Imagine a young baker named Marcus in the town of Philippi. Marcus learned to bake bread from his father. The family business stretched back to the founding of Philippi five generations back. Marcus’s family was, consequently, one of the founding members of the bakers’ guild. A hundred years ago, his ancestor had retired from the Roman army—he had baked bread for the army of Octavius Augustus during the glorious victory over Anthony. As a reward, his family, which had originated in the province of Lydia in Asia Minor, had been given Roman citizenship and land in Philippi. He had a true tripartite Roman name: Marcus Augustus Lydia.
When his father was young, Vesta (the goddess of fire and the protector of bakers) became angry and a fire destroyed the family bakery. Marcus’s father went to a wealthy widow, a cloth merchant who was also from the province of Lydia, to seek help. Julia Lydia loaned his father the money to rebuild the bakery. Thus began an enduring relationship. Today, Marcus sells all his bread to Lydia, including all the members of her extended household, which covers an entire city block of Philippi, plus all her other “friends” (the various merchants with whom Lydia does business). These customers give Marcus all the business he and his young sons can handle. He sells his bread at a reasonable price and his family makes a good (though modest) living. Lydia ensures that no one takes advantage of anyone else.
Three years ago, the barley sellers raised their prices. All the bakers panicked. Naturally, Marcus asked his patroness to help. She invited the patron of the barley merchants to dinner. During a civilized meal, Lydia mentioned her friend “Marcus” and his difficult situation. The two patrons discussed how they could best help their friends, arriving at a fair price for barley flour. This trade negotiation disguised as a dinner discussion was a binding trade agreement. Lydia did what was appropriate as the patron of Marcus the baker.
Of course such relationships were two sided. Last year, one of Lydia’s slaves awakened Marcus in the middle of the night. Lydia needed a favor. She had received special guests, and she was planning an elaborate dinner party for some wealthy families of Philippi for which she needed special bread to serve at this important banquet. The guests had brought a letter that she planned to have read to the group. She needed Marcus to cook something special. How could he refuse his patroness? It took all night, but he made sure the bread was ready.
The “rules” for what was expected of a patron and a client were not painted on Roman city walls (political slogans were). The rules for the truly foundational institutions of society, like family and patronage, went without being said. Everyone knew what the proper behavior was. A good patron solved the problems of his or her clients: assisting with trade guilds, business disputes, refinancing loans and easing tensions with city elders. Ordinary folks like Marcus had neither the clout nor the social graces to negotiate such endeavors. The patron did “favors” for his clients who then fell under his circle of influence and protection. In return, the client was expected to be loyal (faithful) and was sometimes asked to do things for the patron.
Understanding the preeminence of relationships in the first century has profound implications for how we Westerners interpret the Bible. Instinctively prioritizing rules over relationships can lead us to misunderstand some of Paul’s actions and motives. It may even cause us to misunderstand his gospel of salvation by grace through faith.
First, the patron-client relationship may have been a major challenge for Paul. How could Paul accept gifts, for example, without becoming someone’s client?[6] It appears that on several occasions Paul did not want to depend upon gifts from the church in Corinth because of the massive influence a patron could exert. So he earned his own living instead (1 Cor 4:12; 9:6). When Paul was later under arrest and unable to work, he had to depend upon gifts, including gifts from the church in Philippi. But all ancient gifts came with strings attached.[7] It was tricky. To refuse the gift (and thus the offer of friendship) was rude. The strings-attached nature of patronage may explain why Paul’s letter to the Philippians appears to be a thankless thank-you letter. The apostle hems and haws whenever he mentions the gift the Philippians sent him: “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. . . . I am not saying this because I am in need, . . . I have learned the secret of being content . . . Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. . . . Not that I am looking for a gift” (Phil 4:10-12, 14, 17 NIV 1984, emphasis added). Well, did he want the gift or not? Remember, gifts had strings attached. And the gift may not have come from the church as a whole but from an individual, such as Lydia or the jailer. If he accepted the gift, Paul would become the client. As a client, Paul would be expected to come to Philippi whenever his patron needed him. Paul was constantly on the move. He knew his calling involved relocating to new mission fields. And he had his sights set on Rome. He couldn’t drop everything to respond to the summons of a patron. Yet to refuse to come would make Paul ill-mannered, or worse, ungrateful—a cardinal sin in the ancient world.
The Philippians would have expected Paul to mention their grace-gift (charis) in his letter. And he does. But he reinterprets the gift as an offering to God, not to himself (Phil 4:18). He says the Philippians share in God’s grace-gift with Paul. The gift has strings, no doubt. But now the relationship strings are attached to God. If the Philippians later have “a need,” they were to look to Paul’s God—not to Paul—to meet their needs (Phil 4:19). Thus God remains Paul’s only patron (Phil 4:13). Paul’s profits and losses are connected to his sole benefactor (Phil 3:7-8).
Now Paul wasn’t opposed to the patronage system; he probably couldn’t imagine a world without it. He just didn’t want to become entangled with the Philippians. At the same time, Paul was not opposed to gifts having strings attached. On another occasion Paul tries to use those same strings to tie the Jerusalem mother-church to his Gentile churches. Paul gathered up funds from his churches for the poor saints in Jerusalem. He talks about it for two chapters in 2 Corinthians (chapters 8 and 9). His zinger comes at the end: “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you” (2 Cor 9:13-14, emphasis added). Their generous gift would tie the hearts of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who needed the gift, to Gentile Christians, who had given generously.
Because it was impossible to escape the patronage system, Paul worked within it, even in his explanation of the Christian message of salvation. Patronage had its own vocabulary. Words we usually consider particularly Christian terms—grace and faith—were common parlance before Paul commandeered them. The undeserved gifts of assistance the patron offered were commonly called charis (“grace” and “gift”).[8] The loyalty the client offered the patron in response was called pistis (“faith” and “faithfulness”).[9] Roman philosophers noted that when one received a god’s favor (charis), one should respond with love, joy and hope.[10] When Paul sought to explain the Christian’s new relationship with God, then, one of the ways he did so was in terms of the ancient system of patronage—something everyone understood. In other words, it went without being said that relationship is the premier and determinative aspect of charis, grace.
Relationships must follow the rules. Our confidence in a stable and orderly universe leads us to prioritize rules over relationships, but it does more than that. The Western commitment to rules and laws make it difficult for us to imagine a valid rule to which there may be valid exceptions. When we begin to think of the world in terms of relationships instead of rules, however, we must acknowledge that things are never so neat and orderly and that rules are not as dependable as we once imagined. When relationships are the norming factor in the cosmos, we should expect exceptions.
In the ancient world, rules were not expected to apply 100 percent of the time. Israel did not keep the ru
les and God complained about it, but we often gloss over the reality that the rules had been broken for centuries. The covenant, however, was broken only when it became clear that the relationship was over (e.g., Hos 1:9). The end came when the relationship, not the rules, was broken.
Consider this striking Pauline example. Paul asserts, “If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all” (Gal 5:2). He makes a similarly concrete claim elsewhere: “Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised” (1 Cor 7:18). Paul was a vocal opponent of circumcision at the Jerusalem Council, where the early church decisively determined that one need not be circumcised in order to be a Christian (Acts 15). This appears to give us a hard and fast rule you can take to the bank; there seems to be no room for exception. Yet in the verses immediately following the Jerusalem Council, Luke tells us that Paul circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3). Westerners can’t help but ask, “Didn’t Paul say someone who was uncircumcised should stay that way?” (see 1 Cor 7:18). Isn’t Paul breaking his own rule? If we understand Paul’s exhortation as a fixed and universal rule against circumcision, we are forced to make a difficult decision. Either Luke’s account of Paul and Timothy’s mission (and, by extension, the history of the early church) was inaccurate. Or Paul could do as he pleased, even if that meant contradicting his own teaching.
There is, of course, another option. Luke tells us that Paul’s rationale for having Timothy circumcised had to do with relationships, not rules. Paul was about to evangelize in Timothy’s hometown of Lystra, and Paul decided it was important that Timothy be circumcised “because of the Jews who lived in that area.” In other words, even in a matter as sensitive as the value of circumcision for Christian faith, relationships trumped rules.
Rather than an image of a contract or a courtroom, the Christian life is more helpfully viewed as a journey along a road (a hodos, a “way”), to use Jesus’ image. Along this road, there is a ditch on both sides. The goal is to avoid both ditches, which means that the difference between good instruction and bad instruction depends upon which ditch you have drifted toward. The problem with the Western view of a rule is that it has to always apply. But “veer right” is only good instruction if you’re headed into the ditch on the left.
Let me apply this in my (Randy’s) life. As a stuffy old Bible professor, my Christian walk has often been defined by a list of don’ts: as in “I don’t smoke, drink, cuss or chew or run around with girls that do.” But perhaps the Spirit sometimes tells this old stick-in-the-mud to loosen up. Perhaps sitting with my Scottish colleague who is enjoying a pint of Scottish ale may not endanger my immortal soul. I’m often perilously close to the ditch on the right. Such instruction—to veer left a bit—may be helpful for an old Pharisee like me, who regularly perches on the edge of the ditch of legalism. Yet the very same advice (“veer left”) is an absolutely dreadful thing to tell a nineteen-year-old college student, who is at no risk of legalism. Many first-year students I know are dangerously close to the ditch on the left, the one marked “lawlessness.” The Spirit tells them to “veer right”: to tighten up their standards. Again, such a whisper in my heart would be wel-come but dreadful advice for me; it would likely propel me straight into the ditch of self-righteousness. But our Western worldview dislikes an image of the Christian life that implies there are different rules for me and for you. The very wording—“different rules for me and for you”—rings of basic unfairness. Unfortunately for us, this is the example Jesus left for us. For wealthy and self-righteous would-be disciples, Jesus pointed out the exacting requirements for righteous living (Lk 18:18-23), but to those weary of sin he called his way “easy” and “light” (Mt 11:30). Jesus required one disciple to sell everything to follow him (Mt 19:21), yet he apparently hadn’t required Peter to do so (Jn 21). He asked one disciple to leave his family (Mt 8:21-22), but apparently he did not make the same request of Lazarus, Mary and Martha (Jn 11). It seems that rules applied, except when they didn’t.
In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time. In the ancient world, rules did not seem to require such universal compliance. God announces about Ephraim: “Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them” (Hos 9:15). Later he says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” (Hos 11:8). God’s judgment was influenced by his relationship with sinners (Hos 11:9-10). Exodus 12:40-49 explains that all males must be circumcised to eat Passover. Yet in Joshua 5:5-7, it is obvious the sons born during the wanderings had not been.[11] If rules apply except when they don’t, then as Westerners perhaps we need more wisdom in discerning when they don’t. (We need help seeing the kairos for applying the rules; perhaps there really is a season for everything under the sun.)
Likewise, in the ancient world of the Bible (and in many non-Western cultures), rules did not necessarily apply to 100 percent of the people. The Israelites were clearly instructed that upon entering the Promised Land, every Israelite was to get an inheritance (land) and no Canaanites were (Josh 1). Yet the very next story is about a Canaanite who was given an inheritance, Rahab (Josh 2; 6). The story after that tells of the Israelite Achan, who was cut from his inheritance (Josh 7). The stories are woven together around the theme of sacrifices to the Lord. Everything captured was to be devoted (sacrificed) to the Lord. In Jericho, Rahab and her family were exceptions to the sacrifice. Because Achan kept some of the sacrificed things (gold) from Ai, he and his family were exceptions and were added to the sacrifice. By the way, did you notice the collectivist viewpoint? The deeds of Rahab were credited to her entire family. Likewise, the deeds of Achan were applied to his entire family. Before you begin to rail against the injustice of such group judgments, consider that we “have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20): that is, the righteous work of Jesus is credited to his followers.
Allow us another story. While I (Randy) was living in Indonesia, I was invited to speak at a “pastors only” meeting. In the audience of over one hundred pastors, I noticed a half-dozen women. The bylaws of the Convention of Indonesian Baptist Churches clearly state: “Pastors must be male.” I should have left it alone.
“I thought this meeting was for pastors only,” I remarked to the conference organizer.
“It is,” he replied.
“But there were women in the audience,” I pointed out.
“Yes.”
Now I was confused. “But your laws say pastors must be male!” I exclaimed.
The convention president calmly replied, “Yes, and most of them are.”
Goodness. His answer represents a fundamentally different view of law. To the non-Western mind, it seems, a law is more a guideline. Americans would likely want to change the Indonesian law to read, “Most pastors must be male,” and then we would argue over the percentage. The Indonesian—and arguably the biblical—view of law always left room for exceptions.
Paul states, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” (1 Tim 2:12). “But what about Priscilla and Junia?” we might ask Paul. “They taught in church. You said women must keep silent.”
Perhaps Paul would answer, “Yes. And most of them do.”
Rules Exclude Relationships
As we discussed above, the Enlightenment provided a new viewpoint on God’s relationship to the universe. He had created rules that governed how it operated. It remained to clever humanity to discover and decode those rules. The next small step was subtle. Once we had discerned the rules by which the universe operates, we Westerners no longer needed God as an explanation for natural phenomena. For example, we referenced Matthew 5:45 above: “[God] sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Jesus likely meant what he said, that the source of rain is God himself. We know today, though, that rain is caused by quite natural (and somewhat predictable) weather patterns, warm fronts and cold fronts and the like. We might say, then, that God causes the weather patterns that cause rain to fall on the
righteous and the unrighteous, leaving God in the equation but less directly involved. Most of Western society simply cuts God out of the equation: rain is caused by natural weather patterns. We create a nice dualism. God is in charge of supernatural things, and natural things just run on their own.
The trick is that our definitions of natural and supernatural are ever changing. We humans set the line between natural and supernatural. Natural indicates “things we understand.” Supernatural things are things we don’t (yet) understand. Since human knowledge is growing, the line keeps moving. The item itself never changes, but it moves—in our minds—across the line from supernatural to natural. Lightning was once considered miraculous, supernatural.[12] The major resistance to Franklin’s invention of the lightning rod came from clergy who objected that it removed one of the instruments of divine justice![13] Once we understood something about how lightning works, we stopped considering it supernatural. Lightning never changed. But something serious happened: God quit having a role in lightning, as far as we were concerned. Once we understand a bit about how something works, we shove the divine out of it. Today, of course, we Westerners never even associate lightning with God (Ps 148:8). Putting aside the question of whether or not God actually uses lightning to smite people, our point is this: now that we understand the physics of lightning, Westerners remove it from God’s hands. Thunder cannot answer Western prayers. Lightning does not smite Western sinners. Once we understand a rule of the universe, we cut God out of any relationship to it.
We want to be very clear here: your authors are not opposed to scientific inquiry or discovery. We like science. We don’t believe sincere Christian faith and a scientific understanding of the universe are fundamentally incompatible. We do, however, want to caution against naturalism. Naturalism assumes the natural world and its laws (as opposed to supernatural laws) can fully explain the universe. In naturalism, the supernatural—if there is any such thing—has no effect on the natural world. For Christians, science is our friend; naturalism is not. Naturalism tells us that once we understand the rules that govern the world, we have no need for a relationship with its Creator. And naturalism, for most Westerners, goes without being said.
Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes Page 17
