Holiness and Mission. Morna D. Hooker
Acts 17.1–9.
22. 1 Thessalonians 3.1–13.
23. See Romans 6.
24. 2 Corinthians 5.17.
25. 2 Corinthians 3.18.
26. 2 Corinthians 4.4.
27. Paul uses Greek words meaning ‘conformed’ in relation to the goal of Christian life in Romans 8.29; Philippians 3.10, 21.
28. This is the way in which the Authorized Version understood it: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’
29. I have discussed this issue in ‘Philippians 2.6–11’ in E. Earle Ellis and Erich Grässer (eds), Jesus und Paulus, Festschrift für Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978, pp. 151–64; reprinted in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 88–100.
30. Some commentators believe that Paul is here simply contrasting light with darkness. But echoes of Daniel 12.3, Isaiah 42.6 and 49.6 suggest that he thinks of the Philippians as a source of illumination to others.
31. Philippians 1.5.
32. Philippians 4.15–18.
33. Philippians 3.4–11.
34. Philippians 3.17.
35. I have discussed Paul’s purpose in writing the letter in Philippians: ‘Phantom Opponents and the Real Source of Conflict’ in Ismo Dunderberg, Christopher Tuckett and Kari Syreeni (eds), Fair Play: Diversity and Conflicts in Early Christianity, Essays in Honour of Heikki Räisänen, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2001, pp. 377–95.
36. 1 Corinthians 11.1.
37. 1 Corinthians 4.11–12.
38. 1 Corinthians 9.19–23.
39. The term ‘conversion’ suggests that Christianity was a separate religion, whereas at the time that Paul became a Christian, it was still a sect within Judaism. Indeed, the terms ‘Christian’ and ‘Christianity’ had not yet been coined. Unfortunately the notion that Paul was ‘converted’ contributed to the later belief that Judaism and Christianity were opposed.
40. Acts 9.1–19; 22.6–21; 26.12–18.
41. Cf. Galatians 2.20.
42. There is an interesting parallel here between Paul and John Wesley, whose ‘conversion’ is celebrated every year by Methodists – just as Paul’s so-called ‘conversion’ is celebrated by the Church at large. Like Paul, however, Wesley did not ‘convert’ from one religion to another, nor did he abandon an immoral life for an upright one. Both men had pursued personal holiness before their ‘conversions’.
2
The Challenge of the City
MORNA HOOKER
According to Professor Robin Dunbar, of the University of Oxford, the human brain cannot cope with more than 150 friendships.1 Attempt to exceed that number, and social cohesion suffers. Although the manufacturers of my telephone at home have clearly been less than generous in limiting the number of my close contacts to 20 people, the creators of BlackBerry phones and Facebook have, if Professor Dunbar is correct, wildly overestimated the number of people with whom one can have a meaningful relationship.
If the human brain is indeed programmed in this way, it is hardly surprising if our ancestors met problems when they moved out of their Stone Age villages and began to live in cities: there were just too many people for them to cope with. The inevitable results were violent clashes between rival gangs – each of limited size. Those who were not among one’s 150 friends were strangers, possibly enemies, even if they lived in the next street. Cities over a certain size were unfriendly places, and the larger the city, the greater the tensions. Big proved to be anything but beautiful. We are familiar with similar problems today. Friends who live in villages tell me how good it is to live in a small community, where it is possible for them to know all their neighbours, and where they are automatically part of a social network. By contrast, those who live in large cities can be desperately lonely.
The truth would seem to be that, though cities are necessary and in many ways convenient, they are not our natural environment. According to Genesis, paradise was located in a garden, not a city. To be sure, two human beings could scarcely constitute a city! Nevertheless, the story of Adam and Eve reflects the belief common in the Bible that the garden, rather than the city, is the ideal place in which to live. When the prophets and apocalyptic writers came, at a later stage, to describe what the world would be like when God set it to rights and restored his creation, what they pictured was paradise restored: a return to the Garden of Eden, with nature yielding extraordinarily abundant harvests, men and women – and even animals – living at peace, and everyone sitting contentedly under his or her own fig-tree.
Cities are, by their very nature, unfriendly places, simply because they are too big. Inevitably, they create social divisions. In a city, there must be a division of labour: some will do this, others that – and the ‘this’ may be considerably more pleasant and enjoyable than the ‘that’. In a city, someone must give orders, and others obey. Certain classes – or castes – will perform menial and unpleasant