Our home group study last night was on Col 3:18-4:1.
In the usual fashion the very implications of study book questions raised my concern on a few points. The prepared study notes our convenor had just made it worse, as you’ll see below.
1. The questions in our study book treated the list of imperatives as a list of commandments about family relationships, including slaves, which were typically part of all but poor households.
I don’t think that this is the whole matter, or indeed captures the thrust of Paul’s intention.
If you read the list in the light of what we know of social arrangements and patterns in the Roman Empire it could be argued, I think that each one overturns the contemporary reaction to circumstances, calling the readers to act not as the world around them acts, but as people who follow Christ, filled with the Spirit of God. Thus they are what they are, but also are exemplars of what we are to seek in all relationships in all circumstances: promoting the benefit of the other, and not selfishly our own.
2. The study notes referred to vs. 21 as reflecting the divine order of family life in fathers not exasperating their children (well, NT Wright actually…and I wonder why we just got slabs of quotes, and no reflection on them in the notes). This is less about the father’s role in any divine ordering of the family, although it is not inconsistent with what the Bible tells us about family relationships, and more about family law in the Roman empire: the father was the supreme, indeed, the only authority in his household, the wife was of no legal moment, and it was the father who was responsible for the children, in every way. So, in line with my comments above, the father, who was in a position to frustrate his children and with the support of the law, is here urged to undo the worldly way, and adopt a godly way.
3. Also in the study notes the word ‘headship’ was used. I was at least pleased that the head as the sacrificial giver was discussed, rather than any trite modernist view of it indicating ‘leader’; but adopting the term ‘headship’ pretends that the relationship of ‘head’ makes an office creates an authority hierarchy which is just not in the Bible. There is no ‘headship’ in the Bible, but the idea of ‘head’ is applied as a description of certain relationships.
The description is to the unity of the ‘head-product’ pair and relates to nothing but the facts: of Christ as the begotten son of God, as represented to us, of Christ as the source and succor of the church, his body (noting that heads and bodies are usually in intimate and supportive connection and unified as to purpose, and not in opposition to each other…check with your neurologist if your head and body are in opposition to each other), and man as head of woman see here and also check Genesis 2:21.
See also my blog here.
And an amusing aspect of the study notes: large slabs of quotation from NT Wright! Presumably his commentary on Colossians. The amusing bit is that Wright is a protagonist of the new perspective on Paul, which is not exactly embraced with great warmth in mainstream conservative churches.
