeia 84 (1998): 153–200. Käsemann, E., On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene (ed. R. Landau; trans. R. A. Harrisville; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).



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Kee, H. C., The Beginnings of Christianity (London: T&T Clark, 2005). Keener, C., The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Lohfink, G., Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God (trans. L. Maloney; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1999). Loisy, A., L’Évangile et l’Église (Paris: Fishbacher, 1902). Longenecker, R. N. (ed.), Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). Lunde, J., Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship (BTFL; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). Marshall, C., Beyond Retribution (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Marshall, R. F., ‘Our Serpent of Salvation: The Offense of Jesus in John’s Gospel’, Word & World 21 (2011): 385–93. Meier, J. P., ‘The Disciples of Christ: Who Were They?’, Mid-Stream 1–2 (1999): 129–35. Morris, L., The Gospel According to Matthew (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). Nepper-Christensen, P., ‘μαθητής’, in EDNT 2: 373–4. Nolland, J., The Gospel of Matthew (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). Osborne, G., Matthew (ZECNT; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). Pennington, J. T., Reading the Gospels Wisely (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012). Perrin, N., The Kingdom of God in the Teachings of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963). Przybylski, B., Righteousness in Matthew and his World of Thought (SNTSMS 41; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Ridder, R. R. de, Discipling the Nations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971). Sampley, P., Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). Samra, J. G., ‘A Biblical View of Discipleship’, Bibliotheca Sacra 160 (2003): 219–34. Senior, D., The Gospel of Matthew (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997). Still, T. D. (ed.), Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into the Old Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). Theissen, G., The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). Thompson, J. W., ‘Ministry in the New Testament’, Restoration Quarterly 27 (3) (1984): 143–56. Trebilco, P., Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Verhey, A., The Great Reversal: Ethics and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984). Wedderburn, A. J. M. (ed.), Paul and Jesus: Collected Essays (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). Weder, H., ‘Disciple, Discipleship’, in ABD 2: 207–10. Wenham, D., Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Wilkins, M., The Concept of Disciple in Matthew’s Gospel (NovTSup 59; Leiden: Brill, 1988). Wilkins, M., ‘Disciples’, in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (eds. J. Green, S. McKnight, and I. H. Marshall; Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1992), 176–82. Wrede, W., Paul (Halle: Gebauer-Schwetschke, 1904; ET Boston: Beacon, 1908). Wright, N. T., Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). Wuthnow, Robert, The Crisis in the Churches: Spiritual Malaise, Fiscal Woe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Chapter 8 A N E T H IC A L R E A D I N G O F T H E S T O RY O F G I D E O N ABIMELECH FOR THE KOREAN CHURCH1 S. Min Chun

Introduction The Situation of Korean Churches According to the 7th edition of Operation World, six of the ten largest churches in the world are in Korea.2 If one sees the night scenery of the city of Seoul from a tall building, one would be amazed by incalculable numbers of red neon crosses covering the city, wondering if this is ‘heaven on earth’. Impressed by the quantitative aspect of Korean Christianity, which is often highlighted by the invincible sizes of some of its mega-churches and the ubiquitous presence of its local churches, outside observers tend to conclude that the Korean church is worthy of emulation or at least worth researching.3 1. I dedicate this chapter to the late Rev. John Han Heum Oak, the founding pastor of Sarang Community Church in Korea, my ‘spiritual home’. To my deepest sadness, this church became one of the mega-churches that are represented negatively in this chapter. I deeply appreciate Janghoon Park for his meticulous editorial assistance for this chapter. He did an exceptional job of clarifying my ideas and improving my writing. Of course, any remaining flaws are my responsibility. I also thank Daniel Park for providing me with the relevant English newspaper articles for this chapter. The seminal form of this chapter was presented as an essay in Korean with the title, ‘Size and Discipleship: a Theological-Ethical Reading of Gideon Story’, at Theology Day Camp, Nehemiah Institute for Christian Studies, on 23 January 2010. 2.  Jason Mandryk and Patrick J. S. G. Johnstone, Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation (Colorado Springs: Biblica, 7th edn, 2010), 510. According to the 6th edition of this book published in 2001, ten out of the eleven largest congregations were in Seoul, South Korea, including ‘the largest Pentecostal, Presbyterian and Methodist congregations … and the second-largest Baptist church in the world’. See Johnstone and Mandryk, Operation World, 388. 3. See the work of Sung Deuk Oak, Associate Professor of Korean Christianity and Dongsoon Im, and Mija Im Chair at UCLA (http://koreanchristianity.humnet.ucla.edu).

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As an insider of the Korean church, however, I am sadly reluctant to endorse such an assessment. I acknowledge the quantitative merits of the Korean church, but I must admit that there are serious internal problems with the Korean church that significantly detract from its outward splendour. The disappointing state of the Korean church makes it difficult for me to find a way of relating the Korean church to this volume’s theme of the Church and Ethics. I presume that the Ecclesia and Ethics conference organizers, when combining the church with the theme of ethics, probably assumed that the church is intended to embody God’s ethical vision, or at least that the church should become morally exemplary to the watching world. When I tried to relate the Korean church to the theme of ethics, however, what immediately came to mind were various scandals in which the churches in Korea, especially the mega-churches, had been embroiled.4 This negative impression indeed reflects the public sentiment towards the Korean church. For the present-day Korean people, the church is far from being an ethical example, let alone an embodiment of God’s moral vision. Because of the church’s moral failures, God’s name is dishonoured, and people are acquiring distorted understandings of who God is. I may be too pessimistic, but this view has only been reinforced by the most recent scandals. The scandal in question involved the senior pastor of one of the most famous churches in Korea. The charge was that he had committed extensive plagiarism in his doctoral dissertations (for his Ph.D. and D.Min. degrees). When this was publicized, the pastor attempted to conceal his offence through repeated denials and position changing. The church committee decided to give him a six-month suspension from preaching with reduced salary by 30 per cent, but the situation was further complicated by another issue, namely a massive, $200,000–300,000 building project being undertaken under the same pastor’s leadership. All these issues ignited a schism in the congregation that still continues as of April 2014.5 The cause of these scandals can be explained in terms of the prerogatives of senior pastors in the Korean church. This is best seen in another ethically objectionable practice, namely hereditary succession of the senior pastorate. This has been an issue for more than ten years. Hereditary succession of the pastoral office may not be so negatively viewed in Western culture, but in 4. Of particular relevance to this perception is Mandryk’s warning: ‘Church structures are not always conducive to practical holiness or effective discipleship. Christians have at times condoned low ethical standards, bribery and corrupt practices, and they have not addressed the wrongs in wider society. Megachurches can gravitate against effective discipleship and integration of new believers into the body of Christ, which in turn causes “church hopping”.’ Johnstone and Mandryk, Operation World, 511. 5. Special reporting team, ‘Pastor caught up in plagiarism allegations’, The Korea Times, 19 August 2013. Available online: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/ culture/2013/08/316_141332.html (accessed 20 November 2013). As for the controversial building project, see Sang-hee Han, ‘Church Proceeds with Construction Despite Controversy’, The Korea Times, 20 January 2010. Available online: http://koreatimes.co.kr/ www/news/culture/2010/01/135_59372.html (accessed 20 November 2013).



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the Korean context of the elevated senior pastorate, it is invariably perceived as a manifestation of the monarchical mentality that plagues so many senior pastors in Korea. A prime example comes from the the emeriti pastors of the three largest Methodist churches in Korea, which are also the largest Methodist churches in the world. Each ensured that his own son succeeded to the senior pastorate after retirement.6 This eventually caused the Korean Methodist denomination to establish the church law that prohibits the offspring of the current senior pastor (including in-laws) from taking the next senior pastorate of the same church.7 This denominational ruling is significant in that it was not only a decision based on a theological judgement, but also a reflection of the public sentiment against the monarchical dynamic characterizing Korean churches – a dynamic that people find not only anachronistic, but also distant from ethical ideals. Furthermore, the concentration of power with senior pastors often creates environments conducive to all sorts of other problems, not least of which are those involving sexual and financial scandals. In this vein, a recent scandal involved a relatively young pastor who had been a big name in the field of college and young-adult ministry in Korea. He was charged with sexually harassing a number of his female church members. Although he was eventually forced to resign the senior pastorate after much investigation and dispute, he received severance pay of $950,000 upon leaving.8 Similarly, the former senior pastor of the world’s largest church was also accused of financial misconduct.9 Twenty-seven elders in the church have filed a lawsuit against the pastor for his embezzlement.10

6.  Yong-Shin Park, “Heredity in Korean Churches,” 4, a paper presented for Shorenstein APARC Seminar Series, Stanford University, California, on May 4, 2012, accessed November 20, 2015. http://fsi-media.stanford.edu/evnts/7095/Heredity_in_Korean_Churches_edited. pdf; Ji-sook Bae, “Churches Grapple with Earthly ‘Sins’: Congregations, Public Frustrated by Scandal after Scandal,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/view. php?ud=20130310000225. 7.  Chung-un Cho, “Korean Methodist Church Bans Father-to-Son Succession,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120926000880. Cf. Ji-ook Bae, “Presbyterian Churches Ban Familial Succession,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130929000284. 8. Ji-sook Bae, “Churches Grapple with Earthly ‘Sins.’ ” 9. Ji-sook Bae, “Churches Grapple with Earthly ‘Sins.’ ” 10. On 20 February 2014, the former senior pastor ‘was sentenced a three-year prison term suspended for five years’. Da-ye Kim, ‘Pastor Cho Gets Suspended Jail Term’, The Korea Times, 20 February 2014. Available online: http://koreatimes.co.kr/ www/news/nation/2014/02/116_152009.html (accessed 24 February 2014). See also Ruth Moon, ‘Founder of World’s Largest Megachurch Convicted of Embezzling $12 Million’, Christianity Today, 24 February 2014. Available online: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ gleanings/2014/february/founder-of-worlds-largest-megachurch-convicted-cho-yoido. html (accessed 25 February 2014).

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These are high profile examples. We can safely assume that there are countless smaller, lesser-known cases as well.11 The cases of the senior pastors’ moral failures mentioned above are not unfortunate exceptions. They are symptomatic of the unhealthy mentality permeating the Korean church. Heesong Yang, in his book, Reclaiming Protestantism: Thinking of Current Situations of Korean Church, identifies three elements that constitute this problematic mentality. They are clericalism (or sacerdotalism), fixation on quantitative growth and triumphalism. In my analysis, the first two factors are determinative in the cases of pastoral moral failure. It is when a church and its senior pastor are united under the goal of becoming a mega-church that the church cedes an excessive authority to the senior pastor to achieve that goal, thereby legitimizing the centralization of power. This elevation of the senior pastorate creates a dynamic conducive to his ethical failure. The story of Gideon resonates with this mechanism. My goal in the rest of the paper is to bring the story of Gideon to bear upon the issue of the Korean senior pastors’ elevated status and its impact on their ethical failures. The Meaning of Ethical Reading My approach to the Gideon story in this essay can be designated as ‘ethical reading’. This term does not denote a kind of reading that looks for general ethical principles that can be distilled from the story. Rather, it is a reading that allows the reader to appreciate and respect the particulars of the story while being faithful to its literary dimension. This way of paying attention to the particulars of the story is important because it enables us to ‘experience’ the complex reality of life and thereby acquire practical wisdom with which we can be equipped to deal with our real life situations. The story can release ‘existential force’ to the reader, especially when there are points of resonance between the reader’s context and the reality portrayed in the story.12 Theoretical ground for this ethically oriented reading of the Bible is provided in John Barton’s article, ‘Reading for Life: The Use of the Bible in Ethics’ and in the works of Martha C. Nussbaum, cf. The Fragility of Goodness and Love’s Knowledge.13 It is also delineated in my own book, 11. One might object that my focus is too narrowly honed in on the issues of pastoral ethics. However, given that Korean churches are heavily pastor-focused and pastordependent, it is very difficult to talk about the church and ethics in the Korean context – especially the ethical issues arising from the institutional church – without addressing pastoral issues. Most recently, even a doctoral dissertation on homiletics by a Korean theologian mentions all the issues discussed in this essay. Chan Heo, “Preaching with the Congregation: Appropriating John McClure’s Homiletical theory for a Korean Context” (PhD diss., University of Stellenbosch, 2015), 136–7. 12. John Barton, Ethics and the Old Testament (London: SCM, 2002), 32. 13. John Barton, ‘Reading for Life: The Use of the Bible in Ethics and the Work of Martha C. Nussbaum’, in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (eds J. W. Rogerson, M. Davies and M. D. Carroll R.; JSOTSup 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic



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Ethics and Biblical Narrative.14 My task will be to provide an ethical reading of the Gideon story with reference to the Korean ecclesial context explained above. Due to the limitation of space, my focus will be on one theme emerging from the pivotal point of the story – where Gideon’s self-aggrandizement is expressed. I will highlight four sub-themes in the narrative that point to this theme and explain their ethical relevance to the Korean ecclesial context. This reading will take the form of ‘running commentary’, which would assist the reader’s reading of the narrative by pointing to and analysing the ethically relevant features of the text.15

An Ethical Reading of the Gideon-Abimelech Story The Story of Gideon-Abimelech in Judges The story of Gideon-Abimelech is found in Judges 6–9. It has been widely accepted that this story is the turning point of the whole book.16 The judges before the Gideon-Abimelech story are relatively ‘good’ (Othniel, Ehud and Deborah) and the judges after the story can be described as ‘bad’ (Jephthah and Samson).17 Furthermore, Gideon himself also changes as the story unfolds. In the early part of the story, Gideon shows positive traits like the judges of the preceding stories, but towards the end of the story Gideon betrays negative characteristics not unlike the subsequent judges. Moreover, Abimelech is certainly not a good leader. Gideon’s transition from being ‘good’ to ‘bad’ suggests that the Gideon-Abimelech story is indeed the hinge of the whole book of Judges.18 In my reading of the story below, I will seek to trace the cause of that change back to one pivotal moment in the story – when Gideon publicly glorifies himself at the battle that establishes him as Israel’s judge. Against this instance of Gideon’s self-exaltation, God’s prior emphasis on a small number of soldiers is thrown into sharp relief, and Gideon’s subsequent behaviour makes good sense. For the sake of highlighting the story’s resonance with the Korean ecclesial context, I will present my ethical reading of the story under four ethical themes relevant to the current churches in Korea. Press, 1996), 66–76, and Ethics and the Old Testament. Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 14. S. Min Chun, Ethics and Biblical Narrative: A Literary and Discourse-Analytical Approach to the Story of Josiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 15. Ibid., 227. 16. E.g. Elie Assis, Self-interest or Communal Interest: an Ideology of Leadership in the Gideon, Abimelech, and Jephthah Narratives (Judg. 6–12) (VTSup 106; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 15–16. 17.  Contra Roger Ryan, Judges (Readings, a New Biblical Commentary; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), who provides positive readings of all of the Judges. 18.  J. Paul Tanner, ‘The Gideon Narrative as the Focal Point of Judges’, BSac 149 (1992): 146–61, esp. 150.

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Four Ethical Themes in the Story Four ethical themes emerge from the following four episodes in the story. They are: (1) God’s reduction of the number of soldiers to 300; (2) Gideon’s self-glorification at the battle; (3) Gideon’s use of Israelite soldiers for his private vengeance; and (4). Gideon’s kingly rule leading to the people’s worship of his ephod. Number Matters In each of the stories of Israel’s judges, a distinctive challenge is presented. For example, in the story of Deborah, Deborah is faced with the challenge presented by Canaanite cutting-edge military technology, namely the army equipped with iron chariots (Judg. 4.3, 13, 15, 16). In the case of Gideon, however, the challenge consists in the large size of the army rather than its technological prowess. This is made clear in Judges 6.1-6, especially in v. 5: ‘For they and their livestock would come up, and they would even bring their tents, as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in’ (NRSV). The size of the Midianite army is restated in the middle of the story: ‘The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley as thick as locusts; and their camels were without number, countless as the sand on the seashore’ (Judg. 7.12). The total number of the soldiers can be calculated based on the information given in 8.10. If 15,000 survived even after the death of 120,000 in battle, the initial size of the whole army was about 135,000. This is more than four times the 32,000 whom Gideon summoned (cf. 7.2).19 A usual way of overcoming numerical disadvantage in a battle is to gather a larger army. This is exactly what Gideon tries to do. While ‘Abiezrites were called out to follow him’ after the spirit of the LORD ‘clothed’ Gideon (6.34), Gideon ‘sent messengers throughout all Manasseh’. Following the addition of Manassehites, however, he again ‘sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali’ (6.35). The description of these additional summonings of soldiers from the four tribes in v. 35, however, is different from that of the recruitment of Abiezrites in v. 34. In v. 34, Gideon’s sounding of the trumpet is expressed in wayyiqtol form (‫ )בשופר ויתקע‬marking the Abiezrites’ response to Gideon’s call as the main event in the narrative flow. However, the very next acts of Gideon, namely his two acts of sending messengers to the other four tribes are expressed not in wayyiqtol but in w-x-qatal (‫)שלח ומלאכים‬. This use of a non-wayyiqtol verb suggests that Gideon’s extra recruitment of soldiers was something that should be understood as background information. In the present context, the non-wayyiqtol forms seem to stand in contrast to the preceding event expressed in wayyiqtol form. 19. This calculation takes the Hebrew term ‫ אלף‬as ‘thousand’ as do most modern translations. However, the term can simply mean ‘military division’ without connoting its numerical size. One military division usually consists of a thousand soldiers, but the number may be less. See John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas (eds), The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000), 88, 220, 274, 433. Cf. John Mark Hicks, 1 & 2 Chronicles (CPNC; Joplin: College Press, 2001), 28–9.



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That is, the narrator may suggest that Gideon found the number of the assembled Abiezrites too small, and it was because of this perception that he took an extra step of summoning more soldiers.20 This point is better captured if we translate the waws in v. 35 as adversatives: ‘the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. But he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. But he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them’ (Judg. 6.34b-35; modified from NRSV).21 God, however, did not want the Israelites to rely on the large size of their army. This was the point when God said to Gideon, ‘the troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me, saying, “My own hand has delivered me”’ (Judg. 7.2). God thus tells Gideon to send back those who are fearful, with the result that the size of the army is reduced from 32,000 to 10,000. The army is, however, still too large for its victory to be attributed to God. Further sifting takes place, and in the end, only 300 people remain. Various explanations have been put forward regarding the selection criteria used in the sifting process.22 Some of these explanations assume that the 300 soldiers were chosen because of some desirable qualities supposedly possessed by them (e.g. qualities suggesting their military prowess). The differences among the explanations lie in their differing identifications of those desirable qualities and the way in which they can be construed from the methods of sifting employed.23 Verses 5–7, however, do not make any clear link between the method of the test and the reason for the choice.24 This ambiguity in the text, rather than needing clarification, can be understood as making the point that God’s choice of soldiers was not based on any desirable quality at all. This reading can be supported by two observations from the text. First, Judges 7.4b makes it clear that it is God who decides who should remain and who should go into the battle. Whether or not the soldiers are suited for the battle is not the ground for the selection. Secondly, the ultimate purpose of performing the tests is to reduce the number of the army 20. Assis, Self-interest, 52–3, reads these verses in terms of ‘the morale of Gideon and his soldiers’ rather than Gideon’s assessment of the strength of his army. For Assis, the threestage military deployment reflects Gideon’s gradual gaining of confidence and the gradual increase of people’s support. However, he does not pay attention to the verbal constructions of the verses. His reading would be more convincing if all the verbs were in wayyiqtol form. 21. As for the contrasting function of non-wayyiqtol forms in particular and the narrative functions of various verbal constructions in general, see Chun, Ethics and Biblical Narrative, 122–3, esp. n.43. 22.  See Assis, Self-interest, 63–4, and the footnotes therein for a summary of the existing explanations and the corresponding references. 23. Some scholars suggest that they were chosen because they are unsuited for the battle, so that the victory could be attributed to God as announced in 7.2. A problem with this explanation is that it does not fit well with the criterion used in 7.3 where the fearful were allowed to return home. Assis, Self-interest, 63–4. 24. Ibid., 64–5.

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so as to make it undoubtedly clear that the victory is from the LORD (Judg. 7.2, 4a). Given this clear goal of the test, it is difficult to understand God’s testing as a way of selecting the finest soldiers for the battle, as this would lay the ground for ascribing the victory to the selected extraordinary soldiers rather than God.25 Contrary to this reading, many people in the Korean church understand the 300 as ‘warriors’ with military prowess.26 This understanding of Gideon’s soldiers often serves in Korean churches as the basis of the concept of ‘seed members’ or ‘founding members’ – the people of exceptional faith and devotion by virtue of whom growth of the church can be anticipated. What fuels such interpretation is the aspiration to become a mega-church. A small number in the present is believed to lead to a large number in the future. It is this human-centred, quantityoriented mindset that lurks behind their interpretation of Gideon’s soldiers as the warriors bringing about future success. This is precisely the spirit of Gideon. Gideon’s impulse to muster a large army is now passed on to many of the churches in Korea, impacting their understanding of God’s choice of the 300 men. God’s reduction of Gideon’s army to 300 men was meant to challenge Gideon’s human-centred, quantity-oriented mindset. We must stop interpreting God’s choice of 300 according to Gideon’s spirit, viewing them as exceptional men capable of bringing about success. The size of 300 men was meant to communicate the weakness of Gideon’s army and the impossibility of its victory apart from God, rather than the extraordinariness of Gideon’s soldiers and the possibility of achieving victory on their own. The emphasis is on their small number, not on any ability or characteristic that would compensate for their small number. This is made very clear by the fact the number 300 is less than one per cent of the army that was initially gathered in response to Gideon’s trumpet call. This aspect of the story of Gideon requires us to abandon our confidence in human strengths whether expressed in the form of large quantity or extraordinary quality. It is God who brings successes and victories. Aware of the pervasiveness of the Gideonite mindset in the Korean church, people sarcastically say that there are only two types of churches in Korea: megachurches and those that desire to be mega-churches. While this is a sarcastic overstatement, Korean Christians would find it difficult to deny the poignant truth in it. Why do so many Korean churches admire mega-churches or desire to be like them? Because they believe mega-churches can provide better or more successful ministry. If they take the story of Gideon seriously, they should feel compelled to abandon the myth of large numbers.27

25. Assis also states that the test was ‘arbitrary and [did] not determine anything’ (Ibid., 64). 26.  It should be noted that the text never designates them as ‘warriors’. While Gideon is called a ‘mighty warrior’ (6.12), this appellation is never applied to the 300 men. 27. See Caleb Kwang-Eun Shin, Against Megachurches [Korean] (Bucheon: Jungyeon, 2009), for the most comprehensive recent discussion on mega-churches especially in the Korean context.



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Gideon’s Stealing of God’s glory God wanted to reduce the number of the Israelite army so that they could clearly see that the victory was only from him. However, Gideon’s self-exalting spirit led his soldiers and eventually the rest of the Israelites to ascribe the military victory to Gideon as well as God. Gideon, in effect, stole God’s glory. The initial expression of Gideon’s self-exalting tendency is seen when, according to Wolfgang Bluedorn, ‘Gideon emphasizes his own role’ in 7.17 by commanding the people to watch and imitate him (‘Look at me, and do the same’).28 Bluedorn further argues that ‘Gideon thus makes himself the only independent actor in the upcoming battle, which in turn hands over the responsibility and honour for its outcome to him’.29 This construal of Gideon’s attitude behind his command sheds light on how his following order in v. 18 should be understood. In v. 18, Gideon orders his 300 men to shout, ‘For the Lord, for Gideon’, when they hear the sound of a trumpet at the edge of the Midianite camp. Although the content of their actual shout at the battle scene is slightly different (the word ‘sword’ is added), the point is basically the same. Gideon, as well as God, is to be acknowledged: ‘This is the sword of the LORD and of Gideon’ or ‘This is the sword for the LORD and for Gideon’, depending on how one renders the prepositional lameds prefixed to ‘the LORD’ and ‘Gideon’ (7.20). Gideon’s explicit command to shout his name along with God’s name is an expression, if not an intensification, of his self-exalting spirit that was behind his prior command to emulate himself. This is best seen against God’s clear emphasis on himself as the sole ground of the victory. When God confirmed Israel’s victory in the battle through the words of a Midianite soldier, the ultimate ground of the victory was God himself, rather than God and Gideon. The Midianite soldier said, ‘This is no other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, a man of Israel; into his hand God has given Midian and all the army’. In this statement, it is clear that the distinctiveness of the sword of Gideon lies in the fact that God has given Midian and all his army into Gideon’s hands. In other words, God is the one who gives the victory, and Gideon is merely its recipient. This is an unambiguous statement regarding the one who makes the victory possible and to whom the glory must be given. But despite this clear point, Gideon orders the 300 men to shout his name along with the name of God, as if both God and Gideon are equally responsible for the coming victory. As a result, when the soldiers actually shouted at the battle, they maintain the dual focus on God and Gideon: ‘A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!’30 28. Wolfgang Bluedorn, Yahweh Versus Baalism: A Theological Reading of the GideonAbimelech Narrative (JSOTSup 329; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 138. 29. Ibid., 139. 30. The illegitimacy of this exclamation can be further reinforced by the facts that: (1) the expression ‘the sword of Gideon’ was used by a Midianite for the first time in the story (7.14; here ‘the sword’ is in the construct); and that (2) Gideon came to hear this expression precisely because of his unbelief and fear (cf. 7.10). When Gideon first heard the LORD’s command to attack the camp, he should have attacked (yrd + b) the Midianite camp. But in

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Gideon’s self-elevation through the battle shout of his soldiers, when met by the actual victory at the battle, led Israelites to credit Gideon with that victory. After defeating the Midianites and killing their two kings, the people come up to Gideon and make a request with the following words. ‘Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also; for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian’ (Judg. 8.22). This is surprising in light of 7.2 where God’s reduction of the number of Gideon’s soldiers was aimed precisely at preventing Israel from thinking that they, rather than God, had achieved the deliverance. This verb, ‘deliver’, (yš‘ hiphil), used in 7.2, is here used in Israelite’s description of Gideon’s accomplishment. The implication is that for these Israelites, it is Gideon, rather than God, who delivered them from the Midianites. In addition, Jotham, a son of Gideon, when criticizing the people of Shechem who accepted Abimelech as their king, describes Gideon similarly as having rescued Israelites: ‘[f]or my father fought for you, and risked his life, and rescued you from the hand of Midian’ (9.17). These words of the Israelites and Jotham show that, contrary to God’s intention to demonstrate that he is their true deliverer, the Israelites now treat Gideon as the hero of the war, ascribing to Gideon rather than God the glory of being Israel’s deliverer. These outcomes were, however, not entirely unexpected. A portent of these results was given when Gideon’s initial self-exalting tendency in his command to emulate himself was re-expressed in his subsequent command to add his name in the battle shout. This addition of Gideon’s name in the battle shout was precisely what God did not command. It was a manifestation of Gideon’s self-aggrandizing spirit. Consequently, when Gideon and his soldiers shouted ‘a sword for God and for Gideon’ and actually won the battle, this confirmed for Israelites that Gideon indeed was God’s equal rather than God’s instrument – the one to whom the glory of God is to be attributed. Gideon’s Vengeance Another revealing incident is Gideon’s pursuit of Zebah and Zalmunna. This incident shows how Gideon’s self-exaltation is tied up with his privatization of power. To see this, it is necessary first to examine the relationship between Gideon and his 300 men. In 7.2, God calls them ‘the people with you’ (‫אשׁר אתך‬ ‫)העם‬. The LORD uses the preposition ‘with’ (‫ )את‬to refer to the relationship between Gideon and the assembled army (also see 7.1). The same preposition is used also in the narrator’s description of the selected men in 8.4: ‘the 300 who were with him’ (‫)ושלש מאות האיש אשר אתו‬. This description of Gideon’s soldiers using the preposition ‘with’ makes it clear that for God and the narrator, the 300 soldiers are not ‘under’ or ‘above’ Gideon; rather, they are ‘with’ him. This unbelief and fear, he descended to (yrd + ’l) the camp. The use of the same verb yrd poignantly highlights ‘Gideon’s fear when he should have been confident’ (Assis, Self-interest, 69). Thus, the fact that the phrase, ‘the sword of Gideon’, – which was first introduced in the context of God helping Gideon’s unbelief and fear – is now being reused in the context of Gideon’s self-elevation testifies to the human capacity for abusing even divine gifts for one’s self-aggrandizement.



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suggests that the relationship between Gideon and the 300 men was not hierarchically conceived. In 7.18, when the victory is yet to be achieved, Gideon also used the same preposition ‘with’ in referring to the relationship between himself and his fellow soldiers. However, when Gideon, after the decisive victory at the battle, speaks to the people of Succoth in 8.5, he designates the 300 men differently. The literal translation of the phrase used by Gideon would be ‘the people at my feet’ (‫ברגלי‬ ‫)עם אשר‬. Most English translations do not adequately capture the hierarchical connotation of this Hebrew expression. For example, NRSV translates it as ‘my followers’, and JPS and NET translate it as ‘who are following me’.31 In the Old Testament (OT), however, the expression, ‘which was at one’s feet’ tends to denote subjugation. Of its five references to animate beings in the OT, the expression is applied twice to domesticated animals (Deut. 11.6; 2 Kgs 3.9), and three times to human beings (Exod. 11.8; Judg. 8.5; 1 Kgs 20.10).32 Of the three references to human beings, the phrase is used twice by pagan kings to make derogatory remarks (Exod. 11.8; 1 Kgs 20.10). In Exodus 11.8, Moses predicts that Pharaoh, in response to the final plague, will say these words: ‘Leave us, you and all the people who are at your feet.’ This expression reflects Pharaoh’s perception of the relationship between Moses and the Israelites. It is necessary to take into account the fact that Pharaoh, a pagan king, is addressing Moses as Israel’s king-like leader, treating him as the figure by virtue of whose power display (ten plagues) the people of Israel are liberated. For Pharaoh, in other words, the Israelites are Moses’ subjects, just as the Egyptians are his own. Similarly in 1 Kings 20.10, Ben-Hadad uses the expression to describe his own soldiers. Ben-Hadad is trying to subjugate Israel’s king and his people by threatening to devastate northern Israel with his army. For this pagan king, who seeks to subjugate even the king of Israel (20.4), his own soldiers are not his companions or the people who stay ‘with’ him, but clearly his subjects are acting in strict obedience to him. They are literally ‘the people who are at his feet’. In light of the OT’s use of the expression, Gideon’s designation of the 300 men as ‘the people who are at my feet’ betrays his perception of himself as a kingly figure not unlike a pagan king. He views the 300 men as his subjects. This perspective of Gideon stands in sharp contrast with the way in which God (7.2), the narrator (7.19; 8.4), and Gideon himself before the victory (7.18) view the 300 men as ‘the men with Gideon’ – i.e. the men who battle with Gideon for the common purpose of realizing the victory promised by God. To the eyes of postvictory Gideon, the 300 men are merely the people under his rule, not unlike domesticated animals or the people under a pagan king. Gideon’s changed perception of himself and others is revealed in another way. According to 8.5, Gideon’s 300 men were tired and hungry when they reached 31. Other translations include: ‘my warriors’ (NLT); ‘my troops’ (NIV); ‘my men’ (GNB); ‘the people that follow me’ (KJV); ‘my troops I have with me’ (The Message). 32. The phrase appears six times in total in the OT. The sixth reference is 1 Kgs 2.5, but it deals with ‘the sandals’, which are inanimate objects.

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Succoth. Their exhaustion and hunger were the reason Gideon asked for loaves of bread from the people of Succoth (v. 5) and later from the people of Penuel (v. 8). Indeed, their exhaustion and lack of strength to continue pursuing the two kings of Midian were so obvious to the people of Succoth and Penuel that they doubted that Gideon’s soldiers would be able to capture them and win the battle. Thus they decided not to side with Gideon and refused to feed his 300 men. Nonetheless, Gideon did not change his determination to pursue the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna. He became bitter towards the people’s refusal to help him, and even promised vengeance on them. Gideon was clearly single-minded about capturing the two Midianite kings. How should we understand Gideon’s preoccupation with capturing Zebah and Zalmunna? One may say that he so badly wanted to finish the whole war with Midian that he doggedly pursued and seized its kings. Yet, according to vv. 18–21, a desire to finish the battle is not his actual motive. Here Gideon makes a revealing statement concerning why he wants to kill Zebah and Zalmunna: ‘And he replied, “They [those whom Zebah and Zalmunna killed at Dabol] were my brothers, the sons of my mother; as the Lord lives, if you had saved them alive, I would not kill you”’ (Judg. 8.19). In other words, lying behind Gideon’s decision to kill them – and indeed, lying behind his whole furious pursuit – was his burning desire to avenge his brothers’ death. This provides the context for Gideon’s mobilization of the 300 men. Gideon was using the 300 men to execute his personal vengeance as if they had been his privately owned army. For Gideon, they were not the people ‘with’ him. They were the people ‘under his feet’. This spirit of vengeance and self-elevation is sharply contrasted in v. 20 with his first son Jethel, who ‘was afraid’ to kill Zebah and Zalmunna. The narrator’s description of Jethel as being ‘afraid’ reminds the reader of Gideon’s naturally ‘timid’ character betrayed in his initial response of fear to God’s call to battle against Midian. Gideon is no longer the same person. The contrast between monarchical, vengeful Gideon and intimidated Jethel in this scene is a dramatic indication of how much Gideon has changed. Ultimately, Gideon and the 300 soldiers’ pursuit of the Midianite kings has little to do with realizing the God-given victory of Israel over Midian. Rather, it was Gideon’s vengeful pursuit of his brothers’ murderers, and Gideon was acting like a pagan king when mobilizing the 300 men as an instrument for executing his vendetta. This confirms our understanding of Gideon as exhibiting consistent self-aggrandizing tendencies at least since his initial command to emulate himself. The following episode on Gideon’s final years should be understood in line with this view. Kingly Power and False Worship The battle against Midian finally ended when Zebah and Zalmunna were executed. Then, the people of Israel asked Gideon, his son, and his grandson to rule over them. Although they did not use the title, ‘king’, this was a request for Gideon to be their monarch and to establish his dynasty – i.e. Gideon’s rule would proceed



An Ethical Reading of the Story of Gideon-Abimelech for the Korean Church 129

hereditarily. This request by the people of Israel is, as was pointed out earlier, indicative of whom they consider being their true deliverer. For them, Gideon wrought the victory over the Midianites. However, Gideon refused to rule over them, providing a pious reason for the refusal: it is the LORD, not he and his son, who will rule the people (v. 23). The sincerity of Gideon’s refusal to rule, however, is drawn into question by Gideon’s subsequent behaviour, especially his acceptance of the wealth and privileges associated with a kingly status. Gideon first asks for the earrings that the people plundered from the Midianites, which the narrator explicitly states are made of gold (v. 24).33 Upon hearing Gideon’s request, the people willingly give their golden earrings to Gideon (their willingness is emphasized with the use of infinitive absolute, ‫ןנתון נת‬, in v. 25), and the amount of the golden earrings thereby collected was 1700 shekels of gold, or 19.5 kilograms.34 Besides the earrings, the people gave Gideon an ornament in a crescent shape, ‘treasure’, the royal Midianite garments, and ornaments for camels. This demonstrates how, though Gideon does not take the official kingly throne, he does accept the power and wealth associated with it. It is telling to note that the narrator mentions the Midianite royal robes among the items collected for Gideon. Gideon then makes an ephod with the collected gold earrings, and the narrator tells us that he put the ephod in Ophrah (Judg. 8.27). This was the city that belonged to Joash in the early part of the story (Judg. 6.11), but now it is in Gideon’s possession. This suggests his elevated position. The details about Gideon’s elevated status are more fully revealed in the last few episodes in Chapter 8. Three observations are in order. First, he has many wives. The possession of a great number of wives is a typical kingly prerogative. Second, he has seventy sons (Judg. 8.30). This is the number of the sons of Ahab whom Jehu kills in 2 Kings 10.1-7.35 The implication is that it is a large enough number to establish a dynasty. Third, he has one son from his concubine, whom he has named ‘Abimelech’ – which means ‘my father is a king’. These observations point in the same direction: in spite of his verbal refusal to rule the people, Gideon in effect acquired royal prerogatives and became a kingly figure. It is within this context of Gideon’s elevated status that the Israelites’ idolatrous worship of the ephod should be understood. Given Gideon’s consistent self-exalting tendency observed in his previous acts and the Israelites’ resultant elevation of Gideon and loss of focus on God, their idolatrous worship of the ephod is not surprising. The narrator reports that the ephod, which Gideon made and put in his city while exercising a kingly power, exerted a fatal influence on the Israelite community: ‘Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his town, in 33.  Gideon does not mention the material of which the earrings are made (v. 24a). This may betray Gideon’s intention to conceal his real motive behind collecting the earrings, namely his desire to accumulate wealth. 34. Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 263. 35. Tammi J. Schneider, Judges (Berit Olam; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 128.

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Ophrah; and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family’ (8.27). The function of snare is usually attributed to foreign gods (e.g. Exod. 23.33; Judg. 2.3). The description of the ephod as functioning as a snare, then, signifies that the ephod, which legitimately belongs to the religious tradition of Israel, had been turned into a sort of pagan god, entrapping Israelites in destructive idol worship. This tragic result, along with all of the other consequences of Gideon’s self-aggrandization, leads to further complications subsequently arising with Abimelech.

Conclusion The four themes from the story of Gideon-Abimelech highlighted above resonate with the ethical situation of the Korean church at least in three ways. Firstly, many Korean churches’ aspirations towards quantitative growth need to be seriously reconsidered. When Gideon mustered a large number of soldiers, God, rather than endorsing this deed, reduced the size of Gideon’s army to 300 men. This is precisely because God knows the human tendency to take credit when human strength is involved. Those who possess Gideon’s mentality, those who believe that a larger church is more effective in ministry, must heed this divine diagnosis of the human heart. If they persist in such a belief, their ministerial success will be a snare to them, causing them to believe and declare that ‘our own hands delivered us!’ (7.2). This warning needs to be taken seriously, especially given the fact that Gideon fell into the trap of self-exaltation after the victory even when the number of soldiers involved was small. How much more easily, then, will we fall into the same trap if we battle with an unreduced number of soldiers! Of course, people still declare that all their ministerial success is God’s work. Use of this familiar religious rhetoric itself, however, does not always reflect one’s true conviction. As was seen in Gideon’s acceptance of royal prerogatives despite his verbal refusal to be a king, one’s real attitude is betrayed not by words but by actions (cf. 8.22-24). Korean churches ought to reflect on whether or not their passion for quantitative growth is actually tantamount to the idolatrous desire for self-aggrandizement that plagued Gideon. Second, as was poignantly demonstrated by our analysis of Gideon’s behaviour, even the signs of God’s favour – e.g. God’s assurance of victory followed by a real victory wrought by God – can be used to enhance our own reputation and to legitimize one’s elevated status. This explains why many of those Korean senior pastors who began their ministries with sincere pastoral hearts and humble attitudes are now – usually after experiencing some ministerial success and earning some recognition – preoccupied with the numerical growth of their church and immersed in self-aggrandizing activities such as the construction of grandiose church buildings. The ultimate expression of this self-exalting tendency is the assumption of kingly privileges, as was the case with Gideon. Still under the influence of the Confucian cultural idea of a hierarchical social order, the Korean ecclesial context is prone to giving excessive authority to senior



An Ethical Reading of the Story of Gideon-Abimelech for the Korean Church 131

pastors, thereby reinforcing their monarchical mentality.36 Unless one is resolute about suppressing the desire to exalt one’s self and to renouncing the tendency to highlight senior pastors along with God at the time of ministerial success, it would be difficult to stay immune to the idolatrous inclination that we see in Gideon and his people. Third, clericalism reinforces (and is reinforced by) the monarchical mentality and kingly privileges possessed by so many Korean senior pastors. Clericalist emphasis on the distinction between lay people and ministers reinforces the bifurcation between kingly senior pastors and the church members ‘under their feet’. This bifurcation consolidates the ground under monarchical Korean senior pastors and empowers the utilization of people for personal agendas – just as Gideon mobilized the soldiers for his private vengeance (cf. 8.5). This in turn reinforces the hierarchical distance between senior pastors and their church members in their shared ethical framework, with the result that senior pastors are left unchecked and are more easily inclined to take ethically inappropriate actions. Denouncing clericalism is, therefore, one way of curbing the Korean church’s tendency to concentrate power in senior pastors. I began this essay by recounting some of the recent scandals in the Korean church.37 It is my sincerest hope that the proposed ethical reading of the story of Gideon-Abimelech may release some ‘existential force’ to its Korean readers and also to any other sympathetic readers who are witness to or experiencing similar difficulties.

Bibliography Ahn, Jumsik, Worldview, Religion, Culture [Korean] (Seoul: JOY Press, 2008). Assia, Elie, Self-interest or Communal Interest: An Ideology of Leadership in the Gideon, Abimelech, and Jephthah Narratives (Judg. 6–12) (Vetus Testamentum Supplements 106; Leiden: Brill, 2005). Bae, Ji-sook. “Churches Grapple with Earthly ‘Sins’: Congregations, Public Frustrated by Scandal after Scandal,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/ view.php?ud=20130310000225. Bae, Ji-ook. “Presbyterian Churches Ban Familial Succession,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130929000284. Barton, John, ‘Reading for Life: The Use of the Bible in Ethics and the Work of Martha C. Nussbaum’, in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium (eds J. W. Rogerson, M. Davies and M. D. Carroll R.; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 207; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 66–76. Barton, John, Ethics and the Old Testament (London: SCM Press, 2002). Bluedorn, Wolfgang, Yahweh Versus Baalism: A Theological Reading of the 36. Jumsik Ahn, Worldview, Religion, Culture [Korean] (Seoul: JOY Press, 2008), 174–84. 37. For a biblical reflection on the bleak situation of Korean Churches, see Keunjoo Kim, Special Lectures on Jeremiah [Korean] (Seoul: IVP, 2013).

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Gideon-Abimelech Narrative (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 329; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Cho, Chung-un. “Korean Methodist Church Bns Father-to-Son Succession,” accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120926000880. Chun, S. Min, Ethics and Biblical Narrative: A Literary and Discourse-Analytical Approach to the Story of Josiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Han, Sang-hee, ‘Church Proceeds with Construction Despite Controversy’, The Korea Times, 20 January 2010. Available online: http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/ culture/2010/01/135_59372.html Heo, Chan. “Preaching with the Congregation: Appropriating John McClure’s Homiletical theory for a Korean Context.” PhD diss., University of Stellenbosch, 2015. Hicks, John Mark, 1 & 2 Chronicles (The College Press NIV Commentary; Joplin: College Press, 2001). Johnstone, Patrick and Jason Mandryk, Operation World (Carlisle: Paternoster Lifestyle, 2001). Kim, Da-ye, ‘Pastor Cho Gets Suspended Jail Term’, The Korea Times, 20 February 2014. Available online: http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/02/116_152009.html Kim, Keunjoo, Special Lectures on Jeremiah [Korean] (Seoul: IVP, 2013). Mandryk, Jason, Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation (Colorado Springs: Biblica Publishing, 7th edn, 2010). Moon, Ruth, ‘Founder of World’s Largest Megachurch Convicted of Embezzling $12 Million’, Christianity Today, 24 February 2014. Available online: http:// www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/february/founder-of-worlds-largestmegachurch-convicted-cho-yoido.html Nussbaum, Martha, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Nussbaum, Martha, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Oak, Sung Deuk, Online Archive Korean Christianity at UCLA. Available online: http:// koreanchristianity.humnet.ucla.edu Park, Yong-Shin Park. “Heredity in Korean Churches.” A Paper Presented for Shorenstein APARC Seminar Series, Stanford University, California, on May 4, 2012, accessed November 20, 2015. http://fsi-media.stanford.edu/evnts/7095/Heredity_in_Korean_ Churches_edited.pdf Ryan, Roger, Judges (Readings, a New Biblical Commentary; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007). Schneider, Tammi J., Judges (Berit Olam; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000). Shin, Caleb Kwang-Eun, Against Megachurches [Korean] (Bucheon: Jungyeon, 2009). Special Reporting Team, ‘Pastor Caught Up in Plagiarism Allegations’, The Korea Times, 19 August 2013. Available online: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/ culture/2013/08/316_141332.html Tanner, J. Paul, ‘The Gideon Narrative as the Focal Point of Judges’, Bibliotheca Sacra 149 (1992): 146–61. Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas (eds), The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000). Webb, Barry G., The Book of Judges (New International Commentary of the Old Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012). Yang, Heesong, Reclaiming Protestantism: Thinking of Current Situations of Korean Church [Korean] (Seoul: The Blessed People, 2012).

Chapter 9 P R I D E A N D P R E J U D IC E : C OM M U N I T Y E T H IC S IN JAMES 4.1-12 Mariam J. Kamell

One of the most common sentiments expressed in conversations about the church, particularly as it exists in the public square, is the sentiment that ‘those’ people are ruining the church’s reputation. ‘They’ are too judgemental and not loving enough, or conversely ‘they’ are the hypocrites and the prejudiced ones. This pronoun – ‘they’ – is on the lips of liberals and conservatives alike, both deeply concerned about the health and future of the church, both proposing different answers, but both equally sure that the problems really stem from some other group. Battle lines are drawn, and each side declares that those on the other side are the sinners. Both sides, for the most part, have genuinely good intentions and desire the health and welfare of the church, but often begin their search for solutions to the problems of the church by questioning the motives of the other side.1 However, the complexity of human relationships resists easy statements of others’ culpability. They require a constant re-checking of our own motives and our own place before God. In fact, this perspective requires an intense humility that is so countercultural both in church and society, it is difficult to sustain. While not a particularly common text for many to go to for instructions about church life (one thinks more readily of Pauline texts like 1 Corinthians or Ephesians), James 4.1-12 directly addresses life in the community, naming a variety of the factors that trip us up and make life together so profoundly difficult. The author begins with competitions, moves to coveting and lands on pride before prescribing humility as the necessary response to each of these problems. Weaving through all of these is the prejudice involved in judging others, and so in vv. 11–12, James directly names this tendency and seeks to broaden his audience’s perspective yet again. Throughout these twelve verses, the twin sins of pride and prejudice rise again and again to lead even the most well-meaning Christian astray in their relationships. 1. To be fair, some do not have good motives and so discernment is required. There is also simple human nature, whereby those who begin with good motives can end with a desire to stay in control at all costs, no longer looking to the good of the body.

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This chapter seeks to develop a picture of community relationships before God as seen in James 4.1-12, a picture supplemented by related texts elsewhere in the canon that can help us move beyond platitudes to transformation of our churches. There are few texts that so simply and succinctly reshape our ecclesiology, and so the message of humility in James 4 needs to be heard today in our international community. Without humility, we risk driving people further from knowing God because of the poor witness of our fragmentation and fighting. As we relate to one another, this paper will argue that humility before God is the crucial attitude, without which we fall into pride and prejudice, controlled by our desires, destroying our communities. The passage begins in vv. 1–2a with the violence caused by our prideful desires: ‘What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.’ There are some who argue that these verses continue on from the warning in 3.1, ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.’2 Quite likely the quarrelling depicted in Chapter 4 stems at least in part from those who are fighting for scarce positions of authority and leadership, where the church was seen as a place where even those of low status could gain standing. Yet, these problems of wanting and being unable to obtain the desired object, while natural to leadership, are inherent to the human condition. There is, therefore, a significant amount we can unpack from these two verses that can be useful for diagnosing life in community that applies to far more than just those who lead. First, James begins by acknowledging that there are fights and disputes among the members of the community. He does not begin by asking ‘are there any fights or wars among you?’ but rather asks, ‘where do they come from?’ The statement of reality is the first necessary step toward the healing of community, however bad the reality may be. The language in these verses is full of violence: fights, wars, battles and murder. While some take this to be literal violence caused by zealots warring against Rome, more likely the terminology is what Dan McCartney describes as ‘hyperbolic or metaphorical’, even while intending ‘some shock value. … [P]arty spirit, contentiousness, and ambitious striving are not minor problems;

2. Cf. Scot McKnight, The Letter of James (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 322: ‘The question of 4:1a is directed at the teachers.’ See also Ralph P. Martin, James (WBC 48; Waco: Word, 1988), 144–5. Robert W. Wall separates 3.18 and 4.1–5.6 under the headings of ‘slow to speak’ and ‘slow to anger’, but acknowledges that ‘the repetition of the phrase “among you” may well suggest that the author has retained something here of his prior interest in the congregation’s discernment of the competent teacher (3:1-2, 13-18)’ (Community of the Wise [Valley Forge: Trinity, 1997], 194). Douglas J. Moo represents many who link 3.1–4.10 under the topic of speech, but do not take it as specifically directed to teachers (The Letter of James: An Introduction and Commentary [TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986], 45, 148).



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they rank right up there with murder as a manifestation of evil’.3 If we read this passage and are not startled by the violent language, we have not been paying attention: divisiveness is shocking violence to which we have become numb, probably because our own desires make us party to the conflict. This passage also challenges us to ask whether the desires are internal to an individual, or whether this warring is located solely between people in the broader community.4 The parallel of the plural ‘you’ in the two phrases in v. 1 raises this question: fights and wars ‘ἐν ὑμῖν’, and desires warring ‘ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ὑμῶν’. To use southern English, does the first ‘all y’all’ and the second ‘all y’all’s members’ refer to the same person or group, or does the first refer to the community and the second to the individual? In Matthew 5.29-30, Jesus teaches that it is better to lose a hand or an eye, ‘one of your members’, than the whole person, where the members are parts of the individual.5 Likewise, in Romans 6.13, 19; 7.5, 23 Paul repeatedly speaks of presenting the ‘members’ of our bodies (τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν, distributive for individuals) to sin or to God. In his illustrations of the church as a body of varied parts in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, however, Paul blurs the lines between using the term μέλος for an individual’s physical body parts and an individual’s place within a larger community of which she is a member. Likewise in James 4.1, the author appears to have intended for the hearers to remember their place within the larger community, but recognizing that the disputes within the body derive from every individual’s capitulation to their own desires. In this reading, the first ‘ἐν ὑμῖν’ diagnoses the state of the community as one of conflict, warfare, and dispute. The church has become a battleground. The second ‘ἐν … ὑμῶν’, diagnoses the internal state of each member that leads to the external reality.6 3. Dan McCartney, James (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 207–8. For those who view it as literal, see Martin, James, 144–5: ‘James is likely to have been caught in the middle of warring factions – namely, those who wanted peace and those who were ready to fight to the death in the interests of national freedom as they viewed it’. 4. That both ἐν ὑμῖν/ἐν … ὑμῶν refer to the community, see Martin, James, 140, 145; Cargall, 155; Wall, Community, 194–5; McKnight, James, 324; that ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ὑμῶν refers to the individual, see Sophie Laws, A Commentary on the Epistle of James (HNTC; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 168; Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 157; Dale Allison, James: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, (ICC; New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 600. 5. ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου. 6.  Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 37A; New York: Doubleday, 1995), 276. Cf. P. J. Hartin, James (SP 14; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003), 196: ‘the imagery of a war occurring within the human being is found elsewhere in the New Testament’ (cf. 1 Pet. 2.11, which parallels the argument here: ‘Dear friends, I urge you … to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul (ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν σαρκικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἵτινες στρατεύονται κατὰ τῆς ψυχῆς)’; Rom. 7.21-23).

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Desire dictates the interactions of this community, but it is also worth noting the tie between desire and pride. Not all desires are evil, nor is all ambition wrong, but as is happening here in James 4, when people are controlled by their desire for gain, public position or affirmation, conflict is inevitable. Ralph Martin observes that ‘James traces the battles within the church to the rise and dominance of passions. These passions [are] lusts for power, popularity, authority, not simply sensual pleasure.’7 Or as McCartney summarizes, these ‘desires [are] not just for physical pleasures but also for the headier wine of power and honour’.8 This tie between desire and pride is something that has been a problem since the start of the biblical narrative. In the Garden Adam and Eve stumbled at the foot of a desirable tree, but even there, it was seeing that, not only was the tree ‘good to the eyes’, but it would make them ‘like God’, that led to the Fall (Gen. 3.4-6).9 In Israel’s history, Joseph’s brothers sought to dethrone his position as their father’s favourite by violence, because their pride was offended (Gen. 37.18-19). They desired the obstacle to their father’s affection removed so that they might lead. Samson’s pride in his strength and status led to his downfall as a viable judge of Israel (Judg. 16.20). David’s pride was enough that he thought himself above the law, and that he was therefore justified in his acting on his desire for Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11.1-4). Desire may be present, but it is pride that encourages a person to act upon their desires. In a parallel passage, James 1.14-15 warns against blaming God for temptation, instead recognizing that one’s own desires actively lead each person astray. There, James presents a lifecycle of desire and death, warning, ‘But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.’10 He concludes with the somber admonition, ‘Do not be deceived’ (v. 16). Desires are not neutral, and to think otherwise is sheer folly.11 In Chapter 1, the antidote is to recognize God’s generous nature and be willing to receive from his hand instead of selfishly pursuing the fulfilment of one’s own desires – which can only lead to death. In James 4, allowing egocentric desires to flourish creates wars in the individual that lead to chaos in the community. Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarized James 4.1-2 thus: ‘Those who allow their own desire to become their god, must inevitably hate other human beings who stand in 7. Martin, James, 145. 8. McCartney, James, 207. 9. McCartney points to the murder of Abel by Cain to illustrate that ‘the faithless/unbelieving internal war of covetousness and frustrated desires generates faithless/unbelieving outward conflict, jealousy, and even murder among people’ (James, 207). 10. In Chapter 1, James uses ἐπιθυμία instead of ἡδονή as we see in James 4.1. He will use the parallel verb ἐπιθυμέω at the start of James 4.2, but the implication of these terms is the same. 11. Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘topos peri pthonos’, in Brother of Jesus, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 182–201.



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their way and impede their designs’.12 This is precisely James’ point, for desires are leading to fights, wars, and even murders (literal or figurative, it remains a strong term!).13 To strengthen this tie between desire and violence, vv. 1–2 form a chiasm around the aggressive effects of desire: Wars and battles (πόλεμοι … μάχαι) Desires (ἡδονῶν) warring (στρατευομένων) in your midst You want (ἐπιθυμεῖτε) and don’t have – you murder (φονεύετε) You covet (ζηλοῦτε) and can’t obtain You battle and make war (μάχεσθε … πολεμεῖτε)

Whereas in Chapter 1 the outcome of desire is the individual’s death, in Chapter 4 the outcome of desire is community strife, with murder at the centre of the chiasm. In Western culture, obsessed with legitimating the right to act upon our every desire, the church of our time needs to take a long, sober look at why ‘natural’ desires are to be a justification for how we act. James frames three different words for desire with the language of violence to allow no excuses for letting selfish desires dominate. Within the church, desire cannot be in control of the community.14 The problem with desire is not simply the sacrifice of communal peace on the altar of personal status and satisfaction. Pride and desire also destroy the individual’s and the community’s prayer life, which is a major theme throughout the epistle. At the beginning (Jas 1.5-8, 16-18), James corrects a wrongful view of God with the teaching that God is the generous giver of all that his people need – particularly the wisdom to live mature (τέλειος) lives – if they will ask.15 At the end, James gives the example of Elijah to encourage people regarding the effectiveness of prayer (Jas 5.16-20). In an epistle that focuses on the power of prayer and the nature of God as the giving God, James also needs to deal with the question of unanswered prayer.16 James 4.2 begins with ‘you want and you do not have’, and it ends with ‘you do not have because you don’t ask’. This verse is framed by the desire to have, but clearly the audience members are going about obtaining their desires in absolutely 12. As quoted in Allison, James, 601. Cf. Johnson, James, 276: ‘The “warring” of these desires can be taken both internally and externally, and they are logically connected: desires for pleasure tend to come into conflict within the human person, and the insensate drive for such pleasures creates tensions between people.’ 13. McCartney, James, 208: ‘Animosity escalates when desire is frustrated.’ 14. Cf. Allison, James, 601, for a wide variety of quotations from the ancient world about the problem of desire. 15. Johnson sees a linguistic tie to 1.5 (James, 277–8). Allison notes the connection between 1.7-8 and James’ interest in unanswered prayer (James, 606). 16. Many commentators note the contrast in Jas 4.2-3 with Mt. 7.7-8 (par Lk. 11.9-10) and the absolute promise given there: “Αἰτεῖτε καὶ δοθήσεται ὐμῖν … πᾶς γὰρ ὁ αἰτῶν λαμβάνει.” Cf. Laws, James, 178; Davids, James, 159–60.

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the wrong way. They do not have, and so they covet and fight and obsess about adding to their own status and position (Jas 4.2). Instead, James says, they should have just asked! Stop fighting and actually ask from the one who gives the good gifts! The focus of the community is obviously off-centre, foreshadowing the second use of James’ unique term double-minded (δίψυχος) (Jas 1.8; 4.8) for those who fail to keep their focus on God.17 Instead of looking to God, they are enviously comparing their status and possessions with those around them, revealing a fundamental doubt in their faith in God as the giver of good gifts.18 Several commentators have noted the role of the tenth commandment, ‘you shall not covet’, in these verses.19 John Painter argues, ‘These words describe precisely what the tenth commandment prohibited. … Desiring what you do not have is to desire what belongs to another, the neighbour”’.20 Coveting ceases to look to God to provide, but instead looks at what the neighbour has. James wants to redirect this focus.21 Instead of focusing on each other competitively, they ought to be looking to God and seeking what he wishes to give them. Here is the key to the second part of this unanswered prayer discourse. First, the community does not have because they do not even ask. Further, James warns, they do not have because they ask badly, wrongly (κακῶς).22 Thankfully, lest we go down various rabbit trails of condemnation for bad prayer (and there are plenty of options for condemnation from this epistle alone), James explains what ‘asking badly’ means: self-indulgence. Given Chapter 2, where he condemns those who refuse to help out an impoverished brother or sister, and Chapter 5, where he gives a full prophetic denunciation of the wealthy who hoard for their own selfindulgence, a similar condemnation might be understood here as well. It is not that God does not wish to give: already he has been described as the generous 17. Stanley E. Porter, ‘Is dipsuchos [James 1,8; 4,8] a “Christian” Word?’, Bib 71 (1990): 469–98. 18. Cf. Davids, James, 159. 19.  For example, see Allison, James, 601, ‘his words are naturally read in the light of the tenth commandment, LXX Exod. 20.17 = Deut. 5.21: οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις … . Moreover, Gen Rab. 9.12 and Pesiq R. 21.17 record the notion that the one who violates the command, “You will not covet”, is as one transgressing all ten commandments’. So also Craig L. Blomberg and Mariam J. Kamell, James (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 198. 20. John Painter and David A. deSilva, James and Jude (Paideia; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 138. He adds, ‘desire is unquenchable, inexhaustible. Desire does not recognize “enough.” Desire has created the consumer society. Desire flourishes because it seems that there is always more, and more is never enough’. 21.  Contra Allison who calls these two lines on prayer a ‘digression’ (James, 580). Prayer – as directing their attention to God rather than themselves – is the first answer to the problems in this community. 22. Hartin observes, ‘James attributes apparently unanswered prayer to the fault of the human person, not to God. The proper object of prayer is wisdom (1.5), not the gratification of one’s desires’ (James, 212).



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giver (1.5) and the unchanging source of all good gifts (1.17). God’s nature as giving and generous is one of the most sustained images throughout the epistle. So it is not that God begrudges his people. However, the selfishness of petty ambition and status comparison directly contradicts the single-minded devotion of God, coinciding instead with the outcome of the worldly, false wisdom described in Chapter 3. As Luke Timothy Johnson warns, ‘the gift-giving God is here manipulated as a kind of vending machine precisely for purposes of self-gratification. … In this case, “prayer” is a form of idolatry.’23 Or, as he says elsewhere, the way they are praying is ‘the attitude characteristic of idolatry: to regard God solely as the fulfiller of our desires’.24 This is, of course, exactly what James wanted his audience to perceive. Picking up on the entirety of Israel’s prophetic history, James lets loose: ‘Adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God’ (Jas 4.4). The term μοιχαλίδες has a textual variant that is gender inclusive, ‘adulterers and adulteresses’,25 a change likely introduced on the assumption of early scribes that James is speaking about literal adultery.26 However, though modern translations seem to follow a similar line (NRSV ‘adulterers’, NIV//ESV ‘adulterous people’), this misses the significant linguistic flag of the background: Israel consistently being depicted as God’s unfaithful wife and YHWH pleading with her to return to the covenant he had made with her.27 God’s command to Hosea to marry a prostitute in illustration of Israel’s infidelity is simply the most obvious parallel.28 Jeremiah repeatedly indicts Israel as a faithless wife who, by her infidelities, has polluted the land.29 Ezekiel 16 depicts God’s choice of Israel as his bride, protected 23. Johnson, James, 278. 24.  Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘Friendship with the World—Friendship with God: A Study of Discipleship in James’, in Discipleship in the New Testament (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 169. 25. David Noel Freedman, ‘Caution: Bible Critic at Work’, BR 15 (1999): 42–3, argues for the longer reading. 26. Johnson, ‘Friendship’, 169. Another possibility is to conflate this with the earlier gender-inclusive text of 2.15, “ἐὰν ἀδελφὸς ἢ ἀδελφὴ.” 27. Davids, James, 160: ‘the feminine vocative clearly calls one back to the whole OT tradition of Israel as God’s unfaithful wife denounced in prophetic books and also – in an individualistic sense – in late Judaism’. So also Laws, James, 174; Martin, James, 148. McKnight downplays this tradition and prefers the NRSV translation (James, 331–2). 28.  Cf. Allison, James, 607: this ‘recalls especially the book of Hosea – likely just alluded to in 3.13 – in which the prophet takes a woman prone to adultery for a wife in order to demonstrate the people’s waywardness’. Cf. Karen H. Jobes ‘The minor prophets in James, 1 & 2 Peter and Jude’, in Minor Prophets in the New Testament (ed. Maarten J.J. Menken and Steve Moyise; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 139–40. 29. E.g. Jer. 3.1b: ‘Would not such a land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? says the LORD’; 3.20: ‘Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says

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and cherished; who then chased after idols and foreign peoples’ affirmation. Instead of looking to YHWH for protection and provision, Israel compared herself with other nations and desired to be like them.30 Jesus himself, as Martin notes, ‘compared Israel to an “adulterous generation”’.31 The use of μοιχαλίδες here is a calculated insult on James’ part, intended to shock the hearers into profound reflection on their prophetic heritage.32 It is not an insult pointed toward women that needs to be made gender-inclusive. It is intentionally offensive to all its hearers, meant to wake a people trained in the prophetic literature and aware of the covenantal history with YHWH. James warns on no uncertain terms: by focussing on your desires, your status, your selves, you have broken covenant! This passage is not simply a kindly warning to stop bickering. It is a damning indictment that being a community controlled by desire equates to covenant infidelity, a breaking of the kingdom rule (2.8). To dabble in seeking worldly priorities of wealth, status, authority, particularly within the Christian community, is betrayal of the covenant that God made with this community to make it a first-fruit of a new creation (1.18). They are already in the new creation, so to live according to the old way is to be unfaithful to their new identity. Darian Lockett explains the problem of 4.4 thus: To be a friend of the world is to live in harmony with the values and logic of the world in the context of James 4.1-10, namely envy, rivalry, competition, and murder. Friendship language is the language of alliance or coalition and here in 4.4 those allying themselves with ‘the world’ are labelled ‘adulteresses’, or those unfaithful to covenant relationship. These references to ‘the world’ in James refer to something more than the material world or humanity in general; it is the entire cultural value system or world order which is hostile toward what James frames as the divine value system.33

The indictment James makes in 4.4 is more than a simple ‘if you’ve murdered, then perhaps you’ve gone too far with your competition’. It is a warning against acceptance of the social systems that pit people against each other in competition for status, while also holding other people in oppression and poverty. Lest we only the LORD’; 13.27: ‘I have seen your abominations, your adulteries and neighings, your shameless prostitutions, on the hills of the countryside’. 30. E.g. Ezek. 16.28: ‘You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied’; 16.38: ‘I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged’, the latter of which combines murder and adultery (on that point, see Davids, James, 160). 31. Martin, James, 148: Mt. 12.39; 16.4; Mk. 8.38. 32. Johnson, ‘Friendship’, 170: ‘The first part of this verse places us rather squarely, therefore, in the context of idolatry and covenant fidelity.’ 33. Darian R. Lockett, Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 117. Johnson, ‘Friendship’, 171: ‘“the world” [is] a system of untrameled [sic] desire and arrogance’.



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think of overt actions, we should also be wary of granting approval through silence to such social systems. In our current context, we might consider programmes that require a person to have an address or a phone number before they can apply for assistance, which automatically marginalizes the homeless and brings even further destitution. As we fight for our individual rights to be in the front of the church as leaders, are we aware of where we have allowed worldly concepts such as ‘authority’ or ‘leadership’ to hijack our scriptural understanding of women’s roles, the place of the poor, and the significant danger of wealth? Where have we simply baptized the cultural value system and called it Christian? According to James, a misguided love of the world amounts to full covenant infidelity.34 James looks at his new creation congregation living in an identical manner to the culture around them and cannot approve. This desperate competition, this re-enactment of the world inside a new creation community, this proving to outsiders that we can be just like you only better, reveals a wrongful focus. Our focus may be on our neighbours, as James advocates in 2.8, but his audience is not looking at the neighbour in love. Rather, they are full of envy and a desire to emulate. In James, the one who should be emulated is YHWH. Desiring to have the approval of the watching world, of the systems of the world, of those who dictate what is popular and what has public approval, is foolish and leads into direct contradiction with God’s will for his people.35 In fact, the author is so passionate about this that he repeats himself in v. 4, speaking first more abstractly – friendship with the world is contrasted with enmity to God – then more pointedly – the one who wishes to be friends with the world is an enemy of God. There are only three uses of the verb βούλομαι in the epistle, two of which seem closely related.36 In 1.18, it is solely in accordance with God’s willingness that the audience have been birthed into their new creation identity. God wills to bring people into a covenant with himself. In 4.4, intentionality is again highlighted. Here, people will, in contrast to God’s invitation, to be in relationship with the world. The directionality of desire takes one either deeper into the covenantal relationship, or away from it.37 Ralph Martin observes, Friendship with the world stems from a deliberate … choice to do so (the verb βοθληθῇ implies this). … Not that they intend to fall away from God; but rather James is pointing out that such worldly behaviour borders seriously on apostasy. 34. Allison suggests the term φιλία may be better translated as love here, particularly given the context (James, 609): ‘James is declaring some of his readers to be adulteresses because they are passionate about “the world” as opposed to God.’ He compares this use to that in 2 Tim. 4.10 as well as in 2 Clem. 5 for support. Johnson points to 1 Jn 2.15 as a parallel (James, 279). 35. McKnight, James, 334–5: ‘James’ focus is on accusations against the teachers and leaders for creating chaos in the community by yearning for lordship.’ 36. In 3.4, it is by means of a rudder that a ship goes where the pilot wills. 37. Johnson, ‘Friendship’, 171: ‘the “wishing” (βούλομαι) indicates an effective choice, as it does also in Jas 1.18’.

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He is suggesting that some of the readers do not appreciate that their deliberate choice to befriend the world is actually an action that sets them against God.38

God chose to bring these people into covenant relationship with himself, and they choose instead to return to the old existence. Our desires, therefore, reveal our covenant status. Peter Davids warns, Two diametrically opposed pairs are presented: friendship and enmity are used to underline the polar opposition between God and the world. … There is no middle point, no compromise. One is either God’s friend or his enemy. … These people in the control of ἡδονή are in utmost danger.39

To seek God’s gifts only to be able to spend on one’s own desires reveals a significant danger. It seems likely that James 4.4 is a reworking of Jesus’ comment that ‘no person can serve two masters’ in Matthew 6.24, and James parallels the emphatic reiteration in that source text.40 Thomas Merton conflates Jesus’ and James’ teachings thus: ‘No [person] can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.’41 One cannot desire approval or status or wealth without it warping the direction of one’s growth, for such worldly status symbols become idols in their own right and draw our focus away from God.42 Truly, we are made in the image of what we desire – God or an idol. 38. Martin, James, 148. 39. Davids, James, 161. 40.  Dean B. Deppe notes that the introduction οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι implies ‘that his audience already knew or at least should have known what he was about to explain’ (The Sayings of Jesus in the Epistle of James [Chelsea, MI: Bookcrafters, 1989], 106). He concludes that ‘this emphasis in church paraenesis may very well have found its origin in the preaching of Jesus as exemplified in Mt. 6.24; Lk. 16.13. However, the fact that no common vocabulary is present argues conclusively against envisioning Jas 4.4 as an allusion to these gospel references. Instead, James and the other teachers in the church were putting Jesus’ principles into practice and employing their own words to express what they had learned. … This is another instance where themes from Jesus’ preaching have found their way into the church’s ethical teaching.’ Richard Bauckham has refuted the need for exact vocabulary to be present for an allusion to still be applicable (James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage [London: Routledge, 1999], 76). 41. Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 1999), 49. 42.  Johnson, ‘Friendship’, 172: ‘there is absolutely no indication in James that Christians are to observe ritual separation from other people or from any class of objects which are regarded as “impure.” Nor does James ever suggest that Christians flee the customary social structures and seek or establish alternative life styles. On the contrary, as we shall see, he envisages Christians taking full part in the affairs of the world: commerce, landowning, judging, owning and distributing possessions, having houses for hospitality.’



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James then seeks scriptural support. James 4.5 is notoriously difficult, raising questions concerning the source quotation and whether it is actually a quotation or merely a summary of the forthcoming quote in v. 6, but together vv. 5–6 reveal the ultimate source of the problem: human pride opposes God, wilfully chooses its own way, and God therefore stands against it.43 On the other hand, God responds to human humility, for humility seeks God’s will first and depends on his gifts to live. This quote from Proverbs 3.34 appears only here and 1 Peter 5.5 in the NT, and in both cases it is in the context of community relations.44 Clearly, how we relate to one another is not a matter of indifference to God, but rather reveals whether we are working with him in loving our neighbour. In practising neighbour love, we will be conformed to God’s single-minded character of generosity, which is in contrast to the human inclination to seek our own good first. Pride and grace stand opposed. Perhaps it is this principle from Proverbs that can lead James to write things like ‘Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom?’ (Jas 2.5). God gives grace to the humiliated because they receive it, whereas the proud act as though they do not need grace but are deserving of reward.45 Pride can look at Scripture and decide it is irrelevant, as James mockingly notes in James 4.5. Humility, on the other hand, depends on God for greater grace, in relationships, in leadership, in calling, in community: the humble person recognizes that all comes from God and depends on his grace. Humility is the answer to the problems in this passage – the fighting, the competitions, the slander, all of it comes down to a prideful attitude that assumes my own desires are the ultimate guide to what should be. In James, the humble are not always financially impoverished, but they are the ones who recognize their dependent state before God and live accordingly.46 As the author will go on to say in 4.15, one ought to live with the recognition that each day we are alive only because of God’s grace. Painter observes that, ‘to submit to God is to acknowledge God as God and to recognize that humans are the work of God’s hands’.47 43. Regarding the source quotation, see Richard Bauckham, ‘The Spirit of God in Us Loathes Envy: James 4.5’, in The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G. Dunn (eds Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker and Stephen C. Barton; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 270–81, is the most convincing regarding the source quotation coming from the lost text of Eldad and Modad. See also Allison, James, 617–22. For the argument of it as summarizing the forthcoming quote, see Craig B. Carpenter, ‘James 4.5 Reconsidered’, NTS 46 (2000): 189–205; cf. McKnight, James, 340. 44. Allison, James, 67–70, sees this as evidence of James’ dependence on 1 Pet. 45. Qua Hartin, James, 214: ‘God’s gifts are bestowed on those who are open to receive them’. 46.  Mariam J. Kamell, ‘The Economics of Humility: The Rich and the Humble in James’, in Engaging Economics (eds Bruce Longenecker and Kelly Liebengood; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 157–75. 47. Painter, James, 143.

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For the prideful, arrogant audience whom James addresses here, there is no way forward except total repentance. The proud must first recognize that they have stood in direct opposition to God because of their desire for independent identity: wealth and status are each ways to self-define that do not depend on God’s grace. Johnson notes that the citation of Proverbs 3.34 ‘grounds James’ argument’, and Davids explains: ‘If one remains proud and continues to seek the world, God’s jealousy, God’s resistance will surely fall. But all is not lost. There is still an even greater graciousness to God. If one will simply humble oneself, God will extend his grace and mercy.’48 One cannot get back from such prideful independence without a full repentance, because covenant has been broken. In Deuteronomy, after presenting the covenantal blessings and curses, Israel is given the promise in Chapter 30 that if they return wholeheartedly, God will restore them. Isaiah 57.15 quotes YHWH as saying ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite’. Grace is given to those who mourn and repent: God revives their heart and relationship is restored. Job ‘repent[s] in dust and ashes’ (Job 42.6) when he recognizes his pride before God. Zephaniah calls the humble to seek the Lord and obey his commands in hopes that they ‘may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath’ (Zeph. 2.3). Ben Sira observes that ‘those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts, and humble themselves before him’ (Sir. 2.17), and more pointedly, he warns that ‘the greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord’ (3.18). The intercessory prayer of Manasseh recognizes that YHWH is ‘the God of those who repent’ (Pr. Man. 13), but celebrates repentance because it is how sinners may be saved (7). Luke 18 records the parable of the prideful Pharisee and the repentant tax collector, concluding with ‘all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’ (v. 14). It is in repentance that the proud move toward humility and thus can receive God’s grace. James 4.7-10, therefore, focuses entirely on the mode of repentance. James urges his audience to recognize the extent of their pride before God, calling sinners ‘to repentance, to a change of outward action and inward orientation and commitment’.49As noted in James 2.10, stumbling in one offence amounts to violating the entire law, and so, as Huub van de Sandt cautions, the audience needs to be humble enough to admit that the covetousness described in 4.1-4 ‘leads to the transgression of major [precepts]’ through violence and idolatry.50 Friendship 48. Johnson, James, 283; Davids, James, 164. Cf. Martin, James, 151–2: ‘the need to forsake pride in order to receive God’s grace is a common one in the NT and later churches (see Mt. 18.4; 23.12; 1 Pet. 5.5; 1 Clem. 30.2; Ign. Eph. 5.3)’. 49. Painter, James, 144–5: ‘Nothing less than a genuine remorse for sin and determined commitment to a changed life pleasing to God will do.’ 50. Huub van de Sandt, ‘Law and Ethics in Matthew’s Antitheses and James’s Letter: A Reorientation of Halakah in Line with the Jewish Two Ways 3:1-6’, in Matthew, James, and Didache: Three Related Documents in their Jewish and Christian Settings (eds Huub van de Sandt and Jürgen K. Zangenberg; Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 337.



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with the world, accepting the values and priorities of the world, is nothing short of idolatry. This is a common theme throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Israel is repeatedly indicted for loving the nations around her and wanting to be like them and therefore of committing idolatry.51 James 4.7 begins the call to repentance with a command to submit to God and to resist the devil. Given the contrast of wisdoms just prior in 3.13-18 and the contrast of friendships in 4.4, this sort of oppositional instruction should not come as a surprise. Submit, of course, is a loaded word in our culture, and this is the only use of ὑποτάσσω in the epistle.52 It is in the awkward passive imperative form, for which BDAG offers a possible reflexive translation: subject oneself, alongside the passive: be subjected.53 In context of the competition for leadership roles, this command requires the audience to recognize their place before God, as accepting his leadership over their lives as ‘demonstrated by humbling oneself before God’, as Martin summarizes.54 It means submitting to the definitions of true religion as given in 1.26-27: a controlled tongue, a charitable demeanour, and moral purity, all held together in daily life. McCartney argues that submission to God, therefore, is defined by the subsequent two commands of resistance and drawing near.55 The command to resist the devil has garnered popular interpretations of spiritual warfare, but the epistle pushes us in a different direction. In James 1.13-15, the person who gives way to temptation is depicted as dragged away by their desires, so standing firm represents an oppositional response to desire and temptation. Chapter 3 speaks of both the out-of-control tongue being set on fire by hell and the false wisdom from below as being earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. Standing firm against the false wisdom that leads to dissension and quarrelling would prevent the outcomes that we have already seen at play in the beginning of Chapter 4. Davids concludes, ‘The means of resistance is either good works … or total commitment to God. For James, there would be little difference between these two, although his emphasis here is on total commitment.’56 The person who resists the devil refuses to allow human desire to compete with God and refuses the identity of the double-minded person.57 Instead, they choose what 51. Cf. Hos. (particularly 3.1, where his wife is called ‘πονηρὰ καὶ μοιχαλίν’ in comparison with Israel who ‘ἀποβλέπουσιν ἐπὶ θεοὺς ἀλλοτρίους καὶ φιλοῦσιν πέμματα μετὰ σταφίδων’); Isa. 42; Jer. 2, 7; Ezek. 6, 16 (Ezekiel consistently links sexual sin, lust, and idolatry.) 52. McKnight sees the similarity with 1 Pet. 5 as raising the possibility of an early catechetical tradition (James, 347). 53. BDAG, ‘ὑποτάσσω’, 1042. 54. Martin, James, 152. 55. McCartney, James, 217. 56. Davids, James, 166. 57. Allison notes that ‘Readers of James, aware that διάβολος could mean “slanderer or enemy” and also that the word is a synonym for ‫“ – שׂטן‬accuser” or “adversary”, might find mention of “the devil” particularly fitting here. James is countering people who engage

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Painter describes as ‘single-minded devotion to God … [against] the dominant threat of the world, temptation via desire’.58 The challenge for the church is to choose daily not to be co-opted by the world’s values – what is popular, and likewise to repent from domesticating God and assuming he approves of our desires. James calls his audience to choose to submit to God by standing firm against desire and pride. The second part of submission involves returning the focus of one’s desire to God: ‘draw near to God, and he will draw near to you’ (Jas 4.8a). Like so much of this epistle, the author is intimately convinced by the personal, responsive nature of God, and here it is revealed as encouragement. As Franz Mußner notes, ‘James is no simple preacher of judgement’.59 All of this repentance and standing firm is not simply done for its own sake, that we might become sanctimonious and be proud of ourselves yet again. McCartney observes, ‘as a practical matter, it is by drawing near to God that one can successfully dispense with the motivation to achieve success at the expense of others’.60 Drawing near to God requires humility and ever-greater submission to him as God, holding to the assurance that he responds positively.61 It is not a subservient, servile, cringing approach, but a deferential approach that trusts God does give greater grace to those who depend on him. As Scot McKnight observes, ‘In context, this line stands in dramatic contrast with 4.6b. Opposition to the proud stands in contrast to God’s drawing near to the one who draws near to God, which implies that drawing near is a dimension of humility, submission, and resisting the devil.’62 Drawing near to God brings the opposite result from pride – God responds with grace. The drawing near is then further defined in full ritual language. First is the phrase ‘Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded’ (Jas 4.8b). It is clear that the subject under discussion is more than simple ritual purity: the external is a reflection of the true inward state. In the Psalms we read the poet lament, ‘in vain I have kept my heart clean, and washed my hands in innocence’ (Ps. 73.13).63 While the language is not entirely identical, the imagery of a clean heart and washed hands is parallel to James’ exhortation, confident repentance will not be in vain. Perhaps more familiar is the prayerful awareness of who may draw near to God’s mountain in Psalm 24.4: ‘Those in disputes, make themselves enemies of God, and speak evil of others (4.1-4, 11-12), all attributes of “the accuser.” Pride and envy are also traditional attributes of the devil, and perhaps this was already true by the time of James. If so, a reader might imagine that to oppose the devil is to oppose envy and pride’ (James, 626). 58. Painter, James, 143. 59. Franz Mußner, Der Jakobusbrief (Freiburg: Herder, 1975), 184. Corrected from the 1964 edition, which reads ‘Er ist klein bloßer Gerichtsprediger’ (p. 184). 60. McCartney, James, 217. 61. Davids, James, 166: ‘To resist the devil is to commit oneself to follow God or to draw near. God will not be unresponsive.’ 62. McKnight, James, 349. 63. … ματαίως ἐδικαίωσα τὴν καρδίαν μου … ἐνιψάμην ἐν ἀθώοις τὰς χεῖράς μου.



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who have clean hands and pure hearts’.64 Clean hands and a pure heart provide the necessary condition to be able to approach God, such that Patrick Hartin concludes, ‘the combination of these two expressions is meant to symbolize the external and the internal’.65 James uses the same imagery, because he shared the same concern. Hartin continues, ‘the prophets made a strong connection between inner purity and external concern for the poor and oppressed’.66 Jeremiah pleads for Jerusalem to ‘wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved’ (4.14).67 Dale Allison notes that a pure heart ‘has to do with moral and religious integrity, something like single-minded, unwavering intention. It is precisely what the δίψυχοι lack.’68 The church needs to practise the disciplines of humility, such as fasting, submission, or generosity, if we wish to cultivate this essential character of humility before God. It takes wisdom to discern who requires repenting and for what – a subject James returns to in Chapter 4.11-12. Yet, in this passage, he focuses on each person examining their own conscience before God and returning to him in humility and repenting from where we have acted in pride before him – particularly where we have used his name to support our prideful assertions! Speaking to the sinners and the double-minded who have opted for friendship with the world, James calls all in the community to ‘lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy into dejection’ (v. 9).69 Pride blazes on without seeing a need for changing direction, but humility recognizes the severity of one’s errors before a holy God and mourns. Pride rejoices in pointing out others’ faults, but, as exemplified by Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9, humility weeps over not only one’s own faults, but also over the sins of the community, repenting as though they were one’s own. As a body, we should lament that we have reached a state in the global church where leaders become celebrities, where some siblings celebrate environmental carelessness, where poverty among our 64. ἀθῶος χερσὶν καὶ καθαρὸς τῂ καρδὶᾳ. 65. Hartin, James, 216. ‘They need single-minded devotion to God and for this reason they must purify their hearts. The purity rules take on extreme importance, for they are the means of maintaining friendship with God.’ Allison adds, ‘“Clean hands” is a biblical idiom. It is more precisely cultic language that has been transferred to the personal religious sphere and so signifies moral integrity. James has turned it into an imperative – seemingly unparalleled except in later Christian texts under Jamesian influence’ (James, 628). 66.  Hartin further adds, ‘The ritual of washing one’s hands was a way to remove the dirt of the world and to purify oneself for the realm of God. The prophets adopted the phrase to give it a spiritual meaning in reference to moral purity’ (James, 215). 67. ἀπόπλυνε ἀπὸ κακίας τὴν καρδίαν σου, ‘Ιερουσαλημ, ἳνα σωθῇς. 68. Allison, James, 629. John H. Elliott ‘suggests that in James as well concepts of purity and pollution may be invoked to address issues of personal, social, and cosmic disorder and order’ (‘The Epistle of James in Rhetorical and Social Scientific Perspective: HolinessWholeness and Patterns of Replication’, BTB 23 [1993], 74). 69.  Cf. Eccl. 7.4, ‘the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth’.

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own brothers and sisters is ignored except for a passing prayer or a token act of charity, and where we can split a church over issues of musical preference. The reasons for our repentance are manifold and should cause each one of us pause.70 No matter our role in any given controversy, there is room for mourning the state of Christ’s body before God by each of us, and there is no space for arrogance over our enlightened freedom. In this chapter, we could have examined James 4.1-10 only, as this passage creates a coherent whole, and many commentators round off the section here.71 However, this does not finish the picture. The danger is that, based on what has been said thus far, it is very much human nature to begin to point at others and say, ‘they need to repent, they are the ones breaking communion’. James, aware of human nature, refuses to allow this. Immediately after calling the community to full repentance for their pride, he moves on to their prejudice. James 4.11 warns: ‘Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.’ Johnson explains: ‘the way in which James places these terms [καταλαλέω and κρίνω] as virtually synonymous is a key to his meaning. For one human being to slander another means that the status of a judge has been assumed. The other is measured, found wanting, and is condemned – all in secret.’72 The correct approach to the Law, instead, as Hartin notes, is one of ‘humility and a willingness to carry out God’s will’.73 We do not stand upon it in order to judge others. Now this point cuts in two directions. On one end of the spectrum, some are perfectly willing to call out sin, but they do so in a way that declares the sinner to be beyond salvation. On the other hand, Timothy Dalrymple pointed out in a blog last year that more progressive Christians are also perfectly happy to engage in stereotyping and judging their more conservative brothers and sisters. Seeing this division, he pleads, ‘If we truly care for the public witness of the church, then we (liberal and conservative) need to stop slandering and caricaturing the other half of the church. Don’t throw your Christian brothers and sisters under the bus.’74 This way of treating each other from both directions fits precisely with 70.  Cf. the description of love in the community in 1 Cor. 13, particularly vv. 4–5: ‘Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful (NIV 2011: “keeps no record of wrongs”)’. 71. Cf. Martin, James, 157; Johnson, James, 291; Hartin, James, 217; Laws, James, 186. For keeping them together, see Blomberg-Kamell, James, 182–5; Davids, James, 168; Allison, James, 633, who observes that ‘The call not to speak against others or to judge them takes readers back to the condemnation of social conflict in vv. 1–2 and forms an inclusio.’ 72. Johnson, James, 293. 73. Hartin, James, 218. 74.  Tomothy Dalrymple, ‘If You’re Selling Scorn for Conservative Christians, the Market is Hot’, Philosophical Fragments, June 11, 2012. Available online: http://www.patheos. com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/06/11/if-youre-selling-scorn-for-conservativechristians-the-market-is-hot/ (accessed 15 May 2013). He points to the various billboards



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James’ warning, because, as McCartney summarizes, ‘slander indirectly imposes censure because the wider community is implicitly being encouraged to ostracize the accused person, who may very well be innocent. But the more important issue is that no individual in the community is in any position to judge the spiritual condition of another.’75 When we judge our brothers and sisters and publicly declare them wrong on matters of interpretation and Christian living, both sides – or perhaps more realistically all sides – in these varied debates engage in speaking evil of one another and slandering one another in the public square. It is worth clarifying here the important difference between judging opinions, on which we will never have unanimity, and judging people and pronouncing on their spiritual state before God. McCartney cautions, in 4.11-12, ‘James is not concerned with how the community as a whole may deal with a member who has trouble with some sin, but in 5.19-20 he does recognize a place for correcting a fellow believer. Rebuking and correcting someone because of love is quite different from slandering and judging, which are generated by different motives, usually jealousy or ambition.’76 The how as well as the why of our engagement in disputes is of vital importance. Rather than quietly rebuking each other while celebrating the fact that we are all part of the same body, we engage the public square to host our disputes. We score points from Christians and non-Christians alike, and we feel better about ourselves when we have scored enough likes, shares, reposts, re-quotes, or whatever other mode of affirmation it takes to make us feel like we have scored a victory.77 Instead of seeking to build up the church, we would rather judge and cut off limbs from the body that we do not find to be attractive. We in the church appear to feel comfortable evaluating another’s theology as defective and therefore declaring them as beyond God’s salvation. We question another’s commitment to God – which we cannot know – and sometimes simply declare judgement on God’s behalf. Allison asks, ‘Does James invite deconstruction here? The text that were up in North Carolina posted by churches apologizing for conservative siblings, and cautions that what these billboards actually say is this: ‘[These churches are] holding themselves out as a better alternative. They are the good Christians, the more Christ-like Christians, who are not judgemental – even as they’re judging sixty percent of North Carolinians, a majority of Californians, over half of Christians in the United States and the great majority of Christians around the world. In other words, they’re saying “our hearts are with you” in that “we feel the same anger and scorn in our hearts as you do”.’ 75. McCartney, James, 220–1, emphasis mine. 76. Ibid., 221. 77. Martin, James, 163: ‘The link between speaking against the brethren (4.11, 13-17) and a lack of respect for the law … and God was the point of 4.9, where those James called to repentance seemed to have taken a nonchalant or carefree attitude toward sin and toward God. These people believed that they were “masters of their own destiny” and in the end responsible to no one but themselves. They are indicted for their “love of the world” (4.4; Mußner, 189)’.

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criticizes others for criticizing others’.78 This query, though, misses the point that James criticizes his audience for slandering one another, and he does so in order to bring them back to a place of humility and submission before God as the sole judge for salvation. James warns that, at the point we take it upon ourselves to judge fellow Christians, we have usurped a role that is not our own. In pride, we evaluate others based on partial information, engaging in the same prejudice already warned against in the beginning of Chapter 2. Prejudice says, ‘from what I can see, I am able to evaluate and come to a judgment about your salvation’. Yet, judges make the law, interpret the law, and stand over the law. When the law by which we judge one another is the law given by God, we have overreached our stations.79 As James 4.12 continues, ‘There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbour?’ The only one with the right to judge is the one who holds the power to act on that judgement. It must be the one who can ‘carry out the sanctions of divine law’, as McCartney describes.80 We declare our judgements on one another, but they are empty noise. As Davids rhetorically adds, ‘who indeed do humans think they are?’81 Problematically, in engaging in slander, we make prejudiced noise that destroys the community, failing to act in a way that is quick to listen and slow to speak (as per 1.19).82 Rather, we are quick to judge and quick to anger, and we claim that our anger really is God’s righteousness. It is God who chose to bring forth a new creation people. He gives his saving word and greater grace to the humble, not to the proud and the prejudiced. When we look down on liberals, or conservatives, or the poor, or the wealthy, or the comfortably middle class, or the working women, or the stay-at-home moms, those who recycle everything and cultivate compost heaps, and those who unthinkingly eat imported food and wear imported clothing; when we speak evil of one another, we are no longer doers of the word but hearers only who deceive ourselves (cf. Jas 1.22). As self-deceived hearers, we fall under risk of judgement from the God who has the power to save or destroy. He will treat the unmerciful with a matching lack of mercy (2.13). Again, we hear an echo of Jesus in Matthew 7.1, ‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged’.83 Humility is the only way through the knotty community problems that James faces in his short epistle. Sin cannot be allowed to stand, and he freely 78. Allison, James, 636. 79. Allison, James, 637, holds this ‘Law’ to be the Jewish Scriptures. 80. McCartney, James, 221. 81. Davids, James, 170. 82. Painter, James, 151, highlights the preponderance of community language in these two verses that echoes back to 2.8. 83. Allison, James, 637: ‘James moves from people judging others to God judging them. This reflects the logic of the tradition in Mt. 7.1-5 = Lk 6.37, 41-42, where those who judge others will be judged (by God)’. Deppe again denies that this is a reference to a saying of Jesus (Sayings, 118–19).



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and confidently calls for repentance from those who are acting in a prideful, prejudiced way. Yet, at the same time, James claims that judging one another is itself condemnable. To navigate that line requires wisdom from above, which is only given to the humble. Until Christians stop competing with one another and judging one another, until we humble ourselves before God even when we think we are right and ‘they’ are wrong, until humility is the primary characteristic of the church, we stand in prideful opposition to God. Humility acknowledges the limits that God places on us and submits to him, not seeking ways around his rules. Humility acknowledges our place before God and receives his grace with gratitude. Humility acknowledges our own fallenness and does not count the sins of our neighbour, nor assume our own rightness in thinking. Against our pride, we must remember that God opposes the proud, but will respond to the humble. Against our prejudice and desire to judge, we must remember that only God has the power to judge, and he will judge those who judge others. Humility before God is the answer to our fractured communities as we navigate the complexities facing the church today. Indeed, humility before the Lord is the only option. Let God exalt as he will. He does not do as we will. Humility is the only antidote to pride, and the only proper posture for any person who would call themselves a servant of the Lord. If God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, then the primary characteristic of the church should be humility, and we must be people who plead for forgiveness for our pride. We need God’s greater grace. Would our example in the world lead others to characterize us as humble servants who love each other, or do they hear only our rhetoric against our brothers and sisters? Where we see divisiveness, it is a good clue that this call to repentance in James is immediately applicable. Proverbs 18.12 warns that ‘Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honour’. James knows that the only honour that will last – the only honour that matters – is that which is given from God.84 ‘Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you’ (Jas 4.10).

Bibliography Allison, Dale, James: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary (International Critical Commentary; New York: T&T Clark, 2013). Bauckham, Richard, ‘The Spirit of God in Us Loathes Envy: James 4:5’ in The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G. Dunn (eds Graham N. Stanton, Bruce W. Longenecker and Stephen C. Barton, 270–81; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). Bauckham, Richard, James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage (London: Routledge, 1999). 84. Allison, James, 633: ‘In James, the exaltation is eschatological: it correlates with the σῶσαι of v. 12’.

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Blomberg, Craig L. and Mariam J. Kamell, James (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008). Carpenter, Craig B., ‘James 4:5 Reconsidered’, New Testament Studies 46 (2000): 189–205. Dalrymple, Timothy, ‘If You’re Selling Scorn for Conservative Christians, the Market is Hot’. Philosophical Fragments, June 11, 2012. Available online: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/06/11/ if-youre-selling-scorn-for-conservative-christians-the-market-is-hot/ Davids, Peter H., The Epistle of James (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982). Deppe, Dean B, The Sayings of Jesus in the Epistle of James (Chelsea, MI: Bookcrafters, 1989. Elliott, John H., ‘The Epistle of James in Rhetorical and Social Scientific Perspective Holiness-Wholeness and Patterns of Replication’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 23 (1993): 71–83. Freedman, David Noel, ‘Caution: Bible Critic at Work’, Bible Review 15 (1999): 42–3. Hartin, P. J., James (Sacra Pagina 14; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003). Huub van de Sandt, ‘Law and Ethics in Matthew’s Antitheses and James’s Letter: A Reorientation of Halakah in Line with the Jewish Two Ways 3:1-6’, in Matthew, James, and Didache: Three Related Documents in their Jewish and Christian Settings (eds Huub van de Sandt and Jürgen K. Zangenberg; Atlanta: SBL, 2008). Jobes, Karen H., ‘The Minor Prophets in James, 1 & 2 Peter and Jude’, in Minor Prophets in the New Testament (eds Maarten J. J. Menken and Steve Moyise; London: T&T Clark, 2009). Johnson, Luke Timothy, ‘Friendship with the World—Friendship with God: A Study of Discipleship in James’, in Discipleship in the New Testament, (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985). Johnson, Luke Timothy, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible 37A. New York: Doubleday, 1995). Johnson, Luke Timothy, Brother of Jesus, Friend of God: Studies in the Letter of James (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). Kamell, Mariam J., ‘The Economics of Humility: The Rich and the Humble in James’ in Engaging Economics (ed. Bruce Longenecker and Kelly Liebengood; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). Laws, Sophie, A Commentary on the Epistle of James (Harper’s NT Commentaries; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980). Lockett, Darian R., Purity and Worldview in the Epistle of James (London: T&T Clark, 2008). Martin, Ralph P., James (Word Biblical Commentary 48; Waco: Word, 1988). McCartney, Dan, James (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009). McKnight, Scot, The Letter of James (New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). Merton, Thomas, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 1999). Moo, Douglas J., The Letter of James: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986). Painter, John and David A. de Silva, James and Jude (Paideia. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012). Porter, Stanley E., ‘Is dipsuchos [James 1,8; 4,8] a “Christian” Word?’, Biblica 71 (1990): 469–98. Wall, Robert W., Community of the Wise (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1997).

Chapter 10 DISCERNING, DISARMING AND REDEEMING THE D IG I TA L P OW E R S : G O SP E L C OM M U N I T Y , T H E V I RT UA L S E L F A N D T H E H T M L O F C RU C I F O R M L OV E John Frederick

Introduction In this chapter, I aim to accomplish two related goals, namely: (1) to demonstrate Paul’s governing moral conceptuality from an exegesis of key passages from the Pauline epistles, with a special focus on the epistle to the Colossians; and (2) to translate Paul’s moral vision into a coherent paradigm of ethical praxis for Christian blogging and virtual interaction in the present day. I will propose this paradigm as a critical and self-reflective tool in order to demonstrate how, through the principles of cruciform composition, critique and commentary, the zeros and ones of our digital selves can function as redeemed powers of reconciliation unto the building up of the body of Christ, the Church, through the html of cruciform love. In taking up the language of powers to refer to the influence of online media and our presence and activity through them, I am situating myself within a central theme of Paul and Colossians. In Colossians the powers (θρόνοι, κυριότητες, ἀρχαὶ, ἐξουσίαι) are viewed by the author as those forces, capable of both good and evil, which were created by God and which are presently under the sovereign rule and authority of Christ (Col. 1.16; 2.10). Furthermore, in referring to our virtual selves and communities as powers, I am intentionally seeking to highlight the great degree of influence that our virtual selves and the partially digital world that we inhabit have over our non-virtual, material world. Our cyber entities and virtual communities exert definitive and, in some cases, dogmatic power and influence on non-virtual, interpersonal human reality effecting every realm and discipline of life. Blogs and online collaboratives now provide many people with narrative world frames, operative plausibility structures, unique signs and vocabulary, theological presuppositions and boundaries, cultures and even subcultures. These linguistic, conceptual elements provide epistemological and theological grids, thought structures, core values and a shared ethos to corresponding actual, non-digital,

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flesh and blood communities of churches, pastors and individual thinkers. Furthermore, these virtual but real encounters with people and ideas made possible by blogs and other related online environments yield actual changes in the character of individuals and the communities they inhabit. In concert with what we know about a particular individual from other social mediums (such as church fellowship, academic interactions, family, work, etc.) our digital encounters with a person contribute to our understanding of the individual. These encounters help us to discover how we can serve this person, what is important to this person and/or what we might find troubling, bizarre, or relationally challenging about this person. In the Church we need to begin incorporating this cyber-epistemological and experiential/relational component into how we speak about ethics and community formation. Popular bloggers, or blog collectives, can easily become powers for evil or for good. As such, we need to celebrate and encourage those powers that are redemptive and God honouring, and we need to name, unmask, and redeem those powers that are opposed to God and his purposes. For those unfamiliar with Walter Wink’s phenomenological reading of the powers, he argues that every institution in life contains both an inner ‘ethos’ or ‘spirit’ and an outer manifestation (churches, corporations, etc).1 I am suggesting that blogs, the virtual self and other cyber realities are legitimate powers – outward manifestations of an inner spirit or ethos – which could be used either to construct and strengthen, or to deconstruct and weaken, actual gospel communities. In this chapter we will focus particularly on the content of our blogging practices, rather than the media form of blogging itself.2 In applying these ideas to a cruciform ethic of the Christian blogosphere, I will be attempting to advance Wink’s program to include the digital and virtual realm, by discerning the digital powers through blogs. We must ask, what happens when my intentions, my online persona, my comments, critique and cyber sphere of influence begin to operate in a hostile manner, proliferating negative effects, and functioning as a community-destroying power? Or: How can Paul’s moral paradigm, applied to cruciform composition, be used in blogging and social media to pursue the enactment and reception of cruciform love unto the building up of the Church through the digital sphere? What happens when our virtual selves bear with the other, for the sake of the 1. See, especially, Wink’s trilogy on the powers: Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 2.  The study of the effects of the medium of the Internet and other modern technologies is already in the process of being carried out. See, for example, Shane Hipps, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, The Gospel, and Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005); and for a prophetic, but ‘pre-internet boom’ classic on the effect of electronic media on culture, see Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).



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other moving toward the instantiation and proliferation of divine love in the world? These are the sorts of questions we are after here in regard to a contextualization of Paul’s moral program to the realm of the Internet. Therefore, in this chapter, as I demonstrate (Part I), and apply (Part II) the moral vision and ethical paradigm of Paul, we will discover that Paul’s ethic of communal cruciformity can and should be a paradigm for Christian blogging. We turn now to an exegetical overview of the governing ethical conceptuality of Paul in order to demonstrate and explicate the overarching idea, which provides the pulse and power of the moral vision, articulated in the writings of Paul. Then we will proceed to apply this ethical paradigm to Christian participation in the cyber sphere.

Paul’s Cruciform Ethic Aristotle’s ethical system centred on the concept of the middle way between excess and deficiency, by which the ethical agent acquires habits, virtues and ultimately eudaimonia (‘happiness/complete human fulfilment’). Yet, Paul cannot seriously be considered Aristotelian, or even to be ‘transforming’ Aristotle’s theory, considering that there is no evidence of either the concept or word eudaimonia ever appears in his writings.3 Furthermore, it is worth noting that the central Peripatetic concept of the ‘middle way’ is completely absent from both the genuine and deutero-Pauline writings. Likewise, the absence of the concept of apathy in the writings of Paul demonstrates that it is unlikely that a Stoic or Cynic pattern of ethical thinking is driving Paul’s ethic either.4 What then is the governing pattern of thought in Paul that explains how one becomes an ethically virtuous agent and a morally transformed person if it is not eudaimonia, the middle way, or apathy? I propose that the centre of Paul’s ethical thinking is cruciformity itself. It is now well established that, in the genuine Pauline epistles there is a ubiquitous, governing narrative sub-structure underlying Paul’s thinking which centres on the sacrificial love of God defined by the death of Christ on the cross.5 This transformative pattern of love is defined by Michael Gorman as, ‘the 3.  Contra N. T. Wright, Virtue Reborn (London: SPCK, 2010). 4.  Contra Troels Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Stoicism in Philippians’, in Paul in His Hellenistic Context (ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 256–90; Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). 5. Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 67: ‘It is participating in and embodying the cross’; cf. 48–9: ‘Cruciformity is an ongoing pattern of living in Christ and of dying with him that produces a Christ-like (cruciform) person. Cruciform existence is what being Christ’s servant, indwelling him and being indwelt by him, living with and for and “according to” him, is all about, for both individuals and communities’. See also, Michael J. Gorman, ‘Paul and the Cruciform Way of God in Christ’, Journal of Moral Theology 2 (1) (2013): 64–83 (66): ‘The term “cruciformity”, from “cruciform” (cross-shaped) and “conformity,” may be defined

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narrative pattern of faith expressing itself in self-giving, others-regarding love of the crucified Messiah Jesus’.6 Similarly, Richard Hays has argued that the story that frames Paul’s Christological, ecclesiological and ethical teachings in Galatians subsists in the pattern of Christ’s own faithfulness and obedience through his ‘self-giving death’ in which he shows himself to be the prototype of ‘redeemed humanity’.7 This pattern of conformity to the way of the Cross has been shown to be vitally connected to Paul’s inherently communal ethics. And we must note that Paul’s ethics always come to us through epistles that are written not to individuals trying to morally better themselves through ethical solo-projects, but rather to churches seeking to corporately live out the transformative faith of the story of Jesus in their particular contexts.8 Even a cursory read through the Pauline epistles reveals the degree to which this cruciform narrative is at play throughout the corpus of the apostle’s work. In Philippians 2, Paul exhorts the Philippian church to ‘think the same way’ (τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε), to ‘have the same love’ (τὴν αὐτὴν ἀγάπην ἔχοντες), and to ‘think that which is also in Christ Jesus’ (Τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ). In the context of the chapter, it is clear that what is in view here is a thought process which is to be practised by the Church, and which is characterized by the otherscentred humility and love of Jesus Christ. It is reasonable that Paul would have had to specifically commend such a concept to his churches. After all, as is well known in the contemporary scholarly literature on Greco-Roman ethics, humility was considered a vice in all of the philosophical schools in antiquity. Likewise, the definition of ἀγάπη, love-defined-by-self-giving, is itself contingent upon the event of the Cross and the person of Jesus Christ in order to be explicated in the full complexity and nuance of its Christian meaning. While not totally incommensurable with the Hellenistic ethical patterns of the Stoics, Cynics and Peripatetics, these two major strands of the early Christian ethic, namely, humility that is summed up in the concept of deference to the other, and self-giving death-defined love must be considered radical, incompatible, and profoundly paradigm-shifting forces in 1st century, and indeed, in contemporary ethics. Elsewhere, in Galatians 5.13, Paul exhorts the Church to serve one another ‘through love’; which is said to be the means by which the Law is fulfilled in the Christian by the Spirit (cf. Rom. 13.8-10). Similarly, Paul commands the Church to bear one another’s burdens, which he refers to as the ‘law of Christ’ (Gal. 6.3; simply as conformity to Jesus the crucified Messiah’. Further, see J. Ross Wagner, (‘Working out Salvation: Holiness and Community in Philippians’, in Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament [eds Kent E. Bower and Andy Johnson; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007], 257–74 [257]) on the Church as a community of holiness that embodies ‘the pattern of Christ’s self-giving love’. 6. Gorman, Cruciformity, 176. 7. Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2002), xxix; xxiv. 8. Cf. David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), 72, 182, 221.



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cf. Rom. 15.1). Indeed, the narrative of the Cross is so utterly ubiquitous in Paul’s letters, and so crucially central that Paul can describe himself as having been ‘crucified with Christ’ (Gal. 2.19), which leads him to the claim: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2.20). It is because of the cross of Christ that Paul can assert: ‘the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’ (Gal. 6.14), which culminates in a New Creation. It is the person, event, and narrative of the crucified and resurrected Messiah that forms the basis and the primary material for everything we find in Paul (e.g. 1 Cor. 2.1-2; 15). Yet, precisely how does this narrative substructure govern and drive Paul’s conception of moral formation in the Church? In what manner does the process of embodying the message of the Cross lead to the transformation of character and ethical behaviour? While there are some instances in the genuine Pauline epistles that move in the direction of unpacking the manner in which cruciformity functions (e.g. Rom. 12.1-2; 2 Cor. 3.18; 4.6), it is actually in the epistle of Colossians – a letter sometimes considered to be by an author other than Paul – that we see this process most clearly embedded and articulated. The governing ethical pattern of thought in Colossians is rooted in the concept of the ultimate perfection of believers, which is a result of their communal access to the wisdom and will of God through their participation in the community of the people of God in Christ. It is through the enactment and reception of divine, cruciform love, that the believer is thereby renewed in the knowledge-of-whoGod-is-in-Jesus Christ. This renewal through cruciform love into the knowledge of the God who is love, is, I propose, arrived at through the community’s walking in accord with the will of God. This action leads to the knowledge of God himself (Col. 1.9-10), and it thereby results in the perfect renewal of each person’s character in the image of God precisely through the enactment and reception of God’s own love. We become like the God who is love, through love, in and through the community of the Son who is the instantiation and incarnation of his love (Col. 1.13). Walking according to the will of God And so, we have not ceased praying for you, from the day we first heard about you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will by means of all spiritual wisdom and (spiritual) understanding 10in order to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, in all scrupulous attentiveness, with the result that you bear fruit by means of every good work, and with the result that you grow because of [causal dative] / by means of [instrumental dative] / by [dative of agency] the knowledge of God. 9

We can see the inner working of Paul’s ethical system of reciprocal cruciformity in Colossians 1.9-10. Here, a sequence is evident in which the ethical agent moves from point A: the supernatural gift of God’s will, wisdom, and understanding

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to point B: ethical living (referred to as ‘walking’) which is derived from, and in accordance with, God’s will. This very walking according to God’s will has a two-fold result. First, the walking in good works leads to the bearing of fruit, which refers to a life that evidences the blessings that result from faithful obedience to the Lord. Second, such ethical walking results in growth because of, or by means of the ‘knowledge of God’. The ‘knowledge of God’, here, is not meant to convey a doctrinal knowledge of God. Nor is it meant to express a generic knowledge of God’s existence. Rather, it refers to a knowledge of who God is in himself, which is derived from an enacting of the purposes of his will and character.9 That this is the knowledge of God in Christ in particular, and that this knowledge is related to the communal pursuit of the enactment and reception of cruciform love in the Church, can be demonstrated simply by observing the trajectory that the word ‘knowledge’ (γνῶσις and ἐπίγνωσις) follows as the argument in Colossians unfolds. Perfection through Renewal in the Knowledge of Who God Is in Christ When the focus on ‘knowledge’ is observed in Colossians, it shows itself to be referring to the knowledge of God himself, most clearly revealed in Christ, and etched into the character of the believer through the embodying of love. In Colossians 2.2-3, Paul states that by means of love (ἐν ἀγάπῃ) the community will be knit together (συμβιβάζω) which leads to ‘all the riches of the fullness of understanding and knowledge of the mystery of God, namely Christ’. Thus, through an appositional grammatical structure, Paul equates the ‘knowledge of the mystery of God’ with the person of Christ himself. A summary statement in which Paul declares that in Christ resides ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ follows this up. This process of being knit together through love results not only in the knowledge of God in Christ, which we have already seen is central to Paul’s ethical thinking, but it also highlights the necessarily communal component of Paul’s moral theology. Consider, for example, that all of the commands given in Colossians thus far have been delivered through plural verbal structures. This pattern continues in the same manner throughout the epistle. Paul is never addressing the individual (‘you’ singular) apart from the community (‘you’ plural). Naturally then, when Paul exhorts the Church to walk in Christ in whom they have collectively been rooted and through whom they are communally being built up (Col. 2.6-8), it is part of a larger vision of transformation that is utterly 9. Cf. George Montague, T.S.M., Growth in Christ: A Study in Saint Paul’s Theology of Progress (Fribourg: St. Paul’s Press, 1961), 199: ‘... one grows in the knowledge of God by [indicating means] living in communion with his will, so that in Col. 1:9f. Paul asks that his readers first be filled with a knowledge of God’s will, so that through worthy living out of it, they may grow in the knowledge of God himself. Paul is in the tradition of the O.T. in which knowledge means intimate communion with the person or thing known, a commitment of one’s whole being and not merely an act of the mind.’



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reliant on this plural corporate context. This is evident in several other places in Colossians. In 2.19, Paul refers to the Church in its plurality as a grammatically and conceptually singular ‘body’ (τὸ σῶμα). This body is crucially connected, nourished and ‘knit together (συμβιβάζω) through its joints and ligaments’ by means of which the body ‘grows with a growth that is from God’. Thus, in distinction to 2.2-3 and its focus on the knowledge of Christ, we see here again in 2.19, using the same Greek verb as in 2.2 (συμβιβάζω), that the concept of the community as a singular entity is indispensable to Paul’s understanding of how the moral formation of a Christian actually occurs. This governing ethical paradigm of cruciformation becomes most evident in Chapter 3 where, once again Paul states that the Church has taken off a singular entity, the ‘old man’ (τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον), which refers to the entire Adamic pattern of sinful life. This is immediately paralleled in v. 10 with the communal and plural putting on of a new singular entity, namely the ‘new-being-renewedin-knowledge-according-to-the-image-of-its-creator humanity’. Thus, contrary to many modern translations, the grammar of these verses pictures a corporate reality of life under Adam and the subsequent corporate reality of life in and under Christ. We find, therefore, that the knowledge referred to earlier in the epistle (Col. 1.9-10; 2.2), there connected with the pattern of walking in accord with God’s will in the midst of the community, is here integrally tied to both the Church as a corporate entity and to the enactment and reception of cruciform love. In Colossians 3.12-14, Paul exhorts the community: Therefore, put on (pl.), as elect ones of God, holy and beloved, deep compassion, kindness (sg.), humility (sg.), meekness (sg.), and patience (sg.). 13 Put these on (pl.) by bearing with one another, by forgiving (pl.) each other. If one of you has a complaint against another one of you as also the Lord has forgiven you (pl.), in this manner also you (pl.) forgive them. 14And, governing all of these things, is love, which is the communal bond (sg.) which leads to perfection. 12

Verses 12–14 continue the clothing metaphor from vv. 9–10. Here the virtues appear in grammatically singular forms, demonstrating that they are operating in this context as articles of clothing within the larger metaphor of the singular body, ‘the new man’. Again, the point is not that the believers are individually ‘wearing’ these articles of clothing (the virtues) on their individual ‘new selves’ but that believers, as a corporate body, are enacting and receiving these virtues among themselves in the context of the Church. In v. 14, the capstone of Paul’s ethical pattern of thought is presented. Love, Paul claims, governs all of the cruciform behaviour that he has described through his clothing metaphor, and functions as the communal bond that leads to the perfection of the Church and of the individual Christians who comprise the Church. The force of the preposition ἐπὶ is rarely grasped in this verse. In this context, the preposition expresses the idea that love functions as a mark of power

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or control over the object.10 It is not that love is put on over the other articles of clothing as a belt that holds all of the other virtues together. Rather, love serves the function of binding the entire community together and providing the power to live an ethically transformative life. This love, enacted and received, Paul says, leads to the perfection of ‘every human being’ who is in Christ (Col. 1.28). Here, ‘in Christ’ means, life under the Lordship of Christ through membership in his body. Thus, in Colossians, we encounter the governing ethical paradigm in which and by which Paul conceives the transformation of the character of the Christian. The unity and growth of the body, that is, the Church, is the central and necessary component for experiencing growth in Christ, unto perfection in Christ. This cruciformational participation in Christ and in one another as the Church authenticates the believers’ faith. It enables the believers’ growth in knowledge, which comes from God through love by the Spirit. In and through this cruciform communal love, we see Christ in the other and are transformed through love into the image of the God who is love.

Paul’s Moral Vision in Colossians Contextualized and Applied We will now propose a general guiding paradigm through which individual bloggers can assess their own work and the work of others in order to conform their composition, critique and commentary to this Pauline principle of Christ-like transformation by communal participation in love. In integrating this governing conceptuality of cruciform love into a paradigm for blogging, I propose a two-fold pattern of self-critique that can serve as a filter through which every blog post can be passed. The goal is to examine our words and digital actions to determine if they are contributing to the body of Christ globally and locally, and are thus functioning as constructive and redemptive powers of reconciliation, or if they are functioning as destructive and insidious powers of evil that we must disarm and bring to the Cross. We must ask ourselves this question: Are we, with our words in the virtual sphere, living in accord with the will of God? Does our online participation lead to works that transform us by the knowledge of who God is in Christ, thus knitting us together into one body under the headship of Christ? Or are we being carried away from the body, through that which is not in accord with Christ, and thus contributing to division, confusion, and the stunting of spiritual growth, which leads to spiritual death by isolation? This principle of cruciform composition, commentary, and critique consists of: (1) a general commitment to the cruciform way of God in Christ for the sake of the Church; and (2) a non-exhaustive, personalized explication of the cruciform way that enables Christians to specifically pinpoint areas of potential non-othercenteredness in order to more successfully and clearly identify, disarm, and allow these areas to be redeemed by the Gospel. Our goal is to consider the good of the 10.  BDAG 9.



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Church before we post content online and become potential powers that infect the body with the destructive diseases of pride, anger, slander, and inauthenticity (Col. 3.5, 8). Just as Paul is not exhaustive in his application of the relational modalities of cruciform love in Colossians and in his other epistles, I also am not seeking here to present a definitive or an exhaustive explication of the cruciform way for blogging protocol. A better approach to this would be for individual bloggers to prayerfully consider how they might contribute to the growth of the global body of Christ and to consider what cruciform composition means to them. I put forth here my own cruciform compositional and critical filter, which I attempt to use with every post in my own blog.11 In my own experience, it has time and time again assisted me in conforming my words to the way of the Cross. My hope is to model how one might apply the general Pauline principle of Christ-like transformation to blogging. For each blog post, I reflect, at times for days or weeks, bouncing my post ideas off of this filter. On the basis of this pattern, I seek to prayerfully discern whether what I have written is serving to build up or break down the mission, ministry, and perfection of the Church in and through love. My Will or Thy Will be Done? In practice, I ask, is this post in accord with the will of God, derived from, in concert with, and commensurable with his will as arrived at through his written Word? Is it prayerfully discerned and intentionally pursued with the assistance of the Spirit? Or, am I working apart from God’s will, from an ulterior, impure, and divisive motive? Is the post rooted in passive-aggressive, selfish, or destructive desires? Am I posting this to receive the praise of people? Or alternatively, am I not posting this because I am afraid of persecution from peers, denominations, or even future employers? Is my intent in making a post governed by either pride or cowardice, rather than by the cruciform principles of God in Christ? Is My Talk Cheap or Cruciform? Further, I endeavour to ask, is the tone and ethos of this post in accord with the will of God? Does my post contain difficult teaching, critique, or commentary that is unnecessarily harsh or purposely hurtful? Could it bear more fruit or shed more light if edited to conform more to the principle of the Cross? Am I speaking authentically, truly, and in a way that is appropriate to the topic, without being too heavy or too reserved? Is this a post that purposely confuses? Does the post deal flippantly with doctrinal issues perhaps better left to other venues? Am I simply deconstructing, or am I offering a way forward as well?12 11. See www.truthstatic.com 12. Another way to state this final question would be in Postman’s terms, in relation to the technological Age’s propensity toward incoherence and context-less discourse, that is: Does this post contribute to the proliferation of technological ‘disinformation’? Postman,

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Is this Post an Instantiation of Divine Love? Finally I ask, is this post for the good of the Church and the world, over and above my own interests, and does this post point to Jesus Christ and to him crucified and resurrected? Is it an example of the pattern of Christ-like transformation by cruciform participation that I see in Paul? Is it engaging in the enactment and reception of divine love leading to a renewal in knowledge in the image of the God who is love?

Conclusion It is important that we as Christians be able to speak in the blogosphere with both authentic and Christ-like, others-focused intentionality, deference and service. It seems to me that either one without the other will yield results that do not glorify God because they would not embody or express the self-giving love of Christ. Blogging without the enactment and reception of cruciform love yields not a renewal in knowledge derived from the will of God for the sake of the perfection of the Church, but rather yields prideful rants, selfish indulgence, and divisive, confusing content that breaks down the Church. We ought to be able to speak frankly and freely, but our speech must be rooted in love for the benefit of the other. In this way, whether we write what we perceive to be ‘hard words’, or, words that would be hard to disagree with, in either case they will be cross-shaped and aimed at the building up of the other in the Church. Our efforts can become a blessing to the world as it witnesses and experiences the love of God in Jesus Christ through its encounter with our words, virtual selves and digital collectives. This is the html of cruciform love.

Bibliography Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, ‘Stoicism in Philippians’. In Paul in His Hellenistic Context (ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 256–90. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). Gorman, Michael J., Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Gorman, Michael J., ‘Paul and the Cruciform Way of God in Christ’, Journal of Moral Theology 2 (1) (2013): 64–83. Hays, Richard B., The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2002).

Amusing Ourselves to Death, 107: ‘Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing’ (emphasis mine).



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Hipps, Shane, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, The Gospel, and Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005). Horrell, David G., Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (London: T&T Clark International, 2005). Montague, T. S. M., George, Growth in Christ: A Study in Saint Paul’s Theology of Progress (Fribourg: St. Paul’s Press, 1961). Postman, Neil, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 2006). Wagner, J. Ross, ‘Working out Salvation: Holiness and Community in Philippians’, in Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament (eds Kent E. Bower and Andy Johnson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 257–74. Wink, Walter, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). Wink, Walter, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Wink, Walter, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Wright, Tom, Virtue Reborn (London: SPCK, 2010).

Chapter 11 ‘D E M A N I BU S G L A D I U S C O R P O R A L I S A B L AT U S E S T ’ : A B S O LU T E P AC I F I SM I N T H E E A R LY C H U R C H A N D I T S R E L EVA N C E I N T H E T W E N T Y - F I R ST C E N T U RY Aaron C. Manby

Introduction During the twentieth century, the debate over Christian doctrine and just violence consistently reignited with each new significant military conflict: John Cadoux’s response to Adolf Harnack’s seminal Militia Christi came in the immediate wake of WWI.1 Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism was born out of his experience of the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, as was G. H. C. MacGregor’s reply in which he steadfastly advocated Christian non-violence even as the Luftwaffe brought the threat of cultural extinction to Britain’s own doorstep.2 John Howard Yoder’s work on the depth and price of a comprehensive Christian pacifism found fruition in the midst of the Vietnam conflict and the nuclear proliferation of the Cold War.3 Now, as we mark the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Christians and non-Christians around the world are once again reminded that the public affirmation of Christian faith has often been accompanied by the willingness to utilize repressive violence. Furthermore, while pontifical encyclicals leading up to Vatican II restricted the official Roman Catholic definition of Just War to an engagement fought in self-defence, recent iterations of Catholic theology have sought to expand the definition of ‘just violence’ to embrace aggressive and even pre-emptive acts of war, so long as the stated goal of such acts was the ‘humanitarian’ liberation of an oppressed people from their tyrannical overlords.4 1. C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War (London: Swarthmore Press, 1919); Adolf Harnack, Militia Christi (trans. David McInnes Gracie; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). 2. See Reinhold Niebuhr, Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1940); G. H. C. MacGregor, The Relevance of the Impossible (London: Unwin Brothers, 1941). 3. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1994). 4. Note Pacem in Terris (John XXIII, 1963); Kenneth R. Himes, ‘Hard Questions about

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Thus the question again arises, as it did for Cadoux, Niebuhr and Yoder: does the Christian faith, as embodied in biblical witness and ecclesiastical tradition, condone coercive violence? This chapter will not attempt to answer this question through a first-hand exegesis of Scripture. Rather, I will seek to answer the question set before us through an illumination of the interpretations of those most closely associated with the compilation of the ecumenical canon. In the course of the recent debates over the ethical validity of violence in the name of Christ, the witness of those believers most contextually proximate to his earthly ministry has gone largely unrepresented. For this reason I will herein present the reflections of the patristic writers on the ethical quagmire of coercive violence, with the hope that by means of their temporal and cultural proximity to the Gospel era, these early fathers might offer contemporary believers some meaningful insight into the traditions and teachings of the apostolic generation.

The Case for Patristic Pacifism Contrary to the conclusions of Harnack, Niebuhr, and more recently John Helgeland and Robert Burns, I assert that the Christian church of the first three centuries was absolutely pacifist.5 Church leaders drew this position from several key Gospel texts, among which Matthew 5 figured most prominently. The extant non-canonical evidence of this early Christian rejection of coercive violence begins with Clement of Rome, for whom the essence of the Gospel’s teaching on violence was most readily manifested in the church’s response to persecution. Clement demonstrated this by noting the Scriptural testimony that persecution, imprisonment, stoning, and killing were never done by the hands of the righteous, but rather pressed upon the righteous by the unrighteous. He applied this observation by exhorting the faithful to endure trials and to allow the unrighteous to play their part through violence born of wickedness.6 By positing that violence was the unique weapon of the wicked against the faithful, Clement established an ideological boundary that would be reinforced by successive generations of Christians. Mathetes’ Ad Diognetum, likely written around the year 130, emphasized that the God of heaven did not send his Son to exercise tyranny over creation, ‘for there is no violence in God’ (βία γάρ οὐ πρόσεστι τῷ θεῷ).7 Therefore, those who utilized violence were not imitators of God, but rather Just War’, America 195 (13) (2006): 13–15 (14). See also Kenneth R. Himes, ‘The Religious Rhetoric of Just War’, in The Return of Just War (eds María Pilar Aquino and Dietmar Mieth; London: SCM Press, 2001), 43–51 (49). 5. Harnack, Christi, 21–40, 67–87; Niebuhr, Pacifist, 9–28; John Helgeland, Robert J. Daly and J. Patout Burns, Christians and the Military (London: SCM Press, 1985), 12–20, 89. 6.  1 Clem. 45. 7.  Diog. 7. In identifying the author of this letter as Mathetes (‘disciple’ in Greek), I seek only to simplify my discussion by using traditional nomenclature. It is likely that the letter



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operated in a manner contrary to the divine nature.8 Polycarp, who in Chapter 2 of his letter to the Philippians proclaimed that those who walked in the ways of Christ would not meet blow with blow or evil with evil, but would rejoice in their persecutions and forbear judging their enemies, likewise reaffirmed the words of Clement. Concomitant with the elucidation of the Gospel ethic by the patristic authors of the first two centuries was the understanding that faithful adherence to such an ethic would inevitably result in the loss of Christian life. This did not seem to deter the ecclesiastical communities. Rather, they were encouraged in the knowledge that they were undergoing the same trials as their divine founder. The example of Christ inspired the faithful to persevere in horrific trials. They saw in him one who had not only commanded that they reject violence against their enemies, but who also vividly demonstrated through his suffering, death, and resurrection that the Gospel ethic of non-violence was not tantamount to pietistic fatalism but was indicative of the very nature of God. Athenagoras declared that it is natural for Christians to ‘willingly give up their lives for the sake of the truth’, for this nonviolent response revealed the glory of God.9 With the rise of the eminent philosophical Christian minds of the third century, the pacifism topos achieved rhetorical sufficiency. Tertullian, whose religio-philosophical paradigm mandated an absolute rejection of all bloodshed, best represents the inception of this achievement. Because Christ had died for all without exception, Tertullian wrote, ‘when one person kills another, it is always a crime against God and an act of the devil’.10 This passage, taken from what is commonly believed to be one of Tertullian’s earliest works, provides exemplary evidence of the shift from exegetical to philosophical pacifism. Prior to Tertullian the Christian community had been exhorted to nonviolence predominantly through the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (i.e. the Gospel ethic). Tertullian, though, built his claim for nonviolence not from any particular passage of Scripture, but rather on the value of all life deduced from the belief that God had suffered violence for the sake of all living beings. He continued his philosophical approach in De Spectaculis, remarking that God ‘did not give us hands that we might use them for violent deeds’.11 It is apparent from Tertullian’s works that around the turn of the third century an internecine debate arose over whether the persecutions were from God or was composed by a Christian person or persons, probably sometime around the year 130. It is not my intention to enter into the debate over whether or not this name was an authentic title or an ante-dated pseudonym. 8. Ibid., 10. 9.  Leg. 3. 10.  Apol. 46.15. Jean-Michel Hornus astutely observes that Tertullian’s explicit rejection of violence against any enemy implicitly supports his anti-militarism, meaning that the latter stance does not lean solely upon his more elaborately constructed arguments regarding idolatry and the military (It is Not Lawful for Me to Fight [trans. Alan Krieder and Oliver Coburn; Scottdale: Herald, 1980], 278 n.113). 11.  Spec. 2.

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from the devil. Tertullian addressed just such a query from a certain Fabius in his brief treatise De Fuga in Persecutione. During the course of this opus, Tertullian concluded that the persecutions fundamentally served as ‘the means of which one is declared either approved or rejected’ by the judgement seat of God.12 Since they were crucibles through which the authenticity of faith was affirmed and the church of Christ strengthened, Tertullian could only attribute the origination of the persecutions to God himself.13 This confession might superficially appear to contradict the supposition of Mathetes that there was no violence in God. To assert such a contradiction, though, would be to fail to grasp Tertullian’s subsequent qualification of his position. Although God had conceived of the tests of the faithful, the implementation of these tests – the beast, lash and sword – were purely and completely the work of Satan and his minions. Even then, though, one is not to say the persecutions are from the devil, but only that God uses the weak and vile things of this world to perfect the righteousness of the faithful.14 Such testing, then, although representative of the viciousness of Satan, could only last so long as God allowed it.15 Because persecution had its source in the will of God, furthermore, no person should attempt to flee it.16 Those who chose to flee would not only lose the fellowship of the community, but potentially salvation as well.17 Tertullian used the example of Jesus himself as the pièce de résistance of this line of argument, observing that when Jesus had completed his earthly ministry he stood firm in the trial God had set before him. At the same time that he appealed to the example of Jesus in his prohibition from flight, Tertullian also used the Lord as the exemplar of nonviolence. He notes that even as Jesus anticipated the passion 12.  Fug. 1. Later in this same chapter, Tertullian states that through the judgement of persecutions God will ‘sift’ the faithful from the deniers, a statement that predicts both the controversies of the mid-third century (regarding the right of those who lapsed during persecutions to retain their ecclesial appointments), as well as the later shift of persecutions into the hands of the imperial church against those deemed unorthodox. 13. ‘We have it clearly proved that persecution, improving as it does the servants of God, cannot be imputed to the devil’ (Fug. 1). 14.  ‘Persecution comes to pass … by the devil’s agency, but not by the devil’s origination’ (Fug. 1). 15. Satan ‘can do nothing without God’s permission’ (Fug. 1, wherein Tertullian also cites Job 1, Lk. 22.31-32, Isa. 45.7 and Deut. 32.39). Origen makes a similar argument in Princ. 3.2: ‘holy Scripture teaches us to receive all that happens as sent by God, knowing that without Him no event occurs’. 16. ‘What proceeds from God ought not on the one hand to be avoided, and it cannot be evaded on the other’ (Fug. 4). 17. ‘A shepherd like this [i.e. one who abandons his flock to the wolves] will be turned off from the farm; the wages to have been given him at the time of his discharge will be kept from him as compensation; nay, even from his former savings a restoration of the master’s loss will be required; for “to him who has shall be given, but from him who has not shall be taken even what he seems to have”’ (Fug. 10, citing Lk. 8.18).



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that had been laid out before him he still rebuked Peter for raising his sword in resistance.18 As Tertullian was concluding his literary career, his spiritual successor was coming to prominence in Alexandria. In his reply to the pagan Celsus, Origen asserted that the economy implemented among humans by Christ did not require the aid of coercive force. Just as Jesus had come without ‘whips and chains and tortures’, so also the truth of his Gospel would thrive without compulsion.19 It was through the agency of this nonviolent Christ, Origen concluded, that Christians had become children of peace who no longer took up weapons of war against their adversaries.20 Like his apologetic works, Origen’s biblical commentaries were unwavering in their rejection of coercion. In addressing the same dilemma that inspired the schism of Marcion – that is, how could Christ and the God of the Old Testament (OT) be reconciled – Origen postulated that the violence of the OT had to be allegorized, or else it was simply a relic of a prior economy with no relevance to Christian life.21 This was not a scenario that Origen was willing to accept. Rather, he was very intentional about reading the wars of the OT through the lens of the Gospel ethic of Christ. Using this hermeneutical approach, Origen concluded that what the wars of Israel signified for Christianity was not a legitimization of literal militancy, but rather empowerment through a presciently ordained antecedent for the spiritual warfare already being waged by the persecuted church. In allegorizing OT warfare, Origen established the Pauline theme of spiritual warfare as being of fundamental importance to a proper understanding of the Christian life.22 Origen’s theology of the sword was a subset of his exhortation to Christian asceticism, for the ‘corporeal’ sword had been taken from Christians by Christ and replaced by the true sword of the Spirit.23 Unlike the corporeal sword, used to shed the blood of adversaries known and unknown, Origen saw the sole purpose of the sword of the Spirit as being the murder of Satan’s vices within 18.  Fug. 8. 19.  C. Cel. 4.9. 20.  C. Cel. 5.33, citing Isa. 2.4. 21. ‘Unless these carnal wars were meant as types of spiritual warfare, the books of Jewish history, it is my belief, would never have been handed down by the apostles to be read in their churches by the disciples of Christ, who has come, after all, in order to teach peace’ (Hom. Josh. 15.1). 22. Gerard Caspary notes that, ‘Ephesians 6:11ff. are among the biblical passages most frequently cited by Origen’, and are used to interpret the war books of the OT such as Josh., Judg., Exod. and Num. Thus while Jesus is prominently viewed as the leader of armies (Hom. Josh. 1.1), his armies wage spiritual warfare against principalities and powers. Any literal application of Christian militancy is to be rejected for Origen (Gerard E. Caspary, Politics and Exegesis: Origen and the Two Swords [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979], 20–2). 23. Cf. Hom. Num. 20.5a: ‘Tibi autem qui a Christo redemptus es et cui de manibus gladius corporalis ablatus est et datus est gladius spiritus, arripe hunc gladium!’

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each believer.24 Thus, for Origen, ‘transfiguration of the “corporeal sword” into the “sword of the spirit” became a symbol for the metanoia or conversion from the Old to the New Dispensation’.25 As Caspary observed, for Origen, ‘Peter’s abscission of Malchus’ ear [was] a witness to the disciples’ lack of spiritual understanding; they misunderstood the Lord’s injunction and instead of the spiritual sword of the Gospel took up the corporeal sword of the Old Dispensation, the sword of physical violence, of armed resistance, and of war’.26 Cyprian, writing shortly after Origen’s torture-hastened death, drew his justification for not rebelling against the persecutors from the belief that God had promised to mete out divine retribution against the enemies of his church, most notably the Roman authorities. ‘For this reason’, he wrote to the African proconsul, ‘none of us, when he is apprehended, makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your unrighteous violence, although our people are numerous and plentiful. Our certainty of a vengeance to follow makes us patient.’27 In a treatise written soon before his own martyrdom under Valerian, Cyprian continued the patristic tradition of prohibiting Christians from all bloodshed, stating unequivocally that hands that had known blood could never bear the blessing of the Eucharist, an unsubtle allusion to the loss of eternal salvation for any person who ended the life of another.28

The Persuasive Value of Nonviolence Although predominantly aimed at instructing fellow Christians, the pacifism of the patristic fathers was not restricted to an introverted spiritualization of the divine precedent established by Christ. The apologists also understood the externally persuasive value of nonviolence. This realization came largely in response 24.  Hom. Num. 20.5b: ‘istum gladium spiritus, per quem exterminentur et semina ipsa et conceptacula peccatorum’ (that sword of the spirit, through which sins are destroyed in both the seed itself as well as the womb). It is also in this vein that Origen interpreted Lk. 22.36, averring that the sword to be purchased is the sword of the Spirit, for those who misunderstand the metaphor used by Jesus and purchase a corporeal sword were surely doomed to die by it (Caspary, Swords, 78–9). 25. Ibid., 40. Although early in his career Origen confessed struggling with the non-allegorical meaning of Mt. 5.39 (Princ. IV.3.3), in Frag. Mat. 108 he asserted unequivocally that Jesus’ command to ‘turn the cheek’ represented the Lord’s desire for his disciples to curb their anger, be peace loving, and practise non-resistance. 26. See Commentarium Series 101: ‘Nondum manifeste concipiens apud se evangelicam patientiam illam traditam sibi a Christo nec pacem quam dedit discipulis suis, sed secundum potestatem datam Iudaeis per legem de inimicis’; Lk. 22.36 (Caspary, Swords, 55). 27.  Dem. 25. Cyprian cited Scripture widely in support of the promise of divine retribution, and also devoted several passages of his De Bono Patientiae to the topic; see Chapters 21–2. 28.  Pat. 14.



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to the perception that by persecuting Christians, the Romans were attempting to coercively enforce religious practice. Believing that the truth of the Christian faith could be more cogently presented not through force but through peaceful hypomene, early believers flipped the paradigm by evangelizing the notion of nonviolent suffering. The tradition of nonviolence as a missionary strategy is attested in some of the earliest post-apostolic literature. Written during the reign of Trajan, the letters of Ignatius exhort Christians to, ‘let others be edified by your gentleness in the face of cruelty and meekness in response to wrath’.29 Within a few decades, this idea evolved into a powerful rhetorical topos: persecutorial violence as the ‘seed of the church’. The church fathers observed that persecution had not hindered church growth, but rather supplemented it. This phenomenon was first explicitly observed in Mathetes, wherein the author proclaims the failure of constant persecution to mitigate church expansion, which reinforced for subsequent writers such as Justin Martyr the divine mandate to nonviolence in the face of suffering.30 After nearly seven more decades of iterative persecutions, Tertullian proclaimed in his Apologia that the Romans were free to ‘kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent … the oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed’.31 Tertullian’s zeal would be matched fifty years later by Cyprian, who proposed to the African proconsul Demetrianus that if he truly wished to rid the world of Christians he should seek out a compelling attack on the mind, for physical suffering would never bring about the church’s defeat.32 In examining the writings of the patristic leaders, one consistently discovers that violence was forbidden to all Christians, and there is no evidence to suggest that a significant number of the believing laity disobeyed this prohibition. Therefore, to suggest as some scholars do that the fathers’ impassioned writings negated their pacifist teachings is to contextually compartmentalize their battle against the demonic forces in a way that is inauthentic to how they perceived their calling as faithful Christians.33 Demons were not defeated by physical violence. Indeed, physical violence was a tool of the Devil himself, and Christians were thus forbidden to use it. This does not mean, though, that they were prohibited from confronting evil with non-physically coercive methods. Confronting the lies of Satan with the truth of God was the responsibility of each and every believer. Some did so through the witness of martyrdom, others through treatises viciously 29. Ign. Eph. 10. 30.  Diogn. 6; Apol. 14. 31.  Apol. 50. 32.  Demetr. 8. 33. Michael Gaddis proposes that when examining claims of pacifism in the ancient world the notion of ‘violence’ should be expanded to include any inflammatory verbal confrontationalism that others might consider wrong or hurtful or that transgresses their ethical or moral norms (There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005], 4).

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condemning the hypocrisy and wickedness of the Roman Empire. For the early Christians, surrounded as they were with constant reminders of the incompatibility of the Roman gods with their own, non-engagement was never an option even as nonviolence remained imperative. Finally, I suggest that texts such as Tertullian’s Apologia, Clement’s Protrepticus, as well as the early church canons (encapsulated in the Apostolic Constitutions, the Canons of Hippolytus and the Testimentum Domini) illustrate why examining early Christian pacifism primarily from the perspective of whether or not Christians were allowed in the military is not an effective course of action. This is important to note because it is precisely such an angle that Harnack and Helgeland have utilized in their attempts to refute the pacifism of the early church. It is true that some patristic writers – most notably Tertullian and Clement – acknowledged that Christians served in the military. At the same time, this occupation was never commended to the faithful. Indeed, the opposite case is made with regularity. Tertullian, in a treatise aimed against those who sought to push the envelope of acceptable Christian behaviour, posited that Jesus’ disarming of Peter set an unequivocal precedent for the disarming of all Christians.34 Furthermore, even in the case of Christian soldiers, the traditional prohibition against bloodshed never waned. In the aforementioned concession, Origen exclaimed that God’s servants must keep their hands unstained by blood so that they might be lifted up in pure worship.35 Any effort to depict the Christian indulgence of soldiers as a mitigation of Christian pacifism misunderstands the vital issue under examination: Christian acceptance of violent coercion. Even if one maintains that a given patristic author approved of Christian soldiers – explicitly or implicitly – it must be recognized that every church leader at all times rejected the prerogative to bloodshed, a fact that is indicative of an absolutely pacifist ethic.

Liberation and the Patristic Tradition Writing in the wake of the WWI, John Cadoux observed that, contrary to sentiment as popular a century ago as it is today, the patristic writers did not consider the defence of others to be a valid exception to the rule of non-resistance. Cadoux avers that the ‘silence of Christian authors on this particular point is certainly remarkable. [Tertullian] even takes it for granted that, if a man will not avenge his own wrongs, a fortiori he will not avenge those of others’.36 Cadoux further remarks that it is upon the ground of the ‘defence of the weak’ that ‘the whole case of the possibility of a Christian war is felt by many [moderns] to rest’, despite the fact that there is no biblical or patristic precedent for the violent repression of evil.37 34.  Idol. 19. 35.  C. Cel. 73 36. Cadoux, Attitude, 84, citing Cor. 11. 37. Ibid., 85.



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Cadoux rightly affirms that the defence of the weak and vulnerable is a core component of the ethical code set out by Jesus.38 ‘The question is’, he asks, ‘what is the right method for [a Christian] to use – the gentle moral appeal or violent physical coercion?’39 He goes on to state, ‘The rejection of this sentiment [i.e. the use of force in defence of the weak] does not mean the rejection of the Christian duty “to ride abroad redressing human wrong”: it means the adoption, not only of gentler, but of more effective, tactics, calling – as the Christian persecutions show – for their full measure of danger and self-sacrifice’.40 The chance of failure, so critical to Niebuhr’s pragmatic rejection of the pacifism that he found in the Gospel ethic, ‘is not to be reckoned a fatal objection to a policy of defence’, for the use of force carries with it this same uncertainty.41 In addition, even the threat of force is enough to negate the effectiveness of reconciliatory love. Cadoux asks, ‘Consider how little influence for good would have remained to Jesus and the Apostles … if they had tried to combine with the spiritual means of regeneration any form of physical coercion or penalty.’42 This speaks deeply to the renewed emphasis given to redefining and re-establishing Just War theory in the globalized twenty-first century. In offering a new defence of Just War theory that supports the qualification of acts of liberation, rebellion or social revolution, Kenneth Himes affirms that ‘believers should always find violence regrettable even if necessary’, because of the ‘possibilities available to those living in a situation that is not fully redeemed, and regrettable because the hope is once more delayed that we will transform our spears into plowshares’.43 I certainly appreciate the tension Himes has attempted to establish, but his justification is fundamentally faulty in that he seems to assert that violence – however regrettable – can bring an unredeemed world closer to God. It is true that such an argument can be traced back to Augustine’s compilation of Just War theory, but in this case the age and source cannot overcome the incompatibility of the argument with the believer’s telos of Christ-likeness. Christ does not instruct us to use violence as a ‘last resort’, a fact appreciated – so far as we can understand – by the entirety of pre-Constantinian Christianity. Ours is a calling of loving our neighbour, suffering for them and perchance offering our life essence for them. Violence – even with the noble goal of liberating the oppressed – cannot be associated with life.44 38. Ibid., 87. 39. Ibid., 85. 40. Ibid., 87. 41. Ibid., 85. Yoder also critiques Niebuhrian pragmatism by pointing out that we ultimately have very little control over the results of our actions. ‘We must relearn’, he writes, ‘the humility of measuring our obedience not by our claims to get something done, which really does not lie in our hands, but rather by its faithfulness to the word which God has spoken to man in the Man of his choice’ (For the Nations [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], 109). 42. Cadoux, Attitude, 85–6 n.1. 43. Himes, ‘Rhetoric’, 41, 44. 44. As Max Weber observed, ‘the basic attitudes in relation to life [i.e. war vs peace] are irreconcilable … it is necessary, therefore, to make a definitive choice’ between the two

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Certainly we are called to lift up the oppressed, the suffering, and the weak. But the ‘divine preference for the poor’ so often appealed to in liberation theologies cannot expunge the fact that we are also called to love the strong, the brutal, the proud and the vicious with that same holy, reconciling love. Christ-likeness does not mean that we should become spiritual Robin Hoods, caring for peasants while removing our care from the dictators who oppress them. The early church fathers understood this and exhorted their congregations to pray unceasingly for the very same magistrates and officials that were arresting and torturing their fellow believers. They understood that the God who died for them had also died for the emperor, so that all might be reconciled through Christ. In the context of the current discussion, such a reminder comes into play when responding to those who are seeking to validate aggressive martial action against dictatorial regimes under the aegis of traditional Christian Just War theory. Pursuing war against oppressive regimes, it is argued, should qualify as necessary, church-sanctioned violence because of the ‘just’ result of liberating the oppressed. Himes has noted, for instance, that ‘for many persons the obligations of love of neighbour give rise to a sense that counter-force may be employed to protect those incapable of protecting themselves. Need for resistance to the sin of those people who employ violence wrongfully can lead us to consider whether violence may ever be employed rightly.’45 Such an argument stands on shaky ground. As the most recent Iraq War demonstrated, regimes can be toppled and dictators removed, but the expected goal of liberation and peace is never guaranteed. In addition, it is taken for granted in war that lives will be lost – the recent Iraqi conflict cost over 180,000 civilian lives in addition to several thousand military casualties. These are not merely numbers to be tabulated against a nebulous ‘greater good’. They are lives dearly precious to God, and souls that may not have yet encountered Christ. If we attempt to authorize a non-Christian’s death, we as a church also agree to remove his or her right to another chance to hear the Gospel, another chance for reconciliation with Christ. How can the selective annihilation of those ‘oppressors’ who are judged to be dangerous to the ‘common good’ serve the ‘summum bonum of union with God?’46 Do we judge that those whom we attack are beyond achievement of this great good? Is this our judgment to make? In destroying them so that we might save the lives of their potential victims, we have in fact judged them as unworthy of the salvation offered by our Lord. Knowingly removing the power of the Cross from a person beloved by God is a prerogative we should (Science as Vocation, cited in José María Vigil, ‘The God of War and the God of Peace with Justice’, in The Return of Just War [eds María Pilar Aquino and Dietmar Mieth; London: SCM Press, 2001], 94–101). Despite the ancient traditions of the church, one cannot choose war for the sake of peace, just as one cannot embrace Satan as a means to reach Christ. They are polar opposites, and attempts to combine the two only serve to dilute the holiness to which we each aspire. 45. Himes, ‘Rhetoric’, 44. 46. Ibid., 45.



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never dare to claim, regardless of how one interprets biblical teachings on matters of ethical violence. A crucial question to ponder in this discussion is: who is our neighbour? Juan Luis Segundo asserts that the ‘neighbour’ of the parable of the Good Samaritan proved to be only one of the human participants in the story. He extrapolates this conclusion into the belief, foundational to most iterations of Liberation Theology, that ‘neighbour’ is only a subset of all humanity. Therefore, because the exhortation to love one’s neighbour necessarily includes some and excludes others, violent conflict between adversarial cohorts is inextricably woven into the fabric of the Gospel ethic itself.47 The church fathers, on the other hand, believed that the neighbour whom we are called to love is not only the one who suffers injustice with us, but frequently that person who we would most like to hate. As noted above, the first Christians held that the way to respond to the attacks of their persecutors was not with violence in kind, but with a Spirit-empowered resilience that not only demonstrated the love of Christ to their oppressors, but revealed to a watching world the unjust nature of their persecution. Finally, in its rejection of the experiences of the persecuted church, liberation theology as a whole stands at risk of operating under the assumption that the injustice and systemic oppression of the past century is historically unique. Theologians of liberation predominantly disregard available insights from previous eras as contextually bound and therefore irrelevant. This is an unfortunate decision given that the church of the first three centuries experienced oppression and persecution qualitatively akin to the oppression of Latin American marginalized groups. Most do not acknowledge this correlation, and those who do disregard the lessons available through the witness of the early church in favour of an appeal to later Just War theories.48 There is irony here: in appealing to Just War theory in support of revolutionary action, Liberation theologians are utilizing an ethical framework developed in part to reinforce the authority of the powerful over the powerless. This observation could – and perhaps should – inspire those seeking to discern the voice of the God in the lives of the oppressed to delve more deeply into ethical positions developed by those who were in fact oppressed themselves. Alas, such a move has yet to be undertaken, perhaps because the conclusion would be unacceptable to modern would-be revolutionaries. For such retinues, patience in the midst of oppression – the position of the early church – is not as desirable as attempts to rationalize the use of violence to resist oppression, despite the fact that Christian arguments for the latter originally flowed from the pens of those operating as oppressors.

47. Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology (trans. John Drury; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976),159–60. 48.  Segundo, for example, rejects the influential importance of any historical experience and goes so far as to deny the timeless authority of Scripture itself (ibid., 174). See also, J. G. Davies, Christians, Politics and Violent Revolution (London: SCM Press, 1976), 151.

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Conclusion In his commentaries on the wars of Joshua, Origen acknowledged that the hero of Israel had fought wars of conquest with divine approbation.49 But he also believed, just as millions of Christ-followers today believe, that Jesus’ work on the cross had irrevocably changed the way in which the people of God interacted with the world. He did not deny that arms would continue to be raised and wars fought, and that some of these battles would be waged in defence of the defenceless. But for those who had been redeemed by Christ, God had removed the physical sword from their hands so that it was no longer an option for war, no matter how just the cause. In its place Jesus had bestowed the sword of the spirit, with which the followers of Christ would be able to defeat the sins of injustice with patience, prayer, courage, and love. The believers closest to Jesus saw in his life and death the embodiment of an ethic that never hesitated to lift up the poor, heal the sick, and comfort the weary. In fact, their action in favour of the marginalized was so well known that a pagan emperor expressed personal shame at their compassion.50 Yet, they also understood that through the example of Christ’s sacrificial suffering, those following Him were excluded from using violence as a means of achieving the social justice explicated in the Gospel ethic. As a result they were arrested without cause, whipped without trial, tortured without recourse and killed without mercy. Perhaps their own experience of suffering can offer contemporary Christians a helpful perspective with regards to the nature of the justice Christ has called us to pursue and the means He has authorized for us in the engagement of this pursuit. For the church, the importance of confronting social injustice is not in question. It is the how that presents the challenge, as well as the opportunity. Christ has shown us the way; it is now up to us, as it was for the Christians of the first three centuries, to have the courage to walk the difficult path of sacrificial love that our Lord has paved.51 Make no mistake: it is a hard and painful road, full of seemingly insurmountable impediments. But it is the road of the cross, which means that we can have confidence that it is the road that brings life. Whether or not we have the courage to walk this path will do much to dictate whether the next century can be less bloody than the last, and whether the reconciliation we seek for both the oppressed as well as the oppressors can be meaningfully realized.

49.  Hom. Num. 20.5a. 50. Julian, Ep. 49. 51.  Glen Stassen offers a meaningful expansion of the classical Just War construct which, while admittedly not necessarily pacifist in application, provides an effective starting point for contemporary Christians serious about engaging in international conflict resolution while maintaining an abstention from threats of violent coercion (Just Peacemaking [Louisville: Westminster, 1992], 89–112).



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Bibliography Cadoux, C. John, The Early Christian Attitude to War (London: Swarthmore Press, 1919). Caspary, Gerard E., Politics and Exegesis: Origen and the Two Swords (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). Davies, J. G., Christians, Politics and Violent Revolution (London: SCM Press, 1976). Gaddis, Michael, There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Harnack, Adolf, Militia Christi (trans. David McInnes Gracie; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981). Helgeland, John, Robert J. Daly and J. Patout Burns, Christians and the Military (London: SCM Press, 1985). Himes, Kenneth R., ‘The Religious Rhetoric of Just War’, in The Return of Just War (eds María Pilar Aquino and Dietmar Mieth; London: SCM Press, 2001), 43–51. Himes, Kenneth R., ‘Hard Questions about Just War’, America 195 (13) (2006): 13–15. Available online: http://americamagazine.org/issue/589/article/ hard-questions-about-just-war Hornus, Jean-Michel, It is Not Lawful for Me to Fight, (trans. Alan Krieder and Oliver Coburn; Scottdale: Herald, 1980). MacGregor, G. H. C., The Relevance of the Impossible (London: Unwin Brothers, 1941). Niebuhr, Reinhold, Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1940). Segundo, Juan Luis, Liberation of Theology, (trans. John Drury; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976). Stassen, Glen, Just Peacemaking (Louisville: Westminster, 1992). Yoder, John Howard, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1994). Yoder, John Howard, For the Nations: Essays Public & Evangelical (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). Vigil, José María, ‘The God of War and the God of Peace with Justice’, in The Return of Just War (eds María Pilar Aquino and Dietmar Mieth; London: SCM Press, 2001), 94–101.

Chapter 12 ‘F O L L OW U S A S W E F O L L OW M O SE S ’ : L E A R N I N G B I B L IC A L E C O N OM IC S F R OM T H E N EW T E S TA M E N T ’ S A P P R O P R IAT IO N O F O L D T E STA M E N T N A R R AT I V E S , P R AC T IC E S A N D L I T U R G I E S Michael Rhodes

Introduction In a world embroiled in economic chaos, the church must continue to explore what constitutes a biblical approach to economic ethics. In the Old Testament (OT), the narrative of manna in the wilderness, the Year of Jubilee practice, and the liturgy of the tithe meal present an economy of abundance for all based on the gracious gift of the God who owns everything. This economy critiques the counter-vision of scarcity, which the Bible associates with empires like Egypt and Babylon, and which dominates the imagination of the church and world today. Often, however, these rich OT economic texts remain marginalized in today’s church. Many Christians assume that OT economics belong only to an outdated, old-covenant theocracy, arguing that the New Testament (NT) lacks the economic imperatives of the OT. I will argue that the NT’s use of the OT both demonstrates the relevance of OT economic ethics for the contemporary church and provides models of faithful appropriation of biblical economic texts for ethical formation in different contexts. First, we will explore three OT texts: the manna narrative in Exodus 16, the Jubilee practice in Leviticus 25 and the tithe-meal liturgy in Deuteronomy 26. Second, we will examine the appropriation of these texts in three NT texts: Paul’s narrative application of the manna story in 2 Corinthians 8, the church’s paradigmatic transposition of the Jubilee practice in Acts 2 and 4 and the liturgical parallels between the tithe-meal in Deuteronomy 26 and the Lord’s Supper. Third, and finally, we will briefly discuss how the contemporary church might follow the NT community’s example. This exploration of both what the NT community learned from the OT and how the NT learned it would suggest that Christian communities interested in biblical economic ethics should allow themselves to be deeply formed by the narratives, practices, and liturgies of the Scriptures in order to live faithfully in the economy of abundance. This ethical formation will lead Christians to pursue equitable distribution of ownership,

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radical sharing for equality, and opportunities for all to provide for themselves through work.

The Economy of Abundance in the Old Testament The Manna Narrative in Exodus 16 If God initiates the ‘formation of a new social community’ through the Exodus, then the story of manna in the wilderness is the new community’s Economics 101.1 In response to Israel’s longing for the flesh pots of Egypt, the LORD rains down bread from heaven so that the community may ‘know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt’ and to test whether the Israelites will obey the LORD’s commandments.2 God commands the Israelites to gather only enough for their daily needs, except on the sixth day, on which they collect enough for the sixth day and the Sabbath. Some Israelites break both parts of these instructions, but the manna stored overnight is full of worms in the morning, and the Israelites who go out on the Sabbath find no manna to collect. Despite these failures, the Israelites gather the manna daily, ‘some more, some less’, but when they measure the amounts, the ‘one who gathered much had nothing left over, and the one who gathered little lacked nothing’.3 This manna narrative embodies the economy of abundance, which explicitly counters Egypt’s narrative of scarcity. The Israelites’ longing for the rich food indicates that, while physically liberated from Egypt, their economic imaginations remained trapped in the land of slavery. Ellen Davis describes the Egyptian economy as a hierarchical system in which centralized land ownership created unprecedented wealth produced on the backs of the poor and enjoyed almost exclusively by the very rich.4 Yet the Israelite community’s immediate demand for this food demonstrates that their economic imagination ‘carries Egypt’s disease’.5 However, manna-giving will teach Israel ‘that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt’, both by demonstrating God’s giving character, and by reminding Israel that they no longer live in Egypt’s economy of hoarding and scarcity. Egyptian meat was produced through hierarchical oppression, but Israel’s bread comes by the sheer gift of God, is distributed equitably among the people, and, because 1. Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 7; John M. G. Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8:1-15’, in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (eds J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 409–26 (414). 2. Exod. 16.4-6. Biblical citations are from the New English Translation. 3. Exod. 16.18. 4.  E. F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 69, 71–2. 5. Ibid., 70.



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it rots overnight, precludes hoarding. Davis points out that ‘gathering’(‫ )לקט‬is translated elsewhere as ‘gleaning’, particularly in terms of the OT right of the poor to glean the edges of the fields. Thus the text subversively places Israel in the wilderness in the place of the lowly gleaners.6 But the language also indicates that the Israelites must work for their food while simultaneously recognizing that God does the primary work. In the wilderness they glean from the fields of the Lord; in the land, they will harvest from vineyards they did not plant.7 The ‘wilderness economy’8 challenged every assumption Israel held about economic security. In Egypt, assertive power, long-term accumulation, and countless slaves were the means for providing economic security and viability. In the wilderness, dependence on the divine gift, limiting consumption to the daily ‘enough’, and equality of access provided economic security and viability.9 The Year of Jubilee Practice in Leviticus 25 In the narratives of the Pentateuch following Exodus 16, the Lord gives Israel laws for entering the Promised Land designed to shape Israel as a ‘kingdom of priests’ among the nations.10 These laws include a roadmap for establishing the manna economy in the land. No, bread will no longer fall from heaven. However, the Lord does intend for Israel to live in the economy of abundance in the Promised Land just as they had in the wilderness. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Year of Jubilee practice. The Year of Jubilee was an ‘intensified Sabbath Year’, occurring every fifty years.11 Debts were forgiven, slaves freed, the land lay fallow, and all of the land that had changed hands over the previous fifty years was returned to the original owners.12 Through this practice, Israel was to live in the economy of 6. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 74. See Lev. 23.22 or Ruth 2.2. The word ‫ לקט‬is used thirty times in the OT, with no likely distinction between the thirteen instances in the qal and the fifteen in the piel (H. Ringgren, ‫לקט‬, TDOT 8: 21–3). Although Ringgren sees the gleaning for the poor of Leviticus and the gathering of manna in Exodus and Numbers as distinct uses (ibid.), because of: the relative infrequency of the use of the word, the fact that it always refers to a literal gathering, and the pertinent parallels between what God does for Israel and what Israelites are to do in relation to one another, it seems likely to accept at least some connection between the uses of the word. 7. Deut. 6.11. 8. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, 66. 9. See Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place As Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 32. 10. Christopher J. H. Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004), 64. 11. Or, possibly, every forty-nine years. See John E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC 4; Dallas: Word, 1992), 434–6. 12. R. B. Sloan, ‘Jubilee’, DJG, 396–7 (397). The interest here is in the practice as presented in the OT canon; no attention will be paid to the question of whether the Jubilee ever actually happened.

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abundance by embracing several concepts foreign to empires both ancient and modern. First, the Jubilee relativized the personal rights of particular property owners in order to absolutize the right of all people to provide for themselves through work.13 In Israel’s agrarian economy, land was the primary economic factor of production. Accumulating new land would dramatically increase wealth, while losing land could threaten a family’s very existence. Every fifty years, though, landowners who had gained farms over and above their original inheritance were required to give them back to those who had lost them. This was not a redistribution of income, but a redistribution of the means of producing income.14 The law prohibited those who had acquired lands from profiting long-term from them or from bequeathing these hard-earned assets to their children. Nor was this redistribution ‘charity’; the right of return to one’s inheritance was considered a right, regardless of how legally or honestly another had acquired it. Neither was it a ‘hand out’, because the land would only provide if worked faithfully.15 Second, the Jubilee made multi-generational poverty and multi-generational extreme wealth structurally impossible by legislating a relative, though not absolute, economic equality.16 While the church often encourages the wealthy to ‘make as much as you can and then give it away’, Israel embodied an ethic by which permanent wealth acquisition and a permanent slip into poverty were both prohibited by regularly ‘starting from scratch’ through the return to ancestral lands.17 According to Calum Carmichael, the author of Leviticus intentionally contrasts this redistribution of assets with Genesis 47, in which Joseph ‘buys’ the Egyptians for Pharaoh, thus permanently enslaving them to their ruler.18 But the narrative also challenges modern economic myths of infinite growth. No, the OT does not envision a ‘zero-sum game’.19 But it does recognize that regular redistributive practices are needed; a robust economy and hands-off government are insufficient.20 Third, Jubilee seems to pay no attention to how the poor became poor.21 Tellingly, there are no provisions to distinguish between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’; everyone has a fresh start.

13. Wright, Ethics, 148. 14. Though see Wright, Ethics, 207, where he argues for ‘restoration’ rather than ‘redistribution’. While I retain the word ‘redistribution’, nevertheless the practical application presented here is similar to Wright’s. 15. Ibid. 16. Hartley, Leviticus, 443. 17. Wright, Ethics, 205. 18. Calum M. Carmichael, Illuminating Leviticus: A Study of Its Laws and Institutions In the Light of Biblical Narratives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 128–31. 19. Wright, Ethics, 149. 20. See Hartley, Leviticus, 425. 21. Wright, Ethics, 203.



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The Liturgy of the Tithe-Meal in Deuteronomy 26 Israel’s establishment in the land tempted them to return to an economy of hoarding and scarcity. Much of Israel’s liturgy provided resources to resist this temptation through embodied acts of remembering.22 James Smith argues that liturgies ‘are compressed, performed narratives that recruit the imagination through the body’.23 The signs, symbols and enacted narratives of liturgy shape the desires, ideals and actions of the participants. O’Dowd writes that Israel’s particular liturgy charged their ‘history with unique meaning’, and gave ‘to Israel’s history the power to transform the treatment of land and slaves through memory, re-enactment and imitation of God’s acts’.24 This liturgical shaping can be seen in the tithe-meal of Deuteronomy 26. The phrase ‘the land the Lord your God has given’ provides the repeated theme of the liturgy. The farmer takes the first fruits and places them in a basket, declaring to the priest that the Lord has given the good gift of the land in fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham.25 Then, the farmer recounts the history of Israel in fairly unflattering terms. The speech references Jacob as a ‘wandering Aramean’, evoking the memory of Jacob fleeing from both his father-in-law and his brother. Next the narrative refers to Jacob’s going to Egypt, but instead of highlighting his welcome by Joseph, the narrative emphasizes that he lived as a ‘foreigner’ in Egypt with few people.26 The word sojourned (‫ )גור‬is used in Leviticus repeatedly of the alien in Israel; thus, the liturgy reminds the farmer of his people’s alienation from economic resources apart from the Lord’s gift.27 Next, the farmer recites the history of the Lord’s liberating of his people from Egypt before finally reiterating for the fourth time God’s gift of the land.28 This land is a land of abundance, ‘flowing with milk and honey’. The farmer and his family celebrate together in the third year with the ‘sojourners, orphans, and widows so that they may eat and be satisfied’. The farmer is not to make sure he has enough for his family first, and after to give the leftovers. The farmer is to give the first fruits. This, too, is a liturgical act of hope in which the farmer purposively places himself in vulnerable dependence on God for the sake of others. This vulnerability explains the farmer’s request for God’s continued blessing, and Deut. 28, with its intentional allusion to the basket of the tithe meal, does indeed promise full baskets for obedience and 22. Brueggemann, The Land, 50. 23. James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 20. 24.  Ryan P. O’Dowd, ‘Work of the Sabbath: Radicalization of Old Testament Law in Acts 1–4’, STR 1 (2010), 47–66 (55–6). 25. Deut. 26.3; cf. Christopher Wright, Deuteronomy (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996), 270–1. 26. Wright notes these options as well as the possibility of a linguistic connection with a ‘class of rootless, stateless persons’ (Deuteronomy, 274). 27. Just as Lev. 19.34 does explicitly. 28. Deut. 26.10.

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empty baskets for disobedience.29 The liturgy reaffirms that abundance comes to humanity as sheer gift and invites the Israelites to participate in the economic sharing of this gift.30 Economic Themes in the Manna Narrative, Jubilee Practice, and Tithe-Meal Liturgy What ethical principles can be discerned in the manna narrative, Jubilee practice, and tithe-meal liturgy? First, these texts reflect the Lord’s ownership of all economic resources coupled with the Lord’s delight in giving abundantly. Second, the gifts that the Lord gives are to be shared. Unlike Egypt, with its few owners and many slaves, in Israel ownership is shared with relative equity.31 Third, the rights of the poor to partake in the abundance generally, and to provide for themselves through their own work specifically, take precedence over the rights of the wealthy to continuous accumulation. Now, it might have been more ‘efficient’ to have the wealthiest and best farmers do all the earning, and simply distribute the surplus. While contemporary charities might have chosen to have the best gatherers of manna gather as much as they could, cook it most efficiently, and scoop it onto the plates of the less talented gatherers in a giant wilderness soup kitchen, the economy of abundance requires that every family have the right not simply to eat, but to provide for their own eating. Even the tithe meal, which might seem closer to contemporary conceptions of charity, is not a handout because the meal is provided by God rather than by the Israelite farmer. Finally, these passages also recognize that economic security is necessary for community. The tithe meal ensures that the vulnerable remain provisionally secure in the land until the Jubilee. All of this ultimately serves to secure the Israelite families as participants in the covenant living in the land of promise.32

The NT’s Appropriation of Old Testament Economic Texts through Narratives, Paradigms and Liturgies This discussion of abundance and provision in the OT leads us to ask, do the authors of the NT embrace these economic themes? And if so, how do they appropriate these texts and apply them under very different circumstances? 29. Deut. 26.15; Deut. 28.5, 17. The word for basket here is ‫טנא‬, the same word that appears in Deut. 26 for the tithe basket, and the only other occurrence of the word in the OT. 30. J. Gordon McConville, Deuteronomy (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002), 384. McConville rightly calls this one of the ‘great themes of the book’. 31. Wright, Ethics, 200. 32. Craig G. Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 63; Wright, Ethics, 56.



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Narrative Ethics in Paul: 2 Corinthians 8 and the Equality of Manna Stanley Hauerwas argues that Christian ethical thought should focus on ‘character, vision, stories, and metaphor’.33 Narrative ethics pay attention to the ways that stories both ‘embody normative commitments’ and provide moral formation for the community, shaping how the community sees the world and acts within it.34 In 2 Corinthians 8–9, Paul employs the narrative of manna in the wilderness as a way of capturing the Corinthians’ economic imaginations for moral formation in his effort to raise funds for the sake of the poor in Jerusalem.35 Paul bases his economic vision on the church’s fellowship (κοινωνία), a word which Paul used of both the common life between the Triune God and His people, and the common life between believers, including economic sharing. Christ’s selfimpoverishing is the foundation for the church’s economic sharing.36 Nor does Paul consider this κοινωνία sharing as charity. Twice Paul states that his goal is equality.37 Paul does not want the Corinthians to suffer while others receive relief, but rather foresees that on another occasion the Corinthians’ lack will be met by the Jews’ abundance. The subtext is Paul’s belief that abundance given to any should be a resource for the benefit of all.38 Paul next alludes to the manna story. The allusion performs several important functions in Paul’s appeal. First, just as in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul’s allusion invites the Corinthians to find their story in the story of Israel.39 Here Paul demonstrates that narratives do indeed play an important and irreplaceable function in ethical formation. Rather than commanding the church, Paul reminds them of their manna heritage, implicitly exhorting them to become a community capable of faithfully hearing, telling, and living into that story.40 Second, Paul’s allusion 33. John Berkman and Michael G. Cartwright (eds), The Hauerwas Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), 166. 34. See particularly Berkman and Cartwright, Reader, 166–9. 35. For a summary of scholarly opinion of Paul’s concern, as well as an argument against this oversight, see Bruce W. Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). For a defence of the collection’s centrality to Paul see Jason B. Hood, ‘Theology in Action: Paul, the Poor, and Christian Mission’, STR 2 (2011), 127–42 (132): ‘The collection was so vital that its delivery was at that moment a more urgent matter for Paul than his desire to evangelize and plant churches on the missionary frontier among those who were ‘without hope and without God in the world’. See also Scott McKnight, ‘Collection for the Saints’, in DPL: 143–7 (143). 36.  Phil. 2.1; 1 Cor. 1.9; 2 Cor. 8.9; cf. Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 410. 37. 2 Cor. 8.13-14. 38. Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 423. 39. Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 155. 40. 2 Cor. 8.8. Hauerwas articulates how the community’s stories should be ‘the stories through which we have learned to form the story of our lives’ (Reader, 169). Hays similarly states that ‘The narrative, without direct exhortation to the reader, posits and commends a

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invites the Corinthians to live in the economy of abundance based on gift. The Corinthians may have gathered much and others less, but because all is based on the gift of God in Christ, the community should ensure that the one who gathers much does not have too much, nor the one who gathers little too little.41 Paul later declares that the Corinthians ‘will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way’.42 God delighted to give manna enough for all, and now, no longer in the wilderness but in Corinth, no longer Israel but the grafted-inGentiles, God continues to give enough for everyone. Hoarded manna rots, so for the Corinthians to accumulate rather than give would be to live in a different economy, one of scarcity and inequality.43 Paul invites these new Christians to imaginatively enter into Israel’s abundant economy by reminding them of a story, their story, which if heard correctly will inevitably shape the Corinthians into the sort of community that sees any abundance as God’s gift to be shared. Paradigmatic Imitation: The Practice of Jubilee in Acts 2 and 4 Neither Jesus nor the early church sought to adopt the legal practice of Jubilee in a wholesale fashion. 44 This does not mean, however, that Jubilee was irrelevant for the ethical practices of the early church; instead, their appropriation of the Jubilee seems to reflect what Wright calls the ‘paradigmatic’ use of OT ethical material. Based on the biblical claim that Israel was meant to be a ‘light to the nations’, Wright argues that Israel provides an ethical ‘model or pattern’ which can provide guidance ‘by analogy’ from the paradigm to a different context.45 Luke shows how the Jubilee shaped the economic imaginations of both Jesus and the earliest Christians. In Luke 4, Jesus couches his entire mission in Jubilee terms, and Jubilee themes show up throughout the Gospel. But the early Christian community in Acts also appears to have paradigmatically imitated the Jubilee practice in their own communities.46 The κοινωνία of the early Christians

value system in which radical dependence on God is good and stockpiling is bad’ (Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993], 90). This is narrative ethics at work, because it demonstrates the way that narratives provide ethical formation and shaping as narratives and by what might be called narrative means. 41. 2 Cor. 8.9. 42. 2 Cor. 9.11. 43. Hays, Echoes, 90. 44. See N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 294–5. 45. Wright, Ethics, 63. Wright correctly notes the superiority of this approach to one of ‘principles’ (cf. Ethics, 70–1). 46.  The connection between the practices in Acts 2 and Acts 4 and the Jubilee are often underplayed or overlooked. Exceptions include Wright (see Ethics, 206) and Ryan O’Dowd, who argues that ‘the historical and literary connections argued here strongly suggest that Acts 1–4 should be read in light of the Sabbath laws of the OT and their liturgical and political role in framing a national story’ (O’Dowd, ‘Work of the Sabbath’, 65), and



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included the economic practice of holding all possessions in common (κοινός).47 This sharing extended even to the divesting of land assets, the means of producing income, to provide for the needs of the community. Thus assets were redistributed for the sake of the poor in community just as in the Jubilee. The imperfect verb tenses that the economic narratives employ in Acts 2 and 4 indicate that this selling was a repeated practice, echoing the regular redistribution of the Jubilee.48 Just as the Jubilee reminded Israel that God owns everything, these Christians rightly did not consider their possessions their own.49 Furthermore, Luke’s claim in Acts 4.34 that ‘there were no needy persons among them’ portrays the church’s economic life as the fulfillment of the Sabbath Year of Deuteronomy 15. If Robert Sloan is correct that the Jubilee is an ‘intensification’ of the Sabbath Year, then this allusion creates a connection between Acts 4 and Jubilee.50 There are linguistic resonances between Acts 2 and 4 and Leviticus 25, and Luke’s declaration that ‘the Lord added daily to their number those who were being saved’ echoes the promise of the OT that the Israelite’s economic distinctiveness would draw in the nations.51 There are differences between the practice of Jubilee and the practice of the early church, some of which are likely explained by the difference between living under a theocracy and living under the Roman Empire. 52 However, far from reducing the demands of the Jubilee, these early Christians may have actually taken OT economics a step further.53 While OT Israelites maintained ownership of ancestral lands and the Jubilee right of return, the early Christians appear to be divesting themselves of assets permanently. So while the OT saints had an institutionalized security in the Jubilee practice, the early Christian communities practised the same divesting without the corresponding systemic security, thus specifically notes the Jubilee connection to the selling of land in Acts 2 and 4 (ibid., 63). See also Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 295. 47. Acts 2.42-44. 48.  Ben Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 162. 49. Acts 4.32. 50. The Jubilee is rightly seen as ‘an intensified Sabbath Year’, and so is intimately connected to this passage (Sloan, ‘Jubilee’, 396). 51. Hartley notes the connection between the term ‘release/forgiveness’ used in Acts 2.38, which is the name of the Jubilee in LXX (Hartley, Leviticus, 447). Furthermore, six instances of the roughly forty uses of the word πιπράσκω, translated as ‘sell’ in Acts 2 and 4, occur within the Year of Jubilee passage of Lev. 25 in the LXX. See also Wright’s comment that ‘The gifts of the land to live in and law to live by were intrinsic to the way God shaped Israel to be a “model people” … When we grasp the structures and objectives of Old Testament Israel’s economic system, we are in touch with God’s thinking as to how human economic life in general on the planet should be conducted’ (Ethics, 156). 52. Longenecker argues that all the non-elite were simply too isolated from political power or influence to consider structural solutions for poverty (Remember the Poor, 107). 53. So also O’Dowd: ‘the Spirit-led church has radicalized the Sabbath’s legal mandate for the seventh year ...’ (‘Work of the Sabbath’, 65).

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placing themselves in an extremely vulnerable position.54 The church thus demonstrated both creativity and radical commitment in paradigmatically applying the Jubilee practice to its own economic context.55 Liturgies of Abundant Sharing: The Tithe Meal and the Lord’s Supper If the early Christians drew upon the narrative of manna and the practice of Jubilee, then in the Lord’s Supper they entered into a liturgy that sustained the economic imagination of the community in ways analogous to the tithe-meal of Deuteronomy 26.56 Just as the tithe-meal is based on the Lord’s gracious giving of the land, the Lord’s Supper is based on Christ’s self-giving sacrifice. In the tithe-meal, the Israelites feasted together on the Lord’s portion of the harvest; at the Lord’s Supper, Jesus provided his own body and blood for the meal (1 Cor. 11.24-25).57 To use Smith’s language, both liturgies provided their respective communities with embodied practices that caused the story of God to become the ‘orienting background’ of their lives.58 But when God gives, the gift is given to be shared. Just as the tithe-meal explicitly brought together the successful farmer and the orphans, widows, and aliens, the Lord’s Supper provided a liturgy of togetherness in which the rich and poor shared the body and blood of Christ together. Paul states this explicitly in κοινωνία terms: the fellowship we share with Christ’s body and blood at the Lord’s Supper means that ‘we who are many are one body’.59 The failure to embrace this unity across class boundaries drives Paul to say that the Corinthians are in fact not celebrating the Lord’s Supper at all. In Corinth, the Lord’s Supper meal was apparently shared unequally among rich and poor, and such lack of concern for the poor totally invalidated worship.60 It is important to recognize that gathering together as rich and poor for worship was not enough. Because their liturgy reinforced economic distinctions it would have been better had they not gathered 54. Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 22–3. 55. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 295. 56. This is not to argue that either Jesus or the early church conceived of the Lord’s Supper specifically in terms of Deut. 26, but rather to suggest that the two liturgies nourished an alternative economic imagination for both communities in parallel ways. ‘We should thus have good confidence that the early church developed a liturgical tradition which enthroned Jesus as the anointed King and who anointed his church as his emissaries for the in-breaking of the kingdom of God … In any case there is no doubt that Deuteronomy and Luke-Acts share the habit of intertwining of food, fellowship, and joy in God’s presence in defining a liturgical rhythm’ (O’Dowd, ‘Work of the Sabbath’, 62–3). 57.  Paul draws a parallel between OT manna and Christ’s giving of himself in the Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor. 10, a parallel drawn by Jesus himself in Jn 6. 58. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 14–15. 59. 1 Cor. 10.16-17. 60.  Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 559.



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at all.61 Just as the tithe-meal is only the tithe-meal if it demonstrates that what God gives he provides for everyone, so the Lord’s Supper is only the Lord’s Supper if it embodies true κοινωνία across economically derived social boundaries.62 But when celebrated rightly, this liturgy fuelled a counter-cultural economic imagination in the early church that nurtured the radical economic sharing of Acts 2 and 4; the liturgy undergirded the Jubilee practice, just as the Deuteronomic tithemeal undergirded the OT economic legislation.63 Participation in these liturgies provided the moral formation that transformed ethical action.64 The NT, then, creatively appropriates and applies OT economics through narratives, paradigmatic transposition, and liturgy. To deny that the NT maintains the OT’s powerful counter-cultural economic ethics because the NT lacks the same specificity of command found in the OT is simply to ignore the way the NT receives the OT stories. If we choose not to hear the ethical challenge of the economy of abundance, the problem lies with us. We may stop up our ears if we wish, but we cannot claim that the Scriptures do not speak.

Bringing It Back Home: Narratives, Paradigms and Liturgies for Economic Ethical Formation Today What would it look like for the contemporary church to follow the NT’s example? The texts examined here declare God’s abundant gifts, His radical command that His gifts be shared equitably, the right of all to provide for themselves through work, and the importance of a general economic equality within the community. But how the church enters these stories in contemporary society must take into account the shift from agricultural economies to industrial ones, and this in itself is an act of economic imagination. It is an act that some are already undertaking. Recently, Advance Memphis, an inner city non-profit, has begun planning worker-owned cooperative businesses in the poorest urban zip code in Tennessee explicitly to create living wages and ownership for the urban poor.65 Similarly, the Chalmers Center has partnered with churches in countries like Rwanda to empower thousands of women to create small credit unions that provide the opportunity for financial stability through savings and credit. By providing access to ownership, dignified work, and economic stability, these initiatives also could 61. 1 Cor. 11.17. 62. Wright, Ethics, 158; See Fee’s comment, ‘The final imperative is perhaps the most significant one: ‘Receive/welcome one another’ (1 Corinthians, 569). 63. On the phrase τῇ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου as a description of the Lord’s Supper, see Witherington, Acts, 160–1. See also I. H. Marshall, ‘Lord’s Supper’, DPL: 569–75 (574); Wright, Ethics, 360. 64. This understanding of the power of the liturgy to shape ethical action explains why Paul’s ‘sociological attack’ is ‘indirect’ (Fee, 1 Corinthians, 544). 65. Full disclosure: the author is currently employed by Advance Memphis as the Director of Education. For more information, see www.advancememphis.org

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be seen as paradigmatic applications of the Jubilee. Perhaps Christians, like the author, whose families have acquired lands, fields, and property far above our ‘ancestral inheritance’, could regularly divest themselves of both profit and even assets to invest in such ventures, which provide opportunities for profits and ownership for poor workers. The expansion of these small starts and others like them is limited because we in the West keep hoarding our manna and clinging to our newly acquired farms. But perhaps this is because we have not heard the narratives aright nor entered into their attendant liturgies. Many Christians participate in a Lord’s Supper that is no Lord’s Supper at all because it does not bring rich and poor together in equality, but rather ‘shames the needy’.66 God’s economy of abundance has no tolerance for the widespread economic segregation in our churches.67 By ignoring crucial elements of the Lord’s Supper liturgy, the church can become deformed in its heart and habit, rather than formed for participation in the kingdom.68 Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells argue that ‘All that Christians do and do not do thus finds its intelligibility in the worship of God.’69 The church needs to pay attention to the power that practices and liturgies of corporate and individual worship have to shape the hearts, desires, habits, and practices of the church.70 Liturgies allow the Word of God to exegete our congregations, revealing where the church has embraced unbiblical economic assumptions, such as a priority on individual autonomy in handling property and income and an idolatrous belief that the free-market’s distribution of resources somehow will provide for the poor all on its own.71 The current approach to charity in the West, though, often under66. 1 Cor. 11.22. 67. In contrast to the American church’s refusal to let the Eucharist ‘judge’ its racial segregation, Vincent Donovan records the response of Masai men who, against tradition, began eating in the presence of women because the Eucharist brought all new believers together (Christianity Rediscovered [London: SCM, 1982], 121, quoted in Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells, ‘Christian Ethics as Informed Prayer’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics [eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Carlton: Blackwell, 2004], 3–12 [8]). 68. And when the church replaces the joyful, rich liturgies of the OT and NT festivals with the occasional individual taking of crusty wafers and grape juice from passed plates (as but one instance), then the church simply allows other, more interesting stories and liturgies to shape the hearts of her congregants. As Smith says so memorably, ‘The devil has had all the best liturgies’ (Imagining the Kingdom, 40). 69. Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells, ‘How the Church Managed before there Was Ethics’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Carlton: Blackwell, 2004), 39–50 (50). 70. On liturgy, formation, and social action see: Smith, Imagining the Kingdom; Nicholas Wolterstorff ’s chapter on ‘Justice and Worship’ in Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 146–61; Hauerwas and Wells, The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. 71. In the US, one often hears about the preeminent right of the individual to personal



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mines work or ownership, with its emphasis on handouts which re-emphasize the gap between rich and poor. With such charity, we are not worthy to tell the story of manna in the wilderness, to pretend to eat together at the Lord’s Supper, or claim the Year of Jubilee as our own. This is just a feeble beginning with regard to what the church might do if it really set out to become worthy of its own story. No doubt many will protest that all of this real, down-to-earth application simply is not practical, and of course it is not if one lives in the economy of scarcity.72 But the biblical story declares that God’s people live in a counter-economy of abundance within the empire’s economy of scarcity. It is indicative of our slavery to scarcity that the wealthiest church ever in existence can complain that there simply is not enough to go around. In the economy of scarcity, there never is enough. But in the stories of the economy of abundance told in the OT and creatively appropriated in the NT through narratives, paradigmatic transposition, and liturgy, there is always enough, so long as God’s gifts are shared. The question, then, is not merely which economic system, but which god. The church must again choose this day whom she shall serve, whether the gods of our culture with all of their economies of fear, hoarding, and scarcity, or the LORD, who has brought His people out of slavery into an abundance which we did not create and do not deserve.

Bibliography Barclay, John M. G., ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8:1-15’, in The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (eds J. Ross Wagner, C. Kavin Rowe and A. Katherine Grieb; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 409–26. Bartholomew, Craig G., Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011). Berkman, John, and Michael G. Cartwright, The Hauerwas Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). Brueggemann, Walter, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). Brueggemann, Walter, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002). Carmichael, Calum, M., Illuminating Leviticus: A Study of Its Laws and Institutions In the Light of Biblical Narratives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). property and total autonomy in distributing income from the property, even though both the OT and NT radically subvert the right to individual property and profit, prioritizing instead the rights of the poor to work and have access to ownership. Or, an unbiblical commitment to the idea of unlimited growth that leads the church to believe there is no need to sacrifice income – and certainly never assets! – to provide opportunity for work for the poor. So long as everyone pursues their own self-interest and the government gets out of the way, so the logic goes, the ‘economy’ will provide. 72. For a survey of scholars who question even the possibility of Israel practising the Year of Jubilee, for instance, see Carmichael, Illuminating Leviticus, 124–6.

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Davis, E. F., Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Donovan, Vincent, Christianity Rediscovered (London: SCM, 1982). Fee, Gordon D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). Hartley, John E., Leviticus (WBC 4; Dallas: Word, 1992). Hauerwas, Stanley and Samuel Wells, ‘Christian Ethics as Informed Prayer’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Carlton: Blackwell, 2004), 3–12. Hauerwas, Stanley and Samuel Wells, ‘How the Church Managed before there Was Ethics’, in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics (eds Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells; Carlton: Blackwell, 2004), 39–50. Hays, Richard B., Echoes of Scripture in the letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). Hays, Richard B., The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). Hood, Jason B., ‘Theology in Action: Paul, the Poor and Christian Mission’, Southeastern Theological Review 2 (2011): 127–42. Longenecker, Bruce W., Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). Marshall, I. H., ‘Lord’s Supper’, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (eds Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid; Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 569–75. McConville, J. Gordon, Deuteronomy (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002). McKnight, Scott, ‘Collection for the Saints’, in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (eds Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid; Downers Grove: IVP, 1993), 143–7. O’Dowd, Ryan P., ‘Work of the Sabbath: Radicalization of Old Testament Law in Acts 1–4’, Southeastern Theological Review 1 (2010): 47–66. Ringgren, H., ‫לקט‬, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (vol. 8; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 21–3. Sloan, R. B., ‘Jubilee’, in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (eds J. B. Green, S. McKnight and I. H. Marshall; Downers Grove: IVP, 1992), 396–7. Smith, James K.A., Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013). Witherington, Ben, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). Wolterstorff, Nicholas P., Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Wright, Christopher J., Deuteronomy (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996). Wright, Christopher J., Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004). Wright, N. T., Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996).

Chapter 13 ‘ Y OU W I L L F I L L M E W I T H J OY I N YO U R C O U N T E NA N C E : ’ E N G AG I N G T H E N O RT H A M E R IC A N E C C L E SIA L C O N T E X T W I T H A N A R R AT I V E E T H IC A L READING OF ACTS 2.41-47 AND 4.32-35 Douglas A. Hume

Introduction If one is to broach the topic of Ecclesia and Ethics, one must be careful to avoid two extremes. One extreme is practising church for the sake of church, engaging in religiosity because of the benefits to be derived socially or interpersonally. The other extreme entails a dangerous moral reductionism that views the church’s role as simply providing ethical guidelines and a moral compass. In a recent study of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of American teenagers, noted sociologist and professor of religion, Christian Smith, offers a description of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD), a practice that combines both extremes.1 MTD operates parasitically in the background of a wide spectrum of denominations and faiths, colonizing and displacing their concrete creeds, beliefs, and historically distinctive traditions.2 For the adherents of MTD, the central purpose of faith is to inculcate moral values and to offer the means of obtaining happiness. For many teens in Smith’s study, the sum of their faith tradition is that it teaches them to ‘be nice’. This is the ‘moral’ part of MTD.3 In addition to teaching them to be basically moral people, MTD ‘provides therapeutic benefits to its adherents’.4 If the purpose of one’s faith life is to ‘be nice’, the function of religion is to make one ‘feel good, happy, secure, and at peace’. Religion that does not offer such goods is not functioning properly. The focus of MTD, therefore, is on a God who exists, who created the world and defined morality, but ‘who is not particularly personally 1. Christian Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 170–1. 2. Ibid., 162–71. 3. Ibid., 163. 4. Ibid., 163.

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involved in one’s affairs’ – in short, a deistic God.5 This is not the Trinitarian God, nor the one who spoke through the Torah or the prophets. Nor is this the one who resurrects from the dead, or fills people with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Instead, this God of MTD functions as a kind of ‘Divine Butler or Cosmic Therapist’, who is on call 24/7 and whose purpose is to make people feel better.6 However, this God does not become intrusive or personally involved in the process. MTD is not an independent creedal tradition. Again, Smith claims that it persists as a kind of interfaith parasite across a wide variety of Judeo-Christian traditions.7 As such it is distinctive from both secularism and civil religion, as it operates in the lives of those who are engaged actively in their worshipping communities, while providing them with some code and solace for leading their lives.8 Smith also contends that the teenagers he sampled are likely mirroring the practices and beliefs of adult relatives. While his study focused on teens, the same trends can likely be observed in the lives of American adults as well.9 I have made MTD the central hermeneutical problem and focus of this chapter, because I believe it presents a serious theological and ethical challenge to the church in North America. Not only does MTD reflect a distorted view of the God of Scripture, it reflects a disturbingly nonchalant superficiality with regard to the moral, ethical and intellectual demands of living a life that draws deeply from the wells of the biblical narrative and Christian creedal tradition. To counter and engage MTD, I offer a narrative ethical reading of the depictions of the early Jerusalem community in Acts 2.41-47 and 4.32-35. From John Chrysostom to contemporary times, interpreters have repeatedly sought in the depictions of the early church in Acts a model for the church’s own practices.10 It is my contention that these passages in Acts present a God deeply engaged with the formation of Christian community. I will show that the virtues, practices, and emotional experiences of this community are inherently bound to the realization of God’s purpose in an ongoing narrative that started with the Torah and prophets, climaxes in the death and resurrection of Christ, and which continues after the ascension. My narrative ethical interpretation, therefore, goes beyond viewing these passages as merely exemplary for church life. Instead, I view these 5. Ibid., 164–5. 6. Ibid., 165. 7. Ibid., 166–7. 8. Ibid., 168–70. 9. Ibid. 10. In a homily on the passage, Chrysostom describes the Jerusalem community as an ‘angelic commonwealth’ in which all things are shared in common (‘Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles’, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church [ed. Philip Schaff; 14 vols; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956], vol. 11, 47). For a more recent example of an interpreter viewing the narrative summaries as exemplary for contemporary congregations, see Andy Chambers, Exemplary Life: A Theology of Church Life in Acts (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012).



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passages, when read in their narrative context, as having the potential to stimulate the reader’s imagination to engage with the biblical narrative in creative ways. Likewise, such readers are to be engaged by the God of the biblical narrative in ways that may be surprising, disruptive, complex, creative, and ongoing.

Method Narrative Ethics, a method derived from contemporary literary studies, can be applied to biblical texts in order to discern their literary potential to shape the imagination, thinking, and even ethical engagement of contemporary audiences. Derived from discussions among contemporary literary theorists such as Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum and Adam Zachary Newton, narrative ethics provides a way to assess the ethical implications of reading, discussing, and teaching literary narratives.11 The method is finding its way into contemporary biblical studies through the work of Carol Newsom and more recently my own work, finding itself in alignment generally with the recently emerged fields within biblical studies of narrative criticism and narrative theology.12 The basic insight of this emerging narrative ethical paradigm is that narrative form, in its rhetorical, literary and aesthetic expression, is inseparable from moral perception. To study one is to ask questions of the other. As a method, narrative ethics studies the biblical text from three different angles: narratological, representational and hermeneutical.13 The first angle of the analysis is narratological. Narratology examines the elements of story such as plot, tempo, character, point of view, narrative audience, symbolism, etc. In the case of Acts 2.41-47 and 4.32-35, a narratological analysis will reveal that they are summaries. In summaries, narrative tempo increases such that a longer passage of story time is described in a relatively few lines.14 My 11.  Wayne C. Booth, The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Martha Craven Nussbaum, ‘“Finely Aware and Richly Responsible”: Literature and the Moral Imagination’, in Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 148–67; Martha Craven Nussbaum, ‘Introduction: Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature’, in Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 3–53; Adam Zachary Newton, Narrative Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). 12. Cf. Carol A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 32–71. A nice summary of the narrative critical method as it pertains to the NT, can be found in James L. Resseguie, Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005). For a wonderful example of narrative theology applied to Acts, see Beverly Roberts Gaventa, ‘Toward a Theology of Acts: Reading and Rereading’, Int 42 (1988): 146–57. 13. I am borrowing this tripartite division from Newton, Narrative Ethics, 17–18. 14. R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 70–3; Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980), 87–8.

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findings will suggest that the narrator is using summary to encapsulate, repeat, and convey a value system introduced by other stories in the narrative and also to ‘fill up the vision of the narratee’ with characters who are experiencing joy while engaging in transformative practices for God’s purpose in community.15 Narrative ethics also looks at the representational level of the text. This aspect of the analysis assumes that the story, in some fashion or form, represents the cultural, ethical, and theological/philosophical assumptions of the audience for which the narrative was written. The representational level of the narrative can be the most difficult to tease out. For biblical texts, this involves a study of the historical and ethical assumptions of the society in which the text was written. Also involved is the task of examining how the story represents, or even transforms, these values. In the case of the narrative summaries, my findings will suggest that the narrator is using language that evokes the Greco-Roman moral discourse on friendship, while also transforming it to describe God’s community in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the description of the community’s ‘joy’ echoes the use of emotion in Greco-Roman moral persuasion. In both cases, Luke is transforming the Greco-Roman moral idioms for his own distinctive theological purposes. This has clear implications for both historical and contemporary audiences. The hermeneutical level of interpretation takes into account the moral and ethical responsibility of interpreters and their audiences as they engage biblical texts. In order to properly engage Narrative Ethics, scriptural analysis cannot be done in an ethical vacuum, but must in some way engage the issues of diverse reading communities.16 Indeed, ethical interpretation of narratives cannot arrive at universal solutions to ethical issues, because the cultural contexts of reading communities vary widely. A proper investigation of the ethical implications of a text must begin with an analysis of the cultural hermeneutical lens through which a specific text is being read.17 Furthermore, this kind of contextual approach to Scripture will yield a wide array of ethical implications, depending upon the culture for which it is being interpreted.18 It is for this reason that I began my discussion in this paper with a description of MTD, an issue that has been recognized by contemporary practical theologians as pertaining specifically to teenagers in mostly mainline churches in the contemporary North American context.19 After proceeding with my narratological and representational analysis, I 15. William Andy Chambers, ‘An Evaluation of Characteristic Activity in a Model Church as Set Forth by the Summary Narratives of Act’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994), 113–14. 16. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, ‘The Ethics of Interpretation: De-Centering Biblical Interpretation’, JBL 107 (1988): 3–17. 17. Brian K. Blount, Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 1–23. 18. For a fascinating analysis of how a reading community shapes the ethical implications of biblical text in distinctive ways, see Brian K. Blount, Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001). 19. See for example the discussion in Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the



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shall conclude with some ideas about how the narrative summaries in Acts might begin to reshape the imagination and creatively engage the realities of a young teenage adherent to MTD in the North American context.

Narratological Ethics As I mentioned above, the narrative summaries in Acts ‘fill the vision of the narratee’ with characters who are engaging in joy-filled community that is established and growing through the power and Spirit of God. The immediate narrative context of the summaries is the story of the emerging Christian community in Jerusalem after the ascension of Jesus in the beginning of Acts. The first narrative summary comes at the conclusion of the Pentecost story (2.1-47). As one would expect of a summary, it is sparse in narrative detail.20 The repetition of the words καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ‘daily’ (2.46, 47), and the preponderance of imperfect tense verbs show that the summary is describing an undetermined yet prolonged period after the Pentecost.21 The Pentecost story highlights God’s active involvement in the formation of the community through the coming of the Holy Spirit and the reactions of the surrounding crowds in Jerusalem to the disciples’ new abilities (2.1-13). Peter’s sermon (2.14-40) addresses these reactions and is apparently effective among some of his audience, because it results in the addition of new believers to the disciples (2.41). The summary, therefore, is a concluding description of this growing group of believers that begins to be formed on Pentecost day (2.41-47).22 So, while the Pentecost story opens with God pouring the Holy Spirit upon the disciples (2.2-4), the summary concludes it with a description of God growing the community of believers at an astonishing rate (2.41, 47). After the first narrative summary, the narrative of Acts (2.42–4.31) continues by portraying the growing conflict between the apostles, notably Peter and John, and the religious authorities in Jerusalem.23 The conflict grows through a series Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 3–44. 20. This lack of detail fits one of the criteria for identifying summary discussed above. Note that Peter’s monologue (2.14b-35) is a well-developed and detailed speech composed according to the ancient rhetorical guidelines for appropriateness to his character, age, and historical situation. See Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (2 vols; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), vol. 2, 42. Likewise, the portrayal of Peter and John healing the man begging at the temple is rich in narrative detail (3.1-10). 21. The imperfect tense verbs indicate activities that are occurring over a longer period of time. See the discussion in Chambers, ‘Model Church’, 164–5 n.16. 22. Ulrich Wendel, Gemeinde in Kraft: Das Gemeindeverstandnis in den Summarien der Apostelgeschichte (Neukirchener Theologische Dissertationen und Habilitationen 20; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1998), 58. 23. There are basically three elements of the conflict: (1) the apostles are viewed as a threat by the authorities (4.1-3, 7) for teaching in the temple (3.11-26); (2) the resurrection

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of scenes that follow as a consequence of Peter and John healing the man lame from birth at the gate of the temple (3.1-10). After Peter’s somewhat accusatory speech (3.12-26) to the astonished crowds who have run (3.11) to witness the recently performed miracle (3.1-10), the authorities quickly move to arrest and try them (4.1-22). However, because they can find nothing against them (4.13) and realizing that Peter and John have the favour of the people (4.21), the authorities release Peter and John (4.23). The second narrative summary (4.3-35) follows the community’s prayer of thanksgiving for their release (4.24-31). The narrative between the first and second summaries is addressing questions about the source of the apostles’ ability to heal (3.12) and the source of truth (4.13) to their narrative opponents. As the community is granted (4.31) the boldness which it requests (4.29), the ground shakes, thus demonstrating that the source of their confidence is God. This boldness in the face of resistance will continue to characterize the community’s proclamation throughout Acts.24 By repeating certain keywords and phrases, Acts 2.41-47 and 4.32-35 draw the attention of the narrative audience to certain themes and motifs that one can find throughout Luke-Acts. A detailed analysis of how the summaries accomplish this lies beyond the scope of the present paper and has been published by me in other venues. However, a study of these passages reveals that, in the presence of God, the believers are engaging in three kinds of community practices that resonate with broad motifs from the wider Lukan narrative. Through their teaching (2.42), testimony (4.33) and prayers (2.46, 47), they are engaging in bold acts of proclamation. Through common meals (2.46), they are sharing hospitality with one another, even across well-established boundaries. And by giving up, gathering, and distributing their properties and goods to those in need (2.44-45, 4.32, 34-35), they are engaging in the practice of sharing possessions.25 Again, by populating the summaries with characters who engage in these kinds of practices, the narrator is placing before the eyes of the narrative audience imaginative possibilities for their own communities and lives.

Representational Ethics In addition to stimulating the reader’s imagination through the depictions of the early community’s practices, the narrator is rehearsing in the summaries two themes that engage on a representational level the philosophical and ethical assumptions of the Greco-Roman audience: friendship and joy. content of their teaching is problematic for the Sadducees (4.1-2); and (3) their apparent sway over the people awakens jealousy among the hierarchy (4.16-17; 5.17). These three elements are intertwined in the authorities’ continued resistance to the plan of God in the narrative. See Tannehill, Narrative Unity, vol. 2, 59. 24. Ibid., vol. 2, 61–2. 25. Douglas A. Hume, The Early Christian Community: A Narrative Analysis of Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-35 (WUNT 2/298; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 78–149.



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In Acts 2.44 and 4.32, the narrator depicts the believers as ‘sharing all things in common’ and being ‘one heart and soul’. The proverbs stating that, ‘friends have all things in common’ (κοινὰ τὰ φίλων) and are of ‘one soul’ (μία φυχή), are well attested in the ethical and philosophical discourse on friendship in the GrecoRoman period, appearing in works by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca, Philo, Diogenes Laertius, and Iamblichus and others.26 Both Plato and Aristotle assume that their readers are familiar with these proverbs.27 Upon hearing these maxims, ancient readers and auditors would have immediately understood them as having to do with the quality of friendship.28 Contemporary interpreters are generally in agreement that Luke is using the friendship idiom here.29 Luke, however, is using these proverbs in a distinctive way in order to illustrate the quality of community among the early believers as different from ordinary conceptions of friendship. One can discern this by seeing how he alters the language of the proverb. The usual phrasing of the maxim is κοινὰ τὰ φίλων (among friends things are shared). Luke’s narrator instead offers the description πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες … εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ (all the believers … had all things in common; 2.44). As Dupont correctly observes, it is theologically significant that Luke is not calling these characters ‘friends’, but instead 26.  Critias, 110c; Leges, 739C; Lysis, 207C; Phaedrus, 279C; Resp., 424A, 449C; Ethica eudemia, 1137b, 1240b; Eth. nic., 1159b; 1168b; Magna moralia, 2.11.49.5; Politica, 1263a; Amatorius, 767D; De amicorum multitudine, 96f; Cato minor 73.4.3, (794D); Conjugalia praecepta, 143A; De fraterno. amore, 478D; 490E; Marcellus, 17.3.4; Quaestionum. convivialum libri IX, 644C; Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 22.4; Laeius, 92; De officiis, 1.51; 1.56c.17; Epistula morales, 48.2; De beneficiis, 7.4.1; 7.12.1; De vita Mosis, 2.105; Vitae philosophorum 4.53.8; 8.10.6; 10.11.6; De Vita Pythagorica, 6.32.1; 19.92.21. The list may include also Dio Chrysostom (De regno iii, 135R), Libanius (Epistulae, 1209.4.3;1537.5.2), Strobaeus (Anthologium, 4.1.161.11), Olympiodorus (In platonis Alcibiadem commentarii 88.12), Theophrastus (Fragmenta,75.1.1), and Timaeus (Fragmenta, 3b,566,F.13b.2), as well as early Christian writers – often following the descriptions of Acts – Cassiodorus (De anima 517b), Clement of Alexandria (Protrepticus 12.122.3.1[94P]), et al.; See also Alan C. Mitchell, ‘The Social Function of Friendship in Acts 2:44-47 and 4:32-37’, JBL 111 (1992): 255–72 (257). Gottfried Bohnenblust, ‘Beitrage zum Topos PERI FILIAS’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bern, 1905), 40–1. 27. Plato in Respublica, 424a; Aristotle, in Ethica nichomachea, 1159b and 1168b. 28. Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘Making Connections: The Material Expression of Friendship in the New Testament’, Int 58 (2004): 158–71 (159). 29. Jacques Dupont, ‘Community of Goods in the Early Church’, in The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1967), 85–102 (89–91); Beverly Roberts Gaventa, The Acts of the Apostles (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 81; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992), 59–62; Mitchell, ‘Social Function’, 255–72; David Peter Seccombe, Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (SNTU B6; Linz: A. Fuchs, 1982), 200; F. Scott Spencer, Journeying through Acts: A Literary-Cultural Reading (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004), 65; Tannehill, Narrative Unity, vol. 2, 45.

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‘believers’.30 By describing them as ‘believers’, the narrator is focusing the reader’s attention upon these characters’ relationship with God, in addition to their relationship with one another. To use a spatial metaphor, these characters’ vertical relationship with God empowers their horizontal practices with one another. In addition, this is the first time in Luke-Acts that the narrator is using the term ‘believers’ to characterize a collection of characters. Luke describes believers who are participating in a joy-filled community as they share meals together with joyful and generous hearts (2.46), praising God together and experiencing the favour of all the people (2.47). Thus the believers are depicted as having a distinctive kind of friendship (2.44), a community that is joyfully trusting and experiencing the fulfilment of God’s promises in the narrative. This leads to a discussion of the second theme: the ‘joy’ of the believers. Anke Inselmann’s recently published, Die Freude im Lukasevangelium: Ein Beitrag zur psychologischen Exegese offers a thorough contribution to the study of joy in the Lukan narrative – as well as a methodological advance in the examination of emotions in biblical literature.31 Inselmann demonstrates that joy represents a significant narrative motif in the Gospel of Luke.32 By focusing primarily on clusters of words and representations of joy throughout the Gospel of Luke, she aptly demonstrates how the theme threads its way through the narrative. In the infancy narratives, for example, Zechariah is told by the angel that there will be joy (χαρά) for you and rejoicing (ὰγαλλίασις) and many will rejoice (χαρήσονται) about John’s birth (Lk. 1.14); Mary reports to Elisabeth that the infant in her womb leapt for joy (ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει) when she heard Elisabeth’s greeting (1.44); and Mary magnifies the Lord, ‘my Spirit rejoices (ἠγαλλίασεν) in God my savoir’ (1.47). The theme of joy recurs in the three parables in Luke 15, in the Zacchaeus story of Luke 19, and comes to a climax in Luke 24.52, as the followers of Jesus return with great joy to Jerusalem after witnessing Jesus’ ascension. Inselmann’s work engages in narrative critical and form critical analysis of these passages. Inselmann also summarizes and applies both ancient and modern theories about the presence and control of emotions; particularly joy, in the ethical life.33 Here is another place where the work of Inselmann and others intersects with the concerns of this paper. Whereas some contemporary North Americans are operating with a kind of MTD, some in the ancient world could be described as operating with a kind of ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Syncretism’. Martha Nussbaum has famously described the work of the Hellenistic philosophical schools as practising a kind of 30. ‘This fact would seem to suggest that our starting point for an explanation of early Christian behavior should be the faith by which they are all joined to Christ and united to one another. This faith is the ground of their fellowship, the foundation of the Koinonia.’ See Dupont, ‘Community of Goods’, 102. 31. Anke Inselmann, Die Freude im Lukasevangelium: Ein Beitrag zur psychologischen Exegese (WUNT 2/322; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). 32. Ibid., 1–2. 33. Ibid., 35–133. See her discussion not only of modern psychological theory, but also that of Plato, the Stoics and Philo.



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‘therapy of desire’.34 John Fitzgerald’s collection of essays, The Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought, describes how proponents of various Hellenistic philosophical schools used emotion as a means of shaping and making progress in the moral life.35 Inselmann’s work aptly places Luke within this Greco-Roman ethical therapeutic framework. Luke’s narrative, according to Inselmann, functions pedagogically, training readers in the appraisal and control of the emotional, and hence, ethical life.36 For Luke, ‘ideal joy’ is an extraordinary and profuse reaction to God’s work that can motivate a reader to go in new and creative ways.37 Inselmann’s work in Luke is instructive as we turn to Acts and examine, first, how joy functions in Peter’s Pentecost speech, and second, how joy consequently is picked up in the summary as a means of characterizing the life of the early Christian community. In Peter’s interpretation of Psalms 15.8-11 (LXX) we see a preponderance of the emotional expressions of confidence (2.25), gladness (2.26) and joy (2.26, 28) at the heart (2.26b) of the Psalmist’s relationship with God. There can be little doubt that Peter is interpreting this Psalm Messianically.38 Hence, when Peter uses the first person in quoting the Psalmist in 2.26, he is actually giving voice to Christ’s experience of God’s presence in the ascension. God’s presence fills the psalmist’s heart with joy (διὰ τοῦτο ηὐφράνθη ἡ καρδία μου;) and causes his tongue to be glad (ἠγαλλιάσατο ἡ γλῶσσά μου), and thereby empowers the body of Christ to dwell in the hope of the resurrection (ἡ σάρξ μου κατασκηνώσει ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι). Since in Peter’s Pentecost interpretation of Joel (2.17-18) Christ is depicted as ‘pouring out the Spirit’ (Acts 2.33) upon the believers, the believers’ engagement with one another is grounded in a fully Trinitarian expression of indwelling. For the narrative summary, interpreting the ethical significance of the characters’ joy goes hand-in-hand with clarifying that the characters are being inspired by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the indwelling of God in Christ. In other words, the distinctively Lukan friendship virtue that is being practised among the believers is an expression of God’s life-giving, indwelling triune community, as demonstrated by Peter’s Messianic interpretation of Psalms 15.8-11 (LXX) (2.2528).39 God’s presence, a presence that fills the psalmist’s heart with joy (διὰ τοῦτο 34. Martha Craven Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 35. John T. Fitzgerald, ‘The Passions and Moral Progress: An Introduction’, in Passion and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (London: Routledge, 2008), 1–25. 36. Inselmann, Freude im Lukasevangelium, 400. 37. Ibid., 401–2. 38.  Jacques Dupont, ‘Messianic Interpretation of the Psalms in the Acts of the Apostles’, in The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1979), 103–28 (105–6, 109); Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress 1988), 104; Donald Juel, ‘Social Dimensions of Exegesis: The Use of Psalm 16 in Acts 2’, CBQ 49 (1981): 543–56 (550). 39.  Speaking of Christian community, Jurgen Moltmann also claims that ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit … corresponds to his fellowship with the Father and the Son … It issues

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ηὐφράνθη ἡ καρδία μου; 2.26) and causes his tongue to be glad (ἠγαλλιάσατο ἡ γλῶσσά μου; 2.26), empowers the body of Christ to dwell in the hope of the resurrection (ἡ σάρξ μου κατασκηνώσει ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι; 2.26). God’s presence also pervades the community portrayed in the summary as sharing meals together at the end of the Pentecost narrative ‘with joy and simplicity of heart’ (ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ ἀφελότητι καρδίας; 2.46), praising God (2.47) daily in the temple (2.46), in prayer (2.42), and sharing common property across socio-economic and status boundaries (2.44-45).40 In Peter’s Messianic interpretation, God’s ‘face’, God’s perceptible presence, fills Christ with joy in the resurrection (2.28). Through their friendship practices, it is as if all the believers were singing out the words of Christ with the psalmist, ‘You will fill me with joy in your countenance’ (2.28).

Hermeneutical Appraisal and Conclusion So what does this narrative ethical reading of the summaries in Acts have to say to the contemporary situation of the church in North America? I began the chapter with recent findings by a sociologist of religion who has discovered the prevalence of an underlying religious expression among youth and their parents in the North American church. As it turns out, this MTD may well share some features with its counterparts in the ancient world, namely the ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Syncretism’ of the Greco-Roman philosophical schools. Just as Luke’s narrative opened imaginative possibilities for early Christians navigating the philosophical and ethical assumptions of their world, might it also open imaginative and creative possibilities for contemporary Christians as well? Given the immensely diverse contexts of possible reading audiences, Narrative Ethics – as I have applied it here – does not render judgements on specific issues related to decisionist ethics; nor does it necessarily force readers into a specific teleological appraisal of the biblical narrative in order to emphasize certain virtues, traditions, or values with regard to character formation. As a literary method, Narrative Ethics assists the interpreter in unlocking the potential of the narrative to shape and evoke readers’ imaginations, while describing how readers may embrace and be embraced by characters in the narrative. As a literary technique, the basic insight of narrative ethics is that real world readers, through the very act of reading, imaginatively conceptualize the relationships among the various characters that are being configured by the narrator for the narratee, while also forming relationships with the narrator and the characters being described in the narrative. Thus, the reading of stories is inherently a relational practice. Scholars of biblical narratives, especially those of us who undertake our scholarship from a confessional perspective, have an ethical responsibility to articulate the kinds of from the essential inward community of the triune God, in all the richness of its relationships; and it throws this community open for human beings in such a way that it gathers into itself these men and women and all other created things, so that they find eternal life’ (The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 219). 40. Mitchell, ‘Social Function’, 255–72.



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potential relationships we see functioning within a particular text. We also have a responsibility to provide our reading communities with guidance and direction in how to embrace or be embraced by these characters. So what advice would I give? I would want North American congregations to engage the story in Scripture in such ways that the surprising, counterintuitive, and creative elements within it become imagined possibilities within the minds, lives, and communities of those who read it. My contention is that in spite of all of our information technology and our ability to travel, our generation is hungering for authentic, profound, and surprising narratives. That is why, I think, we see in our contemporary media a craven desire for the most salacious and titillating stories, the kinds of stories that go viral on the various online and cable media outlets. In studying and describing the basic premises of MTD, it is simply depressing how little complexity, conflict, suspense, development, and narratival perspective its adherents evince. An excerpt from one of the teen’s interviews demonstrates this narrative vacuum: I: When you think of God, what image do you have of God? T: [yawning] I: What is God like? T: Um, good. Powerful. I: Okay, anything else? T: Tall. I: Tall? T: Big. I: Do you think God is active in peoples’ lives or not? T: Ah, I don’t know. I: You’re not sure? T: Different people have different views of him. I: What about your view? T: What do you mean? I: Do you think God is active in your life? T: In my life? Yeah. I: Yeah, hmm. Would you say you feel close to God or not really? T: Yeah, I feel close. [yawns] I: Where do you get your ideas about God? T: The Bible, my mom, church. Experience. I: What kind of experience? T: He’s just done a lot of good in my life, so. I: Like, what are the examples of that? T: I don’t know. I: Well, I’d love to hear. What good has God done in your life? T: I well, I have a house, parents, I have, I have the Internet, I have a phone, I have cable.41 41. Smith, Soul Searching, 135.

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For his fourteen-year-old white Protestant girl from Idaho, her story with God is that he is big, tall and powerful, and has somehow managed to give her the Internet, a cell phone, and cable TV. What would happen, if, just for a moment, this young teen could step into the Lukan story world and find herself among the believers of the early Jerusalem community that are depicted in Acts 2.41-47 and 4.32-35? Maybe, instead of seeing God as a divine butler and on-call therapist, she might begin to experience a community of friends that are living into God’s joy-filled, indwelling presence in surprising and counter-intuitive ways. Perhaps she might discover a God whose narrative with humanity twists and turns its way through the suspenseful stories of Israel all the way back to the stories of creation. Perhaps she will learn the stories of God who is at work through Jesus’ preaching and healing ministry, as well as his crucifixion and resurrection. Maybe in Acts she will discover a God who is present in the overwhelming successes and disheartening setbacks of the church’s continuing and ongoing story. Caught up in this story, she might begin to experience the true joy of the resurrection and realize the complexity of being in relationship with this God in Christian community, all the while recognizing in her own experience and community those moments when God is filling her with joy. Seeing herself as a participant in this ongoing and exciting narrative, perhaps she’ll begin to conceive of and strategize ways in which she might engage through her community in the transformed friendship practices of the early Jerusalem community: sharing possessions with those in need, offering hospitality to the strangers among us, and boldly speaking articulate words about the surprising story with God which she has received and continues to experience on a daily basis.

Bibliography Blount, Brian K., Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). Blount, Brian K., Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001). Bohnenblust, Gottfried, ‘Beitrage zum Topos PERI FILIAS’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Bern, 1905). Booth, Wayne C., The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Chambers, Andy, Exemplary Life: A Theology of Church Life in Acts (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012). Chambers, William Andy, ‘An Evaluation of Characteristic Activity in a Model Church as Set Forth by the Summary Narratives of Acts’ (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994). Creasy Dean, Kenda, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Culpepper, R. Alan, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).



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Dupont, Jacques, ‘Community of Goods in the Early Church’, in The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1967), 85–102. Dupont, Jacques, ‘Messianic Interpretation of the Psalms in the Acts of the Apostles’, in The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1979), 103–28. Fitzgerald, John T., ‘The Passions and Moral Progress: An Introduction’, in Passion and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (London: Routledge, 2008), 1–25. Gaventa, Beverly Roberts, ‘Toward a Theology of Acts: Reading and Rereading’, Interpretation 42 (1988): 146–57. Gaventa, Beverly Roberts, The Acts of the Apostles (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon, 2003). Genette, Gerard, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980). Hume, Douglas A., The Early Christian Community: A Narrative Analysis of Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-35 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, 298; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). Inselmann, Anke, Die Freude im Lukasevangelium: Ein Beitrag zur psychologischen Exegese (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, 322; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). Johnson, Luke Timothy, The Acts of the Apostles (Sacra Pagina 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992). Johnson, Luke Timothy, ‘Making Connections: The Material Expression of Friendship in the New Testament’, Interpretation 58 (2004): 158–71. Juel, Donald, ‘Social Dimensions of Exegesis: The Use of Psalm 16 in Acts 2’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1981): 543–56. Juel, Donald, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). Mitchell, Alan C., ‘The Social Function of Friendship in Acts 2:44-47 and 4:32-37’, Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 255–72. Moltmann, Jurgen, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Newsom, Carol A., The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Newton, Adam Zachary, Narrative Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). Nussbaum, Martha Craven, ‘“Finely Aware and Richly Responsible”: Literature and the Moral Imagination’, in Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 148–67. Nussbaum, Martha Craven, ‘Introduction: Form and Content, Philosophy and Literature’, in Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 3–53. Nussbaum, Martha Craven, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Resseguie, James L., Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005). Schaff, Philip (ed.), A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (14 vols; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956). Schussler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, ‘The Ethics of Interpretation: De-Centering Biblical Interpretation’, Journal of Biblical Literature 107 (1988): 3–17.

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Seccombe, David Peter, Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (Studien zum Neuen Testament und Seiner Umwelt B6; Linz: A. Fuchs, 1982). Smith, Christian, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Spencer, F. Scott, Journeying through Acts: A Literary-Cultural Reading (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004). Tannehill, Robert C., The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (2 vols; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Wendel, Ulrich, Gemeinde in Kraft: Das Gemeindeverstandnis in den Summarien der Apostelgeschichte (Neukirchener Theologische Dissertationen und Habilitationen 20; Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1998).

INDEX

Genesis 1 1-2 1:21 1:26 1:26-28 1:27 1:28 1:29 2:2 2:7 2:15 2:16 2:19-20 2: 23 2:24 2:24-25 3:4-6 3:17-19 5:1-2 9:5-6 9:6 37:18-19 47 Exodus 11:8 16 16:4-6 16:18 19 20:4 20:8-11 20:10 20:17 20:24

12, 88 6, 12, 89 6 11 8 14 11, 12, 15 11 17 12 13 15 13 15 16 15 136 13 10 10 9 136 182 127 179, 180, 181 180 180 94 9 17 18 138 51

23:33 25:8 29:45 31:3, 6 35:31 40:34 Leviticus 19:34 22:32 23:22 25 26:11-12 Numbers 14:10 16:42 20:5 Deuteronomy 4:16 5:15 5:21 6:11 11:6 15 26 26:3 26:10 26:15 28 28:5 28:17 30

130 44 44 47 47 51 183 47 181 179, 181, 187 44 51 51 169, 170, 176 9-10 18 138 181 127 187 179, 183, 184, 188 183 183 184 183 184 184 90, 144

31-32 32:39

95 168

Joshua 1:1 15:1

169 169

Judges 2:3 4:3, 13, 15, 16 6:1-6 6:5 6:12 6:34 6:34-35 6:35 6-9 6:11 6:12 7:1 ` 7:2 7:3 7:4 7:5-7 7:10 7:12 7:14 7:17 7:18 7:20 8 8:4 8:5 8:8 8:10

130 122 121 121 123 122 122, 123 122, 123 121 129 124 126 122, 123, 126, 130 123 123, 124 123 125 122 125 125 125, 127 125 129 126 127, 128, 131 128 122

208 Index 8:18-21 8:19 8:20 8:22 8:22-24 8:23 8:24 8:25 8:27 8:30 9:17 16:20

128 128 128 126 130 129 129 129 129, 130 129 126 136

Ruth 2:2

181

1 Samuel 4:21-22

51

2 Samuel 11:1-4

136

1 Kings 2:5 5:17 6:20-21, 28, 30, 35 7:2 7:18 7:19 8:4 8:5 8:8 8:18-21 20:4 20:10

127 44 44 127 127 127 127 127 127 127 127 127

29:35 30 35:1-19

49 49 49

Ezra 6 6:13-18 6:19-22 7:27 8:36 10:22

49 49 49 51 51 43

Job 1 42:6

168 144

Psalms 8 8:4-6 15:8-11 24:4 29:10 42:2 46:1-5 63:2 65:1-2 72 73:13 78: 69 79:1 93:1-4 99:1-5 114:2 125:1

88 10 201 146 41 41 41 41 41 12 146 41 48 41 41 44 41

Proverbs 3:34 5:18-19 18:12

143, 144 16 151

147

2 Kings 3:9 10:1-7 23:1-23

127 129 49

1 Chronicles 29:1-7

44

Ecclesiastes 7:4

2 Chronicles 7:1-3 7:14 29:5

51 43 49

Song of Solomon 2:3-4 16 9:8 47 9:17 47

Isaiah 2:4 40-55 42 42:5-17 57:15 63:18-19

169 88 145 5 144 43

Jeremiah 2 3:1 3:20 4:14 7 13:27

145 139 139 147 145 140

Ezekiel 6 11:16 16 16:28 16:38 37:26-28 43:4-5

145 44 139, 145 140 140 44 51

Daniel 9 9:17, 19

90, 147 43

Hosea 3:1

145

Amos 1:1-15

41

Zephaniah 2:3

144

Malachi 1:11

43, 44

Matthew 5 5:29-30 5:39 5:43-48 6:24 7:1

166 135 170 33 142 150

Index 7:1-5 7:7-8 12:12 12:39 14-28 16:4 16:24 18:4 19:4-6 21:12-13 23:12 25:14-30 26:61 27:40 28:18 28:18-20

150 137 11 140 102 140 99 144 16 49 144 14 44 44 100 102

Mark 6:3 8:34 8:38 11:15-18 14:58 15:29 16:15

13 99 140 49 44 44 102

Luke 1:14 1:44 1:47 4 6 6:27-33 6:37 6:41-42 8:18 9:23 11:9-10 15 16:13 18 18:14 19 19:45-47 20:34-35 22:36 23:31-32 24:52

200 200 200 186 107 33 150 150 168 99 137 200 142 144 144 200 49 17 170 168 200

John 1:1-4, 14 2:1-11 2:13-22 2:19-21 2:20 6 6:60 Acts 1-4 2 2:1-13 2:1-47 2:2-4 2:14-35 2:14-40 2:17-18 2:25 2:25-28 2:26 2:28 2:33 2:38 2:41 2:41-47 2:42 2:42-44 2:42-31 2:44 2:44-45 2:46 2:46-47 2:47 3:1-10 3:11 3:11-26 3:12 4 4:1-2 4:1-3, 7 4:1-22 4:3-35 4:13

4 8 49 44 50 188 102 186 179, 186, 187, 189 197 197 197 197 197 201 201 201 201, 202 201, 202 201 187 197 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 204 198, 202 187 197 199, 200 198, 202 200, 202 197, 198 197, 200, 202 197, 198 198 197 198 179, 186, 187, 189 198 197 198 198 198

209 4:16-17 4:21 4:23 4:24-31 4:29 4:31 4:32 4:32-35 4:33 4:34 4:34-35 5:17 7:47 Romans 1:1 1:18 2 2:5, 8 3:5 3:25 4 5 5-8 5:1, 6-11 5:1-11 5:5 5:6 5:6-8 5:8 5:9 5:10 6 6-8 6:3, 11 6:11-12 6:13 6:14 6:15-18 6:19 7 7:5 7:21-23 7:23 8

198 198 198 198 198 198 187, 198, 199 193, 194, 195, 198, 204 198 187 198 198 50 110 32 90 32 32 29 89 28, 31, 32, 33, 94 93 31 32 33 29, 30 27 29, 30 32 32 52 89 24 89 135 45 110 135 89 135 135 135 90

210 Index 8:1-2 8:4 8:9, 11 8:11 8:10 8:20 8:21 8:22 8:29 8:30 8:32 9-11 10 10:8-13 12 12:1-2 12:2 12:3-7 12:9, 17, 21 12:11 12:14, 17-21 13 13:1-7 13:7-10 13:8-10 13:11-14 14 14:3 15 15:1 15: 1-3, 7 15:7 15:14 15:16 15:19 16:18 1 Corinthians 1-2 1-4 1:2 1:9 1:10-11 1:17 1:18-2:5 1:18-4:21

24 90 24 90 24 12 12 12 10 93 27 93 90 24 32, 91, 135 32, 157 88 32 33 110 33 90, 91 33 33 156 34 29, 37 38 37, 46 157 37 38 45 46, 48 24 110 47 43, 46, 47, 50 43, 44, 48 185 42 101 21, 46 41

1:31 2:1-2 2:2 2:6-16 2:11-14 2:15 3 3:3 3:4 3:5-15 3:5-17 3:9 3:10 3:12 3:14 3:16 3:16-17 3:17 3:21 4 4:10 4:12-13 4:17 5 5:1 5:5 5:6-8 5:7 5:11-13 5-7 5-16 6 6:1-11 6:10-11 6:11 6:16 6:18 6:19 6:20 7 7:1 7:10-11 7:14 7:22 7:40 8 8-14 8:1

52 157 21 46 24 157 41, 43, 51 48 45 44 44, 45 44, 51 46, 47, 51 51 51 24, 41, 44, 45 44 44, 49 52 47, 91 33 33 33 49, 50 49 49 49 49 49 43 42 41, 43, 91 35 48 24 17 52 41, 44, 45 52 49, 50 42 103 50 110, 111 24 29 43, 50, 51 51

9 9:1 9:2 9:5-6 9:7 9:8-10 9:11-12 9:13-14 10

13:4-5 14 15 15:3 15:10 15:28

35 45 38, 45 35 35 35 35 35 89, 185, 188 90 52 188 52 25 52 189 190 188 89, 135 51 24 45 51, 93, 148 148 51 52 29 92 52

2 Corinthians 1:22 3:3 3:18 4:4 4:6 5 5:1 5:11 5:14-15 5:18 5:18-19, 21 5:18-20 5:18-21 5:19 5:21 6:16

24 24 157 10 157 28, 30, 89 31 31 29, 30, 31 30 29, 30 30 31 27, 28, 36 29, 30, 36 45

10:2 10:14 10:16-17 10:31 11:1 11:2-16 11:17 11:22 11:24-25 12 12-14 12:3 12:27 13

Index 8 8-9 8:1-15 8:8 8:9 8:13-14 8:14 9 9:6-15 9:9-10 9:11 9:13 Galatians 1:3-5 1:4 1:6 1:6-10 1:11-12, 15 2:3-4 2:4 2:7-10 2:10 2:11-18 2:12 2:11-14 2:11-16 2:14 2:16 2:19 2:19-20 2:20 3 3:1 3:13 3:13-14 3:23-29 3:25-28 3:26-29 3:27 3:38 4 4:1-11 4:3 4:4-7 4:6

36, 37, 179 185 180, 191 185 26, 29, 36, 185, 186 185 36 36, 37 36 36 186 37 66 29, 59, 65 66 58, 66 66 66 65 66 66 66 66 66 56, 66 58 57, 65, 66 66, 157 24, 25, 65 66, 92, 157 90 65 29 65 24 66 66 66 65 58, 90 65, 66 59 59 24

4:8-9 4:9 4:17-18 4:30 5:1 5:2-6 5:13 5:13-15 5:4 5:4, 9 5:6 5:6, 22 5:13 5:13-15 5:14 5:15 5:16-24 5:19-21 5:22-24 5:25 5:26 6:1 6:1-10 6:2 6:3 6:8 6:12-13 6:14 6:14-15 6:15

58 66 66 58 59, 65, 66 66 111, 156 66 66 58 58, 65 24 58, 66 65 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 58, 66 66 38 156 66 66 66, 157 65 58, 65, 66

Ephesians 2:22 4-5 4:17 5:3 5:21-6:9 5:31 6:5-6 6:7 6:8 6:11

51 89 89 144 111 16 110, 112 112 112 169

Philippians 1:1 1:19 2 2:1

110 24 32, 156, 167 26, 185

211 2:1-4 2:3-4 2:5 2:5-11 2:6 2:6-8 2:6-11 2:7 3:12 3:3 2:6-8

26 26 26 110 27 26 24, 25, 26, 30, 36 110 91 24 26

Colossians 1:9 1:9-10 1:13 1:15 1:16 1:16-17, 19-20 1:27 1:28 2:2 2:2-3 2:6-8 2:10 2:19 3 3:5 3:8 3:9-10 3:10 3:12-14 3:14 3:18-4:1 3:22-23 3:23-24 3:24

158 157, 159 157 10 153 4–5 24 160 159 158, 159 158 153 159 89, 159 161 161 159 159 159 159 111 112 13–14 110, 112

1 Thessalonians 1:1 1:9-10 2:5-12 4:5 4:8 5:10

24, 28 110 26 89 24 29

2 Thessalonians 1:1 24

212 Index 1:9

109

1 Timothy 4:3-4 6:10

8 7

2 Timothy 2:24 4:10

110 141

Titus 1:1

110

Hebrews 1:2-3 1:3 3:1-3 4:9

7 10 5 19

James 1 1:5 1:5-8 1:7-8 1:8 1:13-15 1:14-15 1:16 1:16-18 1:17 1:18 1:19 1:22 1:26-27

136, 137 139 137 137 138 145 136 136 137 139 140, 141 150 150 145

2 2:4 2:5 2:8 2:10 2:13 3 3:1 3:1-2 3:1-4:10 3:4 3:9 3:13-18 3:18 4 4:1 4:1-2 4:1-4 4:1-10 4:1-12 4:1-5:6 4:2 4:2-3 4:4 4:5 4:5-6 4:6 4:7

138, 150 140 143 140, 141, 150 144 150 139, 145 134 134 134 141 9, 10 134, 145 134 134, 136, 137, 145 135. 136 134, 136, 137, 148 144, 146 140, 148 133, 134 134 136, 137, 138 137 139, 140, 141, 142, 145 143 143 143, 146 145

4:7-10 4:8 4:9 4:10 4:11 4:11-12 4:12 4:13-17 4:15 5 5:16-20 5:19-20

144 138, 146 149 151 148, 149 133, 146, 149 150 149 143 138 137 149

1 Peter 2:5 2:11 5 5:5

44 135 145 143, 144

2 Peter 3:10-11

12

1 John 2:15

141

Revelation 15:8 21 21:1-8 21:5 21:11, 23, 26 22

51 13 5 13 51 13