True to our native land, p.78
True to Our Native Land, page 78
The great challenge for African Americans in the twenty-first century struggling against suffering and injustice is to remember the strategy of liberty: African American Christian believers, those who function as “enslaved persons of Christ,” must undertake a passionate commitment to a concern for others.
An equally significant challenge, however, for African Americans in the twenty-first century struggling against suffering and injustice is to know (through intellect and experience) that the opposite of this truth is also true. The hope of the world community depends upon keeping alive the hope and meeting the “needs” of the African American community. Such is the strange pattern of love, a pattern of mutual indebtedness, into which Philippians calls us to flourish.
Notes
1. Martin Luther King Jr., “Sleeping through a Revolution,” address to the Chicago Joint Negro Appeal, December 10, 1967, Chicago, Illinois, available at King Library and Archives, King Center, Atlanta, GA
2. Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965–68 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 640–41.
3. Branch, At Canaan’s Edge.
4. Branch, At Canaan’s Edge.
5. David J. Garrow. Bearing the Cross (New York: Morrow, 1986), 539.
6. Martin Luther King Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 162–63.
7. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 181.
8. According to Luke’s account in the Acts of the Apostles, it was at Philippi that Paul met a group of women to whom he preached the gospel. Lydia, a merchant selling purple cloth, believed Paul’s message and was baptized with members of her household.
9. For a discussion on the social and economic value of creating an environment and life circumstances that people have reason to value, see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor, 1999).
10. See Michael Joseph Brown, “Paul’s Use of doulos Christou Iēsou in Romans 1:1,” JBL 120 (2001): 723–37.
11. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians, World Biblical Commentary 43 (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 21.
12. In 1:9–10 Paul describes love as a power that progressively manifests itself both in intellectual knowing and in the knowledge that comes through personal and communal experience. In addition, Paul prays that love will lead to clear perceptions how practically to exist in relation with others. He further emphasizes the idea of insight as related to practice in v. 10 with the use of dokimazo—a term that means to discern so as to demonstrate. The expectation is that love will enable the community not only effectively to deliberate the issues that come to their attention but also to demonstrate the most advantageous response to these issues. But what is an advantageous or excellent response? A response, Paul maintains, that does not act out of pretense and does not cause others harm.
13. Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (San Francisco: Harper, 1963), 32.
14. Heinrich Greeven, “deēsis,” TDNT 2:40.
15. Walter Grundmann, “anagkē,” TDNT, 1:346–47.
16. W. Bauer, F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG hereafter), 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 846.
17. Gerald F. Hawthorne. Philippians, World Biblical Commentary 43, ed. Bruce M. Metzger (Nashville: Nelson, 1983).
18. Bonnie B. Thurston and Judith Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, Sacra Pagina 10 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005), 69.
19. Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 74. See also BDAG, 1066.
20. Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Bold Type Books, 2016), 9.
21. Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 105.
22. Daniel Patte, Paul’s Faith and the Power of the Gospel: A Structural Introduction to the Pauline Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 173.
23. Interesting here is Paul’s insistence on a communal effort in effectively working to restore harmony. Consider the language Paul uses in this request. He refers to the one(s) called for additional assistance as syzyge (yoke fellow). The image Paul suggests is that of people being yoked together, like oxen pulling a load together in order to accomplish an important task. Even the word Paul uses for “help” (syllambanou) is a compound opening with sy[n] “together/with.” Paul is asking a person or a group to pull along with another (others) to provide needed assistance.
24. Herbert Preisker, “epieikēs,” TDNT 2:588–89.
25. Preisker, “epieikēs,” 589.
26. Dosis and lēmpsis (giving and receiving) belong to the commercial vocabulary of the ancient world, referring to the debit and credit of the ledger. See J. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930).
27. Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 155.
28. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 167.
29. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 180.
30. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 188.
31. King, Where Do We Go from Here, 190. King also named militarism and racism as two other issues, but he felt that the issue of poverty necessarily included the other two.
For Further Reading
Barber II, William J. With Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear. Boston: Beacon Press, 2016.
Briggs, Sheila. “Can an Enslaved God Liberate? Hermeneutical Reflections on Philippians 2:6–11,” Semeia 47 (1989): 138–53.
Hawthorne, Gerald F. Philippians. WBC 43. Edited by Bruce M. Metzger. Nashville: Nelson, 1983.
Holloway, Paul A. Philippians. Hermeneia. Edited by Adela Yarbro Collins. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017.
Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York: Bold Type Books, 2016.
King, Martin Luther Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
Patte, Daniel. Paul’s Faith and the Power of the Gospel: A Structural Introduction to the Pauline Letters. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983.
Tamez, Elsa, et al. Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. Wisdom Commentary. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2016.
Thompson, James W., and Bruce W. Longnecker. Phillipians and Philemon. Paideia. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016.
Thurston, Bonnie B, and Judith Ryan. Philippians and Philemon. Edited by Daniel J. Harrington. Sacra Pagina 10. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005.
Williams, Demetrius K. “Philippians.” In Global Bible Commentary. Edited by Daniel Patte. Nashville: Abingdon, 2004.
Colossians
Lloyd A. Lewis Jr.
Introduction
Mark’s presentation of the good news convinces us that the people of God could find hope in a Messiah who accepted the role of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. For Mark’s beleaguered congregation, in the midst of confusion from within and marginalization from without, a crucified Christ constantly reminded those who were followers of the Way that indeed the Jesus they experienced did know the “trouble they’d seen.”
We expect the same link between situation and Christology when we read Colossians, and we are not disappointed. The theological portrait the author paints of Jesus Christ and his work speaks directly to an actual crisis faced by a group of Gentile Christians, a group that bore the stamp of the pastoral and missionary activity of Paul’s coworker Epaphras (1:7), which he nurtured while Paul himself (as we shall call the author) was imprisoned (1:24; 4:3, 18). We learn in the letter that Paul’s impersonal relationship with the Colossians did not hamper his concern for them (2:1). He returns an enslaved person, Onesimus, to his master, Philemon (4:7–9). He has Tychichus to report to the Colossians and Laodiceans on his condition (2:1; 4:13). Finally, he seals his caring relationship for the church by having the letter delivered to them (4:16).
The Epistolary Structure of Colossians
Greeting: 1:1–2
Thanksgiving: 1:3–8
Body
Theological indicative: 1:9—2:33
Ethical imperative: 3:1—4:6
Final greetings and farewell: 4:7—18
Although the question of the attribution of this letter to Paul has in recent years stirred some controversy, given the letter’s theology and diction, its place among those writings that belong to the “school of Paul” has hardly been challenged in a convincing manner.
As in the case of Mark, the centerpiece of the argument in Colossians is found in its Christology, articulated in this case in the words of a remarkable hymn (1:15–23) that proclaims Jesus Christ as preeminent in all things: the image of the invisible God and the source and destiny of all creation.
Believers are bound to this picture of Christ just as the human body is bound to its head. This cosmic picture of Christ, standing as head over all (1:15–17), presages a church in which nothing stands above its Lord (1:18–20), neither things visible nor things invisible. Whereas in Paul’s early letters, such as 1 Corinthians, the church tends to be more charismatic, more free in its nature, and more dependent on the work of the Spirit, Colossians presents a church with developing ministries, with a sacramental life grounded in baptism, and with an authoritative concept of what Christians believe and teach.
Paul’s presentation of Christ and church in this letter is not without purpose. False teachers appear to have been present in the Colossian church, actively proffering a version of religion characterized as a non-christocentric philosophy (2:8) that would “enhance” the gospel through a blend of asceticism, selective practice of elements of Judaism, and intellectual posturing. Such hyper-spirituality always finds a place in the human desire to “be better” than the average and thus to “disqualify” others with lesser experiences (2:18). Paul, writing as a prisoner, stripped of the trappings of power, leans on the gospel of Christ and points his church toward it as the source of power and the determinant of its common life.
Consequently, Colossians would seem to challenge the hearts of contemporary believers, including those who belong to the Black church. Paul leaves the African American believer with challenges about the nature of church leadership, as well as the meaning of church membership. The personal example of Paul, the former persecutor turned evangelist who is now incarcerated, confuses the normative image of a proper church leader since his social status and background do not conform to society’s image of acceptability. The letter presents Black believers with a challenge to the concept of “the true Black church.” Many of our churches draw their lifeblood from more freely configured Holiness and Pentecostal traditions. Colossians, on the other hand, presents a church on its way to being ordered and structured, one with which Black Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans would resonate more comfortably. The letter thus challenges Black believers to widen their concept of “church” on the basis of a common ethnic experience, thus creating a broader ecclesial canon. Lastly, the letter, in its critique of the asceticism and spiritual athleticism of the opponents, raises serious questions about those situations in which advocates of such puritanical movements in Black churches today seek to disqualify others who do not share their ethic for the sake of bolstering their own superiority and promoting their own acceptability.
The Scandal of the Black Church Divided
“And so this little church—it was called a union church. At a union church, the Methodists would have services one Sunday and the Baptists would have services one Sunday and [both] the Methodists and the Baptists would go every Sunday. Now, why did they have to have a Methodist and Baptist church? Why did they have to say Methodist or Baptist? Why don’t they just say church?”
—Maggie Dulin, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, quoted in William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins, and Robert Korstad, Remembering Jim Crow (New York: New Press, 2001), 93.
Chapter 1
1:1–2, Greeting
The letter begins with a typical Pauline introduction. Paul establishes his role for a congregation he did not found: he is nonetheless for them “the apostle,” a position he holds by virtue of his appointment by Jesus Christ (1:1), despite his well-known former activity as a persecutor of the church and his absence from the community of disciples who were actual followers of the earthly Jesus (1 Cor 15:8–11). A second feature of the greeting is that Timothy accompanies Paul in sending the letter. This confirms a salient feature of his apostolic work: Paul rarely works alone. Throughout his mission he is accompanied and supported by individuals who are his coworkers: individuals who share with him the common heritage of being children of God. As a pastor and a missionary, he thrives with the active support of others.
1:3–8, Thanksgiving
The opening salutation gives way to Paul’s prayer of thanksgiving. Save in the cases in which his writing overflows in an act of blessing God (2 Cor 1:3–7; cf. Eph 1:3–13) or in the odd instance in Galatians 1:6–9, where he vigorously rebukes the Galatians for defecting from the one gospel, Paul presents in summary the major themes of this letter in his thanksgiving prayer. We know from 1 Corinthians 13:13 his familiar triad of “faith, hope, and love” (see also Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4; Phil 1:2; 1 Thess 1:2). We find that triad here, but with an emphasis on hope as the crucial ingredient. For Paul, hope is both anticipated and present. It is “laid up in the heavens” (v. 5), thus speaking a resounding “no” to any intimation that God’s people could not expect vindication at the close of time. At the same time, it is a present reality (v. 5), already inaugurated and announced in the gospel the Colossians had received.
African American believers have preserved in hymns and sermons and in their poetry this same eschatological concern and tension. In hope they anticipate the future when God will be “all in all.” At the same time, they see in the Good News proclaimed and enacted in the present, signs of hope, visible as God’s new arrangement confronts injustice and evil.
Caged Bird
The caged bird sings
With a fearful trill
Of things unknown
But longed for still
And his tune is heard
On the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
—“Caged Bird,” copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou, from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
1:9–14, Intercession
Paul’s attitude of thanksgiving motivates his intercessory prayer for the Colossians. The Colossians, as possessors of a promise, as were the children of Israel who hoped for the land of promise (Exod 6:8), already held an inheritance as a result of their liberation by God (1:12). Their portion was marked by the fact that they had already been transferred from darkness into light (1:13). God had already moved them into the rule of his beloved Son, who like them was designated “the beloved of God” at his baptism (Mark 1:11 and par.). As a token of this, they had already received the gift of liberation. The Colossians, however, had been freed from more than human bondage: they had been purchased back (they had received apolytrosis) and had been emancipated by God’s forgiveness of their sins (1:14).
1:15–20, Seeking the Light: the Hymn of Christ
As with the great Christ hymn in Philippians 2:6–11, numerous attempts have been made to parse this hymn into verses of poetry and to speculate how Paul reworked an already existing hymn in order to emphasize the unambiguous role of Christ in creation (1:16–17), the place of Christ in church (1:18–19), and the essential nature of the cross in God’s plan (1:20–21). These variations tether the hymn so that it does not reinforce what Paul will later indicate to be the false teaching of a gospel of glory found among the false teachers.
