Theos Report on Power

The latest report from Theos has recently been published:

Madeleine Pennington and Paul Bickley, A Theology of Power (London: Theos. 2026).

Here’s some brief blurb:

‘We live in an age of strongman leadership on the global stage.

‘From Putin to Trump, our global leaders wield their military, financial, and political power in a way that profoundly challenges historical norms. Is there a more constructive way to think about power?

‘In partnership with Christian Aid, Madeleine Pennington and Paul Bickley explore what power means through a biblical lens.’

More information is available here, and a pdf of the full report is available here.

Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies 5, 1 (2020) on Ephesians and the Powers

The latest issue of the Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies carries a set of essays devoted to the topic of ‘Ephesians and the Powers’, available from here.

John Frederick

Introduction: Ephesians and the Powers

Daniel K. Darko

‘The Ruler of the Power of the Air’ in the Salvific Story of Ephesians 2

Post-enlightenment theological articulations of what salvation entail often ostracize Satan in the process and limit the experience to a transaction between God and humans. The idea of ‘salvation by grace’ is however borrowed from Ephesians 2 where pre-conversion life was purportedly lived under the domain of Satan. The human condition is engineered by diabolic influence. Thus, people are saved from satanic in influence and its attendant consequences of sin, social breakdown, fleshly impulses etc. to belong to a people of God. Spiritual warfare is meant to curb pressures from evil powers to maintain faithful standing in God. Salvation would be incomplete, according to Ephesians 2, if it did not include deliverance from the control of ‘the ruler of the power of the air.’

Luke R. Hoselton

“You Have Been Raised with Christ”: Investigating the Spatial Portrait of New Creation in Ephesians

The theology of Ephesians comprises a number of distinctive features. Among other things, the letter portrays a unique relationship between the temporal and spatial aspects of its soterio-eschatology and displays significant attention to the powers. This essay explores the soteriology of Ephesians with reference to its spatial framework, the powers, and the new creation concept.

Eric Covington

Power and the “Powers” in Thomas Aquinas’ Lectura ad Ephesios

In his medieval commentary on Ephesians, Thomas Aquinas interprets the various terms that refer to the “powers” throughout the letter as references to specific tiers within hierarcies of both benevolent and malevolent spiritual beings. Intriguingly, Aquinas interprets the “powers” of Ephesians 1:21 and Ephesians 3:10 as references to the benevolent, angelic hierarchy, while he interprets the “powers” of Ephesians 2:2 and Ephesians 6:12 as references to the malevolent, demonic hierarchy. This chapter will examine Aquinas’ interpretation of these terms in each of these verses and will conclude by examining the theological significance of this identification for Aquinas’ reading of Ephesians. Ultimately, Aquinas sees Christ as the form and exemplar of true divine power, which is most fully expressed in Christ’s resurrection and exaltation over all spiritual beings. Thus, while Aquinas does not contradict modern scholarship’s focus on the subjugation of malevolent forces, he dramatically reorients the discussion around Ephesians’ presentation of Christ as the exalted one through whom the appropriate divine power extends to every creature – physical and spiritual.

Mark R. Kreitzer and Nancy C. Kreitzer

Three Cycles of Growth: Warfare and Spiritual Metamorphosis in John and Paul

In this paper, we examine two key NT passages that address spiritual warfare and spiritual growth, showing how they are inextricably linked. In Ephesians 6:10–20, Paul shows believers that in order to stand in their faith, they must stand in God’s full armor, their identity “in Christ.” With each piece, he reveals essential aspects of Christ’s armor, beginning with the belt of truth and ending with requests for prayer for evangelism. Paul seems to organize them in three sets of three pieces of armor. In 1 John 2:12–14, John teaches that the natural outworking of standing in Christ’s armor is growth in three stages. As we compare the 1 John and Ephesians passages, we will see how each piece of armor, and the believer’s understanding of them, is necessarily linked during the three stages of growth. Finally, we conclude with the far-reaching missiological implications. 

Joshua M. Greever

The Armor of God, the Gospel of Christ, and Standing Firm against the ‘Powers’ (Ephesians 6:10–20)

As the climactic conclusion to the letter, Ephesians 6:10–20 recapitulates and summarizes much of the earlier themes in Ephesians. It clarifies that the “powers” are evil, supernaturally power, spiritual beings. Christians must therefore stand firm against the “powers” by resting in Christ’s redemptive work for them. Christ is seen as the Divine Warrior whose victory over the “powers” is the armor that Christians are called to put on and appropriate by virtue of their union with Christ by faith.

John Frederick

Ephesians and Evangelical Activism: The Covenantal, Corporate, and Missional Components of the Ecclesial Armor of God

In Ephesians 6:10–20, the apostle Paul penned one of the most memorable accounts of spiritual warfare for Christians. Throughout the history of interpretation, the majority of exegetes have viewed Paul’s account of the “armor of God” in relation to the spiritual struggle of individual Christians in their quests for growth in personal holiness. This article counteracts individualistic, moralistic, gnostic readings of Ephesians 6:10–20 by re-situating the “armor of God” metaphor within its original corporate/ecclesial, covenantal, and missional context in Ephesians. The article begins by redirecting evangelical thinking on social activism away from recent fundamentalist denunciations back to the original activist ethos of neo-evangelicalism. Next, Walter Wink’s phenomenological reading of the Powers is explored as a framework for evangelical activism against human structures, systems, and ideologies that facilitate the activity of demonic and oppressive spiritual Powers. The article concludes by offering an exegetical recovery of the corporate, covenantal, and missional components of the armor of God metaphor thus providing a biblical and theological rationale and impetus for evangelical social action as the primary referent of spiritual warfare in Ephesians.

Simon Gomersall

Considering the Impact of Missiology on Contemporary Understandings of “Principalities and Powers”

While the early 20th century saw well-defined movement toward the depersonalizing and demythologizing of principalities and powers as they are described in the biblical text, the latter part of the century witnessed a reappraisal of this process as multi-cultural perspectives began to filter from the mission eld into the academy. This paper traces key milestones in the former demythologizing process and then explores some of the reasons why these modernist assumptions have been revised, including: the experiences of missionaries, greater insight into the assumptions that lie behind worldviews, and the research of anthropologists. The paper finishes with the brief suggestion that each part of this journey brings value to the practice of Christian ministry. 

Vicky Balabanski

Reading Ephesians in Dialogue with the Powers in Colossians

This chapter focuses on interpreting the powers in Colossians, a letter with close connections with the Letter to the Ephesians. It begins with three contemporary scenarios where the perception of the powers among indigenous Christians is contrasted with that of non-indigenous Christians. This demonstrates that any discussion of the powers is conducted in a culturally and theologically contested space. From the perspective of the positive reference to the powers in Colossians 1:16, it examines the more negative references in Colossians 1:13 and 2:15. It sets all these references against the background of Hellenistic cosmology, including the depiction of the powers in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, 1 Enoch 64:1–2, and Jude 14-15. The reference to angelic worship in Colossians 2:18 is also discussed. The chapter concludes by comparing the portrayal of the powers in Colossians and Ephesians, arguing that Western Christianity is right to emphasize the victory of Christ over all powers, but foolish to lose belief in the reality of the powers themselves.

Jonathan K. Sharpe and Jerry Pilla

Bonhoeffer and the Way of the Cruci ed: Methodeia, Doctrine, and the ‘Powers’

The Greek word methodeia, the “schemes,” “tricks,” or “methods” of the enemy that move us away from Christ and from unity in his body, is uniquely found only within Ephesians 4:14 and 6:11. In Ephesians 4:14, Paul focuses on the unity of the body of Christ and the way Christians grow into unity and maturity with Christ is by avoiding the methodeia of the enemy. The term also appears again in Ephesians 6:11 where Paul urges believers to put on the armor of God to avoid the methodeia of the devil. In this chapter we consider Peter Rollins’ theological movement of “Radical Theology” as being an example of methodeia which might disrupt the transformational unity of the body of Christ and against which we need to arm ourselves. We especially examine the purported reliance of Rollins’ movement upon the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and to what extent Bonhoeffer may propose a still radical but, conversely, more clearly orthodox movement of deconstruction than that suggested by Rollins, one in which Christ alone must deconstruct the human “I” and supernaturally enable persons both to overcome sin and the devil and to do good in the world only in and through Christ, via the specific historic means provided by Christ.

Joshua M. Greever

Conclusion: Ephesians and the Powers

Book Reviews

Mission Catalyst 1 (2020) on Power

The current issue of Mission Catalyst, published by BMS World Mission, is now available. This issue is devoted to ‘Power’, asking the question, ‘Are we holding on to it?’

Mission Catalyst is available as a free subscription, or can be downloaded as a pdf here.

The Gift of Power

The below article was written for the WorkForum at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ So says Uncle Ben to his nephew, Peter Parker, at least as the line appears in the 2002 movie version of the Spider-Man story. That’s good advice for superheroes, perhaps, who might be tempted to use their powers for personal gain, fulfilling Lord Acton’s famous dictum that ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

But we don’t have to look too far to see the corrupting tendency of power. In Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power (London: Penguin, 2013), David Priestland offers an intriguing account of history as a competition for power between the three major groups of his title. These ‘castes’ (as he terms them) – symbolic of capitalists, militarists, and the intelligentsia – are locked in a struggle for power which triggers a crisis (war, revolution, or economic collapse) when any one of them gains prominence. Hence, according to this account, the West is now paying the price for succumbing to the values of the ‘merchants’ with their belief in the market and their pursuit of profit.

Inevitably, whether and how far Priestland has overplayed his hand is up for grabs. In addition, there is a yet bigger story against which we, as Christians, might understand power. According to Andy Crouch, in Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (Downers Grove: IVP, 2013), Christians often see power as a danger to be avoided rather than a gift to be stewarded. But we best understand power, Crouch says, as we see ourselves made in the image of God, called to cultivate creation, to ‘make something of the world’ – building houses, designing software, writing poetry, baking cakes, teaching children. In this way, all of us – not just those thought to be ‘powerful’ – have ‘great power’ and are responsible for using it well.

For instance, we image God when we manage people. When we do that well, and in a way that reflects our union with Christ, we’re countering the argument that power and authority can’t be trusted. If I use my authority as a boss or a leader or a manager well, I’m painting in a positive light God who is the source of all authority. It’s no surprise that in Ephesians 6:9, Paul connects the master’s authority with God’s authority: ‘you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven’, he tells masters. In stewarding well what God gives us – including our leadership roles – we say something of who God is and what God is like.

Robert comes to mind as an example. When he was promoted and made head of his department, Robert was concerned that his opportunities for evangelism would disappear. Most of the people he worked with would be working for him, and he’d have to be sensitive to this and not abuse his position. As it turned out, he found he had more opportunities to share the gospel, and it almost always came from using his authority for the benefit of his team instead of his own benefit. Robert’s way of exercising power was different, and people would talk to him about it.

To be sure, in a damaged and distorted world, power has the potential to be misused and misdirected, abused and abusive, leading to idolatry and injustice. But true power is exercised on behalf of others, and is concerned with cultivating the best environment for someone or something to thrive – in line with God’s original design for his world.

Here as elsewhere, Christians take their cue from Christ himself, in whose image we are being recreated. In this way, we exercise the gift of power every day, often in mundane ways, but infused with love and seasoned with confidence in God’s plan to restore all things.

Tell Me... Do You Bleed?

I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Can it really be that one who is all powerful could also be all benevolent?

Today sees the cinema release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Echoing the concerns of some fans at the end of the previous installment, Man of Steel, Bruce Wayne is fearful about Superman’s destructive abilities, and feels compelled to re-don his Batman suit to make sure such power is put down. It is, as one character puts it, ‘the greatest gladiator match in the history of the world – god versus man’. ‘Tell me’, says Batman in one of their confrontations – more as a threat than a question – ‘do you bleed?’ A god bleed? Surely not.

Like all such movies that could so easily be dismissed as a special effects extravaganza or for its clunky dialogue, it still sheds light on contemporary fears and aspirations. Even watching the official trailers, one is struck by the repeated use of the word ‘power’ on the lips of various characters. ‘That kind of power is very dangerous.’ ‘Human beings have a horrible record of following people with great power.’ ‘He has the power to wipe out the entire human race.’ ‘The oldest lie... that power can be innocent.’

It may be that Superman represents one sort of power and Batman another, but the trailers hint that they come together with common allies against common enemies, who are even darker, more ferocious, more destructive – the power of sheer ferocity, the power of egotistical manipulation.

We have seen evidence of a certain kind of power at work even this week in Brussels...

But this Friday, around the world, Christians will tell again the story of a different sort of power, seen in the death of Jesus. The cross subverts human expectations about the way power operates, about the way things get done. As the apostle Paul wrote, ‘the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (1 Corinthians 1:18). Yet the cross also brings what we long for. According to Paul, that which is most desired by Greeks and Jews – wisdom and power – is delivered in that which is most despised, in ‘Christ crucified... the power of God and the wisdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

All power and all benevolence in shed blood.

Beginning in the Right Place

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants

you have established a stronghold against your enemies,

to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8:1-4

NASA recently released what was quickly hailed as the largest picture ever taken – an image of the Andromeda Galaxy, a near neighbour of our own galaxy. Each tiny dot in the image is a star – an estimated 100 million of them – each of which could have its own planetary system. It takes a mere 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to reach Earth from the Sun, but it would take 2.5 million years for light to reach us from Andromeda.

And yet, all of it, the psalmist declares, is formed by God’s finger tips – like the delicate, up-close work of an expert carver or sculptor.

David asks the age-old question about the nature of humanity – ‘what is mankind?’ – but he doesn’t begin with us. Nor does he give a theological or philosophical treatise, or offer a course in biology, sociology or anthropology. He starts in the right place, and in the right way, in wonder and praise. So it is that the psalm begins, and ends, with God: ‘LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!’ And humanity is understood within the frame of God’s own glory. In a psalm which celebrates the royal dignity of men and women comes the reminder that we rule on behalf of God only insofar as we acknowledge God’s prior rule.

And with submission goes worship. For David, this includes children and infants, whose praise establishes a stronghold against God’s enemies – those who don’t and won’t submit to God. Somehow, the way God responds to foes and cynics is by putting praise on the lips of those who are apparently helpless. There is mystery here, to be sure, but it resonates with what the Bible says elsewhere: what seems to be weak overcomes the strong, what appears to be of little consequence overwhelms the mighty.

So, before David asks the question, ‘what is mankind?’, there is already an indication that the answer will challenge the dominant cultural narratives about humanity.

What we were made to be is still threatened by hostile powers – not just militarism, but racism and sexism, exploitation and addiction, fear and hate. Scripture speaks of an alternative power at work – in creation and redemption, in praise and worship – often operating through the seemingly weak and apparently insignificant, but who overcome evil in the name of the Lamb.

Interpretation 68, 1 (2014) on Prayer, Power, and Politics

The main essays in the January 2014 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, are devoted to the theme of ‘Prayer, Power, and Politics’.

Rodney A. Werline

Prayer, Politics, and Power in the Hebrew Bible

This essay applies current anthropological methods to selected texts in the Hebrew Bible in order to investigate the place of prayer within relationships of power. Power does not simply exist as an ideal, but in the ability of humans to influence the actions of other humans. Ritual theorists have recently argued that, in part, ritual functions as a way that people negotiate, mediate and enact power within these relationships. A reading of prayer texts from the Hebrew Bible from this perspective casts new light on the role of prayer in the micro-politics of everyday life and reveals the way in which biblical authors attempted to tie this to Israel’s larger story.

Reuven Kimelman

Prophecy as Arguing with God and the Ideal of Justice

Biblical prophecy seeks both to reconcile people to God and to reconcile God with people. Close examination of the roles of Abraham (Genesis 18), Moses (Exodus 32) and Elijah (1 Kings 19) demonstrates that prophets must always bear this dual responsibility, especially in arguing with God, lest they be unworthy of their loyalty both to the people and to God.

Michael Joseph Brown

The Lure of a Proposition: The Erotic Nature of the Lord’s Prayer as a Contradiction to Coercive Power

The vision of the kingdom of God (basileia) outlined in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is a proposition meant to lure us into greater relationship and more harmonious feeling. The Christian idea that God is love must move beyond simple agapic language and embrace an erotic understanding as well. The desire to be in deeper relationship – the core of erōs – is at the core of the Christian message.

Mun’im Sirry and A. Rashied Omar

Muslim Prayer and Public Spheres: An Interpretation of the Qur^ɔānic Verse 29:45

This essay examines the various meanings and efficacies attributed to the Muslim prayer (ṣalāt) by its practitioners as well as by observers. The key questions that form the main concern of this article are: How is the ritual of prayer brought to life by its practitioners? What constitutes an efficacious prayer? What meanings do observers draw from the practice of prayer among Muslims in diverse localities as well as from their interpretive discourses? The essay brings together ethnographic studies on Muslim practices of prayer and exegetical discourses on what prayer should contribute to the ethical conduct of Muslims in public spheres.

Nico Koopman

Prayer and the Transformation of Public Life in South Africa

This essay discusses the meaning of prayer, worship, and liturgy for the transformation and renewal of public life. As a crucial practice of the church, prayer creates, enhances, and nurtures a vision of a new society of holiness and justice. Prayer fosters courageous criticism of individuals and institutions where this vision is betrayed. Prayer thirdly forms and transforms humans into people of virtue and character who seek the good society through concrete obedience, quests for solidarity and justice, as well as practices of suffering and active and hopeful waiting upon God. I investigate the role that prayer played in the resistance against the apartheid regime, and spell out some implications of this threefold task of prayer for contemporary South Africa.

Great Power

I contributed this week’s ‘Connecting with Culture’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ So says uncle Ben to his nephew, Peter Parker, at least as the line appears in the 2002 movie version of the Spider-Man story. That’s good advice for superheroes, perhaps, who might be especially tempted to use their powers for personal gain, fulfilling Lord Acton’s famous dictum that ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

We don’t have to look too far to see the corrupting tendency of power. In Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power (Penguin, 2013), David Priestland offers an intriguing account of history as a competition for power between the three major groups of his title. These ‘castes’ (as he terms them) – symbolic of capitalists, militarists, and the intelligentsia – are locked in a struggle for power which triggers a crisis (war, revolution, or economic collapse) when any one of them gains prominence. Hence, according to this account, the West is now paying the price for succumbing to the values of the ‘merchants’ with their belief in the market and their pursuit of profit.

Inevitably, whether and how far Priestland has overplayed his hand is up for grabs. As it happens, however, there is a yet bigger story against which we might understand power. According to Andy Crouch, in Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (IVP, 2013), Christians often see power as a danger to be avoided rather than a gift to be stewarded. We best understand power, Crouch says, as we see ourselves made in the image of God, called to cultivate creation, to ‘make something of the world’ – building houses, designing clothes, writing poetry, baking cakes, teaching children, managing people. In this way, all of us – not just those thought to be ‘powerful’ – have real power and are responsible for using it well.

To be sure, in a damaged and distorted world, power has the potential to be misused and misdirected, abused and abusive, leading to idolatry and injustice. But true power is exercised on behalf of others, and is concerned with cultivating the best environment for someone or something to thrive – in line with God’s original design for his world.

Here as elsewhere, Christians take their cue from Christ himself, in whose image we are being recreated. In this way, we exercise the gift of power every day, often in mundane ways, but infused with love and seasoned with confidence in God’s plan to restore all things.

Tom Wright on Creation, Power, and Truth

I was asked to write six brief book notes for the November 2013 edition of EG, published by LICC. I’ve posted them individually here over the last few weeks, and this is the last in the series.

Tom Wright, Creation, Power and Truth: The Gospel in a World of Cultural Confusion (London: SPCK, 2013).

With winsomeness and eloquence, and modelling the best of theological engagement in the process, Wright tackles three prominent cultural drivers – gnosticism, imperialism, and postmodernism. He draws on a trinitarian framework to do so: where the God of creation deals with people in the earthiness of everyday life, and will one day renew the heavens and earth; where Jesus is Lord, whose life and death have redefined power, which frees us to speak truth to power; where the Spirit of truth equips the church not just to enjoy ‘spiritual’ experiences, but to know, speak, and live out the truth.

Andy Crouch on Power

Having thoroughly enjoyed as well as benefited from his Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), I have been looking forward to the new book by Andy Crouch: Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (Downers Grove: IVP, 2013).

At this point, the volume is not even out in the UK, but it has already received some substantial coverage online:

• A lengthy profile by Byron Borger here

• A Gabe Lyons video interview with Andy Crouch here, some of which is excerpted here

• An interview with Justin Taylor here

• A piece in Christianity Today here, from which the following is taken:

‘I believe we need a new conversation about power in the church. I say a new conversation, because it will be a genuinely new topic for many pastors and laypeople.... [T]here are surprisingly few times when pastors and people directly address power. And this is especially true in churches that participate in the culture of middle- and upper-middle-class America, where we can easily take power for granted.

‘I also say a “new conversation” because when we do talk about power, we often talk about it strictly as something negative – something dangerous to be avoided – rather than as a gift to be stewarded...

‘But from beginning to end – that is, from creation to consummation – the Bible is full of references to power. You will often hear pastors say that Jesus “gave up power.” And indeed, the climax of salvation is the cross, on which Jesus is stretched out, suffers, and dies, having refused to grasp the power within his reach. But as the early Christians reflected on his life, death, and resurrection, they came to a different conclusion. Precisely because they were witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection after a violent death, the New Testament writers could no longer acquiesce to the idolatrous fiction that violence is the truest form of power. Instead, they had seen with their eyes, and touched with their hands, evidence of a much greater power at work in the world than Rome could muster...

‘What would a new conversation about power include?

‘It would acknowledge, indeed insist, that power is a gift – the gift of a Giver who is the supreme model of power used to bless and serve. Power is not given to benefit those who hold it. It is given for the flourishing of individuals, peoples, and the cosmos itself. Power’s right use is especially important for the flourishing of the vulnerable, the members of the human family who most need others to use power well to survive and thrive: the young, the aged, the sick, and the dispossessed. Power is not the opposite of servanthood. Rather, servanthood, ensuring the flourishing of others, is the very purpose of power...

‘[I]f power is a gift, then we can be accountable for its proper use – to its Giver, and to one another.’

Update (5 October 2013) – another review, by John Nugent, starting here, and another review by John Starke here.

Centre for Public Christianity (October 2012)

The latest newsletter from the Centre for Public Christianity contains links to a video interview with Darrell Bock (on the trustworthiness of the oral tradition of the gospels), an audio conversation between Simon Smart and Justine Toh (on relationships in the iWorld), and a video interview with Richard Burridge (on what Jesus has to say about power).

Timothy G. Gombis on Ephesians

In some earlier posts (here and here), I referred to Timothy G. Gombis’ helpful book, The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010), which is a more accessible reworking of his PhD dissertation.

Gombis himself has helpfully drawn attention to the fact that the library at the University of St. Andrews has now made available online his dissertation (pdf here), which shows more of the exegetical work that funds the title subsequently published by IVP.

Here is the abstract of the thesis:

‘In this thesis I argue that the letter of Ephesians contains a coherent argument and that this argument is animated by the ideology of divine warfare. This ideological tool was utilized throughout the ancient world to assert and defend the cosmic supremacy of national deities, and appears throughout the Old Testament in texts that declare the exalted status of Yahweh over all other gods and over the forces of chaos that threaten creation. This ideology is applied to Ephesians with the result that what many regard as the central portion of the letter – Ephesians 2 – contains a complete cycle of this mythological pattern. Here, within a context of praise and worship (1:1-19), the cosmic Lordship of Christ is asserted (1:20-23) and the triumphs of God in Christ over the powers that rule the present evil age are elaborated (2:1-22). God in Christ has triumphed over the powers that hold humanity captive to death by raising believers to life and seating them in the heavenlies with Christ. Further, Christ triumphs over the powers and their divisive effects within humanity by creating a new unified humanity that shares in the life of God in Christ by the Spirit. I then attempt to demonstrate that reading Ephesians through this lens provides satisfying solutions to a number of problems in subsequent sections of the letter. The ‘autobiographical’ remarks in Eph 3:2-13 are not intended as an apostolic defence, but rather are an explanation of how Paul’s imprisonment, which would appear to be a devastating argument against the cosmic Lordship of Christ, actually serves to epitomize and reinforce that exalted status. I also argue that the difficult quotation of Psalm 68 in Eph 4:8 finds a satisfying solution through the application of divine warfare ideology. Finally, I argue that this reading demonstrates that the two halves of Ephesians are integrally related – that the exhortatory portion is a call to the New Humanity to engage in divine warfare against the evil powers, embodying the triumph of God in Christ in their corporate life.’

Mary Evans on 1 and 2 Samuel

Mary Evans – teacher, friend and former colleague of mine at London School of Theology – has blessed us not with one commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, but with two commentaries on 1 and 2 Samuel…

Mary J. Evans, 1 and 2 Samuel, New International Biblical Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2000).

Hendrickson make available the Table of Contents, the Introduction, and the comments on chapters 1-2.

Mary J. Evans, The Message of Samuel: Personalities, Potential, Politics and Power, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester: IVP, 2004).

IVP USA make available the Preface, the Introduction, and comments on chapters 1-4.

Mary sees ‘power’ as a concept that links the various stories in the books of Samuel. She writes:

‘Even though on the surface the narrative seems to be interested in those who are powerful, I would suggest that the writers imply that true power, which belongs only to God, lies outside of that human obsession. Human power is presented, in general, as a corrupting influence. We see this with Saul, with Joab, and even with David, all of whom are presented as men of great potential who are entrusted with great responsibilities but who, in different ways, are unable to cope with the trust laid upon them’ (1 and 2 Samuel, 9).

Mary has explored this theme across Scripture more generally in the following essay:

‘The Powerless Leader: A Biblical Ideal or a Contradiction in Terms?’, in Michael Parsons and David J. Cohen (eds.), On Eagles’ Wings: An Exploration of Strength in the Midst of Weakness (Cambridge: Lutterworth, 2008), 78-92.