Acts 4:32–37 says that the early Christian community supported itself by selling property to meet needs. Luke gives an ideal example: Joseph the Levite, also known as Barnabas (4:36) Barnabas is a significant figure in the book of Acts, introduced here as a member of the community at Jerusalem. Barnabas sold some property and turns the proceeds over to the apostles. This stands in contrast to Ananias in the next paragraph, who claims to do the same thing but is not telling the truth. Ananias and Sapphira also participated in communal living, but not fully (5:1-2) Taking the end of chapter four together with the beginning of chapter 5, it looks as though Barnabas and Ananias are intentionally place in contrast with each other.
Since the sale of property is voluntary, there is no reason for Ananias to lie about the price of the property – what is his motivation? Possibly he is simply motivated by greed, he did not want to give as much as the price of the property but when others gave the whole amount, he claimed a larger amount that he actually gave. Since Peter describes him as “filled with Satan” many scholars see him as parallel to Judas, another man who was filled with Satan, whose sin also include money (eventually) used to buy some land.
Ananias “held back” some of the money from the sale. The word Luke uses here (νοσφίζω) refers to financial fraud, such as embezzlement or “a type of skimming operation” (BDAG). The word is used for people who hold back some of their crops which are to be used for the public good (Diodorus Scourus, 5, 34, 3). A more surprising use of this word is in LXX Joshua 7:1, 19-26 to describe the sin of Aachen. In that text, Aachen holds back some property which was supposed to be devoted to the Lord. His theft is therefore described as stealing from the Lord.
Peter confronts Ananias and his judgment is immediate (5:3-6) Peter tells Ananias that Satan has filled his heart. How is this possible, if the Jerusalem community is was filled with the Holy Spirit? Was Ananias possessed, or does this language simply describe temptation? This must be parallel to the experience of Judas, who was the only other person in the gospels described as “filled by Satan.” Peter makes it clear that Ananias’ sin is against the Holy Spirit – his lie is not told to the apostles or the apostolic community, but to the Holy Spirit. His wife Sapphira also lies, and is likewise judged (5:7-11) Luke tells us about three hours have passed since Ananias died before Sapphira came to Peter. We know that Ananias acted with the full support of his wife. Just as the apostolic community is of “one mind and heart,” so too this couple was of one mind in heart.
The community in Jerusalem was like a new Israel. Like the original Israel, there is no room for the double-minded. Ananias is a negative example of someone not fully committed to the new community. Barnabas is fully committed, and will be a significant player in the missionary efforts of the earliest church. For more on this, see my post, Potential Background to Ananias and Sapphira.
The problem is how we “apply” this story to a present day church situation. I doubt very many churches use this text to prod people to “catch up” on their tithe or faith promise, but what reasons do we have for ignoring that aspect of the story? Usually we have to add a great deal to the story in order to make the story more applicable, and many of these application aer valid. But is this application what Luke intended?
Does God “strike people down” who lie/steal from the Church? (At least in my experience this does not happen, some televangelists would be in big trouble!)
Chambers, Andy. Exemplary Life: A Theology of Church Life in Acts. Nashville: B&H, 2012. 292pp. Pb; $29.99. Link to B&H Academic
Andy Chambers is senior vice president for Student Development and professor of Bible at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis. This study of Luke’s summary narratives is clearly evangelical. Chambers approaches Acts from the perspective of Christian faith and offers this study as a way of applying the book of Acts to contemporary church life.
In the opening chapter of this monograph, Chambers describes how we “lost Luke’s theology of the church life” as a result of an over-emphasis on historical critical method. He is concerned here with the view Luke created fictional situations to present his view of how the church developed. The long shadow of F. C. Baur has prevented scholars from seeing Luke’s intention to describe the ideal life of the church in the summary narratives in Acts. Literary criticism and narrative theology has corrected this to a certain extent since these methods are focused on Luke’s rhetorical strategies as an author. Chambers will therefore make qualified use of contemporary narrative criticism, although he thinks Luke had specific intentions as the author of the text.
In his second chapter he describe summarization as a rhetorical feature of Acts. The first four of the features of summary narratives are found in a variety of Greco-Roman literature and Acts tends to include similar information. First, the summary narratives tell about church life as opposed to describing them dramatically. Second, summary narratives are unfocused general statements about church life. Third, narrative time accelerates in the summary narratives. Fourth, summary narratives depict an ongoing way of life in the Jerusalem church. One way that Luke describes this ongoing state is switching from an aorist to an imperfect verb in the summary statements. Chambers argues the change in sound of been inflicted verb would be picked up by an oral culture hearing the text read publicly.
In addition to these for standard features, Chambers notices a number of other items found in the Book of Acts. For example, since these statements are brief transitional summaries, they make only general references to time. Luke’s summaries usually follow chiastic ABA pattern and make frequent use of repetition. In addition, the summary statements tend to be culturally neutral. By this Chambers means they are not tied to Jewish practice.
His final and perhaps more controversial observation is that Luke only emphasizes the positive aspects of the Jerusalem congregation in summary narratives. Chambers does not think Luke downplays controversy or division in the early church in the narrative portions of his book, but he does omit this material in the summary statements. It is hard to imagine why Luke would include negative items in a summary statement intended to be an example to later church readers for how to “do church.”
Having clearly described Luke’s summarization strategy, chapters 3-5 of Exemplary Life carefully study each of the three summary narratives in the book of Acts. These summaries, Chambers argues, are Luke’s description of the “exemplary life” of the early church. A chapter is devoted to each summary narrative (Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35; 5:12-16) in order to develop a long list of commitments made by the earliest believers. For example, it is well-known the believers in Acts 2:42-47 were committed to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread together, and to prayer. But Chambers argues there were other defining features as well, such as fear of the Lord, signs and wonders, sharing in each other’s lives and possessions, daily fellowship (which included the practice of the Lord’s Supper). One important characteristic of the early Jerusalem church was caring for the needs of the community as well as whole city of Jerusalem.
Having created an impressive list of features of the ideal community from the three summary narratives, Chambers then examines four texts in which Luke describes Gentile communities. The goal is to demonstrate these Gentile communities share the same kind of features as the ideal, exemplary community found in the summary narratives. What he is looking for are “enriching echoes” of these summaries in the Samaritan mission (8:1-15 9:31), Antioch (11:19-30, 13:1-3), Ephesus (19-20), and Troas (20:7-12). Presumably these were chosen because the most clearly demonstrate the point Chambers wants to make, the ideal of Jerusalem was replicated in the Gentile churches.
Two minor critiques comes to mind here. First, the Samaritans are not exactly Gentiles, nor are the exactly Jews. A Christian community in Samaria may be implied by 9:31, but I am not sure 8:1-25 can be fairly described as the establishment of Gentile churches in the Pauline sense. Second, Chambers omits Thessalonica and Corinth, even though there are certainly Gentile churches established in both locations. This may simply be a matter of limiting the study to make the material manageable, or perhaps because these two particular Gentile communities would yield negative data not helpful for the ultimate thesis of the book. There is simply not much to work with for Thessalonica, but Luke devotes a nearly as much attention to Corinth as he does Ephesus, and far more than Troas. (To be fair, he frequently cites Acts 18 in his final chapter.)
In chapter 7 Chambers sums up his findings in order to demonstrate Luke offered the Jerusalem Community as an ideal for the later, primarily Gentile church to follow. This is the reason the summary statements are culturally neutral, lacking specific reference to the Jewish boundary markers. The boundary markers were undoubtedly practiced by the Jerusalem community, but since they were no longer relevant to the Gentile churches reading Acts, Luke has omitted them from the summaries.
He begins with a long list of 24 items found in the summary narratives and they uses these to create a biblical theology of “Church Life in Acts.” In the explanation following his list, Chambers shows how these items turn up one or more of the later Gentile churches, indicating Luke’s intention to encourage later readers follow the model of the earliest church. For the most part, this chapter lists non-controversial topics which ought to characterize any healthy church
However, some of the “exemplary features” are not necessarily found in the later texts, even if they are important features of Church Life. Chambers says “an exemplary church deliberately assimilates new believers,” citing the summary narrative in Acts 2:42 (147). But the later texts he cites in Acts do not necessarily support this point. Acts 11:26 only implies ongoing training and discipleship and 13:21 simply notes the proconsul Sergius Paulus believed and was astonished at the teaching of the Lord, but this is far from assimilated into a community committed to the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer and breaking of bread. Of the verses listed, only 20:18-20 (Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders) clearly describes a community like Acts 2:42. Ultimately I think this extremely long list of characteristics of an exemplary church could have been more efficient, combining similar points in order to avoid this kind of problem.
Conclusion. Chambers has done what he set out to achieve. The summary narratives in the early part of Acts do indeed seem to be general enough to provide an example for later churches looking for a model for how to live as Christians. While I am less convinced the later reports in Gentile churches are true echoes of these summaries, in general Chambers makes an excellent argument that Luke’s intention was to provide a model of an ideal church for later generations to emulate. What is more, this point is quite preachable in an evangelical context. It is always difficult to know who to apply the book of Acts, especially the activities of the earliest church. Chambers does not want to apply the specifics, only the general example found in the summary statements. In the end, Chambers would say, this was Luke’s purpose for including such summaries.
NB: B&H did not provide me with this book, but I am sure they would have if I asked for it. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
Walton, Steve, Thomas E. Phillips, Lloyd Keith Pietersen, F. Scott Spencer, eds. Reading Acts Today. FS Loveday C. A. Alexander. LNTS 427; London: T&T Clark, 2011. 232pp. Hb; $130.00; Pb. 39.95 (2013). Link to T&T Clark
Loveday Alexander is Professor Emerita in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield where she has been since 1986. Alexander is well known for her monograph Acts in its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at Acts of the Apostles (LNTS 298; London: T&T Clark, 2005) as well as an important article on Luke’s preface to the book of Acts. She is honored by a former student Lloyd K. Pietersen in a preface to this festschrift.
The first set of essays are grouped under the heading “Reading Acts in its Ancient Contexts,” beginning with Richard A. Burridge, “The Genre of Acts-Revisited.” Burridge is well-known for his work on the genre of the Gospels and in this important essay he applies the same methodology to the genre of Acts. He begins by surveying several options for their genre of the Gospel and Acts, including ancient history (Hengel and Dibelius), novel and epic (Pervo), and ancient biography with affinities to a historical monograph (Talbert). It is no surprise that he settles on the genre of bios for Acts, as he did in his What are the Gospels? (Eerdmans, 2004). To demonstrate this conclusion he examines the generic features of the book of Acts and uses a computer analysis of the verbs in the book to show that Paul is the subject of almost a quarter of the total, disciples another nearly 20%. From this analysis he concludes that Luke “he picks his key actors, namely Peter, Stephen, Paul and the other disciples, interpreting what is happening as the activity of God” (15). It appears the book of acts is “closely linked to both ancient biographies and the Gospels and its motive representation, size, structure, and use of literary sources” (23).
In the second essay in the section, Thomas E. Phillips asks, “Why Did Mary Wrap the Newborn Jesus in ‘Swaddling Clothes’? Luke 2.7 and 2.12 in the Context of Luke-Acts and First-Century Literature.” He begins by surveying symbolic “swaddling” in Greek literature beginning as early as the Homeric hymns. There is in fact a remarkably large number of examples of symbolic use of swaddling clothes in Greek myth him drama and poetry before the first century. For Phillips, the swaddling of Jesus is a “culturally appropriate Lucan sign indicating the birth of the divine son” (38). While it is possible this swaddling symbolism could be read as an anti-imperial rhetoric, Phillips grounds the use of the image in Luke’s specifically Christian theological agenda: “Luke was probably cloaking his Christian theology in the generic cultural garb of the first century and not countering any specific ancient text or tradition” (42).
In “Luke’s Use of Papias for Narrating the Death of Judas,” Dennis R. MacDonald develops something of a surprising argument for the origin of Luke’s Gospel. First, he assumes a date of 60-65 for the sayings of Jesus (which he calls Q+). Second, he thinks Mark knew Q and Matthew used both Q+ and Mark. Third, he dates Papias to about 110 and argues Luke used all four of these documents in 115-120. This Q+/Papias Hypothesis could be used to determine the contents of Q: “simply by comparing Matthew and Luke and expunging Markan contamination” (44). In order to test this hypothesis MacDonald studies the death of Judas in Matthews gospel, fragments of Papias found in Eusebius, and finally Acts 1:16-26. From this analysis, he claims “Luke not only knew Papias’ version of Judas’ death, he apparently knew Mathew’s as well!” (55). This intriguing hypothesis rests on a number of assumptions, not the least of which is a complicated Q theory. The source document known as Q has come under fire in recent years, perhaps limiting the usefulness for this proposal. I find it interesting that Mac Donald argues for a very late date of Luke yet accepts the traditional date for Papias. It seems the evidence for the date of Papias is taken at face value while external evidence for the date of Luke is not. If Luke is written in the 80s, a much more common view, then this hypothesis falls apart.
Scott Spencer’s contribution to the volume (“Scared to Death: The Rhetoric of Fear in the ‘Tragedy’ of Ananias and Sapphira”) pays close attention to the emotional impact of the strange death recorded in Acts chapter 5. After a few comments on Aristotle’s view of fear, Spencer suggest several objects of the sphere including God or the Holy Spirit, God’s apostle Peter, God’s adversary Satan, humanity’s ultimate foe Death, or loss of honor (shame or disgrace). As Spencer observes fewer does not concern the now dead couple but “the great fear gripping the whole church.” Ananias and Sapphira were the first to die in the Christian community but they were also the first to lie. He suggests perhaps Adam and Eve are the model for the story. Ultimately, the church “lives in the fear of the Lord” but also in the “comfort of the Holy Spirit” and it continues to grow in numbers.
Barry Matlock asks “Does the Road to Damascus Run through the Letters of Paul?” Matlock confesses he is a Pauline scholar attempting to study the biographical details of Paul’s life in the book of Acts. He recognizes some of the historical problems one encounters comparing calls version of his conversion with the book of acts. In addition he briefly wonders about whether to call Paul’s experience a conversion, a call, or even a transformation. He concludes all these terms are useful and he will use both conversion and call to “indicate Paul’s dramatic reversal and his sense of being appointed to a special task” (85). After surveying and analyzing Paul’s own reports of his conversion in the epistles, Matlock considers the New Perspective on Paul’s conversion. His main dialogue partner here is James Dunn, although he leans towards Francis Watson’s recent proposal that Paul’s mission to the Gentiles develop out of a failed mission to Israel. Matt luck in finding several points of comparison between Luke’s version of his conversion and Paul’s story from his epistles. Both have a sense of dramatic reversal after a time of deadly violence. Paul’s assertion of independence in Galatians is a point of contention. In Galatians Paul clearly claims to be independent of Jerusalem yet there is more cooperation in Acts.
The second section of the book, “Reading Themes in Acts,” begins with Joel B. Green’s essay, “Luke-Acts, or Luke and Acts? A Reaffirmation of Narrative Unity.” Since the publication of Parsons and Pervo’s Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts in 1993 there has been a great deal of discussion over the designation Luke/Acts as a literary unit. For most of the twentieth century the scholarly consensus has been the two books were intended to be read together as a unit and there are theological themes running through both books. Green summarizes the canonical approach suggested by Robert Wall. Second, Green offers a summary of Kavin Rowe’s use of reception history. Third he examines Patricia Walters’ recent monograph The Assumed Authorial Unity of Luke and Acts (2009). Walters argues that the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were written by two different people. To support this she examines the seams and summaries in both Luke and Acts, concluding there is enough stylistic difference in these seams and summaries to suggest “with a high degree of probability” the books come from two different authors (109). Green critiques this suggestion on a number of levels, the most important is the small sample size Walters used for her comparison. Since only 31 verses (and four partial verses) were used for her stylistic analysis, the conclusion must remain tentative at best (111). On the other hand, Green argues the author of Acts was consciously finishing the story begin in Luke. To support this, he compares Luke 24 and Acts 1:1-14. For Luke, Green states, there is only one story to tell: “God’s gracious activity on behalf of Israel” (117). Acts 1:1-14 is transitional, alluding to Luke 24 as well as Luke 1-2. The book of Acts is therefore a continuation of Jesus’ life and ministry in the Church.
In “Luke’s Jerusalem Perspective,” James Dunn argues Luke based his presentation of Paul’s life from the version of the relationship of Paul and Jerusalem which he heard from Jerusalem itself. It is a well-known problem that the details of Paul’s life differ slightly in Acts when compared to Paul’s letters. Dunn agrees that Paul is the great hero of the second half of the book and the book may very well be Luke’s apologia for Paul, but Luke sought seems to have wanted to “rub off the jagged edges of Paul’s relationship with Jerusalem” in order to present the church has more unified and perhaps actually was (120-1). Order to make his case, Dunn first examines the resurrection appearances of Christ. These appearances are limited to the 40 days after the resurrection, meaning Paul himself would not meet the qualifications to be an apostle from Acts 1. With only one exception, Luke does not use the title apostle for Paul, despite Paul’s insistence he was appointed an apostle by the resurrected Jesus. From Jerusalem’s perspective, Paul would not be “one of the twelve.” The second piece of evidence is Luke’s presentation of two journeys to Jerusalem after Saul’s conversion. Dunn calls this “the most out rages disagreement between Paul and Luke” and he suggests the famine visit was undertaken by Barnabas alone (127). The third thread Dunn picks up is the relationship of the Jerusalem meeting and the apostolic decree (Acts 15) to the book of Galatians 2. He argues (as he has elsewhere) Galatians 2 and Acts 15 referred to the same meeting. Here Dunn suggests Luke tells the story from the perspective of the Jerusalem leadership (129). In Galatians to Paul’s reporting the meeting from his own perspective. Another well-known problem is Luke’s almost complete omission of Paul’s collection. Considering how important the collection is in Paul’s letters it is strange to find it completely omitted from the book of Acts. Dunn concludes Luke’s purpose is to present the beginnings of Christianity as he “essentially harmonious” (130).
In “Philological and Performative Perspectives on Pentecost,” Heidi J. Hornik & Mikeal C. Parsons examine Acts the perspective of performance rather than philology (meaning of words, syntax, etc.). While philology focuses in solely on the text, a performance study focuses on “the aftereffects of the text on a variety of readers” (138). In order to do this, the authors survey several pieces of art showing the descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 in order to demonstrate how later readers enacted the text for themselves.
I. Howard Marshall argues Acts 20:28 is Luke’s equivalent to Mark 10:45 in his “The Place of Acts 20.28 in Luke’s Theology of the Cross.” Marshall argues Mark 10:45 was the “victim of Luke’s decision to drop the whole of Mark 10:35-45” (170). Marshall is reacting to Bart Erhman’s Orthodox Corruption, a recent popular work that Luke consciously eliminated Atonement Theology when Luke edited Mark’s gospel. Marshal finds this an unconvincing reinterpretation of the text (156) and he attempts to show Acts 20:28 serves as a kind of equivalent to the Atonement Theology found in Mark 10:45. Since Luke omitted the discussion of purity and the healing of the Gentile from Mark, the saying in Mark 10:45 had no context (159). Marshall shows that the phrase “through his own blood” in Acts 20:28 should be understood as representing an Atonement theology analogous to Mark 10:45.
In his “The Resurrection and its Witnesses in the Book of Acts,” Daniel Marguerat argues “witnessing to the resurrection” in Acts is not simply a repetition of the events following Jesus’ death. Witnessing to the resurrection is to read “history theologically,” or more precisely, Christologically (175). Witness is also “an announcement of the restoration of human beings” as well as a guarantee of the universality of salvation. Finally, “witnessing” must involve telling the story of one’s own life (183).
The final essay in the collection is by one of the volume’s editors, Steve Walton. He is concerned with an often overlooked theme in the book of Acts: “A Spirituality of Acts?” People engage with God in the book of Acts primarily through divine initiative. God reveals himself to humans through angelic beings, the Holy Spirit, and dreams and visions. Another avenue of this divine initiation of spirituality the interpretation of Scripture and the light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit (193). Even the name of Jesus functions as a divine agent in healings signs and wonders, forgiveness of sin, even deliverance for demonic powers. While there is a human response to this divine initiative, Walton points out it is usually a slow, partial response to God (194). People do not often know what is going on when God clearly reveals himself. For example, in chapter 8 the Samaritans fail to fully understand Philip and in Acts 11 the community fails to understand fully the significance of Peter’s Gentile mission. This is a realistic portrayal of “the slowness of religious people to change” (194). Other responses to God include attention to the teaching of the apostles, fellowship around the breaking of bread and prayer.
Conclusion. This collection of essays would be considered valuable simply because it includes important articles by Burridge, Dunn, Marshall and Green. Yet virtually every chapter is a valuable contribution to the study of the book of Acts and a fitting tribute to the dedicatee, Loveday Alexander.
NB: Thanks to Bloomsbury for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
Kimble, Jeremy M. 40 Questions about Church Membership and Discipline. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 2017. Pb. 272 pp. $23.99. Link to Kregel
If recent studies are accurate, church attendance and membership in America are declining. This is true for mainline denominations as well as evangelical churches. While there are many reasons for this decline, an often unaddressed factor is simply that people no longer see church membership as important, and many find any talk of church discipline distasteful. American Christians are especially independent and see any intrusion on their private life as a violation, even if this comes from their voluntary association with a local church.my Kimble’s contribution to the growing 40 Questions series from Kregel Academic covers the two related topics of church membership and discipline, both as an academic issue and a pastoral problem. Each is examined through the lens of biblical theology, but Kimble devotes large sections of the book to how membership and discipline ought to operate in the local church.
The first four chapters form an introduction defining church, church membership, and church discipline. Kimble defines the “universal church” as “the people of God who have been saved through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, and have been incorporated into his body through baptism with the Holy Spirit” (21) who then gather locally to “worship, hear the Word of God preached, observe the ordinances, affirm and oversee one another person’s membership, exercise discipline when needed, and encourage one another to live faithfully Church Membership as a Christian” (22). This book is more interested in the local church, so he quickly moves to what membership in a local might look like.
Beginning with Jonathan Leeman’s definition of church membership, Kimble argues membership is a voluntary relationship in which an individual submit themselves to the authority of a local church in order to live out their Christian life. This relationship includes submission to church discipline to correct persistent sin. Discipline can be both formative (part of the discipleship process) and corrective of a particular sin. Corrective discipline may include removal from membership and excommunication (36).
The second section of the book covers sixteen questions on church membership divided into three sub-categories (theological, ministry, and practical questions). Kimble must address the theological problem of grounding modern church membership to biblical data. To do this, he outlines a pattern from the covenant relationship of the Old Testament people of God. To be a member of the Covenant, people carried rights and responsibilities, which established a pattern found in the New Testament. Kimble says New Testament church membership is a “formal commitment or covenant between an individual and a local church” (47), citing several passages describing our responsibility toward one another in the church. A potential problem for Kimble is many of these texts are universal (love one another in John 13:34-35).
The book’s third section covers another eighteen questions on church discipline divided into the same three categories. After a chapter on Old Testament patterns of disciple, Kimble discusses the two most significant texts for church discipline in the New Testament, Matthew 18:15-18 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-5. Several chapters in this book, most of this material is taken from Kimble’s monograph That His Spirit May Be Saved: Church Discipline as a Means to Repentance and Perseverance (Wipf & Stock, 2013). Kimble argues Paul’s command to discipline the young man in 1 Corinthians 5 corporately is based on the Old Testament pattern (citing Lev 24:14, Num 15:35, and Deut 19-10). Because of the style of the Forty Questions series, these chapters are frustratingly brief. However, Kimble provides excellent references to other literature in the footnotes for those wishing to pursue the exegesis of these two important texts.
Since Paul quoted the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 5:13 to deal with heinous sin in the Christian community, Kimble sees the Old Testament pattern of expelling an unrepentant sinner from the community of Israel as a pattern for church discipline. His motivation is his insistence on one “people of God” in both the Old and New Testament. But there are some potential problems with this use of the Law as a pattern or trajectory for church matters. In Deuteronomy 13:5 or 17:7, the verses Paul alludes to in 1 Corinthians 5:13, the unrepentant sinner was not simply excluded from the camp. He was to be executed! Although he fails to mention it in his brief chapter on disciples in Church history, Calvin had the heretic Servetus executed.
Kimble obviously does not think church discipline ought to culminate in execution. Still, he needs to explain more completely how this method for applying the Jewish Law to Church practice works on an exegetical level. Kimble would not (I assume) use the ritual for determining the guilt of a woman accused of adultery in Numbers 5:11-31 as a “pattern” for dealing with adultery in the church today. He mentions several views on the continuity between the Testaments in his introductory chapters, but this is not a detailed discussion of how the Law ought to function (or not) in the church. Since the book is designed only briefly to answer particular questions, there is little room for a fully nuanced discussion of how to apply the Law in the contemporary church, so Kimble cannot be faulted for this lack of clarity.
The final two chapters treat the significance of church membership and discipline for both theology and the Christian life. Here, Kimble argues that church membership and discipline are necessary for a more pure church, a spotless bride prepared and presented to Christ (262). By voluntarily submitting to the authority of a church body, the believer in Christ is recognizing that their life (both doctrine and behavior) has eternal significance.
A potential problem for any book on these issues is reading the New Testament anachronistically. Church membership, as described by Kimble, is rather modern and perhaps could be described as American Evangelical church membership and discipline. I happen to think he gets most of the details right, but can these details be established from the text of the New Testament? The book of Acts describes the first thirty years of the church, and even when supplemented by the Pauline letters, it is hard to develop a clear biblical theology of church membership as it appears in contemporary culture. Nevertheless, Kimble avoids pushing too many modern church practices into the world of the New Testament.
Burge, Gary M. A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2015. 189 pp. Pb; $16. Link to IVP, includes a short book trailer featuring Burge.
Burge says the modern reader is like “a foreigner in their world and culture,” this book attempts to immerse us in the world of the first century. In the same vein as Ben Witherington’s A Day in the Life of Corinth or Bruce Longenecker’s The Lost Letters of Pergamum, Burge has created a short story about a centurion named Appius and his scribe and slave Tullus. While stationed in Dura-Europos, Appius is injured in a battle with the Parthians and eventually is in a gladiator arena at Caesarea Maritima. Eventually Appius and Tertullus end up in the small village of Capernaum on the shores of Galilee where the meet Jesus of Nazareth.
I will not spoil the novel with any more plot summary. The value of this book for Bible students is found in the numerous side-bars with detailed cultural information on such diverse cultural issues such as honor and shame, familia, or cosmetics. Burge describes the various locations mentioned in the book in the sidebars as well. There are small black and white illustrations scattered through the book. These are all informative, but could have been enhanced by added a “for further study” to each topic with reference to a more detailed source. Assuming use in a classroom, students could be encouraged to pick a topic and research it in more detail.
A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion is a great way to get into the world of the New Testament and would be used in a New Testament introduction or a Gospels class, in the same way A Day in the Life of Corinth is appropriate for a book on the Pauline letters. I am occasionally asked for resources on the “background” of the New Testament, this short novel will serve the average Bible reader well by illustrating the Roman world and enriching one’s reading of the Gospels.
NB: Thanks to Intervarsity Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
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