Paul's Macedonian Associations

Paul's Macedonian Associations

Author: Richard S. Ascough

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2020-07-31

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1725267527

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Richard Ascough uses Greco-Roman associations as a comparative model for understanding early Christian community organization, with specific attention to Paul’s Macedonian Christian communities.


Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations

Early Christ Groups and Greco-Roman Associations

Author: Richard S. Ascough

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2022-06-20

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1666709034

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Over the past two and a half decades there has been an increasing interest in how the data from the associations--known primarily from inscriptions and papyri--can help scholars better understand the development of Christ groups in the first and second centuries. Richard Ascough's work has been at the forefront of promoting the associations and applying insights from inscriptions and papyri to understanding early Christian texts. This book collects together his most important contributions to the scholarly trajectory as it developed over a two-decade period. A fresh introduction orients the sixteen previously published articles and essays, which are arranged into three sections; the first dealing with associations as a model for Christ groups, the second focused on how associations and Christ groups interacted over recruitment, and the third on two key elements of group life: meals and memorializing the dead.


Archaeology and the Letters of Paul

Archaeology and the Letters of Paul

Author: Laura Salah Nasrallah

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0199699674

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This study illuminates the social, political, economic, and religious lives of those to whom the apostle Paul wrote. It articulates a method for bringing together biblical texts with archaeological remains.


The New Cambridge Companion to St. Paul

The New Cambridge Companion to St. Paul

Author: Bruce W. Longenecker

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-07-02

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1108540074

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St Paul was a pivotal and controversial figure in the fledgling Jesus movement of the first century. The New Cambridge Companion to St Paul provides an invaluable entryway into the study of Paul and his letters. Composed of sixteen essays by an international team of scholars, it explores some of the key issues in the current study of his dynamic and demanding theological discourse. The volume first examines Paul's life and the first-century context in which he and his communities lived. Contributors then analyze particular writings by comparing and contrasting at least two selected letters, while thematic essays examine topics of particular importance, including how Paul read scripture, his relation to Judaism and monotheism, why his message may have been attractive to first-century audiences, how his message was elaborated in various ways in the first four centuries, and how his theological discourse might relate to contemporary theological discourse and ideological analysis today.


The Offering of the Gentiles

The Offering of the Gentiles

Author: David J. Downs

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0802873138

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The monetary fund that the apostle Paul organized among his Gentile congregations for the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem was clearly an important endeavor to Paul; discussion of it occupies several prominent passages in his letters. In this book David Downs carefully investigates that offering from historical, sociocultural, and theological standpoints. Downs first pieces together a chronological account of Paul's fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Jerusalem church, based primarily on information from the Pauline epistles. He then examines the sociocultural context of the collection, including gift-giving practices in the ancient Mediterranean world relating to benefaction and care for the poor. Finally, Downs explores how Paul framed this contribution rhetorically as a religious offering consecrated to God.


Partnership in Ministry

Partnership in Ministry

Author: Paul H. Byun

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2023-05-16

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 153260985X

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What type of relationship did New Testament churches have with one another? Was it a relationship of conflict and competition? Or was it a loose aggregation of individual churches scattered across the Roman Empire? Or can it be described as a cohesive partnership for the common cause of the gospel of Christ? Most New Testament church activities are recorded in connection with Paul’s ministry. In this sense, the present study started on the premise that close attention to Paul’s partnership ministry would offer a richer understanding of New Testament church relationships. By exploring some ministry areas—such as Paul’s coworkers, financial assistance, and communicative activities—this book demonstrates that Paul’s churches, occasioned and mediated by Paul’s partnership ministry, were engaged in networking and collaboration far more closely than has generally been assumed, not only among themselves but also with non-Pauline churches. Paul’s partnership ministry significantly contributed to the relationship of New Testament churches.


Paul's Ekklesia as a Civic Assembly

Paul's Ekklesia as a Civic Assembly

Author: Young-Ho Park

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2015-04-21

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9783161530609

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How did Paul's term ekklesia formulate the Christian self-understanding? Young-Ho Park finds the answer in its strong civic connotation in the politico-cultural world of the Greek East under the Roman Empire. By addressing his local Gentile congregation as ekklesia in his letters, Paul effectively created a symbolic universe in which the Christ-worshippers saw themselves as the honorable citizens who represented the city before God. (Publisher).


Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace

Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace

Author: John S. Kloppenborg

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-06-30

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 3110253461

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Private associations organized around a common cult, profession, ethnic identity, neighbourhood or family were common throughout the Greco-Roman antiquity, offering opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and a context in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects a representative selection of inscriptions from associations in Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, published with English translations, brief explanatory notes, commentaries and full indices. This volume is essential for several areas of study: ancient patterns of social organization; the organization of diasporic communities in the ancient Mediterranean; models for the structure of early Christian groups; and forms of sociability, status-displays, and the vocabularies of virtue.


T&T Clark Handbook to the Historical Paul

T&T Clark Handbook to the Historical Paul

Author: Ryan S. Schellenberg

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-05-05

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0567691993

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The T&T Clark Handbook to the Historical Paul gathers leading voices on various aspects of Paul's biography into a thorough reconsideration of him as a historical figure. The contributors show how recent trends in Pauline scholarship have invited new questions about a variety of topics, including his social location, his mode of subsistence, his cultural formation, his place within Judaism, his religious experience and practice, and his affinities with other religious actors of the Roman world. Through careful attention to biographical detail, social context, and historical method, it seeks to describe him as a contextually plausible social actor. The volume is structured in three parts. Part One introduces sources, methods, and historiographical approaches, surveying the foundational texts for Paul and the early Pauline tradition. Part Two examines key biographical questions pertaining to Paul's bodily comportment, the material aspects of his career, and his religious activities. Part Three reconstructs the biographical portraits of Paul that emerge from the letters associated with him, presenting a series of “micro-biographies” pieced together by leading Pauline scholars.


The Church according to Paul

The Church according to Paul

Author: James W. Thompson

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 144121965X

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Amid conflicting ideas about what the church should be and do in a post-Christian climate, the missing voice is that of Paul. The New Testament's most prolific church planter, Paul faced diverse challenges as he worked to form congregations. Leading biblical scholar James Thompson examines Paul's ministry of planting and nurturing churches in the pre-Christian world to offer guidance for the contemporary church. The church today, as then, must define itself and its mission among people who have been shaped by other experiences of community. Thompson shows that Paul offers an unprecedented vision of the community that is being conformed to the image of Christ. He also addresses contemporary (mis)understandings of words like missional, megachurch, and formation.