Banks critique 1

INTRODUCTION AND THEME

In Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting,

Robert Banks offers a serious interaction with the Pauline material on first century Christian

community. The book provides a theological rationale for the “creation of alternatives to

ecclesiastical structures and counterculture groups, e.g. house churches and basic Christian

communities.”1

The contents of the book proceed along three concentric points of interest: the

foundations, purposes, and the means of Christian community. First, Banks asserts that Pauline

congregations were rooted in the voluntary associations of the ancient world, established in the

theology of freedom in Christ, communicated through the metaphors of family, body, and

buildings, and are physically located in the homes of its members.

Secondly, Banks examines the purpose of these Pauline communities. He insists that the

purpose of the ekklesia (gathered assembly) is the growth and maturity of its members. The task

of world evangelization is the purview of those who posses a specialized skill set for mission (i.e.

an Apostle and his fellow laborers), and this is not the primary role of the gathered assembly.

Thirdly, he asserts that the means of accomplishing maturity in Christ’s body is an

egalitarian practice of ministry. The Pauline communities have no cultic priests, no ordained

ministers or church officers, and women are not assigned a subservient role in the cult. The

“family” operates best when all of its members exercise their spiritual gifts for the collective

good. The unifying practices of this new community are one baptism, one common meal, and

common possessions. The diverse nature of charismatic gifting is tethered to these communal

realities.

CONTENTS: THE MAIN IDEAS, ARGUMENTS, AND METHODOLOGIES

Voluntary Associations

As noted above, Banks asserts that Pauline communities were grounded in the

spontaneous and voluntary associations of the ancient world and their parallel religious

fellowships.2 This hermeneutical commitment leads inexorably to an examination of the Jewish

1 Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson rev. 1994), 192. 2 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 14.

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synagogue, Greco-Roman mystery cults, and the Essenes.3 When comparing Paul’s usage of

terminology to these groups, the exegete is left with one of three possibilities.4 First, Paul may

raid the vocabulary of his rival communities while pouring new meaning into the words. An

example of this would be the term ekklesia. Secondly, Paul avoids certain words that carry too

much conceptual freight and may lead his churches in the wrong direction. This is why Greek

words such as synagoge, and the cultic terms sunados, thiasos, and koinon are absent from his

writings altogether.5 Thirdly, Paul uses some terms that he leaves fundamentally intact. An

example of this would be koinonia.6 To Banks, Paul’s semantic choices reveal a prescription for

New Testament community.7

Rooted in the Theology of Freedom in Christ

Building upon this apparent socio-rhetorical hermeneutic, Banks then addresses the

theological foundation of this distinctive new community. It is built on the bedrock of freedom

in Jesus. Banks makes a persuasive Biblical case that the basis of Paul’s Gospel theology is that

every person is essentially enslaved. The Jew is enslaved to his confidence in his religious

pedigree, while the Greek is in bondage to sinful compulsions and to Satan.8 Only in Christ and

by participation in the community of Jesus is one “free to properly know and pursue their real

potential and destiny.”9

Carried Out in Small to Medium-Sized House Churches

3 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 14. 4 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 28. Paul may either “follow, develop, or alter” cultural semantics. 5 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 29. The terms thiasos and sunados are too cultic for Paul to use. This may likely be due to the often sensuous, drunken revelry that existed in idol worship. 6 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 8. 7 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 15. The Socio-rhetorical Hermeneutic is fluid and dynamic, taking into account the ethnographic, socio-linguistic, and rhetorical behavior of a given culture. The goal is to understand a particular text by using an adaptable analytic from within the historical-theological analysis. Witherington does this in excellent fashion and has much to say regarding the leaderless and likely unstructured house churches of Rome (Rom 16:13-19). See Ben Witherington, Paul’s Letters to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 8-10. 8 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 16. 9 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 16.

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Banks begins by noting that the term ekklesia cannot be divorced from its cultural

meaning. The church is the local, gathered assembly. Though in Paul’s thought, this gathered

assembly is a tangible expression of the heavenly assembly that is forever in session.10 He

asserts that the gathered assembly of Jesus likely met in homes, apartments, and probably no

more than 30 in any given place.

Communicated in the Metaphors of a Family, a Body, and a Building

Banks recognizes that family terminology is so pervasive in Paul’s writings that it must

be the controlling metaphor of the new community.11 The family is a collective of brothers and

sisters joined together in the Father’s household.

A second recurring metaphor is that of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12). This body grows

as each member becomes concerned for the welfare and productivity of all of its members. The

“body” is a more universal metaphor, whereas the ekklesia always refers to local gathered

assemblies.

A third metaphor is that of a building (1 Cor. 3:10ff.; 1 Cor. 6). Paul teaches that we are

the temple of God with the Holy Spirit residing in us both personally and collectively.

All of these metaphors communicate a similar idea: the people of God are supposed to

grow (Eph. 4). As a family, we relate to the Father as mature adult children.12 Likewise, bodies

work together and buildings are built up. Banks asserts that the primary purpose for the

existence of the community of faith is mutual edification, growth, and family ministry.13

Maturing Intellectually, Resulting in Increasing Faith, Hope, and Love

If the purpose of the gathered assembly is to grow through mutual service, then the means

for this growth is increasing ones faith through greater knowledge (Phil. 1:9). The believer

grows as he is “increased with,” “renewed by,” “enriched through,” and “filled with” the

knowledge of God.14 Banks points out that the Gospel was a competing truth claim in the

10 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 33-37. 11 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 49. 12 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 50. 13 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 150-169. Banks draws attention to the lack of outreach terminology. 14 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 69.

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ancient world. Thus, the mode of knowledge Paul advocated was countercultural, not cultic or

esoteric.15

Charismatically Gifted, Egalitarian, and Free of Traditional Distinctions

Yet, the church isn’t just a place to grow in knowledge and character. The church must

also be physically expressed in the common meal, a common baptism, and common possessions.

Unlike the surrounding culture, the churches were free from cultic priests, ordained clergy, and a

caste system of holiness. They emphasized the collective responsibility and gifting of all.16

PART THREE: CONVINCED OR UNCONVINCED?

In spite of the many rich insights that Paul’s Idea of Community supplies, there are

several troubling aspects to Banks’ approach.

First, Banks tends to downplay the role of leadership in his examination of early church

life. The opening paragraphs of the book reveal his bias for the “undisputed” works of Paul. His

approach largely ignores the ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Timothy and Titus).

Though he falls just short of labeling the Pastorals “pseudo-Pauline,” he nevertheless treats them

as if they are “quasi-Pauline.” He simply ignores their content altogether until the appendix. 17

But should we relegate the Pastoral letters to such a low rent status among Paul’s

epistles? Space does not permit a detailed response to this, but many scholars have noted that the

objections to Pauline authorship are answerable.18 If the Pastoral letters were allowed into the

15 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 76. 16 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 77-87. 88-108. 135-138. 17 His exposition of the Pastorals is buried in an appendix beginning on page 193. Though he does offer a soft appraisal of the Pastorals as “genuinely Pauline” (in some sense), his failure to incorporate them in the Pauline synthesis is telling. Scripture references in the index show that he does not cite these passages until p. 195. 18 The semantic and stylistic arguments (among others) can be readily addressed by several factors: 1. Nearly all Pauline Epistles contain hapax legomena, and we see an increasing pattern of “new words” with each Pauline letter. 2. To reduce Paul to his semantic range would be to ignore the relevant dimensions of changing circumstances, personal change in the Apostle, and the nature of progressive revelation. 3. As the latest book in the Pauline corpus, it is understandable that he would put an emphasis on a new generation of leaders. Paul likely came to believe that he would not see Jesus return in his lifetime, and thus shifted his rhetoric to meet the needs of a Post-Pauline and Post-Apostolic church. 4. The “leadership” language of the Pastorals interchanges “elders” and “overseers,” yet, Ignatius speaks of these as far more distinct roles shortly after the close of the 1st century. 5. Given the strong “Lukan language” in the Pastorals, it is likely that Paul used a customary amanuensis for all three (especially given that he states that Luke is with him 2 Tim 4:11). 6. Paul speaks of his “trial” in the past tense, and likely did make it to Spain – giving him time to pen or dictate the letters (2 Tim 4:16). Both Clement (95 A.D.) and the Muratorian collection confirm this. See Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove:

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discussion, then this would change the complexion of Banks’ argument somewhat. But, what is

truly lost by ignoring the argument of the Pastoral letters?

First, we lose a strong emphasis on leadership in the church. It is clear that the letters to

Timothy and Titus reflect Paul’s desire for the next generation of Christians in Ephesus and

Crete to be lead well. Though it is true that we should be concerned about the modern

“leadership mania” that prevails in the church today, it is also true that the church cannot

function without strong, principled leaders who equip the saints for ministry and service (Eph

4:11-12). Bank’s simply minimizes the role of strong pastoral leadership in the church.

Secondly, we lose an emphasis on the teaching of God’s Word by those who are “trained

and thoroughly equipped” by Scripture (2 Tim 3:14-16). Though Banks’ point is well taken that

Paul expected all believers to be able to teach and instruct each other (Rom 2:21; 15:14), it is

also true that Paul had to charge Timothy to “instruct” certain individuals not to spread false

doctrine among the churches (1 Tim 1:3). This shows that it takes trained and seasoned

leadership to keep the church on a doctrinally pure path. This is precisely what Timothy was to

“entrust” to other reliable men.

Thirdly, if the Pastorals are ruled inadmissible, then we lose the only passage that

unambiguously expresses the inspiration of Scripture (Gk. theopneustos, 2 Tim 3:16). It is true

that without the Pastorals, one could still make a case for the general reliability and centrality of

the Sacred Text in the life of the church. Yet, no other passage so clearly articulates Paul’s

understanding of the Scriptures as the product of God on the minds of men. So if the force of

this passage is diminished, then one wonders why Banks would bother to argue from the

“undisputed works of Paul” at all, since they may or may not be particularly inspired.19

Beyond his treatment of the Pastorals, my second point of contention with the material is

Banks’ interpretation of the “eldership” passages of Acts 14:23 and 20:17-28.20 He appears to

relax his own socio-rhetorical method of interpretation when examining these critical texts. He

InterVarsity Press, 1979), 584-589; Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 605. 19 Again, it should be noted that Banks does accept them as in some sense “Pauline” but then does little to incorporate them into his theory of early church community. This amounts to little more than a concession for his evangelical and theologically conservative readers. Banks only examines them for how they might overlap with a case he’s already built without them. 20 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 146, 147.

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states that extra-biblical Greek papyri show that the term “elder” was used of office holders

among Greco-Roman associations. Curiously, he then concludes that this of course is not how

Paul used the term.21 He states that Paul simply found those who were already city elders and

appointed them to leadership in the churches.22 But this interpretation seems unnatural

especially given Pauline teaching about the choice of elders/overseers in the Pastoral letters.

Though we may agree that New Testament leadership was servant oriented, plural,

bottom up, and relationally ordained – it was leadership nonetheless. The standard conservative

explanation of Paul appointing men from within the church’s ranks concords well with the

Pastoral letters.

Next, Banks maintains that Paul’s refusal to use certain terms constitutes Paul advocating

for a particular kind of community experience (viz. the house church model). But, does Paul’s

refusal to use certain terms demand that we see all of his descriptions as prescriptions? This

hermeneutical approach is too blunt of an instrument when applied to Pauline texts. It may well

be that God would tolerate a variety of “structures” that are not expressly revealed in Scripture,

so long as those structures do not explicitly controvert the principles of community and

leadership revealed in Scripture. We must pay attention to the motif of variety and the general

pattern of cultural relevance.23 Moreover, as James Jeffers has noted, the house associations of

the Greco-Roman world likely gave the early church a degree of legitimacy in a culture that

tolerated voluntary associations (e.g. house, market, and burial associations) yet discouraged

unauthorized religions. Thus, one of the reasons the church met in homes may have been out of

the practical necessity to give them some cover of legitimacy, though they (like the Dionysus and

Mithra cults) were still considered a religio illicita.24

21 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 147. 22 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 147. 23 That being said, though it is true that God has reached out to people in culturally relevant ways in Scripture, we must be careful not to confuse divine condescension with divine consent of our cultural norms. However, as Gordon Fee has often pointed out, Paul had a penchant for using ad-hoc language depending on the situation he found himself facing. 24 James Jeffers, The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1999), 87. Experience shows that it is certainly possible to commend a certain approach without necessarily commanding it by the selection of certain semantics over others. We cannot limit normative ecclesiology to Paul’s semantic choices in early letters. Nor can we limit a legitimate expression of Christianity to the inherent sociology of 1st century culture. This is not to say that there isn’t much to commend the sociological approach of the 1st century world, however, this is manifestly not the culture in which we find ourselves ministering.

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Next, I must take issue with Banks’ idea that there is no sense in which Paul speaks of a

“universal” church; that is to say that Paul does not use the term ekklesia as an ontological

designation for believers rather than a description of their gathering. Yet, there are passages that

simply cannot mean “local, gathered assembly” e.g. Ephesians 5:25-27. His disclaimer is that as

Paul’s ecclesiology developed, he also added the concept of the “heavenly assembly” of which

the local church is a visible, tangible manifestation.25 However, this qualification reduces his

argument to a mere tautology, or perhaps an equivocation. It leaves one wondering what the

difference is between a universal, “invisible” church and a heavenly, “invisible” church.

Lastly, on a more practical note, it seems that the “house church” phenomenon has not

caught on in our day. In a recent survey of Americans who claim a Christian faith commitment,

only 3% stated that they attended a “house church.”26 The implication of this is that the

movement has made a statistically negligible impact on our isolated, corporate, free-market

culture. Surely if Paul were planting churches in America, he would be forced to adopt a more

effective strategy to move people from isolation to de-isolation. Perhaps he would translate the

family values and principles of the ancient world to modern structures instead of expecting those

modern structures to conform to a culture so foreign to our isolated, techno-centric existence. In

any case, the uphill battle for Paul in our twenty-first century world would not be primarily

ideological, but sociological. He would find that American’s are overwhelmingly

“christianized” in their profession, ethics, and civil theory – yet we are sociological apostates.

The heresy of American society is radical and unbridled isolationism.

So the modern church leader has a choice. He/she can choose to reject this culture of

selfish isolationism and create “alternative” fraternities that replicate a first century structure of

community. Or, the modern leader can penetrate and engage this culture, establishing Kingdom

outposts in enemy territory and bring Christian “community” to the withdrawn and isolated of

25 Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 39. It is interesting that Banks allows for Paul to “develop” his ecclesiology over time (from a local/gathered assembly to a heavenly gathered assembly) – so long as it doesn’t include anything so drastic and radical as the Pastoral letters. 26 New Statistics on Church Attendance and Avoidance, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/18-congregations/45-new-statistics-on-church-attendance-and-avoidance (Accessed Feb. 9th, 2011). Barna qualifies that if the parameters of the question are pushed out so that the question is not so specific (those who exclusively attend house churches), then this statistic changes in favor of the house church movement. However, the question has to be so broadly qualified that “house church” is nearly defined into oblivion, making the research question statistically weak by any measure. Banks does not share Barna’s definition of “house church” for he defines it in far narrower terms than Barna.

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our society. I have a suspicion that Jesus would choose the latter option. Oddly enough, the

choice to retreat into “house church” structures, away from public worship space, is itself an

exercise in isolationism.

There is much to commend in Paul’s Idea of Community. It is true that the church is

supposed to be an alternative community, living out counter-cultural values in support of one

another through Spirit inspired activity and gifts. It is true that Christian growth is often

accelerated in smaller, more intimate settings where the participants share the Gospel and their

lives together. But there is also a danger in putting too much stock in the actual social structure

of the first century house church phenomenon – especially in our culture. Oddly enough, by

trying to press this foreign template of the ancient world onto American Christianity, we run the

risk of creating modern Essenes who live out their lives in protest of the apostate world around

them. This of course is not what Jesus had in mind when he charged the first church to colonize

the Greco-Roman world with these new Gospel communities.