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5 Not Eaters of the People
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5 Not Eaters of the People Beware the dogs.1 POLITICS There was something about four of Paul’s co-workers that won his respect and earned his endorsement. “Help them,” Paul writes in Phil 4:2 concerning Euodia and Syntyche. On behalf of Epaphroditus in 2:29 he asks the church to “accept him in the Lord with all joy.” In the same verse, the phrase “hold such ones as these in honor” commends both Epaphroditus and Timothy. Philippians 3:17 looks back to these two men and anticipates Euodia and Syntyche: “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” Evidently, Paul was keenly interested in the community’s selection of leaders. The aim of this chapter is to discover what might have qualified these individuals, whose social status markers were very likely quite low, for ministry in the church. Paul’s own credentials also were questionable: readers encounter him as a metaphorical slave (1:1), a prisoner (1:7, 13-14), and under threat of suffering shame (1:20).2 In this chapter and the next, my thesis is that the apostle’s longing for the community (1:8), which mirrored Christ’s longing for the world (2:6-8), determined the quality he desired the Philippian church to seek in its leaders. In Paul’s politics, it will be suggested, longing for communion legitimated leaders, even in the face of low social status and power. Love and politics mingle in the community’s selection of leaders. Philippians is full of political terms from the history of ancient democracy that interact with the erotic motifs identified in the previous chapters to produce a vision of leadership whose chief characteristic is longing for communion. One term is especially significant in this regard. In Phil 1:27, Paul exhorts his readers to “act politically (πολιτεύεσθε) worthily of the gospel of Christ.”3 105 Unfortunately, translations of πολιτεύεσθε such as “live your life” (NRSV), or “conduct yourselves” (NASB and NIV) do not make available to readers of English texts Paul’s portrayal of the church as a community of political actors.4 The King James Version (following Tyndale’s translation, which was itself working with the Vulgate’s conversamini) is superior: “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.” Πολιτεύεσθαι might therefore be paraphrased “to participate in the formation of the city’s policies and plans through speaking and listening.” The background for this term is the practice of citizen action in the assembly (ἐκκλησία), the deliberative and legislative body of ancient democracies.5 Such political participation was a contested topic in the philosophical schools, and this debate liberates πολιτεύεσθε from modern translations’ narrowed focus on the moral formation of the individual.6 Nevertheless, it only partially explains use of the term in 1:27. So, in 1:27 Paul makes a special point of orienting his audience toward a political self-understanding: what goes on in the church at Philippi is to be imagined in analogy to the highly participatory workings of the popular assemblies of democratic governments. But it is even more noteworthy that Paul’s exhortation has to do with the manner of the community’s political engagement, as the adverbial phrase “worthily of the gospel of Christ” indicates.7 Paul directs his hearers to evaluate their interaction from a particular perspective, that of the “gospel of Jesus Christ.” Presumably, the “gospel of Jesus Christ” in 1:27 refers to Christ’s refusal to abduct humans and his desire for communion with them as narrated in 2:6-11.8 If “the gospel” is shorthand for the story of Christ’s longing, then the Christ Hymn is a political supplement to the erotic interpretation I offered earlier in chapter 4.9 In these verses, the longing Christ is the model of political leadership for the church as he takes on the form of a slave and then empties himself in desire for his beloved. The Christ Hymn’s political relevance is strongly suggested by ἡγέομαι in 2:7, which is usually, and quite correctly, translated “regard.” But it also meant “go before” or “lead the way.” Indeed, the noun form (ὁ ἡγεμών) meant “leader.” The topic of leadership is also suggested in v. 7, where Christ, in his imitation of human appearance and form, looks very much like the figure of the demagogue, or popular leader, whose identification with the masses and whose efforts to broaden enfranchisement earned him the...