{"id":8224,"date":"2012-12-08T08:42:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T08:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1959"},"modified":"2012-12-08T08:42:44","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T08:42:44","slug":"apostolic-accommodation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2012\/12\/apostolic-accommodation\/","title":{"rendered":"Apostolic Accommodation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

<\/p>

The social vision of Paul\u2019s \u201cPastoral Epistles\u201d seems so very conservative, so Greco-Romany bourgeois. They seem far too conservative to be genuinely Pauline, according to the consensus view among critical scholars. <\/p>\n

That reading of the Pastorals is somewhat plausible if one skims the surface. Paul reinforces accepted male-female role distinctions, insists on respect for age, assumes that women will be occupied with raising children. <\/p>\n

At a deeper level, though, the Pastorals accomplish something different. <\/p>\n

Reggie Kidd argues in Wealth and Beneficence in the Pastoral Epistles: A \u201cBourgeois\u201d Form of Early Christianity? <\/a> \"\" (155-7) that \u201cone of the principal concerns of 1 Timothy is to help rich Christians understand their place in the household of God and to help the church, in turn, learn how to make room for such people.\u201d The role of the wealth, Kidd thinks, is to \u201cdevote themselves to euergesia <\/em> .\u201d <\/p>\n

That seems to replicate Greco-Roman reciprocity relations, but Kidd adds that in the Pastorals \u201cThe assumption that wealth is an index of moral worth is dismissed out of hand\u201d and \u201cthe notion that a wealthy person\u2019s future can be secured through the shrewd cultivate of \u2018friends\u2019 \u2013 i.e., people obligated to return favors \u2013 is not even given a hearing.\u201d The wealthy as much as the poor are utterly dependent on the kindness of God, united with the poor in need. Kidd notes too that eschatology disrupts the pattern of social relations: \u201cthe whole web of human reciprocity is dismantled if it indeed in the next age rather than in this one and from God himself rather than from earthly friends that the wealth can expect a return on their beneficences.\u201d <\/p>\n

We arrive at a similar conclusion from a consideration of how honor plays out in 1 Timothy (Kidd, 137-40). Three groups deserve honor \u2013 widows, elders, and masters of Christian slaves. The wealthy and high-born are not excluded from the church, or even from leadership, and Kidd points out that \u201cthe officer portraits in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are couched in terms most readily understandable to them.\u201d But they are not honored simply because of wealth and social standing: \u201cThe deference paid to the rich and their semi-automatic elevation to leadership that would be the normal pattern in Hellenistic associations is being forsaken.\u201d Paul wants the wealthy to continue to be generous, but without the assurances that they will win influence and repayments by their generosity. Their reward will come from their Father, like everyone else\u2019s. <\/p>\n

In these ways, 1 Timothy presents \u201ca subtle transformation of the benefactor ideal.\u201d I\u2019d put it more strongly: It looks like a subtle transformation on the surface, but the gospel strikes at the roots of the system by revaluing Roman social values, by undoing the circles of reciprocity that shaped the rich Roman\u2019s uses of wealth, by pointing to eschatological rewards. For theological reasons, Paul doesn\u2019t have any intention of unraveling the fabric of domestic and social life; marriage, family, procreation, production and commerce, political and social life are created and so are good. But he does want to see the gospel challenge and remake perverse social structures. It won\u2019t do, though, for him to focus on authority structures or gender relations, which are little more than rearrangements on the upper deck. That\u2019s not where the action is. Paul knows that the deepest dynamics of Roman society lie beneath the surface. <\/p>\n

When those deep-down dynamics are remade under the impact of the gospel, there will eventually be evident and lasting changes on the surface of social life. When, for example, men renounce Roman honor in favor of a Christian pursuit of glory, honor, and immortality (Romans 2), marriage will take a quite different form. When men learn to use wealth to enrich others rather than to bolster their own esteem or put others in their debt, economic life will be renewed. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The social vision of Paul\u2019s \u201cPastoral Epistles\u201d seems so very conservative, so Greco-Romany bourgeois. They seem far too conservative to be genuinely Pauline, according to the consensus view among critical scholars. That reading of the Pastorals is somewhat plausible if one skims the surface. Paul reinforces accepted male-female role distinctions, insists on respect for age, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-nt-paul"],"yoast_head":"\nApostolic Accommodation?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The social vision of Paul’s “Pastoral Epistles” seems so very conservative, so Greco-Romany bourgeois. 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