Contextual Issues of Honor & Shame in Spiritual Formation
September 11–13, 2023 10:00 am to 12:00 pm (GMT + 8:00)
From the Singapore Bible College website: Join us for an exchange of reflections and insights as a group of 10 theologians, biblical scholars, and missiologists from around the world come together to explore the role of honor and shame in spiritual formation through the lens of contextualization processes, and how the gospel transforms culture. The presentation centers around the Pacific Rim but also considers input from other regions.
I just pre-ordered my copy. Can’t wait to read it. The subject of honor and shame relates profoundly to our personal spiritual experience in the Christian faith. I encourage you to check it out. The readings are short and accessible to a non-academic audience—perfect for a daily devotional.
It was the afternoon of Good Friday, April 15, 2022. Frederic and I were seated in a small home in Reconciliation Village, Nyamata, Rwanda. It was storytelling time. We gathered closely around a small coffee table—with four other villagers, Lillian fromAfrica New Life, and my colleague Kristin.
We had just listened to three stories. Two stories were from Hutu men who were part of the 1994 Genocide as perpetrators. One story was from Jacqueline. She was 17 years old when the Genocide occurred.
Jacqueline had been out in the field tending the family cows. When she returned to her house in Nyamata, she found the Hutu mob had killed her entire Tutsi family of eleven.
More than 10,000 other Tutsi had fled to the local church property in Nyamata for shelter and safety. They also were brutally murdered—with guns, machetes, clubs, grenades. (We visited this Nyamata Church Genocide Memorial on that Friday morning. Horrifying.)
Jacqueline fled into the forest and survived.
Frederic’s story
Also sharing their story was Frederic, a Hutu. “I was one of the perpetrators,” he said to us plainly. Frederic was arrested by the new government and imprisoned like thousands of other young Hutu men after the Genocide. (Frederick did not go into any detail about the crimes or atrocities he may have committed.)
While in prison, Frederic heard the preaching of many pastors. “Confess your crimes, and seek forgiveness. God will forgive all your sins.” Many prisoners could not believe it. They were afraid that Tutsi would kill them in revenge—at first while in prison and later upon being released.
Frederic became honest about his crimes of violence. His honesty and humility had been a step toward freedom. Rwanda’s new government had created a policy to reward honest confession; as a result, many were allowed to return to their Rwandan homelands. Frederic went back to his home area.
I asked, “You who were the perpetrators, do you ever look back and think of yourselves as victims?” They said, “Yes, in part, we are also victims. It is because we had bad leadership. Every day, we were told lies about the Tutsi that they were cockroaches, not real humans, that they should die.”
I wondered aloud, “If I had been in your community with all the propaganda every day about the so-called enemies in your land to attack them and kill them, would I have done differently or done the same as you?”
After the Genocide, the new Rwandan government welcomed back tens of thousands of Rwandans living in other nations. Thousands came back from Uganda, Congo, and Tanzania—ready to help rebuild their country, Rwanda. But this created a big problem. A massive number of displaced peoples had nowhere to live.
An idea is born: Village of Reconciliation
The US-based ministry Prison Fellowship, which had an office in Rwanda, funded the development of a “village of reconciliation.” The idea was to bring together both victims and perpetrators in a real-life, living-together kind of reconciliation in the same community. It was an experiment in restorative justice. The experiment has proven successful.
Frederic told us, “Because I had been honest about being a perpetrator, the officials asked me to be one of the village leaders. So I agreed. We constructed the first homes in the village in 2004. Other men and I helped to make the bricks. We worked together building the homes. Here we are 18 years later. Today, we work together in our gardens to provide food for the community. Our children are living and playing together in peace.”
After the villagers finished their stories, they concluded: “Two things we want you to remember: First, the Genocide in Rwanda happened, even though some say it did not. And second, true reconciliation is possible; we are proof of that.”
Sharing a bit of my story
Sitting right next to Frederic, I thought it would be good for me to tell a bit of my story. I did not want Frederic to believe I was so different from him.
I said, “My parents were from Germany. The German government drafted my father into Hitler’s army. Near the end of the war, the Allied Forces captured my father, and he became a prisoner of war for four years in Poland. After he was released, my grandfather took his family with three sons, and they all came to America. My grandfather wanted to go far away from the Russians. My German father and mother married in America, so I was born there.”
My colleague Kristin then asked, “Werner, we see here the openness and honesty of this community; is this openness possibly different from how you grew up? Is their honesty touching you in a way that you did not expect?”
Suddenly, a new topic was on the table in front of us. Open, authentic talking about painful, even shameful things—what does this mean for us?
“Wow. Good question, Kristin,” I replied. As I was growing up, I learned about the Holocaust in Germany in World War 2. I asked my parents about it. They did not want to discuss it. They did not want to talk about the horrors of German people being part of the program to kill 6 million innocent Jews.
I asked the group: “You know there have been genocides in other lands, right?” They nodded, yes.
I spoke about the concentration camp Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, the Germans killed 20,000 people a day through gas chambers and burning. Indeed, Rwanda is not the only land with genocide in its history.
I told our little group that I still had questions about my grandfather’s role in Germany’s brutalities in WW2. He was a businessman who sold fuel. He was trying to survive and feed his family. But what if my grandfather sold gasoline to the German army, which helped them do evil? Was my grandfather complicit?
I also said that my father and one uncle suffered from mental illnesses. Was it because they could not talk honestly or openly about the painful, shameful things they suffered?
Any questions for us?
I said to our little group, “We have asked you questions. Do you have any questions for us?”
Frederic said, “I have a question. You shared about your family and grandfather. Do you still have some pains in your heart about what your grandfather may have done? If so, has this time with us been helpful to you?”
Frederic’s question surprised me. I thanked him for his concern about the possible pains in my heart. “Yes, I have been helped. Your honesty and openness are different from how I grew up with family secrets. You are willing to talk about very painful things in a spirit of forgiveness.”
“For many years, I had like a shadow of shame over the questions about my German family and my father’s mental illness. But in recent years, I have been learning that Jesus does not just forgive our guilt. He also covers our shame.”
Frederic thanked us. He said I was just the second visitor to their village in 18 years who, after hearing the stories of the victims and perpetrators, also openly shared from his heart.
I felt a strange closeness to Frederic. There was comfort in being together with these men and women in the Village of Reconciliation, Nyamata, Rwanda. I think it was how Frederic and others in the room had been so honest. It was an unusual vulnerability. It felt healthy, like fresh air. If reconciliation is possible here, it is possible anywhere.
I waved my hand across the table in front of us. “We are together sharing in our humanity. We all have struggles. We all need the love of God,” I said.
The Rwandan woman in whose tiny home we had gathered (she has the green sweater in the photo below) gave a closing prayer. She thanked the Lord for our fellowship. She prayed for us and blessed us in the name of Jesus.
Inside a home in the Village of Reconciliation in Nyamata, with victims and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Jacqueline, mentioned above as a victim who lost eleven family members, is third from right.Get an overview of the project here.Support the project here.
Why were we in Rwanda?
We are in Africa on behalf of Mission ONE to conduct research for the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project. Our experiences in Rwanda have been instructive and inspiring.
The Ephesians 2 Gospel Project is about horizontal reconciliation through the cross of Christ. There is a social, horizontal dimension to the gospel of Christ because there is a social, horizontal dimension to the atonement of Christ. The gospel of peace offers reconciliation to groups in conflict (Eph. 2:13–17).
Rwanda is an important place to learn for the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project for two reasons:
The 1994 Rwandan genocide by the Hutu against the Tutsi people resulted in 1 million people brutally murdered in 100 days; the church was significantly complicit.
Since 1994, Rwanda has experienced a nationwide movement of reconciliation despite enormous struggles and ongoing trauma. There has been much positive development that would have been impossible without the profound involvement of the church and the reconciling gospel of Jesus Christ.
Final thoughts
On Tuesday, we visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial. It is the final resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi. Incredible. Check out the website.
Want to support the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project? Donate here.
At the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on August 6, 2015, I took this picture of myself in front of an aerial photo of the center. I did this to acknowledge the shame of human beings (me being of the same species) who committed the atrocities there.
First, some background material:
But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached [the gospel of] peace to you were far off and peace to those who were near.
Ephesians 2:13–17 (ESV)
We launched the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project (E2GP) through my work with Mission ONE in January 2021. The key idea of the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project is this: There is a social and horizontal dimension to the gospel of Christ because there is a social and horizontal dimension to the atonement of Christ (Eph 2:13–17). Our short-term goal is a book. Our desired long-term impact is God’s people drawn into and embodying Christ’s peacemaking work through the gospel.
E2GP is a two-year research project which includes:
listening to and learning from the Global Church, including Mission ONE ministry partners,
grappling with relevant questions about the gospel, the atonement of Christ, the global mission of the church, and why the church has sometimes been complicit with conflict and violence,
reading relevant literature (books and articles) on history, theology, missiology, the social sciences,
writing a book (to be co-authored with Kristin Caynor), which is the catalyst for developing other resources for learning and practice,
facilitating a fellowship of Christian scholars and practitioners around the world to study and embody the gospel of peace as a solution to collective-identity conflict in the church in their own nations and contexts.
Since last January, Kristin Caynor has been contributing as a research assistant to the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project. Kristin grew up on the mission field; she and her parents serve with a mission organization similar to Mission ONE. Kristin is a qualified researcher. She has a lot of cross-cultural ministry experience, has a passion for helping marginalized peoples in the global church, and is a Ph.D. candidate at Trinity College Bristol/University of Aberdeen. (Check it out:Kristin’s recent lecture on the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project is for the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence; it is outstanding. You can view the video here.)
About Germany and the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project
I am the son of German immigrant parents. My father was a soldier in Hitler’s army; he was a prisoner of war in Poland for four years. He became mentally ill in my teenage years. I took on a shadow of shame from my father and family.
Concerning WW2 Germany, the juxtaposition of two truths (below) should cause us to shudder.
WW2 Germany and Europe was the location of a massive violence and bloodshed. A central part of this conflict was the Holocaust (or Shoah). It was a deliberate, sustained, unspeakable evil. It was murder on the largest scale committed against the Jews on behalf of the supposed superiority of the German (Aryan) race.
At the time of Hitler’s rule, Germany’s people identified as 97% Christian.
Here’s how Holocaust scholar Robert Ericksen describes this statistic of Germany’s people identifying as 97% Christian.
“When Adolf Hitler came to power, 97 percent of the German population considered itself Christian, with about two-thirds being Protestant and one-third Catholic. Less than 1 percent of Germans were Jewish in 1933, and only a slightly larger percentage registered as pagans or nonbelievers. It is true that the entire 97 percent registered as Christian did not attend church regularly or maintain a vibrant Christian identity. However, all of them agreed to pay the church tax, money they could have saved by the simple act of leaving their church. Furthermore, they received religious education in all German schools, and, of course, many of these 97 percent of the population were fervent Christians active in their faith. Germany in the 1930s almost certainly represented church attendance and a sense of Christian commitment and identity similar to that in America today, for example.”
Robert P. Ericksen, Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 9.
In Germany: Centuries of accrued Christian influence from the church, a population that identifies as 97% Christian … and yet, the Holocaust. How does this add up? How can this be?
Missionaries and missions scholars sometimes speak of the “redemptive lift” that comes to a community when the gospel of Jesus is embraced. I believe this.
But what happened in WW2 Germany? Widespread systemic evil and violence occurred in the society, despite the broad sustained influence of Christianity. Could it be that in the rise of Hitler’s Germany, somehow Christianity was complicit with a redemptive fall?
Was there a dimension of the gospel de-emphasized, tragically ignored?
Was there a cosmic, systemic dimension of sin ignored?
Were there forces—social, systemic, cosmic—against which the German peoples’ Christian faith had little or no defense?
Did the church in Germany ignore, abuse, or conceal the gospel text of Ephesiasn 2?
Is the gospel of peace (Eph 2:13–17; 6:15) about individual, vertical, personal peace-with-God—or something more social, horizontal, and corporate?
We hope to address these questions, among many others, in the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project through a journey together in the Global Church.
What can we learn from the tragic failure of the church in WW2 Germany? How might these lessons apply to nations today that are dealing with collective identity conflict or tribal conflict? What lessons can we learn about the kind of gospel we are preaching and living?
More on the Ephesians 2 Gospel Project will appear here in forthcoming posts from our ongoing research. Subscribe and stay tuned.
In my last post, I emphasized the Christ-centered foundation of the honor-shame conversation by highlighting the presentation and corresponding article by Steve Hawthorne: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God.” Hawthorne’s article is the first article in Section 1 of Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry, published in late 2020 by William Carey Publishing.
Below is an overview of the fifteen articles—in the order that they appear—in the two sections of the book.
Section One: Honor-shame in general contexts
Steven Hawthorne: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God.” The glorious Person of Jesus Christ is the crux and destiny of mission. The beauty of Christ includes this astounding reality: he who suffered great shame and rose in exalted honor shares his glory with all who call him Lord. Accordingly, believers endure hardship and suffer gladly for his name’s sake among the nations.
Jayson Georges: “Honor and Shame in Historical Theology: Listening to Eight Voices.” Significant theologians, from Ignatius to Anselm to Edwards to C.S. Lewis, have explained biblical truth in honor-shame terms. Honor-shame theology is in continuity with Christian orthodoxy.
Tom Steffen: “A Clothesline Theology for the World: How A Value-Driven Grand Narrative of Scripture Can Frame the Gospel.” A unifying story of Scripture is an antidote to fragmentist and specialist tendencies in theology—and vital for ministry among all of story-oriented humanity. The value system of honor-shame functions as a major theme in the Bible’s grand narrative.
Jackson Wu: “Saving Us from Me: Cultivating Honor and Shame in a Collectivist Church.” Scripture depicts the church as a collectivist body, which yields a particular Christian way of living based on honor-shame dynamics. This counters the self-centered, lonely individualism of much Western Christianity.
E. Randolph Richards: “The Shaming of Jesus in John.” Understanding honor-shame dynamics in the social world of the New Testament clarifies the meaning and integrates various stories in John’s Gospel—for example, Jesus cleansing the temple.
Mako A. Nagasawa: “Empowering Personal Healing and Social Justice with Medical Substitutionary Atonement.” Christians throughout history have articulated different views of the atonement of Christ. An early Christian approach to the atonement and resurrection (viz., recapitulation) connects to modern concerns of identity, sacrifice, and justice—along with sin and shame.
Steve Tracy: “Abuse and Shame: How the Cross Transforms Shame.” Sexual abuse and wartime rape horribly defile millions in our world. Early Church Fathers addressed the problem of rape and sexual-abuse shame. Jesus Christ—in his scandalous crucifixion and honorific resurrection—absorbs and conquers the subjective and objective dimensions of sexual abuse victimhood and shame.
Section Two: Honor-shame in various mission contexts
Lynn Thigpen: “The Dark Side of Orality.” Christian workers can unwittingly marginalize “adults with limited formal education” (ALFE). Billions of people in the world are oral-preference learners. Many ALFE suffer from toxic shame. Cross-cultural workers must acquire new skills and develop learner-centered, dignity-enhancing ministry among non-readers.
Arley Loewen: “Must Honor Clash with Humility? Transformed Honor Within the Emerging Church in Muslim Societies.” Honor competition was common in the Early Church; it is common today for Christian leaders around the world—including those in Muslim societies. Leaders can move toward a servant-based honor willing to relinquish position—by experiencing Christ as their unlimited source of honor.
Steve Hong: “Sharing God’s Love in an Urban, Pluralist Context.” The practices of vulnerability, listening, creativity, inclusion—and intentionally dignifying others—lead to deep relationships with secular moderns. They awaken to the gospel of the kingdom whose King is Jesus.
Cristian Dumitrescu: “Discipleship in Asian Honor Cultures.” Making disciples is not a culturally neutral endeavor. In the Asian context, attention to honor-shame issues is critical for effective discipling.
Rich James: “An Honor-Shame Gospel for Syrians Displaced by War: Jesus Christ as Good Shepherd & Honorable Patron.” A culturally relevant and biblically faithful gospel for Syrian refugees involves not just a morally good Shepherd but the honorable Shepherd and Patron who gifts his life for the good of the flock.
Katie Rawson: “A Gospel that Reconciles: Teaching About Honor-Shame to Advance Racial and Ethnic Reconciliation.” Attention to honor-shame issues and terminology can have a profound impact upon efforts to mend relational rupture and bring about reconciliation in contexts of conflict.
Nolan Sharp: “The Book of Samuel: A Reconciling Narrative.” Cycles of blood violence, nationalism, even ethnic cleansing—as was the case in the wars of Yugoslav succession (1991–1995)—are often driven by honor and shame. The stories of Saul and David in 1 and 2 Samuel are a fountain of insights to help reconcile peoples, tribes, or nations in honor-bound conflicts.
Audrey Frank: “The Muslim Woman’s Journey from Shame to Honor.” For women from Muslim backgrounds, barrenness or abuse can be sources of shame, exclusion, defilement. The gospel of Christ covers the shamed and cleanses the defiled—thereby restoring honor.
“Honor, Shame, and the Gospel”, Christopher Flanders and Werner Mischke, Editors
In late 2020, William Carey Publishing released Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry. The book is a compendium of articles based on presentations given at the 2017 Honor-Shame Conference held at Wheaton College. My colleague Chris Flanders and I worked for more than two years with fifteen contributors in editing this volume. We are so grateful to Denise Wynn and her team at William Carey Publishing for their enthusiastic support for this project.
Book overview
Christians engaged in communicating the gospel navigate a challenging tension: faithfulness to God’s ancient, revealed Word—and relevance to the local, current social context. What if there was a lens or paradigm offering both? Understanding the Bible—particularly the gospel—through the ancient cultural “language” of honor-shame offers believers this double blessing. An honorific gospel offers new points of resonance with communities where shame and honor are critical values, including most unreached peoples.
In Honor, Shame, and the Gospel, over a dozen practitioners and scholars from diverse contexts and fields add to the ongoing conversation around the theological and missiological implications of an honorific gospel. Eight illuminating case studies explore ways to make disciples in a diversity of social contexts—for example, East Asian rural, Middle Eastern refugee, African tribal, and Western secular urban.
Honor, Shame, and the Gospel provides valuable resources to impact the ministry efforts of the church, locally and globally. Linked with its ancient honor-shame cultural roots, the gospel, paradoxically, is ever new—offering fresh wisdom to Christian leaders and optimism to the church for our quest to expand Christ’s kingdom and serve the worldwide mission of God.
Article #1 explores the honor and glory of Christ as foundational to the gospel and the mission of God
Steven Hawthorne, PhD: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God.” When Steve Hawthorne ended his presentation at the 2017 conference, there was an unforgettable silence. I remember an extended moment of Christ-focused worship and wonder. You can watch Dr. Hawthorne’s presentation here.
Click here to watch the presentation by Dr. Hawthorne.
Hawthorne’s article is the first in Section One of the book. (The article follows a foreword by Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and an introduction/overview of the book.) Hawthorne opens with these two paragraphs:
“To understand honor-shame dynamics amid the intercultural complexities of mission, one must consider the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. And here’s why: Behind, beneath, and above all human shames and honors is the singular glory of Jesus. In this chapter, we will affirm the glory that Jesus is worthy to receive. But we will also consider the ‘praise and glory and honor’ (1 Pet 1:7), that the living God bestows upon people in Christ.
“Following some introductory remarks, we will explore what I call ‘true glory,’ the glory that God gives to people in and with Christ. Then we will identify a few highlights of the great biblical narrative of God’s glory. Finally, we’ll look at three occasions when God spoke from heaven in the Gospels, each of them increasing our understanding of how we are called to share in the suffering and joy of Christ’s glory.”1
Why is Hawthorne’s article first?Four reasons:
The Christology factor. The conversation about “Honor, Shame, and the Gospel” is grounded in the Person of Jesus Christ. Yes, the honor-shame conversation has tendrils in social science and anthropology. But for Christians, the honor-shame conversation rests upon a biblically-faithful Christology. An honorific gospel speaks to a world drenched in sin and shame (Hawthorne refers to “broken honor systems”). An honorific gospel is rooted historically and eschatologically in the glory of Christ. This is presented convincingly in Dr. Hawthorne’s article.
The statesman factor. Dr. Hawthorne is a “missionary statesman.” We wanted him to bring his passion for the glory of God and his credibility in the Christian missions community to the conference and this compendium. He is the author of “The Story of His Glory”, and editor of Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. For decades, Hawthorne has been promulgating a wise, infectious passion for the glory of Christ as central to the grand narrative of Scripture and the mission of God.
The glory-sharing factor. The multifaceted truth about the glory of Christ is well-known in the Christian community; less well known is the corresponding truth that God shares his honor and glory with those who follow Christ (e.g., John 5:44; 17:22; 1 Pet 2:7; Heb 2:10; 2 Thess 2:13–14). Dr. Hawthorne convincingly communicates this ‘both-and’ truth in his article.
The suffering factor. Hawthorne shows how our faithfulness to the Lord in the face of hardship is rooted in the glory of Jesus Christ. The longing for honor and glory, when rooted in Christ, fuels our obedience to God. Referring to Romans 8:17, the article concludes: “If we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.”
Summary: Could it be, that Dr. Hawthorne’s presentation and article will become known as one of the foundational building blocks in the global conversation about honor, shame, and the gospel? I hope so. Our Christology should be central to the conversation. The honor and glory of Jesus are ever at the heart of the gospel and the mission of God.
Steven C. Hawthorne: “The Honor and Glory of Jesus Christ: Heart of the Gospel and the Mission of God” in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel: Reframing Our Message and Ministry (Littleton, CO: William Carey Publishing, 2020), 3.
“To whom do we belong?” Is this THE question, THE issue of our time?
To whom do we belong? We often answer this question automatically: I belong to a family.
The bloodline, the DNA, the family story into which one is born is a relentless identity-shaping force in our lives. This is true for good and for ill, blessing and cursing, and everything in between.
Beyond family, I and my family also belong to a land. Wehave a place called “home” in a particular neighborhood with a particular landscape and certain kinds of people with our own culture. It is where I am familiar to others and where I feel at home. I belong to a region where I work—a city or town. I also belong to a larger land called a nation. Finally, I belong to the human family. Of course, there are exceptions to this. People can be at home while at the same time, feel lost or isolated. People can also move from their homeland by choice, or be forced out by war, famine or other disaster.
But let’s return to family. The question, To whom do we belong? is a question about our core identity, our source of honor. Another term for honor is “social capital.” I like to ask: Where does our honor, our social capital, begin? From a social perspective, it begins with family.
In light of the vital importance of the bloodline family in our lives, let’s consider what Jesus has to say about family in Matthew 12:46–50.
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Matthew 12:46–50 ESV
I have written about this Scripture passage before. In The Global Gospel, I describe an honor-shame dynamic called Name/Kinship/Blood. I refer to this very story about Jesus. I observe that Jesus is teaching that there are two dynamics relative to the family of God—a narrowing dynamic and an expanding dynamic.
Rather shockingly, Jesus is redefining family for the Jews, the people of God. Jerome Neyrey calls it a “new index of honor.”1 In other words, Jesus is teaching a new way of measuring honor. No longer is it satisfactory to think that being ethnically Jewish automatically means that one has the honor status of being part of God’s family. Jesus narrows the criteria for membership in God’s family considerably. Pointing to his disciples, Jesus says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Doing the will of God—obedience to the teachings of Jesus, e.g., the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7)—became the deciding criteria; this is the narrowing dynamic.
But Jesus expands the concept of God’s family as well. Being a member of God’s family and possessing the corresponding honor of being related to Jesus is now available to anyone and everyone; indeed, it is available to “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven.” This “new index of honor”—this new way of defining who was an “insider”—deeply challenged the status quo view of family.
Jesus’ teachings turned upside-down the traditional understanding of people of God, family, and father.2
Are the words of Jesus concerning family really that challenging to the status quo? Here’s what N.T. Wright says:
“In the peasant society, where family relations provide one’s basic identity, it was shocking in the extreme in the first century Jewish culture, for which the sense of familial and racial loyalty was a basic symbol of the prevailing worldview. This saying cannot but have been devastating. Jesus was proposing to treat his followers as surrogate family. This had a substantial positive result: Jesus intended his followers to inherit all the closeness and mutual obligations that belonged with family membership and a close knit family-based society. But this was not just extraordinarily challenging at a personal level. It was deeply subversive at a social, cultural, religious, and political level.”3
Yes, Jesus is teaching something here that is profoundly challenging: It is “deeply subversive at a social, cultural, religious, and political level.”
What does the family have to do with racism?
RACISM is “the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called ‘races’; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.”4
When doing the will of God becomes the criteria for membership in God’s family, it subverts traditional ideas of superiority and inferiority, inclusion and exclusion. Therefore, being part of God’s family—doing the will of God—subverts racism. No longer is the Christian permitted an attitude of inferiority or superiority toward another follower of Christ (nor any other human being) because of skin color, nationality, race or ethnicity, education or wealth, or other measure of social status.
In Galatians 3:28–29, Paul contributes to Jesus’ teaching about family. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Paul creates theology from the life and teachings of Jesus. Paul is describing a new kind of humanity—a new kind of family that transcends the boundaries of the bloodline family.
Paul has relativized the family—the most basic unit of social organization. In so doing, Paul also relativizes other social units and other markers of social status. This includes: skin color and race. Family name, wealth or poverty. Citizenship and nationality. Level of education. And any other source of ascribed honor or achieved honor. (See my previous post on how and why knowing Christ relativizes other forms of social status.)
It is noteworthy that in Gal 3:28–29, Paul uses the honorific ‘family language’ of Abraham. When Paul writes, “you are Abraham’s offspring”, he uses the Greek word, σπέρμα, or sperma. The ESV translates sperma as offspring; the NIV and KJV translates sperma as “seed.” Doesn’t this refer to the male “seed”—vital for creating a new life?
Paul is conveying a powerful truth about family. Being in God’s family, being in relationship to others doing the will of God (sisters and brothers)—regardless their race or other social marker—this is more vital (not less), more important (not less) than bloodline-family-relations. This family is more durable (not less). This family is eternal, in Christ the risen Lord and King.
A traditional proverb says, “Blood is thicker than water.” But according to Mat 12:46–50, Jesus is saying, Doing the will of God is thicker than blood. Here is the principle:
The ‘thickest’ unifying family dynamic available to the human race is doing the will of God together in relation to Christ.
This is another way that the Bible undermines racism.
To whom do we belong? If we do the will of God (Mat 12:46–50) in Christ (Gal 3:28–29), we belong to the family of God.
LEARN MORE: Much more could be said about this family-of-God-priority. There are difficult questions. For example, what about Christian leaders who mistreat their family because they are overcommitted to their ministry—isn’t this problematic? For additional perspectives on this, I highly recommend The Bible Project podcast, “Family of God E6 / Jesus and the Gentiles.” The entire podcast is excellent, but the discussion about Mat 12:46–50 begins at around 42 minutes.
1. Jerome Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 57.
2. These three paragraphs are largely taken from: Werner Mischke, The Global Gospel: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World (Mission ONE, Scottsdale, AZ, 2015), 152.
3. N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2), (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 278. The author of this blog post first heard this quote from N.T. Wright in the podcast “Family of God E6 / Jesus and the Gentiles” from The Bible Project. https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/family-of-god, accessed 18 January 2021.
4. Definition by Audrey Smedley in Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism, accessed 18 January 2021.
This is post 4b in a series on allegiance in the Christian faith. We continue our exploration of the meaning of allegiance to Christ in the church’s sacrament of baptism.
Post #1 introduces the topic of allegiance to “THE CHRIST”—Jesus as King.
Post #2 was on allegiance and GRACE, referencing primarily Paul and the Gift by Prof. John M. G. Barclay.
Post #3 focused on allegiance and FAITH, in which we referenced Matthew W. Bates’s Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ.
Post #4 focused on allegiance and BAPTISM. We began looking at R. Alan Streett’s Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance.
The question we are continuing to explore is this: What does allegiance have to do with BAPTISM?
In this relatively short book (190 pages), Dr. Streett has eleven chapters. The chapter titles (below) comprise an overview of the significance of baptism in the New Testament.
Defining our Terms
Baptism in its Historical Context
Baptism and Roman Domination
John the Baptizer
The Baptism of Jesus
Baptism, Resurrection, and Restoration of the Kingdom
Baptism and Pentecost
Baptisms Beyond Jerusalem
Paul the Baptizer
Baptism in the Undisputed Pauline Epistles
Baptism in the Other Epistles and the Apocalypse
In my previous post, we considered the significance of the New Testament being written in the social and political situation of the Roman Empire. Allegiance to Caesar was required. Through the Roman army, Caesar Augustus had created political stability across a huge Empire by military force. He gave this program the name Pax Romana (Peace of Rome).
To accomplish the goal of universal peace, Augustus sent envoys, accompanied by armed troops, to those nations outside Roman territory with the good news (εὐαγγέλιον) of peace and invited them to join the satellite of Roman nations. In exchange for their pledge of loyalty, Caesar guaranteed their “peace and safety,” promising that the Roman military would protect their borders from invaders and maintain concord within their provincial boundaries. If Caesar’s offer was rejected, he sent his troops to invade and conquer the nation, and bring it under Roman rule.
Streett, R. Alan. Caesar and the Sacrament: Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (p. 27). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Jesus, his disciples, and all the New Testament writers lived in the social environment of the Roman Empire. Loyalty and allegiance to Caesar was simply understood; and it was enforced by the well-paid Roman army. Those who defied “the glory that is Rome” were not tolerated. They were crushed militarily. Or they were crucified—brutal and total humiliation in public. Dr. Streett repeatedly points out (pp. 21, 28, 80, 103) that from a political perspective, Jesus was crucified for sedition—being a rival king to Tiberias Caesar (John 19:12–16) and causing social unrest. It was Jewish chief priests who cried out, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). (NOTE: Obviously, the accusation of sedition was not the only reason Christ was crucified. See, for example, Mark 10:45; John 3:16; Acts 2:23; Rom 3:23–25; Eph 1:7; 2:13–16; Heb 1:3; 2:14.)
Baptism as a sacrament of allegiance
In the Roman Empire, why did the sacrament1 (sacramentum) signify allegiance? And why did baptism express allegiance?
Dr. Streett cites numerous sources from the time of the Roman Empire to demonstrate that the sacramentum signifies allegiance. One source is Tacitus, born about 25 years after the death of Christ:
Tacitus (56–117 CE), the Roman senator and historian, referred to sacramentum during the Empire as the verbal pledge of allegiance a soldier gives to his emperor. Tacitus was the first to speak of “receiving the sacrament” (sacramentumacciperent) because the oath was being administered to the soldier on behalf of the emperor. The wording of the oath remained constant; only the object of the oath changed from one Caesar to the next. Through the reign of Caesar Tiberius (14–37 CE), soldiers were required to take the sacrament only once during their career, but during a time of great turmoil in the Empire, Galba (68 CE) required them to take the sacrament on a yearly basis. (p. 3)
What about early Christian leaders? Did they see baptism as allegiance? Streett references Tertullian—an early church leader and author whom many consider a founder of Western Christianity.
Tertullian (160–225 CE), the famed apologist, was more specific and identified the act of baptism as the Christian sacramentum and contrasted it to a Roman soldier’s pledge of loyalty to the emperor and Empire. By analogy, he makes the case that just as a soldier, upon his oath of allegiance, was inducted into Caesar’s army, so a believer was initiated by the sacrament (oath) of baptism into God’s kingdom. Each vowed faithful service to his god and kingdom. (p. 4)
Streett ties together material on baptism spanning the New Testament. He makes the case that baptism was not only an expression of identificationwith the Christ in his death and resurrection (Rom 6:3–5). Baptism was also an oath of allegiance to the Christ and his kingdom. This oath of allegiance to the Christ was an implicit denial of allegiance to other social structures which may be inconsistent with the values of the kingdom of God.
The example of Jesus’ baptism
I found one insight from Streett particularly helpful. It concerns Luke’s record of the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:22). When Jesus was baptized, “the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove.” The dove, Streett argues, has political, anti-imperial overtones. Streett references William Karlson; his PhD dissertation traces the significance of birds in coronation practices—the public crowning and enthronement of a king.
[Karlson] traced the ritual coronation of English kings to the coronation practices in ancient Rome. In his dissertation he documents how Romans used divination, particularly augury, i.e., observing the flight of birds, to select their kings. Those who studied avian signs were called augurs or auspices. The term augur has Latin roots and etymologically means “to consecrate by augury.” We find it imbedded in the English word inauguration, meaning the coronation of a king.
Luke’s readers, familiar with the way emperors were chosen, would surely know that the Spirit alighting on Jesus as a dove “in bodily form” functioned in the same manner. It served as an avian sign or omen from heaven that pointed to Jesus as Yahweh’s choice as king. (pp. 56–57)
Streett’s citation is as follows: Karlson, William, Jr. “Syncretism: The Presence of Roman Augury in the Consecration of English Monarchs.” PhD diss., Baylor University, 2007.
Street highlights the fact that the eagle was the bird of choice for Roman emperors. He quotes Pliny the Elder, the Roman author and philosopher who lived in the first century: “Of the birds known to us the eagle is the most honorable and also the strongest.” . . . “the eagle became the bird of emperors” (p. 58). A gentle dove alighting on Jesus is an unmistakeable contrast to the flight of a powerful eagle authenticating a newly enthroned Ceasar.
For Luke, the coming of the Spirit “in bodily form” means it is an avian sign. Jesus is God’s choice as king. Unlike the Roman emperors, however, his reign will not be based on violence and domination. Throughout his gospel, Luke consistently portrays God’s kingdom as the antithesis of the Roman Empire (Luke 6:20; 13:29–30; 18:16; 22:25–27). Jesus is a king who brings peace, not at the expense and suffering of others, but through his own service and suffering. Jesus’ kingly power must be understood in contrast to the Roman understanding of power. (p. 60)
Jesus’ baptism is a statement about a new kind of King and a new kind of kingdom. It follows that believers’ baptism is an oath of allegiance to that King and his kingdom.
The baptism of Jesus is a spiritual event by which his kingdom is inaugurated. While Jesus’ kingdom is about heaven, it is also about “Thy kingdom come, the will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
If Jesus’ baptism was the inauguration of his kingdom, then what does it mean for believers to follow Christ’s example? The idea of baptism as mere outward symbol of an inward spiritual reality does not quite jive with the witness of Scripture in the social context of the Roman Empire. Believers’ baptism is also an oath of allegiance and loyalty to the King of kings and Lord of lords, who “came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45).
Streett says, “The Lukan account [of Jesus’ baptism], with its use of avian imagery, portrayed Jesus as an anti-imperial king who would challenge Rome’s right to rule. His kingdom, based on social justice, covenant mercy, and the establishment of peace apart from the use of violence, was antithetical to the Roman domination system” (p. 64).
In the next post I will pull together the main ideas, ask some questions, and suggest some applications. View that post here.
The sacraments are a part of the life of the church. There are seven sacraments for Catholics and Orthodox Christians. For most Protestants, there are two sacraments—baptism and the Lord’s Supper (or Communion). Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are considered sacraments by all true Christians.
IN MY LAST POST I began exploring the topic of allegiance as a Christian mindset and practice. Specifically, I am discussing the vital importance for believers to give allegiance to Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Savior-King. We are exploring in this series the significance of allegiance in three Christian dynamics: 1) grace, 2) faith, and 3) baptism.
This is the second post in the series. We examine the dynamic of grace as we consider a few brief excerpts from Prof. John M. G. Barclay’s seminal book Paul and the Gift. We will focus on allegiance to Christ and explore a few implications for believers today. NOTE: This post is lengthy; the topic requires a lot of explanation.
The question we are exploring in this post: What does allegiance have to do with GRACE? Theologian: John M. G. Barclay (bio) Book:Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015), 656 pages (more)
Perhaps you are new to Prof. Barclay or his book. If so, you can get a sense of the quality and impact of his scholarship here, or in this helpful book review, or in this 25-minute podcast/interview with Prof. Barclay.
A book that took ten years to research and write, Professor Barclay’s Paul and the Gift is considered one of the most significant books on New Testament theology in recent decades. He introduces what he calls the “six perfections” of grace. This means there are different facets of grace, each of which can be perfected or taken to the “nth degree.”
Prof. Barclay names these six “perfections” of grace:
superabundance—how massive, enduring, and eternal is God’s grace,
singularity—the degree to which God is characterized by grace and grace alone,
priority—the sense in which God’s grace as first and before, thus marking God’s freedom to give,
incongruity—the degree to which God gives grace without regard to the worth of recipients,
efficacy—the extent to which grace achieves God’s intentions in those who receive it, and
non-circularity—the degree to which grace is reciprocal; it has “strings attached;” God’s people are obliged to return praise, obedience, allegiance to him.
It is this last of the six “perfections”—non-circularity—that will be the main focus of this blog post. That’s because Barclay contends that Paul’s understanding of grace was not non-circular, but rather, obliging.
In other words, Paul viewed God’s grace as circular or reciprocal. God gives the gift of salvation in Christ to all who believe, although none deserve the gift. Therefore, it is “incongruous.” This was counter-cultural to social norms in the ancient world. At the same time, God expects that those who receive the gift of salvation to return honor and praise, loyalty and obedience—allegiance—to him. Therefore, the gift is reciprocal or circular in nature. This reciprocity was not counter-cultural; it is how grace ‘worked’ in the ancient world.
Understanding patronage to understand grace
To answer the question Why is God’s gift of grace reciprocal?, and before we further explore the writings of Prof. Barclay, we need to answer this question: Why are patronage and grace intertwined in the social context of the Roman Empire? The next few paragraphs borrow material from my book The Global Gospel in the chapter titled “Honor/Shame Dynamic #7: Patronage.”
Here’s a description of patronage from New Testament scholar, David deSilva: “Patronage was a [prevalent] social framework in the ancient Mediterranean basin. Patrons were people with power who could provide goods and services not available to their clients. In return, clients provided loyalty and honor to the patrons. Social inequality characterized these patronal relationships, and exploitation was a common feature of such relationships.” [1]
I want to emphasize two points; the first is this: Patronage is a social dynamic between patron and client characterized by reciprocity. Clients return “loyalty and honor to the patrons,” as deSilva noted. History professor J. E. Lendon adds about the Roman Empire and its emperor: “The emperor was the patron, the benefactor, of his every subject. The subjects, in turn, paid him back for his benefactions with their loyalty; this was the basis of his power. Thus, the empire was a single enormous spider’s web of reciprocal favours.” [2]
The diagram below illustrates this reciprocity or circularity.
Reciprocity in the patron-client relationship. Diagram by Jayson Georges and Werner Mischke, based on dialog from the Patronage Symposium, held at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, October 2018.
Our second point is this: People of the Greco-Roman world understood that grace (Gk., charis) is at the very center of the patronage dynamic. In fact, according to deSilva, first-century believers understood that “God’s grace (charis) would not have been of a different kind than the grace with which they were already familiar; it would have been understood as different only in quality and degree.”[3]
There was a distinct honor code about how to give and receive. The benefactor was to be wise, not self-serving. Their gifts were to be given only to honorable people—and thus, examples of excellent stewardship. Reciprocally, the client was to show proper gratitude and honor to the benefactor or patron.
According to the ancient writer Seneca, the reciprocal relationship between patron and client was to be characterized by “three graces”:
Some would have it appear that there is one [grace] for bestowing a benefit, one for receiving it, and the third for returning it; others hold that there are three classes of benefactors—those who receive benefits, those who return them, and those who receive and return them at the same time.
As quoted in deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, Purity, 106.
Seneca compared these three “graces” of giving, receiving, and returning favor to three sisters who dance “hand in hand … in a ring which returns upon itself.” Speaking of the word grace or charis, deSilva says it “encapsulated the entire ethos of the relationship.”
Grace at the center of the patron-client relationship.In the Roman Empire, grace (Gk., charis)was understood to be at the crux of the social practice of patronage. Diagram from Werner Mischke, The Global Gospel, Fig. 2.17, p 126.
So the social practice of patronage and benefaction would have related to the love and grace of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Even the giving of God’s Son would have been seen in the light of patronage. A highly honored, magnificent Benefactor is providing a great blessing—the gift of his own Son to many people. Note: this helpful video by New Testament scholar David deSilva makes the point crystal clear—that grace and patronage were integrally relatedin the Roman Empire.
Is allegiance to “the Christ” integral to grace?
In the Roman Empire, clients of patrons—those who received gifts—were obligated to return honor, loyalty, allegiance—to the patron. Accordingly, Barclay frequently uses the word allegiance in his book (55 times, a few examples below) as well as the word loyalty (26 times) to describe the way believers ought to live their lives in following Christ.
Below I summarize in three points the view of Barclay who contends that Paul understood divine grace as being reciprocal:
God the divine Patron gives salvation by grace through Christ without regard to any social capital, moral achievement, or any measure of worth on the part of the recipient (Eph 2:8–9 is an example of this). God’s grace is infinitely greater than what God’s people can ever return to him.
At the same time, this grace has strings attached. The Patron’s clients are receivers of God’s gift. And as believers in Christ they have dignifying obligations to reciprocate to their Patron by living an honorable life of good works in praise to God. (I see Eph 2:10 as one example of this).
Therefore, one of the qualities of God’s grace is its circularity or reciprocity. This is contrary to the view that some Christians hold—that grace is non-circular. (The view that grace is non-circular holds that once a person is saved by grace, there are zero additional obligations. Allegiance to “the Christ” is optional for believers, not required.)
Below are a few excerpts from Paul and the Gift. Following each excerpt I make brief comments about how this applies or what it means.
Excerpts from Barclay’s Paul and the Gift highlighting allegiance to the Christ
The sublime glory of belonging to Christ—this is the heart of Apostle Paul’s entire project. But belonging to Christ also obliges Christians to a purpose—a new humanity marked by counter-cultural love and diversity.
Commenting on Gal 5:13 and the “freedom” of believers to, by love serve other believers, Prof. Barclay writes:
… what counts is allegiance to Christ and adherence to the Spirit. Paul’s paradoxical interpretation of freedom as slavery (“for freedom you have been called … through love be slaves of one another,” 5:13) recalls the opening statement of 1:10–11: Paul is free from human criteria of value (“seeking to please human beings”) because he is a slave of Christ (1:10). For Paul, “freedom” is not autonomy but the product of an allegiance that breaks the power of previously taken-for-granted (and now “alien”) norms. He is dead to the regime of the Law, since his life is derived from and governed by the Christ-event: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (2:19–20). All other criteria of value have been discounted by the superordinate worth of belonging to Christ.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 428-429). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: The key to this paragraph is the last sentence: “All other criteria of value have been discounted by the superordinate worth of belonging to Christ.” This reminds me of Paul’s words “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8). Because of this profound honor in knowing Christ, there is of necessity a transformation of value regarding one’s social network. Since believers belong to the incredibly worthy Christ they also belong to the family of believers. And all Christians have identities transformed by relationship with the incredibly worthy Christ.
The phrase “criteria of value” refers to the ways that people in all cultures create social hierarchies: Greek elites versus barbarian … free versus slave … insiders versus outsiders … men versus women … Jew versus Gentile … upper class, middle class, lower class … clean versus unclean … one political tribe versus another … literate or non-literate … black versus white, etc. According to Barclay, Paul is saying that any and all criteria of social value is “discounted” because knowing Christ, whose honor and worth is infinite, makes it not just possible—but vital—to have intimate fellowship with all brothers or sisters in Christ. And the emphasis is on all—without regard to social worth being higher or lower, better our worse. In relation to the all-honorable, all-glorious Christ, all believers have honorable insider status.
In is commentary on Galatians 1:6–12 , Barclay writes:
… Paul eschews crowd-pleasing, but the “crowd” whose opinion he dismisses is not the uneducated populace, but humanity as a whole: his arguments do not count for much among human beings, but they count before God. In his rhetoric, as in his practice, Paul’s allegiance is to Christ: “if I were still pleasing human beings, I would not be a slave of Christ” (Gal 1:10). Although Paul will celebrate “the freedom which we have in Christ Jesus” (Gal 2:5; 5:1), it is clear from this early declaration of “slavery” that what he means by freedom is the consequence of an allegiance to norms newly constituted in Christ.
The “good news” thus realigns and recalibrates Paul’s loyalties: announcing the incongruous gift enacted in Christ, he is at odds with the normative conventions that govern human systems of value. Hence the emphatic statement of (Gal 1:11): “I want you to know that the good news announced by me is not in accord with human norms” (οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον). This negation is of central significance to the theology of the letter. It signals a relation of misfit, even contradiction, between the “good news” and the typical structures of human thought and behavior.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 355-356). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: The key sentence above is this: “The ‘good news’ thus realigns and recalibrates Paul’s loyalties: announcing the incongruous gift enacted in Christ, he is at odds with the normative conventions that govern human systems of value.” Because Paul’s allegiance is to Christ and his gospel, there is a corresponding recalibration of who and what is worthy. The gospel is not merely that persons can have eternal life by believing Jesus died for their sins. The gospel creates a new humanity (Eph 2:15), a new egalitarian community free of traditional cultural divisions and hierarchies (Gal 3:28–29)—all because of one earth-shattering reality: They are in “the Christ,” they have the astounding honor of being in God’s ancient-and-cosmic story of promise-and-blessing.
The two sentences below from are also from Prof. Barclay’s commentary on the first chapter of Galatians.
As a believer, Paul is a “Jew” who (in his terms) no longer remains “in Judaism”: his ethnicity has not been renounced but subsumed within an identity and an allegiance governed by the event of Christ (cf. Gal 2:19–21). His “ancestral traditions” no longer constitute his salient currency of worth.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 359–360). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments: I love this—“his ethnicity has not been renounced but subsumed within an identity and an allegiance governed by the event of Christ.” For Paul, his Jewishness ethnically and religiously had been his core identity before Christ. But Christ intervened. (“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”) He is still a Jew. But Paul’s core identity has been forever altered. This Jewish part of Paul’s life was relativized—it was “subsumed”—absorbed into the life of King Jesus through “the Christ-event” (Gal 1:20).
These sentences are from Prof. Barclay’s commentary on Galatians 3:26–29:
Neither ethnic nor gender identity could be simply removed, and in the eyes of the [Roman] law everyone counted as either “free” or “slave” (or “freed”). Paul and Peter remained Jews (Gal 2:15; cf. Titus, a “Greek,” Gal 2:3), and Paul was still identifiably masculine and free. What is altered, however, is the evaluative freight carried by these labels, the encoded distinctions of superiority and inferiority. In common solidarity with Christ, baptized believers are enabled and required to view each other without regard to these influential classifications of worth. Jewish believers should not withdraw from shared meals with non-Jews on the basis of their different, “inferior,” ethnicity (Gal 2:11–14). Slaves should not be disdained as “mere slaves,” since their worth as “siblings” is established in Christ (Phlm 16). What now counts for worth is only one’s status in Christ, and the consistency of one’s allegiance to him.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (p. 397). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
My comments:For Paul, allegiance to Christ and his gospel of grace “enabled and required” believers to have community with other believers who would normally be from social groups unlike their own. Humans are generally drawn to people like themselves, and tend to avoid being with people who are “other.” But Christians have something in common that bridges those normally entrenched social divides: the astounding incongruity of God’s grace to every Christian regardless of nationality, morality, social status, race, wealth, education, or other measure of worth.
In Prof. Barclay’s commentary on Romans (Section IV of Paul and the Gift), one chapter is devoted to Romans 11. On page 558 he writes:
Finally, as the preceding and following chapters make clear (e.g., Rom 6:1–23; 12:1–3), Paul’s radical emphasis on the incongruity of grace by no means implies its non-circularity: the following appeal “by the mercies of God” (12:1) may be taken to indicate that grace has “strings attached.” But the absence or lesser significance of these other perfections does not in the least diminish the radicality of the one perfection that is central to these chapters; as we have noted, the various perfections of grace are not a “package deal” (see above, chapter 2). What matters in Romans 9–11, as throughout this letter, is that God’s grace or mercy is operative without regard to worth. It is because this is the core of Israel’s identity and history that it is also the hope for the salvation of the world.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (p. 558). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Relative to grace being “with strings attached,” Prof. Barclay adds the following in his Conclusion (Chapter 18):
Thus, throughout this book, we have been suspicious of the modern (Western) ideal of the “pure” gift, which is supposedly given without strings attached. We have been able to make sense of the fact that a gift can be unconditioned (free of prior conditions regarding the recipient) without also being unconditional (free of expectations that the recipient will offer some “return”). Paul has provided a parade example of this phenomenon, since he simultaneously emphasizes the incongruity of grace and the expectation that those who are “under grace” (and wholly refashioned by it) will be reoriented in the “obedience of faith.” What has seemed in the modern world a paradoxical phenomenon—that a “free” gift can also be obliging—is entirely comprehensible in ancient terms.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Gift (pp. 562–563). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Summary: What does allegiance have to do with GRACE? Apparently, in the ancient world, grace and allegiance was understood as a package deal. You receive undeservedly a magnificent gift (Gk., charis) from a great Patron; you return to the Patron your praise, obedience, loyalty, allegiance. This allegiance is embodied individually and corporately, physically and socially in the cultivation of a new humanity marked by counter-cultural love and diversity.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [reasonable] worship. (Romans 12:1 ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)
“I pledge allegiance to the Christ.” In the early church, to confess Jesus as Lord could mean switching allegiance from Caesar to Christ; this was often subversive. What does it mean in your community to make this confession?
Next post: What does allegiance have to do with FAITH?Click here to go to the next post in this series.
NOTES:
David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 96. DeSilva’s two chapters on patronage are titled “Patronage & Reciprocity” and “Patronage & Grace in the New Testament.” DeSilva describes in detail how the practice of patronage in the Roman Empire informed the early church’s understanding of the gift of God’s grace in Christ.
J. E. Lendon. Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (p. 12). Kindle Edition.
I grew up in America. Each and every morning at the beginning of the school day, from Kindergarten through 12th Grade, I joined my classmates by putting my right hand over my heart and saying “the pledge.”
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
https://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
For patriotic Americans, to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America is as natural as breathing. It’s just something we do. For children in school (especially), it’s obvious and automatic. Of course, it is. Liberty and justice for all are values worth defending. Loyalty to our republic and its Constitution is noble and good.
Dictionary.com defines “allegiance” as:
1) the loyalty of a citizen to his or her government or of a subject to his or her sovereign; 2) loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.
In pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States, Americans are pledging loyalty to America and the government by which they are its citizens.
For me, allegiance is a word that all my life has been linked to being “American.” But the word allegiance also relates to an even more fundamental part of my identity: “Christian.”
“Allegiance” is a thoroughly Christian term
I intend to show in this series of blog posts that allegiance is vital for followers of Jesus. All believers are called to the mindset-and-behavior of loyalty to Christ as King.
In the social world of the early church and Roman Empire, allegiance and loyalty to Caesar included being a regular participant in the “emperor cult.” Paying homage to the emperor as a “son of God” was part of being a citizen of the Roman Empire. Giving allegiance to Jesus the Christ as a citizen of his kingdom was thus equivalent to denying allegiance to Caesar.
In the early church, allegiance was expressed in word and deed, beliefs and practices:
Allegiance was a key aspect of grace (Gk. charis).
Allegiance was often synonymous with faith (Gk. pistis).
Givingallegiance to Jesus the Christ—instead of Caesar the Emperor—was a central feature of baptism(Gk. baptismatos).
Grace, faith, and baptism—each of these dynamics point to the vital role of allegiance on the part of believers. Becoming Christian, living as followers of King Jesus, put believers into a lifestyle that was inherently subversive. Living out the gospel with the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5) and the values of Jesus meant active resistance (though peaceful) to the values of Caesar and Rome. As a result 1) believers often suffered exclusion socially, politically, economically, and 2) the church nevertheless grew by leaps and bounds.
For each of the three dynamics (grace, faith, baptism) I refer below to a different theologian and a book authored by that theologian. Although each theologian’s book covers a different topic, they all have this in common: They describe how the dynamic (whether grace, faith, or baptism) was understood in the social context of the early church and Roman Empire.
Three dynamics, three theologians, three books
GRACE John M. G. Barclay (bio) Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015), 656 pages (more)
FAITH Matthew W. Bates (bio) Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ(Brazos, 2019), 272 pages (more)
BAPTISM R. Alan Streett (bio) Caesar and the Sacrament Baptism: A Rite of Resistance (Wipf & Stock, 2018), 190 pages (more)
I will devote one blog post to each of these books and share a summary about what they say concerning our allegiance as believers to “the Christ.”
Christ as “the good king”
I want to say a few things about the title of this series: “I pledge allegiance to ‘the Christ.’”
As believers, we often refer to our Savior as Jesus Christ. We hear preachers use the name Jesus Christ a lot more often than Jesus, the Christ.
But we are mistaken to think that Jesus is our Savior’s first name and Christ is his last name. Werner Mischke is my name. Mischke is my last name or family name. But “Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. Most believers already know this, but it is worth revisiting the point.
Christ is not a proper name or family name. It is a title, an honorific title signifying Jesus as Messiah-King.
Thus, while Paul does not refer to Christ as king, his abundant use of the honorific “Messiah” [Gk., Christos] may indicate that he thinks of Jesus as the ideal king or ruler. Especially significant in this regard is Matthew V. Novenson’s recent monograph Christ among the Messiahs, in which he demonstrates that Paul’s use of Χριστός [Gk., Christos]actually conforms quite closely to common uses of honorifics in the ancient world. Thus, for Paul Χριστός is not a proper name but rather an honorific such as Seleucus the Victor or Judah Maccabee that can be used in combination with an individual’s proper name or can stand in for a proper name.
Jipp, Joshua W.. Christ Is King: Paul’s Royal Ideology. Fortress Press. Kindle Edition. Location 96.
Jipp argues that “Paul uses royal language to present Christ as ‘the good king.’” He surveys literature from the time of the Roman Empire describing the character and qualities of the good king. Jipp then demonstrates how the language from these extra-biblical sources overlaps in numerous ways with how Paul describes Jesus as “the Christ.” Compared to other literature describing the good king, Paul’s writing articulates Jesus as the true eternal good king. Jipp discusses:
The good king and law: Gal 5–6; Rom 13–15; 1 Cor 9
Hymning to the good king: Col 1:15–20
The good king enthroned: Rom 1:3–4; 1 Cor 15:20–28
In other words, Christos is a title with royal meaning. Jesus is the long-awaited Deliverer-Messiah, the Anointed One,theKing of kings—“the Christ.”
The phrase “the Christ” is common in the New Testament
A search of “the Christ” in the online English Standard Version Bible (ESV) yields 49 occurrences. It is worth scanning these verses to observe just how much regal honorific emphasis New Testament authors give to Jesus through the title Christos.
Here is a sampling of ten verses from just the Gospel of Matthew:
Matthew 1:17– So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
Matthew 2:4– and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
Matthew 11:2– Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples
Matthew 16:16– Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:20– Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
Matthew 22:42– saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
Matthew 23:10– Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
Matthew 24:5– For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.
Matthew 24:23– Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.
Matthew 26:63– But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.”
Christ is King. The word “Christ” has a royal meaning. This is why, as I have color-coded keywords in my Bible, I always highlight the word Christ in orange. It quickly helps me see just how often the honorific majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ is being heralded in the books of the New Testament.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (ESV), the word Christ appears 45 times, the word Lord, 11 times.
Remember the main point we are exploring in this series of posts: Jesus is our Savior and King. As believers, we owe him our loyalty and allegiance. “I pledge allegiance to the Christ.”
Next post: I will focus on John M. G. Barclay’s Paul and the Gift. We will examine one important aspect of his groundbreaking scholarship. How is allegiance is a part of a biblical understanding and practice of GRACE? To go to the next post, click here.
