Stephen Fowl's Engaging Scripture, which I quoted from in the previous post to this, is good. The chapter about Paul's comments in Ephesians on word-care and stealing is, as Hauerwas says, 'worth the price of the book itself.'
Fowl says that 'Christian interpretation of scripture is primarily an activity of Christian communities in which they seek to generate and embody their interpretations of scripture so that they may fulfil their ends of worshipping and living faithfully before the triune God.' (161). For this reason, 'Christian interpretation of scripture is to be a more or less continuous activity' and therefore this will often 'generate and result in further debate, discussion and disagreement' (161). This, as many can probably testify, can end up frustrating the goal of worship and living faithfully and in extreme cases be a cause of division; and so many churches avoid interpreting scripture to maintain 'unity'! Fowl argues that what is needed to see interpretation enhance rather than frustrate is word-care - 'word-care works to keep the arguments constitutive of Christian interpretation of scripture from becoming destructive of the life of the very community such arguments are designed to further' (164). Fowl goes on to argue that 'a care for words is closely tied to how its members hold their possessions' and so we find in the epistle to the Ephesians that 'verbal practices as truth-telling and edification are linked to the Ephesian's abilities to address stealing in their midst' (164-5).
The reason that stealing can happen presumses that the Ephesians do not priviatize their wealth and possessions from the public gaze. In Ephesians 4:25-5:2 Paul tells the Ephesians to put away falsehood and to speak truthfully to one another. Fowl asks 'why in the midst of a discussion about "word-care" does Paul raise the issue of stealing? Indeed, this verses seems so out of place that if it were removed from chapter 4 I don't think anyone would notice' (166).
Whatever the case stealing was happening and here stealing must refer to 'the numerous small-scale ways in which slaves might pilfer their master's goods. Those in the market place who use unfair scales or engage in price-fixing, and petty con artists might also fit the bill' and 'it may well be the case that those who were stealing were stealing from other members of the congregation' (167). The matter of stealing, according to Paul, is having a detrimental effect on the community's ability to exercise word-care.
'For the reality of stealing to be as great a danger to the fabric of the common life of the Ephesian as lying or slandering one another, the lives and indeed the possessions of the members of the community had to be relatively accessible to other members of the community' (172). Possessions were located in th epublic realm rather than the private. Fowl says, 'it is a profound testimony to the poverty of the common life of most contemporary churches that Christians have so secured their possessions from each other that they can barely imagine what it might be to acknowledge openly, in the manner of Eph. 4, that Christians might steal (even from each other)' (172). Fowl goes on by giving an example of several people trying to share a fridge. What begins as harmless borrowing, can quickly turn into stealing, and 'under such conditions, disputes and arguments are bound to arise'. Here you can understand, why Paul emphasizes the importance of word-care and practices of forgiveness, etc.
The privatization of our possessions and lives in our contemporary churches serves to show we are able to tell the truth and ask for and receive forgiveness. That is, we do not know how to do deal with conflict and arguments, and this is reflected in the privatization of our lives, to avoid such things. Fowl says, 'if contemporary Christians are to manifest the sort of word-care that is essential for their interpretation and embodiment of scripture, then they, too, will have to manifest the sort of common life that intimately connects issues of speaking with issues of wealth' (174).
It is not only the relationship of wealth to word-care, many other issues such as how to raise children, what one eats, how one participates in wider culture, etc will affect how able churches are able to foster and maintain word-care that builds up the common life, rather than frustrates or destroys (175). Fowl's concern is that if we contain to adopt 'the public/private distinctions operative in the larger culture, [we] will find it difficult and frustrating to cultivate the care for words that is essential for the debates and discussions which are crucial for interpreting scripture in ways that foster faithful life and worship' (176).
This is a serious argument which is a wake-up call to Christian churches to examine how they speak to one another and how they share and live their lives with one another.
I guess one of the issues here is that for many in the church today we don't have much of a "life together" at all. Our geographical spread, commitments to work and family etc., means that unless we make radical changes we have a weak or shallow form of community where having the openness Fowl speaks of is practically difficult to achieve.
Posted by: Brodie | January 19, 2006 at 11:36 AM