MAKE MY JOY COMPLETE”: THE PRICE OF PARTNERSHIP IN THE LETTER OF PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS Mark A. Jennings, B.A., M.Ed., M.A., M.A. Marquette University, May 2015 My study challenges the consensus that there is no discernable, single purpose that shapes the entire epistle to the Philippians. I argue that Paul writes Philippians with the sole intent of persuading the church to maintain its exclusive partnership with him and his gospel mission. I examine each section of Philippians using standard historicalcritical methods, rhetorical criticism, and social-scientific methods. Special attention is given to those passages where the majority of scholars have argued that Paul has changed subjects. The grammatical imperatives (especially those in 1:27; 2:2, 12, 14, 29; 3:17) factor significantly in this analysis. After surveying the scholarship on Philippians in Chapter One, I argue in Chapter Two that Phil 1:1–11, as the exordium, prefaces what is to follow regarding Paul’s view of the Philippians’ fellowship with him in his mission. In Chapter Three, I propose that Phil 1:12–26 (the narratio) provides the hermeneutical key for understanding the division Paul establishes between himself / his partners and his rivals. Contrary to most interpretations, I contend that Paul is not affirming the theological position of his rivals in 1:18a. In Chapters Four and Five, I consider the propositio (1:27–30) and the heart of the letter, the probatio (2:1–2:18). I maintain that Paul’s attention to unity in 1:27–2:4 does not address potential fractures within the Philippian church, but is directed towards their corporate unity with him. He continues by presenting three pieces of evidence in support of the propositio: the pattern of Christ (2:5–11); the dichotomy between faithful and apostate Israel (2:12–16a); and his own posture of sacrificial giving (2:16b–18). In Chapter Six, I propose that, following Greco-Roman rhetorical convention, Paul introduces Epaphroditus, Timothy, and himself as examples (2:19–4:1). Finally, in Chapter Seven I examine 4:2–20, and argue that Paul delays discussing squarely the Philippians’ gift until he has established the proper background for understanding it. Further, I suggest that Paul considers the Philippians’ support to be a sanctified, righteous fruit that authenticates their faith and demonstrates their faithfulness to him and his gospel mission. In the Conclusions, I briefly summarize the study.

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"Make My Joy Complete": The Price of Partnership in the Letter of Paul to the Philippians

This thesis sets Philo of Alexandria and the apostle Paul in conversation on divine grace. While scholars have occasionally observed that Philo and Paul both speak about God’s generosity, studies and comparisons of their particular theologies of grace have been rare. And such work has often placed Philo and Paul in either strong continuity or stark discontinuity without probing into the theological logic that animates the particularities of their thought. By contrast, this work argues that Philo and Paul both could speak of divine gifts emphatically and in formally similar ways while making materially different theological judgments. That is, their theologies of grace are neither identical nor antithetical.
	Part One sets forth Philo’s view of divine generosity. Chapter One explores Philo’s doctrine of God, considering how the different aspects of his Theology proper relate and contribute to his belief that God is a lover of gifts and giving. Chapter Two focuses on what kind of human is worthy to receive divine gifts and what constitutes a human as worthy. It is argued throughout that Philo’s concept of both God’s generosity and human worth must be situated within the context of God’s creative acts: human worth is constituted by the God who creates all good things, and God’s giving is rational and just, in line with the patterns of the cosmos established by God’s Law and Logos.
	Part Two turns to Paul, placing portions of his letters in dialogue with Philo. Chapter Three traces how Paul’s view of divine grace is concentrated in and explicated by the Christ-event; Chapter Four explores how the gift is given and received, with a focus on the apostle’s role; and Chapter Five examines the relationship between divine and human generosity within community. The main consequence of the comparison in Part Two is the conclusion that Philo’s and Paul’s beliefs about divine grace are both emphatic and different, and the relationship between them is interesting because of that fact. Philo’s theology stresses that in creation God is revealed to be abundantly gracious to humans who should live virtuously through the use of God’s creational gifts. Paul’s theology stresses that the divine act of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the ungodly, which effects new creation, is the supreme manifestation of divine generosity.

The God who gives : Philo and Paul in conversation

Paul's Letter to the Philippians

exchange, but other forces also caused goods to change hands. Such nonmarket transfers ranged from small private gifts to the wholesale confiscation of cities, lands, and their peoples. The papers presented in this volume examine aspects of this extramercantile economy, particularly benefaction and the role of associations, as well as their impact on the market economy. This volume brings together ancient historians, New Testament scholars, and classicists to assess critically the New Institutional Economics framework. Combining theoretical approaches with detailed investigations of particular regions and topics, its chapters examine Greek economic thought, the benefits of membership in private associations, and the economic role of civic euergetism from classical Athens to the municipalities of Roman Spain. The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities will be of use to those interested in the economic context of ancient religions, the role of associations in the economy, theoretical approaches to the study of the ancient economy, labor, and politics in the ancient city, as well as how Greek philosophers, from Xenophon to Philodemus, developed ethical ideas about economic behavior.

The Extramercantile Economies of Greek and Roman Cities : New Perspectives on the Economic History of Classical Antiquity

This study is an investigation of the function of emotion in the social formation of the believers in the Pauline churches. In his letters, Paul speaks often of his own emotions, and also promotes certain emotions while banishing others; all this surely indicates that emotion has an important role to play within the believing community. However, in New Testament studies, the study of emotion is still at an embryonic stage. This thesis, which represents the first thesis-length treatment of emotion in the Pauline letter corpus, attempts to take the discussion forward. It argues that for Paul, emotions are integral to the proper formation and stabilizing of Christian identity and community, because they encode structures of belief and influence patterns of sociality.

Chapter 1 reviews the nascent scholarship on emotion in Paul’s letters and the wider New Testament, and also surveys the state of play of emotions research in the sciences and social sciences. In chapter 2, we examine emotion in Stoicism, the dominant philosophical influence of the day, focusing particularly on joy and grief—the two emotions that we take up and investigate exegetically in chapters 3 and 4, which concern, respectively, joy in Philippians, and grief in 1 Thessalonians. Finally, in chapter 5, we enlist the sociological notion of the “emotional regime” to explore how authorized emotions are constructed and reinforced in the Pauline communities. I conclude by offering an account of emotion in Paul, contrasting it with Stoic thinking.

Taking its cue from current emotions research, which highlights the cognitive and social dimensions of emotion, this thesis proposes that as Paul sees it, right patterns of feeling stem from, and indeed embody, right patterns of belief, and that the social display of sanctioned emotions upbuilds the communal life of the believers. Furthermore, such right emotions, by squaring felt experience with held beliefs, and demarcating social boundaries between Christians and others, have powerful integrating and differentiating functions that profoundly influence identity and belonging. These conclusions have potentially far-reaching implications for our overall understanding of the social formation of the early believers, not least in terms of how a hitherto neglected aspect of that socialization—Paul’s emphasis on the affective dimensions of personal and communal life—is brought into active conversation with the theological realities that were believed to shape all of human existence and the practices that undergirded and sustained these beliefs.

Paul’s Emotional Regime: The Social Function of Emotion in Philippians and 1 Thessalonians

1. Approaches to Paul's Financial Policy 2. Contextualising Paul 3. Paul's Positive Gift-Giving Relationship with the Philippians 4. Paul's Negative Relationship with the Corinthians (1 Cor. 9) 5. Paul's Negative Relationship with the Corinthians (2 Cor. 11-12) 6. Conclusions

Paul's Financial Policy: A Socio-Theological Approach

The brokerage relationship has been applied as a model to various passages in the NT. Surprisingly, only a few have applied it to the Pauline corpus. Among them is Stephan Joubert, who uses the model to reach a very hierarchical conclusion on Paul's apostleship in the Corinthian Correspondence. Against Joubert, this essay will demonstrate that, when the brokerage model is applied to 2 Cor 1.3-11, a characteristic relational pattern in the economy of grace emerges, one which is marked by interpersonal solidarity and a mutual channelling of χάρις. This discovery, however, only emerges once the ‘unfitting’ nature of the model is acknowledged.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S002868851000010X

Mutual Brokers of Grace: A Study in 2 Corinthians 1.3-11

The majority of scholarship on Philippians has subscribed to G.W. Peterman’s theory that 4.10-20 lacks an explicit word of thanks because gratitude was an unnecessary act among intimate friends, as demonstrated by friendship letters in antiquity. In this study, however, I intend to challenge this prevalent view by uncovering a theological rationale behind Paul’s supposed ‘Thankless Thanks’. To do so, I will employ the cultural model of brokerage, a financial relationship involving three participants (i.e., a patron, a broker and a client) in reciprocal exchange. Through this heuristic lens, the three-way, gift-giving relationship between God, Paul and the Philippians will come into sharper focus. Ultimately, it will be argued that Paul’s seemingly ungrateful silence intentionally discloses a theological conviction which envisages God as the supreme giver of all gifts and the Philippians as mediators of divine resources. After this relational pattern has been established, an alternative reason for the ‘Tha...

David E. Briones

Papers

Paul's Financial Policy: A Socio-Theological Approach

Mutual Brokers of Grace: A Study in 2 Corinthians 1.3-11

Paul’s Intentional ‘Thankless Thanks’ in Philippians 4.10-20 *: