Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians Vol. One <\/em>IVP).\u00a0 He says the following: \u201cuntil I come, devote yourself to\/officiate \u2018the reading\u2019, the \u2018paraklesis\u2019, the teaching. \u00a0 The last term is not in dispute, and whatever else one wants to say about it means that Timothy is expected to teach the converts in Ephesus, assume authority over them in such a role in view of the absence of Paul.\u00a0 When Paul arrives, he will take over.<\/p>\nBut what about those other two terms, and what about the verb itself\u2014 prosecho <\/strong>has a range of meanings\u2014 \u2018pay attention to\u2019 \u2018 devote oneself to\u2019 but in a context of some public function and in particular in a pedagogical context (which the term \u2018teaching\u2019 makes clear here) it means something more like officiate or preside over, with the implication that the person in question will have much the same role as say an elder or a president of a synagogue would.\u00a0 There can be little doubt, on the basis of the Pastoral Epistles that there was considerable carry over from the structure of worship in the synagogue and the earliest Christian meetings. They were at no point entire charismatic free-for-alls, nor were they purely \u2018organic\u2019\u00a0 in the sense that people would lead or speak as the Spirit prompted on the occasion.\u00a0 No, the Pauline co-worker was in charge in this case, and he was to attend to, officiate or simply do the teaching. \u00a0 Back to the other two objects of that verb \u2018devote yourself to\u2019.<\/p>\nThe first term simply means \u2018reading\u2019, something which the NRSV rather redundantly translates as \u2018public reading\u2019, and then entirely gratuitously adds to the Greek \u2018the scriptures\u2019, a phrase which occurs in no manuscript at all.\u00a0 All reading in the context of a meeting like this is of course reading out loud and so a public reading.\u00a0 But what is \u2018the reading\u2019 that Timothy is called to do or officiate? \u00a0 It is certainly possible that it is the OT (see 2 Tim. 3.16) but if so it is surprising Paul does not say so more clear.\u00a0 One would have expected him to tell Timothy to read he graphe, <\/strong>the usual term for the written Scriptures.\u00a0 But this he does not do. \u00a0 Now we know for a fact that Paul\u2019s letters were read aloud in the congregations, perhaps usually by his emissary co-worker, but not always\u00a0 (see 2 Cor. 7.8; Col. 4.16; 1 Thess. 5.27; 2 Thess. 3.14).\u00a0 It is perfectly possible that \u2018the reading\u2019 in question is Paul\u2019s letter, and the reader is the lector, namely Timothy or someone he assigns the text to. \u00a0 But there is one more term of importance here, one more noun to decipher.<\/p>\nThat noun is paraklesis <\/strong>and while it can certainly be rendered \u2018exhortation\u2019 which is a specific form of preaching, it is more likely that the noun should be translated in its broader sense of \u2018preaching\u2019. \u00a0 This then might provide us with a sequence of events\u2014 first the reading of either Scripture or a Pauline letter (which not incidentally Paul saw as just as much the living Word of God as the OT or his own preaching\u2014 see 1 Thess. 2.13), then the preaching, and then finally the instruction based on the reading and preaching.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, this seems precisely to have been the order of things in a synagogue service\u2014 the reading, then the homily, and then some final teaching and indeed dialogue about what had been said and taught. \u00a0 \u00a0 Among other things this of course implies not only that Timothy could read, but that he was capable of preaching and teaching as well, and Paul wants him to get on with it,\u00a0 or at least to make sure it gets done.<\/p>\nOne of the great myths about earliest Christianity is that it was originally \u2018formless and void\u2019 until the second and later century churches said \u2018let their be hierarchial structure and ecclesiology\u2014 and lo there was structure and ecclesiology\u2019. \u00a0 This is frankly false as the Pastoral Epistles, and indeed other Pauline epistles make quite clear.\u00a0 There was and indeed has always been a tension between Spirit and structure in the church, and the trick is to neither quench the Spirit, nor overly rigidify the structures.\u00a0 What is new about the ekklesia <\/strong>compared to the synagogue is the new spiritual gifts, the charismata, but the existence and use of those gifts in worship did not rule out, nor run roughshod over the structures taken over from the synagogue in the earliest Christian meetings any more than the spiritual gifts ruled out the effect of the household structures on such meetings.<\/p>\nThink on these things. \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a previous post I have talked about lectors, and the reference to them in Mark and Revelation, now I want to focus on one particular, and particularly important Pauline text\u2014 1 Tim. 4.13. \u00a0\u00a0 The translation of this verse varies widely from one English translation to the next, and that is in part because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a> In a previous post I have talked about lectors, and the reference to them in Mark and Revelation, now I want to focus on one particular, and particularly important Pauline text\u2014 1 Tim. 4.13. \u00a0\u00a0 The translation of this verse varies widely from one English translation to the next, and that is in part because of the lack of understanding about oral texts and how texts function in oral cultures. \u00a0 Paul is giving succinct advice of what Timothy should be busy doing in his absence when it comes to activities in the Ephesian Church (on the provenance of the Pastorals see my Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians Vol. One <\/em>IVP).\u00a0 He says the following: \u201cuntil I come, devote yourself to\/officiate \u2018the reading\u2019, the \u2018paraklesis\u2019, the teaching. \u00a0 The last term is not in dispute, and whatever else one wants to say about it means that Timothy is expected to teach the converts in Ephesus, assume authority over them in such a role in view of the absence of Paul.\u00a0 When Paul arrives, he will take over.<\/p>\n