Leadership in Colossae

Colossians 1:7

This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of the Messiah on our behalf...

καθὼς ἐμάθετε ἀπὸ Ἐπαφρᾶ τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ συνδούλου ἡμῶν ὅς ἐστιν πιστὸς ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διάκονος τοῦ Χριστοῦ

Such a designation for leaders, even apostles, in the church speaks an important word about what it means to be called to such offices. Leaders are to see themselves as slaves of God. Paul even says in 2 Cor 4:5 that he is a slave of the Corinthians. This understanding of the place of the church’s leaders excludes the possibility of claiming status and privilege based upon that position. It calls for leaders to understand themselves as those who work in serve to the church rather than as those in charge who demand deference… This language for leaders certainly required the readers to adopt understandings of community and leadership that were contrary to those of other institutions in their world; such language calls them to envision a type of leadership that is consist with the gospel rather than with cultural expectations.

Sumney, Colossians, pg. 41

Leadership in the Churches of Paul

I'm knee deep in Andrew Chester's contribution to A Vision for the Church. He begins with a stunning summary of Paul's ideal:

Paul’s vision for the communities that he wrote to can be summed up quite succinctly. He sees them as being a new creation in Christ, filled with the Spirit, possessing gifts of the Spirit and overflowing with the fruit of the Spirit, controlled above all by love; they are communities that should be pure and holy, mutually supportive and interdependent, completely united, transcending the oppositions and tensions between different groups within the community, and with every kind of barrier that would divide them in normal society broken down.[1]

The discussion that follows this is an excellent, until we get to the rather brief discussion about leadership. Brief, as in, here is the entire section on leadership:

2.3 Leadership and Hierarchy Paul’s vision may seem blurred on this issue as far as the Christian community is concerned. It is not surprising that the issue of leadership and hierarchy should arise, as very often happens in the case of new religious movements with strong expectations of a final decisive event. Compared with what can be observed elsewhere in the NT, and the rapid developments otherwise in early Christianity, Paul appears not to have a particularly developed or precise view. A few indications are given in Rom 12 and 1 Cor 12. Again, however, the larger questions arise of whether Paul would want effectively to give preference to some kinds of individuals, and whether is in danger of asserting or imposing his own authority; and in both cases, how compatible this is with his overall vision. Within the Pauline tradition, especially the Pastorals (e.g., 1 Tim 2-6; Titus 1:5-16), there are clear developments that compromise the ideal of Paul’s vision and move decisively in the direction of giving superior position to particular kinds of individuals. Hence it needs to be asked whether this represents a perversion of Paul’s vision, or a natural and inevitable development.[2]

To embrace this kind of perspective, one needs to neglect key Pauline evidence, namely 1 Thess 5:12-27. Incidental details like 1 Cor 16:15-16 and Phil 1:1 should also be discarded. One then needs to neglect the witness of Acts 14:23 and 20:17. Furthermore, one has to utterly neglect Paul’s Jewish background, which scholars suggest was highly influential (See Burtchaell’s From Synagogue to Church).

[1] Andrew Chester, “The Pauline Communities” A Vision of the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology eds. Markus Bockmuehl and M. B. Thompson (T & T Clark, 1997), pg. 105.

[2] Chester, “The Pauline Communities”, pg. 115.

New Testament Ecclesiology - Updated

Chris Tilling requests some books on New Testament ecclesiology, here are some of the ones that I have found informative and helpful.

M. Bockmuehl and M. B. Thompson, A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology (T & T Clark, 1997)

J. T. Burtchaell, From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities (Cambridge University Press, 2004)

R. W. Gehring, House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity (Hendrickson, 2004)

L. T. Johnson “Paul’s Ecclesiology” in The Cambridge Companion to Paul ed. J. D. G. Dunn (Cambridge, 2003)

R. Longenecker ed., Community Formation in the Early Church and in the Church Today (Hendrickson, 2002)

L. W. Hurtado, At the Origins of Christian Worship (Paternoster Press, 1999)

L. W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003)

R. Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Hendrickson, 1994)

P. F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (SPCK, 2002)

J. L. Houlden, The Public Face of the Gospel: New Testament Ideas of the Church (SCM, 1997)

R. P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church (Eerdmans, 1975)

R. P. Martin, The Spirit and the Congregation: Studies in 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Eerdmans, 1984)

R. P. Martin, “Patterns of Worship in New Testament Churches,” JSNT 37 (1989) 59–85

K. E. Brower and A. Johnson eds. Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2007)

M. Hengel, “The Song About Christ in Earliest Worship” in Studies in Early Christology (T & T Clark, 1995)

M. J. Wilkins and T. Paige eds. Worship, Theology and Ministry in the Early Church, (Sheffield Academic Press, 1992)

C. F. D. Moule, Worship in the New Testament (John Knox Press, 1961)

A. Cabaniss, Pattern in Early Christian Worship (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989)

G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A biblical theology of the dwelling place of God (IVP, 2004)

P. Bolt and M. Thompson eds. The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul’s Mission (Apollos, 200)

M. Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (Hodder and Stoughton, 1973)

D. J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Orbis, 1991)

Andrew D. Clarke, Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers (Eerdmans Publishing, 2000)

R. H. Williams, Stewards, Prophets, Keepers of the Word: Leadership in the Early Church (Hendrickson, 2006)

J. D. G. Dunn's The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 1998) also contains a useful chapter.

Obviously we would here need to decide if our quest is to understand the historical structures and features of "church" in the New Testament, or whether we are looking for a conceptual and theological understanding of the Church.

According to Mike Bird, Markus Bockmuehl has an interesting chapter in the recently released Scripture's Doctrine and Theology's Bible: How the New Testament Shapes Christian Dogmatics eds. Markus Bockmuehl & Alan J. Torrance (Baker, 2008).

These are good entry points into the discussion of NT ecclesiology.

Does anyone have access to J. B. Green's article: "Doing Repentance: The Formation of Disciples in the Acts of the Apostles" Ex Auditu 17 (2002) 1-23?

please? email me: primalhcc AT gmail DOT com

Thanks...

What Happened?

I was struck reading today, that early Christianity is very different from contemporary Christianity... Shockingly different... Take a look at Meeks' assessment...

Christians had no shrines, temples, cult statues or sacrifices; they staged no public festivals, musical performances or pilgrimages. As far as we know, they set up no identifiable inscriptions. On the other hand, initiation into their cult had social consequences that were more far-reaching than initiation into the cults of familiar gods. It entailed incorporation into a tightly knit community, a resocialisation that demanded (and in many cases actually received) an allegiance replacing bonds of natural kinship, and a submission to one God and one Lord excluding participation in any other cult. Moreover, this artificial family undertook to resocialise its members by a continual process of moral instruction and admonition; hardly any aspect of life was excluded from the purview of mutual concern, if we are to believe the writings of the movement’s leaders. The church thus combined features of household, cult, club, and philosophical school, without being altogether like any of them.[1]

[1] Wayne Meeks, “Social and ecclesial life of the earliest Christians” in Cambridge History of Christianity eds. Margaret M. Mitchell and Francis M. Young (Cambridge, 2008), pg. 152

Colossians 4:2

τῇ προσευχῇ προσκαρτερεῖτε γρηγοροῦντες ἐν αὐτῇ ἐν εὐχαριστίᾳ

Working on Colossians today, I followed my usual pattern of trying to do as much exegetical work as possible without consulting the commentaries. When I got to the word highlighted above, keeping alert; being watchful, I didn't realise that I would depart from many of the major commentaries. I take it to refer to being watchful or alert in prayer, and this with thanksgiving. But most commentators take it as a reference to the eschaton, or the immenent return of Christ (So Moo, O'Brien, Dunn, et. al.).

While Moo is right that this term refers often (12 out of 22 times) in eschatological contexts, I'm not convinced that this is the referrent here. Given the context of Colossians 4, I would suggest that it refers to being aware of God speaking, or doing something in response to the devoted prayers of his people. Besides, Paul only uses the word 4 times, and only in 1 Thess 5 is the context eschatological. The reference in 1 Cor 16:13 is clearly not.

So can we can extrapolate from one word, to an eschatological context? For this word to be a "catch-word", we would have to assume a strong awareness of the Jesus traditions of Matt 25 and Mark 13 where this word is used. Is this plausible? I can't imagine the Colossians listening to this message and jumping to an eschatological interpretation based on the memory of Jesus tradition, so if this is what Paul meant, he is being exceptionally vague. Rather, this must refer to being aware of God's Spirit moving in the congregation in response to the prayers of His people - similar perhaps to 1 Thess 5:16-22 (on this passage see Witherington's commentary, which links prayer and praise to prophecy which would then possibly answer the prayers and cause further praise).

Does this make sense? Have I missed something?

Introducing Colossians...

The reference to the Christians having been delivered by God from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son (v. 13) sets the stage for the remaining discussion in the letter, which concerns itself with both the intellectual and the moral consequences of having been delivered from the “dominion of darkness.” Such a radical shift has apparently been difficult for the Colossian Christians to absorb completely, and this letter is an attempt to spell out the consequences of that shift.[1]

The first strophe is at pains to point out that there is no order of reality, visible or invisible, natural or supernatural, that was not created through the agency of Christ (Col 1:16). This means that, apart from Christ, the whole of creation would have no coherent centre and would fly apart or revert to the chaos from which it emerged (1:17). Christ is thus not only the agent of creation, he is also the agent of the world’s preservation.[2]

It may be that the Colossians confronted a religious amalgam made up of parts of Judaism and parts drawn from the worldview that permeated the Hellenistic world, with its fear of malevolent astral powers that would wreak havoc on the unwary.[3]

Whatever the origin of this “heresy,” it is clear that it argued that one needed to do more than just trust in Christ if one was to survive in a world dominated by powerful supernatural forces. One needed somehow to propitiate those forces. Against this, Paul argues for the total sufficiency of Christ… By his death and resurrection, he has defeated all other supernatural powers as surely as a Roman emperor has defeated the enemies he brings back to Rome and parades through the streets before their execution (that is the figure called forth by the language of 2:15). The Colossians are free to ignore this “heresy,” with its calls for further acts needed to protect a person from the depredations of evil supernatural powers, because Christ, working in the full and embodied power of almighty God, has in fact become ruler over all other powers that exercise any kind of rule in any portion of reality (2:9). Relation to Christ is quite literally relation to Almighty God, and hence any need to worry about any other spiritual powers, malevolent or otherwise, is rendered irrelevant.[4]

The word the RSV translates as “nature” and the NRSV as “self” (“old nature/self” in 3:9, “new nature/self” in 3:10) is the Greek word meaning “human being.” What is described is the “old” and “new humanity,” the point being that as persons develop within the structure of the Christian faith, they have the opportunity, now that sin’s hold has been broken, to become new human beings, with a human nature renewed now in the true image of their Creation. The image of God, lost to Adam in his rebellion against God, can now be recovered and restored because of the new reality God has introduced into the world with the death and resurrection of Christ. That is why the church is so central for Paul’s theology: it is the new community that be begin to reshape a humanity previously warped and corrupted by sinful rebellion against God.[5]

The second guideline Paul enunciates here is the need to do everything one does in the name of Jesus Christ, by whose self-sacrificing love the new reality has been brought into being. This guideline suggests that if one cannot perform an act in the name of Jesus, one ought not to do it.[6] [3:17]

Tychicus, named first, is apparently the one who is to deliver this letter. It was customary in the Greco-Roman world for the bearer of a letter to expand on its context and answer any questions the recipients might have about the letter or the situation of the sender (so 4:9b).[7]

[1] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 409

[2] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 409

[3] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 414

[4] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 414

[5] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 415

[6] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 415

[7] Achtemeier, Green, Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, pg. 416