II. Weighing the Context and the Burden of Interpretation: Individual or Corporate?  Virtually every commentator affirms, without question, an individual referent for Paul’s Ephesians 3:16 phrase “inner man.” For most, with little to no explanation as to how anthropos (lit. man, human being) can be understood as “self” or how esō (inner) is a reference to the inner being (that incorporeal, ethereal, intangible, soul-ish, or heart aspect of the human being); [1] or, there is an immediate assumption, again with no explanation, that Paul has turned his prayer’s attention to the individual Christian—that is, the inner self of the individual believer.[2] Some appeal to similar Pauline expressions (i.e., Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16) are typically made, assuming, as well, those texts are similarly individual referents. Nonetheless, given that the prayer as a whole and the surrounding context is highly corporate, the burden of interpretation, then, seems to be on those assuming an individualistic reference for Paul’s phrase “inner man” (ἔσω ἄνθρωπον). Max Turner helps refocus our attention on the corporate nature of Ephesians: Descartes, Enlightenment ‘man’, the Romanticists, Kant, Freud, Jung, and developments since, have placed the major emphasis of personhood on the inner self, the subjective and all-too-readily individualistic pole of experience, the world-interpreting (including ‘self-interpreting’) ‘I’. The first century Greco-Roman world, like so much of the modern Eastern and Southern worlds, was fundamentally different. Their concept of the ‘person’ (as with the Fathers!) is fundamentally much more dyadic, that is, essentially relational and group-orientated. The ‘person’ marks him- or herself by (a) what place she has in the wider society (e.g., her lineage); (b) with which society she is identified (e.g., her ethnos, her city, etc.); (c) his or her upbringing, education and training (under which teachers, involving what skills, and understanding, etc.); and (d) his or her accomplishments, in terms of public deeds, and visible ‘persona’. Within such a cultural setting, introspective and psychologising accounts of the ‘self’ may be expected to be found little more frequently than the proverbial mare’s nest.[3] In other words, Paul, in Ephesians, is helping to revise the church’s mental and social map of their world in that place (Ephesus et al.).[4] As they had experienced before coming to faith in Messiah Jesus, the temples and their experience of the temples revealed the heavenly mysteries and created habits that molded them according to the deities represented in and through the temple; now, however, as God’s temple, they are to do essentially the same, yet now, reflecting God in Messiah Jesus. Their natural “bandwidth” was limited by their previous social and cultural experience. As suggested in the words of Leonard Sweet, “When the root metaphors change, so does everything else.”[5] This seems to be what Paul is after in Ephesians. Paul’s reference to “inner man.” Paul utilizes almost the same exact phrase in Romans 7:22 as he does in Ephesians 3:16. Both are set within prepositional phrases, the only difference is kata (according to is used in the Romans 7:22 text and eis (into) in the Ephesians 3:16 text.
For most commenting on one or both these texts, they are considered the same and simply taken as the “inner person” of an individual. Lincoln has a long discussion and rationale (essentially the only commentator to do so) for taking “inner man” as an individual reference; however, he makes inferences from what he considers relevant Greek- and Hellenistic-world authors concerning the dualistic “notion” of “an inward person” or “the person within the person.” The argument seems to start with the assumption of what “inner man” means (i.e., inner, real self), not whether it actually means inner person; then, Lincoln precedes assuming a dynamic similarity to such Hellenistic writers’ use of other linguistic words and phrases (not the actual phrase, however). Furthermore, without much consideration, Lincoln indicates that the “new man” (Eph 2:15c) and the “inner man” (Eph 3:16c) are not to be equated. Nonetheless, he only cites inferences and concepts of “the inner person” from, what are obviously, platonically influenced dualistic, writers. Yet, there is no exact or even any closely resembling phrase among Greek writers and thinkers.[7] Barring any appropriating from Gnostic or Platonic thought, Paul is, still, unique in forming this phrase.[8] Also, to go with the reading, one must still argue that Paul was offering a Greek understanding of a person within some dualistic framework and not, the natural assumption, from an Old Testament or Hebraic understanding of the referent. The apostle does not draw on any other relevant or traditional language used to describe a human being in this way.
1. In the Ephesians 3 prayer, Paul is entreating God on behalf of the whole church in Ephesus, which is made plain by (a) the repeated plural “you” address, (b) the second person plural verbal expressions, (c) implied by the reference to the “fullness of God” in verse 19, and (d) the benediction call toward the whole church (which I maintain should be heard as local to the Ephesus et al. house-churches rather than some notion of a universal church) in verses 20–21. All components of the prayer are directed at the whole of the church being addressed (vv. 16, 18, 19c), which suggests there is either an exception being made in the reference to “inner man” or “inner man” has, as does the rest of the prayer, a corporate reference. It is the church, which is Jesus’ (earthly) body, that is God’s fullness, according to Paul’s previous description in 1:23.[10] Identifying “inner man” as the individual in Eph 3: 16c would mean Paul has changed the framing of his prayer. It seems more reasonable to retain the corporate thread in vv. 16–19, which would imply that “inner man” is to be understood corporately. 2. The Ephesians 3 prayer parallels both Paul’s previous prayer (1:15–23), which is most certainly addressed to the whole of the church (in Ephesus et al.) and, as well, the affirmations made throughout chapters 1-3 concerning God’s action in Jesus toward the whole Ephesus et al. church. In fact, Paul “reuses many of the words and ideas of his earlier intercession, 1:17–19,”[11] implying a similar focus. For example, in the first prayer (1:14–23), Paul prays that the church would comprehend “what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe” (v. 19). This has parallel meaning in the Ephesians 3 prayer when Paul prays that the church “be strengthened with power through His Spirit” (3:16), thus allowing a continued corporate focus, which would include the intent of the phrase “inner man.” 3. Other references to anthropos regarding the nature of the church, i.e., the one new man (2:15c; including 4:22–25) in Ephesians fall squarely on, not the individual Christian, but the corporate unity of the new Gentile-Jew co-fellowship, house-temple in and through Messiah Jesus. Furthermore, the pattern of the whole phrase “inner man” as a prepositional phrase mirrors Paul’s “one new man” reference in 2:15c:
4. The reason for the prayer itself (3:14) is seen in the immediate paragraph where the imagery and concept of the “one new man” is apparent: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (3:6). These are the same words and concepts used to describe the incorporation of the Gentiles as an element of the Ephesians 2 “one new man.” 5. The reference to “glory” (according to the riches of His glory, v. 16b) draws the readers back to the trio of verses (1:6a, 12c, 14c) that are tied to the result of the Father’s action toward and on behalf of the church, namely that all, on account of God’s action in Messiah, through faith, have access to the Father’s presence (2:18; cf. 3:12):
Paul’s trio-reference to God’s “glory” carriers resonance of God’s temple presence (which will occupy are attention later in the essay). The OT is filled with references to Yahweh’s presence either being associated with his “glory” or with “glory” indicating God’s actual presence in earthly space and time. Given Ephesian’s liturgical rhetoric and Paul’s very concrete reference to the church as God’s temple (2:19-22), there is no doubt that the apostle “has drawn on the manner in which the OT writers expressed the divine presence and manifestation of God in the temple.”[13] Paul’s repeated use of “glory,” particularly as the ultimate result of God’s action in Messiah (i.e., to [note into, eis] the praise of His glory, 1:12, 14; cf. 1:6 ), we should, therefore, understand the term “coextensive with the concept of God’s glory filling the temple.”[14] Thus, there is a strong tie to the access to the Father, which is at the heart of the two preceding paragraphs:
This not only links the “inner man” to the “one new man,” it, furthermore, also strengthens the corporate reference of the whole prayer. 6. The three escalating hina clauses in 3:14–19 imply that all the clauses are intended to be taken corporately, that is the prayer is applied to the church as a whole. This is particularly recognized in Paul’s final and ultimate hina clause that contains the requested result and content[15] of his prayer to the Father: that you [the church in Ephesus et al.] may be filled up to all the fullness of God (3:19c).
The phrase “the inner man” comes in the first of three escalating requests; not necessarily three independent clauses, but components that build (i.e., are stacked) or further explain Paul’s entreaty on their behalf. Note the use of corporate language in the Ephesians 1 prayer also ends with reference to the church being “the fullness of God” (1:23b), which seems to be the case here in the Ephesians 3 prayer (cf. 3:19c). The first hina clause, which contains the phrase “inner man,” is a request that the whole of the “saints in Ephesus” be strengthened with/in power that results in Messiah dwelling in their hearts as gathered-church(es). The “dwelling” seems to imply the need for “inner man” to be a corporate reference, reflecting what it means to be the fullness of God in Ephesus. 7. The last of the hina clauses, the final request--that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God, 3:19c—draws from Paul’s first church reference to “fullness” in 1:22-23: And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. It is clear that the earthly body of Messiah, the church, is the fullness of God.[17] The whole prayer (3:14-19), that is, its content (i.e., the choice of words and imagery), is to request that the Father on behalf of the “saints who are at Ephesus” (1:1) to realize who they are in Ephesus as gathered-church, God’s one new man (i.e., one new humanity) the house-temple, God’s dwelling place; thus, they are to know/comprehend/experience the fullness of God (as the one new humanity, the inner man). Additionally, the “one new man” is the house-temple of God, that is the dwelling place of God, which has a conceptual reference to Paul’s “fullness” references elsewhere. 8. Paul prays the Ephesus church is strengthen in the inner man “through His Spirit” (3:16b). All references to the actions or person of the Holy Spirit situated in Ephesians are corporate references to church (cf. 5:18). Paul’s “inner man” would be the sole exception if it were a reference to the individual Christian. More explicitly, the church had been just described as God’s new temple, a dwelling of God in the Spirit (2:22c)—a specific reference to the (local) church as a whole.
10. The agricultural and building imagery in 3:17 associated with the “inner man” (3:16c) is also drawn from (or is parallel to) the Ephesians 2 “one new man.” Paul uses οἰκοδομὴ συναρμολογουμένη αὔξει (2:21) and ἐρριζωμένοι καὶ τεθεμελιωμένοι (3:17), a blend of building, growing, and agricultural imagery to indicate the growth of the church. This language, as in chapter 2, is more suited to reference the growing/building nature of the (local) church. There is also a connection to the Ephesians 2 “one new man” with the old/new man in Ephesians 4 through the growing and building language. The connection to the Ephesians 3 prayer and the “inner man” can be seen in the en agape (in love) parallels—both connected to the growing imagery. [See chart II.1.10] 11. Finally, Paul’s measuring language in verse 18 not only is addressed corporately to the church also suggests a reference to the church as temple: may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth (3:18). This would further indicate a link between the Ephesians 2 “one new man” and the church being addressed in Paul’s culminating prayer in 3:14–19. As will be discussed below, measuring language in the Bible has multiple levels of meaning. The Ezekiel 37 background to the “one new man” and its Ephesians 2:11–22 context is important here: Ezekiel 37, a vision of restored Israel, leads into a vision of a restored temple, resulting in God’s glory returning to the temple (43:1–5; cf. 1:6, 12, 14; 3:16, 21). The dimension language in Ephesians 3:18 (τὸ πλάτος καὶ μῆκος καὶ ὕψος καὶ βάθος) is the same language used of Ezekiel’s description of the eschatological temple’s altar in Ezekiel 41:22. Furthermore, the highest prevalence of dimension language in the LXX is located in Ezekiel 40-47, where it is used to refer to the dimensions of the new temple. The above review of the context and the repeated emphasis on the corporate nature of the prayer-petition and on the church in Ephesus as God’s house-temple strongly suggests that Paul’s reference to the “inner man” should demand a corporate reading. This places the burden of interpretative rationale on those who read “inner man” as an individual rather than a corporate reference. In the following section we will focus on the potential implications of Paul’s use of the Solomon temple dedication and other OT temple texts on both the Ephesians 3 prayer and the significance of the term “inner man.”
Footnotes [1] Stirling, “Transformation and Growth,” 139. There is also a problem determining what this “inner man” is without degenerating into a dualistic or platonic view of a human being, moving even into Gnostic understandings of human existence—certainly this is not Paul’s view of the human being. Secondly, how does one have the “inner, deeper, human aspect” of one’s self know anything? How would—based on this prayer—one allow, make the “inner man” in this way strengthened?
[2] The tendency to translate the Greek word anthrōpos (man) in some texts as “self,” or even “human nature” seems more an applicationally-leveraged rendering (i.e., interpretation) than one based on the social and intellectual worldview of the NT era. Those associated with “deeper life” circles or experience-centered faith (and worship) tend to build spiritual life doctrine of human nature, an individualistic Christian life, and personal application from the translations rendering Paul’s reference to “new man” or “old man” as “new self” or “old self,” which spills over into the apostle’s reference to the “inner man.” Although significant, application for personal spiritual (or deeper) life experiences should not anachronistically move from the English rendering to Paul’s meaning. Since Paul’s new man is a corporate concept, I translate the Ephesians 2:15 text as “new humanity,” an appropriate verbal expression, which fits the apostle’s original intention, keeping the Adam referent (see Romans 5-6) intact. This should be considered when weighing Paul’s meaning and intention of “into the inner man” [Eph 3:16c, my translation]. [3] Max Turner, "Approaching 'personhood' in the New Testament, with special reference to Ephesians,” EQ 77.3 (2005): 211-33. [4] Assuming churches in someone’s houses in and around Ephesus, Laodicea, and Colossae. [5] Leonard Hjalmarson, No Home Like Place: A Christian Theology of Place (Portland, OR: Urban Loft, 2014), 110; “Seven Questions.” [6] Walt Russell, “Insights from postmodernism’s Emphasis on Interpretive Communities in the Interpretation of Romans 7,” JETS 37/4 (December 1994): 511-27. [7] Lincoln, Ephesians, 205. [8] Paul’s reference to the “inner man” in Romans 7:22b is heard through the assumption that Paul is completely referring to himself, i.e., the “I,” throughout Romans 7. However, there has been some discussion that Paul, perhaps, represents a corporate reference, such as a community. Even Ridderbos (Paul: An Outline of His Theology) sees the potential that Paul is not just Paul, but Paul the Pharisee (under the law) and Paul the new community of God (under the Spirit). So, perhaps, the parallels and/or similarities between Paul’s meaning of “inner man” in Romans 7 and “inner man” in Ephesians need more review and further consideration—beyond mere individualizing the text. [9] William Hendriksen, Exposition of Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1967), 171. [10] Ephesians 1:22–23: “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” [11] Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesian (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 339 [12] The same phrase occurs in Romans 7:22, similarly with the definite article preceding ἔσω. Given the very likelihood that Paul is using himself as a representative of the whole congregation no longer under Law vs. under grace, perhaps the antecedent for ἄνθρωπον is found in Paul’s Adam-new Adam referenced in Romans 5-6. [13] Stirling, “Transformation and Growth: The Davidic Temple Building in Ephesians,” PhD thesis, University of St. Andrews, 138; Arnold, Ephesians, 116. [14] Ibid., 138. [15] The hina clauses seem to function as both the content of Paul’s prayer (i.e., indirect address), but also the result he is seeking on their behalf. [16] Author’s modified NASB translation. [17] Whole church in Ephesus (i.e., Asia Minor), as well as the local congregations (i.e., gathered-house-churches) were equally the fulness of God, not lacking in anyway.
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I. Leveraging the Concept of Sacred Space reFocuses a Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation In order to hear more effectively Paul’s Ephesians 3:14–19 prayer, a socio-rhetorical approach can aid the reader in the listening process. The goal here is to recognize that the original audience had experienced life in time and space, which promoted habits and beliefs that developed their social reality different from our own. This approach assumes a tapestry of “cultural textures” have been interwoven into the text of Ephesians.[1] Such an interpretative tactic allows the socio-cultural location in Ephesus et al. and, as well, their habits and beliefs—namely, the cultural, social and habitual background noise of their daily lives—to help us hear how the original readers would have heard what we are now reading in Paul’s Ephesians 3 prayer. The nature of Paul’s style and his identification of the church in Ephesus as God’s household-temple (Ephesians 2:18–22) will be explored, which will also help focus our potential interpretation of his phrase in Ephesians 3:16, the “inner man.”
Witherington further identifies Ephesians as “epideictic rhetoric,” a style that displays dramatic tones that would have been appropriate for a document intended to provoke an attitude of worship, giving a heightened liturgical imagination to its hearers/readers designed to produce a community-centered response. Although “epideictic rhetoric” typically did not call for a specific action, Paul, nonetheless, harnesses this style to “enhance knowledge, understanding, or belief”[6] in what God in Messiah Jesus has done on behalf, in the midst of, and through the “the saints who are at Ephesus” (1:1). The style and content of Ephesians 1-3 seem to focus our attention in just this direction. The “epideictic rhetoric” can clearly be seen in the two Ephesian prayers (1:15–23; 3:14–19), the second of which (3:14–19) contains our text under consideration (3:16c). Paul offers these prayers on behalf of the church in the greater Ephesus area, each provoking a heightened imagination of God’s action in Messiah toward the house-churches (cf. 3:20–21). Paul prays that God would increase their comprehension of God’s action and what it does in and through them as household-gathered-churches. The prayers are self-actualizing and actually fulfills what is requested of God on behalf of the Ephesus church—the prayer is initially answered as the believing community hears the words of Paul’s petition. He beseeches God to open their hearts as a local[7] believing community so that they would expand and enhance their knowledge and experience of God’s powerful work in Messiah Jesus. The stacking and enhanced language and imagery not only fits the temple worship experience formerly encountered by the Ephesus believers, it also gives an enhanced imagery for the new house-churches, who, as they are gathered, are God’s fullness (1:23) and temple-house (2:19–22) in Ephesus et al. (The new temple in town!) And, although often taken and preached individualistically (i.e., to the believer), the culminating verses of this highly liturgically charged and lofty worship section (1:3-3:19) has a benedictory call addressed to the whole of the church in Ephesus. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we [that is, the church, the one new man; cf. 2:15ff.] ask or think, according to the power that works [which is the content of the two prayers, the resurrected and ascended Messiah] among us [en humin, among us, i.e., the one new man], to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen (3:20–21) In other words Paul’s prayer is: “may the essence and benefits described in this homily (in 1:3-3:19) effectually become a reality for the gathered-church in this place, for all generations; may what God has brought about through his actions in the death and resurrection of Messiah Jesus become the belief and action among and through the (local) church, His body, which is his fullness (cf. 1:23; 3:19).” These prayers, which take up a rather large of amount of word count in the first three chapters of Ephesians, “are acts of praise and adoration [themselves], even though they include petitions on behalf of the audience.”[8] The requests (themselves) are to lift the congregation as a whole, who is God’s temple in Ephesus et al., into the realm of reality that reflects what Paul has written already in 1:3–14 as well as 1:15–23 and 3:1–13. The rhetorical function of the paragraph, 3:14–19, with its doxology and benedictory call that follows (vv. 21–22), is to enlarge the vision of the congregation as agathered-church in that place, God’s temple-house in Ephesus et al.[9] The “epideictic rhetoric” is being used to arouse the emotions, pulling on the collective congregational imagination, the realization of what it means to be seated with Messiah Jesus in the heavenly places (2:5; 3:10), to be God’s fullness in Christ, that is conveyors, illustrators, a display of God’s mystery (1:23; 3:10) as a gathered-house-temple-church in that place. Paul uses this sacred-space and enhanced, liturgically-charged and hierophantic prayer to mold, corporately, the “saints who are at Ephesus” to recognize their own relationship (as a bound together social group, i.e., a church) is how God is revealing the gospel (Eph 3:6). Sacred space implies the stylistically veiled polemic target. The lack of an obvious polemical target in Ephesians suggests to many that the Letter is universal in nature, focusing on the “invisible” church. However, perhaps we should look in a different direction (i.e., listen differently) for Paul’s purpose. As Paul has highlighted in chapter 2, the Gentile believers are to understand a new identity apart from their former temple-life and the powers associated with those temples (cf. 2:1–11) and are, now, to conform to a new identity as the household-temple in the Lord (cf. 2:11–12; 4:17–32). In Ephesians 2, the Gentile audience is first reminded of their former “deadness” as they once walked (i.e., lived) according to the evil powers of creation (2:1–3), which was learned and expressed by their former temple-life, and, second, to grasp their new standing in “the heavenlies” in Messiah (v. 6). Now, “the saints who are at Ephesus” are to rethink everything as God’s new creation, the one new man (2:15c), God’s new humanity, his temple-household (2:19–22). The church, with the Gentiles, has become God’s sacred space throughout Asia Minor.
Paul’s temple referent as sacred space (in Ephesus) is significant to any discussion for both the topic of ecclesiology (i.e., the nature of the church) and for church growth; first, because of the nature of sacred space itself and, second, because Paul harnesses the imagery to portray the church as growing.[11] The temple reference and imagery suggests an important interpretative hermeneutic within Ephesians itself. In the ancient Mediterranean world and cultures, temples were at the very center of everyday life defining reality—socially, politically, religiously, and for defining and understanding of humanity (including personhood), making it very difficult to divide these categories in the life of people. This was true of the pagan cult-temples and, as well, true for Israel through their Solomonic temple experience. As the gospel moved into Gentile territory, and specifically within non-Jewish communities outside the life of a synagogue, it would be necessary for both the Gentile and the Jewish believer to understand their new orientation for life and humanity (cf. Eph 2:11–22; 3:1–6).
Footnotes
[1] I.e., an approach to reading literature that focuses on values, social-worldviews, and beliefs in the texts; reading texts as performances relevant to its particular historical and cultural social-location; it presupposes that a text is a tapestry of interwoven textures, social, cultural, ideological, sacred texture. This fits well with how Paul writes and the word choices he made in the Ephesian Letter. [2] This in no way means the Letter is less polemical in desired outcome; the question would be, then, how does the rather non-polemical style act as a polemic against any perceived opposition, obstacles, or barriers to the gospel of Messiah Jesus? The remaining section will offer a potential answer to this question. [3] Ben Witherington, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 4; refers to G.A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 32; B. Reicke calls it “Asianism.” (“It was called ‘Asian’ style because its foremost representatives came from Asia Minor, and it was characterized by a loaded, verbose, high-sounding manner of expression leaning toward the novel and bizarre, and careless about violating classic ideals of simplicity. . . Our epistle was undoubtedly written in conformity with the rules of the Asian school which was still important during the first Christian century”). [4] Witherington, The Letters, 4. [5] For the inappropriate leveraging of application to determine interpretation, see chapter 6 of my Wasted Evangelism: Social Action and the Church’s Task of Evangelism (Wipf & Stock, 2013). [6] Witherington, The Letters, 7. [7] Although most take Ephesians as a sermonic Epistle concerning the universal church (i.e., the “invisible” church), it seems more likely that Paul’s intended audience is the household churches gathered throughout Asia Minor. What we refer to as The Letter to the Ephesians was meant to be circulatory, meaning it was to be read elsewhere, which seems what is to be inferred by the reference in Colossians 4:16 that the Colossian Letter was to be read elsewhere as well as the Letter coming from Laodicea (cf. Col 2:1, 13, 15). Additionally, as will be discussed later in the article, there is no reason to think the Letter’s polemic can not be addressing specific churches in Asia Minor, i.e., Ephesians et al., rather that some ambiguous concept of a invisible, universal church. [8] Witherington, The Letters, 270. [9] Ibid., 270. [10] Perhaps we should read the Ephesians 4 “leadership list” in light of this as well. [11] I had thought the images, descriptions, and teaching Paul renders on “the Church” in Ephesians was intentionally universal in nature—that is, “the Church” capital “C” in Ephesians is about the universal church as opposed to being about the or a church (small “c”) local. I believe I was incorrect on this. As Paul starts the letter he wrote, “To the saints who are at Ephesus” (1:1), making it local. While I grant the circulatory nature of this Letter (i.e., to the churches of Asia Minor, and is probably the Letter referenced in Colossians as “the letter from Laodicea,” 4:16), the Letter known to us as Ephesians is about the local church at least, the community of believers in a local area (geographic and municipal in make up). I believe this shift has implications for defining biblical church growth.
 Typically, church growth outcomes are limited to numbers of people indicated by an increased averaged attendance at one specific type of event (i.e., a weekly worship service) in one room (i.e., the “sanctuary” or space where a weekly worship service is held) at a particular addressed-place or tallied as increased paper membership at an annual congregational meeting. This is a building-centered form of church growth, which is foreign to the concept of “church” in the New Testament. On the other hand, Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians imagines believers “growing into a holy temple in the Lord” that forms “a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (2:21–22). The habits and experience of most who attend a building-centered church seem to focus on the individual Christian: sermons target those in the pew with generalized easy-to-make individualized application; the style and design of the service focuses on an audience of one to ensure faithful attendance; and, programs and activities are developed to meet personal needs. Furthermore, most building-centered churches are neighborhood-less, disconnected from the built space of the addressed-church building. By design or default, the building-centered experience is designed to move people away from their respective neighborhoods in order to develop and isolate the building-centered church community—again, separated from its built environment; programs and activities are designed to keep people returning to the “building.” However on the other hand, Paul’s reference to “the inner man” (Eph 3:16c) and the very temple background reverberating throughout Ephesians, as well as, the immediate context (i.e., Eph 3:1–13, 14–19, also 20–21) focuses us, the reader/hearer, on the importance of rethinking “church” and helps to establish a biblical understanding of church as sacred space. This essay seeks to establish Paul’s “inner man” (3:16c) as a corporate temple reference (befitting the context) and as an allusion to back to the Ephesians 2:15c “one new man,” that is God’s growing church-temple. This essay offers a corporate reading of Paul’s Ephesian 3:16 “inner man” reference, which reinforces the gathered-temple-church, the one new man, as sacred space, the liminal space space between (the heavenlies and a local neighborhood, let's say); and, as such, the local temple-church has revelatory significance for disclosing the wisdom and mysteries of God (cf. 3:8–10). This implies that church growth outcomes go (far) beyond mere numbers of people and may include, as the antecedent one new man suggests, social, demographic, and justice outcomes as well. The ensuing study will develop this thesis (I) through leveraging the concept of sacred space as a socio-rhetorical interpretive-model; (II) by weighing the context to determine a “corporate” or “individual” reading of Paul’s use of “inner man” in Ephesians 3:16; (III) by showing that Solomon’s temple dedication and other Old Testament temple texts have implications for a corporate reading of Paul’s “inner man” reference; (IV) by summarizing how a corporate reading “inner man” that denotes the revelatory nature of the temple-church; and, (V) by presenting a list of inferred outcome relevant to church growth.
 A Household Gathered-Church: God’s Platform for Challenging Tyranny and Oppression Over two plus millennia, the 4th century Constantinian state-sponsored move away from the household gathered-church created specific social ramifications for the church and for doing church: our building-centered ecclesiastical and liturgical habitus replaced the NT household gathered-church habitus, which has repercussions for social mapping trajectories that have restored tiered human hierarchies and re-segregated church communities into “their-own kind” of social, economic, political, and power assemblies. The household gathered-church has ceased to be God's gospel-centered, cruciform platform for deconstructing systemic tiers of human hierarchy. As a result, this also changed how the church addresses and challenges the current state of injustice, inequality, oppression, and tyranny. There is a tendency to imagine that aligning ourselves, whether as individual Christians or as a building-centered congregation, with power or an influential platform associated with power is the way to bring about systemic change in prevailing tiers of human hierarchy. Tempting as this is, Craig Greenfield reminds the church, it is a trap to think “the solution to injustice is to gain power, hoping that once the roles of power have been reversed,” injustice will cease.[1] History testifies differently—Davids inevitably become Goliaths; the oppressed who seize power become new oppressors. Yet, it was the unassumingly insignificant, powerless, absent any sense of leverage young church that infected every level of society with the gospel and it did so through gathering together—this unique community of the poor and wealthy, property-owners and professionals, business women, slaves, orphans, and abandoned-infants, ex-prostitutes and former temple prostitutes (even some current ones), religious and military leaders, and children, women, and men—at meals in households throughout Caesar’s empire and, eventually, beyond: the gathered-church of strangers and unequals. Through the household gathered-churches invading the very core of the empire, what it was to be human had been “irrevocably altered.”[2] Christianity did not simply offer an alt-system of human relationships and personal morality, but through the very existence of the household gathered-church and its habitus every aspect of the imperial system that created, promoted, and sustained tiers of human hierarchy stood condemned. The way in which the local church gathered and reclined at table was ultimately and completely seditious to the existing system—the system that was foundational to human identity and imperial stability. Celsus, the second century critic of Christianity, described the spread of Christianity as a religion of “slaves, women and little children,” a warning and an argument against the new sect, for it disrupted the status quo ordering of life. David Bentley Hart suggests that it was “unlikely that Celsus would have thought the Christians worth his notice had he not recognized something uniquely dangerous lurking in their gospel . . .”[3] These gathered-churches were made up of unequals and strangers. Their gatherings were traitorous. Their habitus was seditious and dangerous. Their presence, like no other, threatened to destabilize all of society. It is no shock, then, that the church was scorned and persecuted. The gospel shaped gathered-church is not simply one of social integration, but is a scandal to any human institution that systemizes tiers of human hierarchies, be it social, civic, or religious. More than a model or a moment in church history, the household gathered-church, together with its habits, is as much a NT teaching (i.e., instruction to the church) as any other biblical doctrine. More so, everything about the early church challenged the empire, the temple-cults, the religious and political establishment, the business world, and, supremely, all human relationships and associations. Paul and the NT, indeed, did address the issue of slavery, oppression, and human inequality. The question is: does our current form of church? [1] Craig Warren Greenfield, Subversive Jesus: An Adventure in Justice, Mercy, and Faithfulness in a Broken World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 95. [2] Hart, Atheist Delusions, 176. [3] Ibid, 115; Celsus reference, On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians (trans: R. Joseph Hoffman; New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 38. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
 Leveling Habits: The Table, Household Baptism, and Kiss that Changed Everything (C) The Kiss. Whereas Tertullian might have invented the term “kiss of peace” (Or. 18), Paul and Peter indicate that the “kiss” existed among the NT gathered-church (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14). Here and in early church writings, the abundance of “kiss” references seem to suggest it was not merely symbolism, but an actual, intimate kiss. As one put it, the “kiss” was “a body-centered ritual.”[1] What began as simple greeting became a command to greet each other and, thus, moved to habitus. Although the role of “the kiss” varied within society and at differing geographic locations, the “kiss” was a social-cultural habit in the Greco-Roman world that denoted respect and friendship. There is no surprise, then, that the kiss was an element of the apostolic gathered-church and in the developing early church Eucharistic liturgies. For the most part, the church has institutionalized itself right out of the kissing business. Today, the “kiss” is barely detected at a church gathering save for those that retain the concept as a “pass the peace,” more or less a greeting. However, the Greco-Roman social kiss was a form of respect used to greet another person of equal social status. The kiss was “a symbol of social stratification and status,” a cultural habitus of hierarchy,[2] an “action that joined together two individuals, kissing was a particularly apt symbol for such [cultural and social] border crossings.”[3] The kiss, however, took on a subversive nature within household gathered-churches as it was exchanged among unequals as they assembled at table. All believers—strangers at cross-cultural levels, men, women, children, slaves—at the gathered-church, greeted with a kiss, indicating that such a socially diverse and unequal cohort of people all-together belonged to God in Christ. Since, at the first, their gathered-church suppers were semi-public household events, they risked the slander of on-lookers.[4] People coming together, crossing gender, social status, religious (in as much as new converts and guests had came from diverse religious sects and temples), national, and ethnic divisions—and finding themselves one in Christ. Allen Kreider asks, “Is it possible that Paul and other Christian leaders urged their people to exchange the kiss greeting because it was a practice that could sustain a Christlike habitus across time?”[5] As Eucharistic liturgies developed, “the kiss” prepared the gathered-church for the “table” that followed communal prayers (per Justin and Cyprian). As early as the Didache and Hermas, the “kiss” was understood as reconciliation, a precondition for partaking in the Lords’ Supper (a trajectory application of 1 Cor 11) and, so, “the kiss” preceded the table.[6] That underscored the meaning of the Supper and table, namely their unity (again, the true offense at the table and a fair trajectory application of 1 Corinthians 11). Every act or ordinance created or adapted and used by the apostolic and early church had one thing in common: each accomplished and spoke to unity among earthy unequals. The table, household baptisms, and the kiss embodied a way of defining a new identity and maintaining the bond of a community as a people who didn’t (socially, culturally, legally) belong together.[7] As established habitus of the gathered-church, they were creating a wholly new understanding of humanity-together, a new social reality in Christ.[8] A household gathered-church (multiplied and embedded throughout the empire) was a new living social context of people, a reality of the death of Jesus, creating subversive social mapping that challenged and changed everything concerning the hierarchy of human relationships [1] William Klassen, “The Kiss as Sacred Act in the New Testament: An example of Social Boundary Lines.” New Testament Studies 39 (1993): 122–35; Michael Philip Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 123. [2] Ferment, 215. [3] Penn, Kissing Christians, 90. [4] Klassen, “The Kiss as Sacred Act.” [5] Ferment, 215. [6] Ibid., 214. [7] “Radical Intimacy” (Ferment, 216, quoting L. Edwards Phillips, “The Ritual Kiss in Early Christian Worship” [PhD diss, University of Notre Dame, 1992], p. 270). [8] Penn, Kissing Christians, 90, 91-119; note Justin Martyr 1 Apol. 65.2, Chapter 65. Administration of the sacraments: “Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water . . .” And “Then the Deacon cries aloud, Receive ye one another; and let us kiss one another. Think not that this kiss is of the same character with those given in public by common friends. It is not such: but this kiss blends souls one with another, and courts entire forgiveness for them. The kiss therefore is the sign that our souls are mingled together, and banish all remembrance of wrongs. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
 Leveling Habits: The Table, Household Baptism, and Kiss that Changed Everything (A) Doing “church” (and all its accompanying habitus) is a hermeneutic for reading the NT and for making church related application. Herein is our hermeneutical problem: NT documents tend to be read (heard) divorced from the most likely venue wherein they were originally read, heard, and repeated as instruction, that is, at a symposium after a gathered-church had reclined at a household deipnon (supper). NT documents should be read within such an authentic venue-hermeneutic, that is as a gathered-church set at a common meal (this is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me), the lifting of a cup to celebrate the Lord Jesus (this cup is the new covenant in My blood), and the ensuing symposium where instruction would have occurred. There is significant hermeneutical and interpretive value to the household-venue and, as such, is important for faithful and relevant trajectory application. A Meal and Table of Unequals. As most experience the Lord’s Supper, we find no NT equivalent nor within the first 150 years of church history. Despite the NT calling it a supper, most contemporary forms are foreign to the NT, that is, small crackers and a thimble-sized plastic cup (i.e., tokens of bread and wine), with congregants sitting in theater-like rows (i.e., pews or chairs), and all the action and authority “up-front.” The NT Lord’s Supper habitus centered on who reclined at table; whereas, most modern Lord’s Supper habitus is about the appropriate distribution of the tokens. Something happened at those NT/early church gatherings that was culturally subversive and sociologically seditious. The gathered-church formed its identity within the context of “household” amid habitus that was instructive to them and hermeneutical to us. In the Greco-Roman world, food occasions were a means for creating community and bonding that community together—meals were encoded, social habits were established, and status defined.[1] The habitus of each meal-gathering was a message “about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion, exclusion, boundaries, and transactions across boundaries.”[2] Men were at the center of such meals and where one reclined at table indicated one’s ranking in society and among his associates. Invitation only. Women and slaves served and did not recline at table. Children were not permitted. However, it was acceptable at these meals for entertainment to include sexual encounters “between adult men and pubescent or adolescent boys.”[3] Depending on social class and wealth, there would have been plentiful entertainment, namely “flute girls, party games, gambling, dramas, mimes, strippers, jesters, moral poems, talks, debate, political, religious, moral, abusive, to erotic discussions”[4] and “sexual liaisons and promiscuities were very common.”[5] Classes did not ordinarily mix. The household banquet-meal was a built-in means for social formation, “a miniature reproduction of Roman society,” serving as a virtual classroom where one’s social status was taught, practiced, and formally enculturated. Social mapping was practiced, a habitus marking identity and social boundaries. The banquet-meal was the imperial instrument for maintaining “social control of the polis”[6] and was utilized “to dominate people and keep them in their place.”[7] This was interrupted by the household gathered-church where women, children, slaves, and men from differing classes and economic status were welcome to recline at table as equals—literally an open table of unequals. The gathered-church adapted, from its NT origin and as the early church took root in the ensuing century, the customary “pattern found throughout their world,”[8] the Greco-Roman household banquet-meal (deipnon) and symposium. Greco-Roman banquet-meal hosts and guests all acknowledged “the gift of food to the gods,” who were understood as the real hosts of the meal.[9] Such meal-gatherings always honored Caesar and some patron deity, which made such meals a blend of social and religious habitus. However, while Romans lifted a cup to Caesar and national deities, local gods, or a household emulate at the bridge between deipnon and symposium, Christians raised “the cup of blessing” in honor of Christ (1 Cor 10:16; cf. 11:23–28). This made each gathered-church at table seditious, for it was not only affirming a traitorous allegiance to another Lord and God, the occasion created a habitus that taught and maintained new identities, removed boundaries, and promoted counter- and cross-cultural relationships. However, the nature of the gospel and trajectory application of the cross brought about a challenging social-mapping: an ecclesial-demographical mapping of unequal people outside the banquet hall, yet who reclined as equals at table. Adapting the Greco-Roman evening deipnon/symposium set a household gathered-church on the eve (i.e., Saturday evening) of the Lord’s Day (i.e., Sunday), which accommodated the poor and slaves and working children that could not have attended an early morning “service,” for history had yet not giving us a 6-day work week with Sunday off.[10] The wealthy and upper-class church attenders had more power to adjust their daily schedule; the poor and destitute could not. Furthermore, this history and a household-venue hermeneutic allows a fair reading of the deipnon-table and Lord’s Supper issue in 1 Corinthians 10-11 to be about “haves” that were separating (or distinguishing) themselves through food habitus from the “have nots” at the Lord’s table. In this way, the gathered-church-temple (1 Cor 3:16–17; cf. Eph 2:18-22) was being destroyed (1 Cor 11:18–22). These meal-occasions failed, literally at table, to display love toward one another (the reason for chapter 13), thus they had ceased to eat the “Lord’s’ Supper,” abandoning the gospel-ecclesial social-mapping and habitus purpose of the meal.[11] [1] Lanuwabang Jamir, Exclusion and Judgement in Fellowship Meals: The Socio-historical Background of 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016), 3; quoting Robertson Smith from his Religion of the Semites (page 217); —eating was understood as a sacred, mystical act when done together [2] Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” in Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (London: Routledge, 1975), 249–75, 249. [3] Jamir, Exclusion and Judgement, 17; less so among Jewish households, but still drinking and other forms of merriment were very central to the latter, symposia, part of the banquet. [4] Ibid, 16. [5] Ibid, 17. [6] Street, Subversive Meals, 9. Italics original. [7] Ibid, 15. [8] Street, Subversive Meals, 11. [9] Jamir, Exclusion and Judgement, 15. [10] Ferment, 191; note: Justin, 1 Apol. 67.3; Origen, Hom. Luc. 38.6 [11] Street, Subversive Meals, 37; a similar venue-hermeneutic reading can be made of the James 2 “church” text. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
 A Household Table-Waiter Preaches. Luke’s story of Stephen’s sermon before Jewish leaders (Acts 6:1–7:60) is framed by the gathered-church household-venue (5:42; 8:3; cf. 2:46). At some point the widows of Hellenist converts were being overlooked in the daily serving of food (Acts 6:1c) at the deipnon (i.e., supper) component of the gathered-church. The Acts 6 setting assumes a house-venue (from house to house, Acts 5:42) where the Greek-speaking widows were to have found a place at table (certainly a trajectory application of the distributed Spirit upon aged women!) As a response, the twelve (apostles) determined their role was prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:2) and that reputable, Spirit-filled men were to be selected to serve (diakoneō) tables at the deipnon and care for the widows. Men! Not slaves. Not women. This was an astonishing trajectory application of the gospel and the inaugural distribution of the Spirit. Men did not do this in a Greco-Roman household. Furthermore, when Luke choose his very first scene afterward for the “ministry of the word,” he does not pick one that included an apostle; it was a table-waiting lay-person from among the household gathered-church, Stephen. Furthermore, we should not treat lightly the “house” theme in table-waiter Stephen’s defense before temple-leadership, for he draws upon a text that deconstructs temple-imagery and his trajectory application constructs God’s new dwelling of “house.” Stephen quotes Isaiah’s words to Jewish exiles to stress that the Most High does not dwell in anything made by human hands (cheiropoiētois): ‘Heaven is My throne, Given Luke’s “house” theme elsewhere,[1] it is not a stretch to answer the Isianic question--What kind of house will you build for Me?—by pointing to the newly distributed Spirit among the household gathered-churches. And, after Stephen is stoned (Acts 7:54–60), Luke’s narrative pans straightaway back to the house church venue as Saul makes his arrests from house to house (8:3). The first narrative contrast to the temple is the new resting place of God among believers, that is “house to house.” [1] Note the 14 house-banquets in the Gospel of Luke and the numerous occasions in Acts. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
 The Leveling Story: Relistening to Narrative Choices that Formed the Gathered-Church The hermeneutical and interpretive value of narrative choices made by NT authors are often overlooked in forming our understanding of “church.” Such choices, particularly Luke’s in Acts, speak to the church’s formation and of its habitus (i.e., behaviors) that described who they were as a gathered-people (i.e., their social definition, associations among each other, and boundaries).[1] Here, I am selective, noting only a few narratives choices that highlight the formation of the household gathered-church as the gospel spread into the Gentile world. The Acts-House Movement, Day of Pentecost, and the case-study of Cornelius’ conversion. We should consider the hermeneutical and instructive nature of the church as a house movement. Although some early Christian witness occurred in the temple and synagogues, the NT is clear that the household-venue was the primary space of the local gathered-church. There are a number of texts indicating a gathered-church in someone’s house: . . . greet the church that is in their house (Rom 16:5); Greet those who are of the household of Aristobulus (Rom 16:10); Greet . . . the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord (Rom 16:11); Aquila and Prisca greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house (1 Cor 16:19); Greet . . . Nympha and the church that is in her house (Col 4:15); To Philemon . . . and to the church in your house (Phlm 1:1–2). Additionally, other texts affirm and indicate the formation of “household” as church (e.g., Eph 2:19–22; 1 Pet 4:17; 1 Cor 1:16; 16:15; Gal 6:10; 1 Tim 3:15; cf., 2 Tim 1:16; 3:6; 4:19; 1 Pet 2:5; cf. Acts 12:12; 14:27; 15:30; 20:7–8).[2] Furthermore, the gathered-church, depicted in NT narrative and biographical texts, did not invent, but adapted the typical Greco-Roman banquet-meal for their own household gathered-church venue (form). The banquet-meal typically divided into two-parts: first, a full meal (deipnon, supper) and, then, an after-meal symposium. The second component, among the Greeks and Romans, tended to be a prolonged time of drinking and entertainment, including speeches with discussion among the guests. The two components were bridged by a cup raised (or poured libation) of wine in honor of the Emperor with added praise or blessing of household deities, temple gods, and/or the benefactor or honored guest of the evening’s banquet.[3] The gathered-church, as it spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, celebrated the Lord’s Supper by breaking bread at the start to indicate the (broken) body of Christ now gathered, by enjoying a meal to which all were welcome (to recline at table), and, then, by lifting a cup of blessing in treasonous celebration of the risen (traitor, criminal, yet risen) messiah-king Jesus. Some imagine and describe the coming of the Spirit in Acts 2 as spectacular, more in keeping with a concert or stadium sporting event, than simply akin to someone’s family or dining upper-room. We speculate on the details, but we do know it started in a house (2:2c) and was evident to those who had gathered near, around, and outside that upper room (2:6). Greco-Roman banquet meals would have been somewhat public events,[4] where non-guests, a ring of on-lookers as it were, could easily observe the banquet event. So, it makes sense that onlookers would have observed the after-effects of the Spirit (cf., Acts 2:8–11). Amid non-guest reactions, some mocked, “They are full of sweet wine” (2:13). The reference to “sweet wine” was neither strange nor culturally unfitting. The gathering in the house’s upper-room would have been a household deipnon celebration (it was Pentecost after all) and potential drunkenness would not have been an incongruous assumption. Peter offered, however, an explanation (at the symposium?) by drawing on Joel’s promise of the Spirit. There was a plethora of OT Spirit-promises available to Peter, yet Joel 2 was chosen. Moreover, given the nature of speeches at that time, no doubt Peter was more verbose and quoted from elsewhere as well in his full Pentecost sermon. Still, these words are Luke’s narrative choice and should be seen as having hermeneutical and interpretive influence on our understanding of “church”: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, Albeit eschatological, the use of Joel 2 highlights a trajectory application meaningful for Luke’s formation of “church.” The issue of “tongues” (here known languages, Acts 2:6c) is intimately related to the redemptive turn that now all will hear of this gospel in their own language and the distribution of the Spirit would be on all demographics, social caste, gender, and age. In fact, Peter’s ending (Luke’s choice of ending) affirms this: And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (v. 21). After Peter’s message, the narrative, then, directs our attention (2:43–7) to the “added” believers (v. 47b) among households (i.e., house to house, 2:46b). The mention of “breaking bread” (v. 46b) and “meals together” (v. 46c) suggests the first gatherings took place at a household deipnon. The “added” that were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching (v. 42a) suggests the after-meal symposium was the venue for apostolic teaching. Thus, the first habitus of the newly formed gathered-church was shaped by the promised distribution of the Spirit across demographics, class, gender, and age within household-venues amid the celebration of food (a deipnon) and instruction (a symposium). The narrative choice of the Cornelius story, one of the longest in Acts (10-11), should be considered a second-Pentecost, for Luke records Peter’s explanation that the Spirit fell “just as He did at the beginning” (11:15; cf. 10:44–45). This repeat Pentecost affirms a trajectory application of the first (Acts 2). The Spirit falls, again, in a house (10:22; 11:12, 14), yet specifically a Gentile’s house. Typically, commentary follows Peter, that is, the apostolic reach into the Gentile world, in which when he preaches and the Spirit falls upon new believers outside of Jerusalem. However, it is Peter (i.e., and, thus, the reader) that is being taught something about the gospel and the church as they spread into the Gentile world. Luke’s telling of the story affirms this: When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18). [1] A local, gathered-church is assumed rather than a universal or invisible notion of “ekklesia.” When NT authors refer to a church they ordinarily mean a church gathered in a space, i.e., a venue, mostly a house.å [2] Other texts, although not using the word “church” imply a house-church (e.g., 2 John 1:10, . . . do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; Romans 14–15). [3] R. Alan Street, Subversive Meals: An Analysis of the Lord’s Supper under Roman Domination during the First Century (Eugene, OR: Picwick, 2013), 10. [4] The typical Greco-Roman banquet-meal and symposium was not open invitation, however, given the times, the gatherings would have been attended, yet not reclined at table, by outsiders who had gathered to observe. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
In Ibram X. Kendi’s stellar volume on the history of racist ideas in America, Stamped From the Beginning, he argues for Aristotle’s influence on colonial Puritan politicians and preachers. And without hesitation, Kendi moves quickly back to early Christianity, linking the apostle Paul to the Aristotelian thread of “superior” demographics, the “three-tiered of hierarchy slave relations—heavenly master (top), earthy master (middle), enslaved (bottom).” Kendi, then, quotes Paul from Colossians 3:22: Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Is this, however, a fair characterization of Paul’s view on slavery? Still, why didn’t Paul just simply condemn slavery outright? Moreover, why didn’t Jesus and the NT writers directly address the cultural and social oppression of women, children, and slaves? Yet, perhaps they had. Imagine, still, just maybe they had something more noble in mind? Arguably, it was the presence of Christianity in the Roman Empire that turned socially accepted tiers of human hierarchies and practices up-side-down, albeit slowly penetrating the social fabric of the Greco-Roman world through the formation of a household platform (literally) that inaugurated a social mapping revolution. Some cast early Christianity as a protest movement against an oppressive, imperial empire, yet the apostolic and early church lacked any power or leverage for such social and cultural revolution. New Testament writers did not seek to overthrow authority structures wherein the gathered-church inhabited. Nonetheless, the household gathered-church, along with their table-fellowship (i.e., the common meal/the Lord’s Supper) and other early gathered-church practices (i.e., household baptism and kiss), was the platform for making known God’s cosmic reconciliation. In this paper, I suggest it was the narrative of the gospel as it intruded upon the Gentile world in the midst of the local, household gathered-church that changed everything--that more noble idea. It is my thesis that the gospel let loose (applied and socially forming) among household gathered-churches changed existing social mapping, worked out through the habitus taught and implied (i.e., trajectory application) by NT teaching. My concern is to hear how relevant narrative choices in Acts speak to the household gathered-church and how its habitus resulted in new social-mapping (forms and habits) consistent with the gospel and the meaning of the cross. This is a thread consisting of parts of a a recent paper presented at the 2017 Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting in Providence, RI. The goal is to develop an anthology of essays (by various authors) on the subject, Christian Responses to Tyranny. Part 1 | Part 2a | Part 2b | Part 2c | Part 3 | Part 3a | Part 3b | Part 4a | Part 4b | Part 5 For the entire thread (remember to scroll backwards for previous posts) << Gathered-church >>
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AuthorChip M. Anderson, advocate for biblical social action; pastor of an urban church plant in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, CT; husband, father, author, former Greek & NT professor; and, 19 years involved with social action. Archives
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