o Distinctions from Jews were harder, because they shared
the same symbolic world of Torah. Should believers,
then, be circumcised, or observe the Sabbath, or practice
purity regulations?• The assembly that meets “in Christ” has egalitarian ideals: There
is not Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free (Gal. 3:28), but
meeting in the stratified location of the household (oikos) meant
complications for those ideals.
o Did the Jew have an advantage over the Gentile? Why or why
not? What did that mean for common table fellowship?o Did males continue to have supremacy in all matters or only
those in the household? Did the Spirit represent a liberation
for females?o If all are “brothers and sisters” within the worship assembly,
why did that not change the social status of master and slave
when the worship ended?o The rich should not be honored if poverty is the ideal, but rich
members of the community served as benefactors. Should they
not be leaders, as well?The Vibrancy of the Early Christian Movement
• Paul’s letters also bear witness to the vibrancy and energy of the
nascent Christian movement as it exploded across the empire.
• If early Christianity were simply the “Jesus movement” as a sect
within Judaism, many of these issues would not have been raised;
Jesus would simply have been another prophet or teacher. It was the
power of the religious experience of the Resurrection that generated
these great tensions.• Paul’s vision of the church as a “new creation” in which members
are a “new humanity” in the “body of Christ” is a utopian conception