The Spirit in Ephesians and Philippians

This study aims to shed light on the richness, essence, and range of πνεῦμα lexemes in Paul’s correspondence to Christ followers in Western Asia Minor and Roman Philippi. I will endeavor to show the import of each occurrence of πνεῦμα or its cognate in these letters and provide a synthesis of the findings at the conclusion. It will become apparent that Paul does not have one consistent referent for πνεῦμα, either to the Holy Spirit or to other spiritual activities. The study will also show that Paul’s use of πνεῦμα lexemes is predicated upon the occasion and provenance of the letter in question. The analysis begins with Ephesians due to its higher frequency and range of πνεῦμα usage compared to its five appearances in Philippians.

Divine Accounting

This book shows how the divine was an active participant in the economic spheres of the ancient Mediterranean world. Gods and goddesses were represented as owning goods, holding accounts, and producing wealth. The book argues that early Christ-followers also used financial language to articulate and imagine their relationship to the divine. It takes seriously the overlapping of themes such as poverty, labor, social status, suffering, cosmology, and eschatology in material evidence from the ancient Mediterranean and early Christian texts. The book begins with an overview of theo-economics, which is an intertwined theological and economic logic in which divine and human beings regularly enter into transactions with one another. It then moves on to discuss some of the contexts in which the gods and humans transacted in antiquity. The book examines the theo-economics of Philippians 1, with some consideration of Philippians 4, and moves on to evaluate Philippians 2–3. The book concludes that by taking seriously the ways in which persons in antiquity understood themselves to be participating in transactions with the divine, one can begin to break down some of the scholarly categories that separate theology from economics.

The Adoption and Use of the Word ἘΚΚΛΗΣΊΑ in the Early Christ-Movement

This article engages with two recent monographs and three shorter publications to offer a fresh approach to the origin and some aspects of the use of the word ἐκκλησία in the Christ-movement of the first century ce. It argues that the word was first used as a collective designation by mixed groups of Greek-speaking Judean and non-Judean Christ-followers who were persecuted by Paul. Their intimate table-fellowship (especially of the one loaf and one cup of the Lord’s Supper) was regarded as involving or risking idolatry and thus imperilling the ethnic integrity of the Judean people. These Christ-followers adopted the word ἐκκλησία from instances in the Septuagint where it meant not ‘assembly’ but ‘multitude’ or ‘group’, most importantly of all in 1 Sam. 19.20. As Paul founded new communities in the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean that were recognisably similar to Greco-Roman voluntary associations, the word acquired new connotations that reverberated with the role of ἐκκλησίαι as civic voting assemblies in the Greek cities. Paul’s groups were not anti-Roman, nor did he believe that the Christ-movement would replace ethnic Israel, but rather that the two would co-exist until the End. The Pauline view on this matter finds theological endorsement in a 2015 document from the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews.

Paul’s Explanation of Christ-Movement Identity in 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1: A Social Identity Approach

This article deploys a social identity approach to argue that Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1 as an integral part of 2 Corinthians to elucidate Christ-movement identity at a key point in an integrated letter. First, I will critique arguments that the passage is an intrusion based on its alleged awkward positioning between 6:13 and 7:2, proposing instead that it is carefully sited within the larger unit of 6:11–7:4. Secondly, I will critically analyze arguments that its non-Pauline character is suggested by the language used. Thirdly, I will explain the presence of 6:14–7:1 in 2 Corinthians as a means whereby, at a critical point in his argument, Paul made a positive statement concerning Christ-movement identity for his Corinthian pistoi, that is, the ingroup of Christ-followers who accepted his version of the gospel, as opposed to apistoi. The latter category embraced both idol-worshipping non-Judeans and his Judean opponents in Corinth who advocated a rival identity based on a different gospel linked to the Mosaic law. In relation to Paul’s extended re-application of Israelite Scripture in 6:16–18, I will argue for its decontextualized, indeed “oracular” character in a context where Paul aimed to communicate with actual addressees, most of whom were illiterate non-Judeans.

The Entrepreneurial Widows of 1 Timothy

This chapter continues a focus on the Christian Bible with examination of ‘The Entrepreneurial Widows of 1 Timothy’. It argues that the exhortations and admonitions to widows (i.e. unmarried women) voiced in 1 Timothy—identified as a highly rhetorical pseudonymous letter written in Paul’s name—attests to a concern with single women’s patronage of Christ assemblies, which the writer seeks to address by having them marry. The contributor seeks to move beyond a common explanation that the letter was occasioned by ascetical teachings in which women discovered in sexual continence a new freedom from traditional gender roles. The chapter aims to establish that the letter has a broader economic concern with widows, through an historical exploration of the socio-economic status of women who were artisans in the imperial urban economy. It identifies the means by which women gained skill in trades, the roles they played in the ‘adaptive family’ in which households of tradespeople plied their trade often at economic levels of subsistence. New Testament texts point to artisan women, some of them probably widows, who played important roles of patronage and leadership in assemblies of Christ followers. By attending to levels of poverty in the urban empire, traditional views of the widows of 1 Timothy as wealthier women assigned to gender roles are seen in a new light through consideration of spouses accustomed to working alongside their husbands and taking on the businesses after they died. While the lives of these women are largely invisible, attention to benefactions of wealthy women to synagogues and associations gives insight into the lives of women acting independently in various kinds of social gatherings.

Concerning ecclesiology: Four barriers preventing insider movement contextualization from producing biblical churches

Contextualization is a topic of utmost importance in the field of missiology. Over the past several years, the missiological world has debated the merits of one particular approach to contextualization known as the Insider Movement (IM). While much of the discussion has focused on issues of soteriology, hermeneutics, theology of religions, and evangelism, this article intends to assess the potential for IM strategies to produce biblically faithful churches. By leaning on the writings of IM advocates and the recent publication of Jan Prenger’s dissertation, Muslim Insider Christ Followers, one can compare IM strategies along with the testimony of insiders themselves with biblical teaching regarding the church. In order to avoid the accusation of historical, doctrinal, or extra-biblical imposition on the biblical teaching of the church, the common historical marks of the church have not been selected as the criteria for assessment. Instead, four biblical passages containing teaching about the church have been selected drive this exploration exegetically: (1) the church built upon the common recognition of Jesus as the awaited Messiah and Son of God; (2) the church as local, identifiable, gatherable, and responsible body of believers; (3) the church as a pillar and buttress of the truth; and (4) the church as an indiscriminate gathering of gospel-professing and communally covenanted believers. Upon considering the texts that drive these four elements of biblical churches, one confronts several barriers that often attend IM strategies. If such barriers are not removed by IM proponents, this article concludes that it is unlikely that they can produce healthy and biblically faithful churches.

Paul the Cosmopolitan?

The apostle Paul has been viewed by many as a cosmopolitan thinker who called Christ-followers to embrace the ideal of a single humanity living in harmony with a divinely ordered cosmos. A close comparison of Paul's apocalyptic theology with various interpretations of ‘cosmopolitanism’ over the centuries, however, shows few points of agreement. Paul was fundamentally a Jewish sectarian whose vision for a better world embraced only Christ-followers and involved the cataclysmic end of the present world order. Those who accepted and lived by this vision were effectively relegated to the same marginal position in civic life as the local Jewish community.