grace, mercy, the patron-client relationships and covenants

FireDragon76

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The word grace in the New Testament has been theologized to the point people don't understand the cultural context of the word. Some medieval church fathers saw grace as a work of God, an energy or activity. Some 16-71th century Protestants saw it as the attitude that God takes towards us (especially in the Calvinist form). So what is grace in the context of the first century, as the word was commonly used?

It is a favor understood in terms of the Greco-Roman patron-client system. At one time in the ancient world, it was customary for a person to engage in seeking a patron if they did not have resources for something, or if they needed social connections. A client would pledge their loyalty to the patron (pistis, faithfulness, the word we know as "faith") and the patron would do favors for the client (charis, grace). At various times the patron would ask the client to do things for them as a sign of their faithfulness and to meet the needs of the patron. This concept would even apply to Greek religion- people would pledge their devotion to a particular god and expect the god to shower them with gifts and favors. This concept penetrated all aspects of Greek culture, in formed part of the honor-shame dynamic present in their culture, and was not exactly equivalent to our moralistic notions of right and wrong. To be an honorable person was to show hospitality and to be gracious in giving people favors, with the unspoking obligation that people were bound in a relationship to you, obliged at some point to return the favor. These transactions of favors formed the glue of society, the "networking" as we call it today, that allowed people to access the resources and relationships they needed.

Today, in the west, we have legalistic and individualistic understandings of the self and community, but remnants of the patron-client system can be seen in the idea of brotherhoods or syndicates such as the Mafia, like in the movie The Godfather: people come to the Don with problems, he fixes them, then they are obligated to him. Not in a legal or financial sense but in a relational sense, a sense of honor or reputation (and of course the Don could always make them sleep with the fishes if he gets mad enough).

The Old Testament world was honor-bound cultures but the Hebrews did not have the same concepts, they understood their relationship to God as a king who creates a covenant with a people, with the king being the more powerful one in the relationship (suzerainty, vassalage). The king offered protection and the subjects were obligated to offer tribute. The king was expected to act with mercy towards his people, and the people were obligated to show loyalty in return. Heavenly blessings and curses were usually attached to obedience or disobedience to the treaty.

So what's the application from this? The New Testament's predominant (but not exclusive) emphasis is that our salvation is tied up in a relationship with God as a patron who does something for us, but we are indebted to him in turn. God settles something we owe to him (disobedience, sin), he deals with the bad guys that entice us to disobedience (death and the devil), with the obligation that we have loyalty and faithfulness as a consequence (faith) and that we in turn do him favors (good works).

http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/explore-the-bible/11683040.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzerainty#Ancient_Israel_and_Near_East
 

bling

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The word grace in the New Testament has been theologized to the point people don't understand the cultural context of the word. Some medieval church fathers saw grace as a work of God, an energy or activity. Some 16-71th century Protestants saw it as the attitude that God takes towards us (especially in the Calvinist form). So what is grace in the context of the first century, as the word was commonly used?

It is a favor understood in terms of the Greco-Roman patron-client system. At one time in the ancient world, it was customary for a person to engage in seeking a patron if they did not have resources for something, or if they needed social connections. A client would pledge their loyalty to the patron (pistis, faithfulness, the word we know as "faith") and the patron would do favors for the client (charis, grace). At various times the patron would ask the client to do things for them as a sign of their faithfulness and to meet the needs of the patron. This concept would even apply to Greek religion- people would pledge their devotion to a particular god and expect the god to shower them with gifts and favors. This concept penetrated all aspects of Greek culture, in formed part of the honor-shame dynamic present in their culture, and was not exactly equivalent to our moralistic notions of right and wrong. To be an honorable person was to show hospitality and to be gracious in giving people favors, with the unspoking obligation that people were bound in a relationship to you, obliged at some point to return the favor. These transactions of favors formed the glue of society, the "networking" as we call it today, that allowed people to access the resources and relationships they needed.

Today, in the west, we have legalistic and individualistic understandings of the self and community, but remnants of the patron-client system can be seen in the idea of brotherhoods or syndicates such as the Mafia, like in the movie The Godfather: people come to the Don with problems, he fixes them, then they are obligated to him. Not in a legal or financial sense but in a relational sense, a sense of honor or reputation (and of course the Don could always make them sleep with the fishes if he gets mad enough).

The Old Testament world was honor-bound cultures but the Hebrews did not have the same concepts, they understood their relationship to God as a king who creates a covenant with a people, with the king being the more powerful one in the relationship (suzerainty, vassalage). The king offered protection and the subjects were obligated to offer tribute. The king was expected to act with mercy towards his people, and the people were obligated to show loyalty in return. Heavenly blessings and curses were usually attached to obedience or disobedience to the treaty.

So what's the application from this? The New Testament's predominant (but not exclusive) emphasis is that our salvation is tied up in a relationship with God as a patron who does something for us, but we are indebted to him in turn. God settles something we owe to him (disobedience, sin), he deals with the bad guys that entice us to disobedience (death and the devil), with the obligation that we have loyalty and faithfulness as a consequence (faith) and that we in turn do him favors (good works).

http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/explore-the-bible/11683040.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzerainty#Ancient_Israel_and_Near_East

I have a problem with the word “obligation”. It sounds like God is doing all this to obligate us to Him.

What God does is the result of who God is and not to get anything from us even in the form of obligating us.

It also sounds like I am now trying to repay at least some of the debt I owned since I have now have an obligation.

I have always seen it as a privilege and honor to allow God to work through me and thus share in His glory, by being in His presence when He is glorified. God does “ask” things of us, but those things are for our sake, so we will continue to hold God’s Love as being of greater and greater value and not something we would give away to satan. After becoming a Christian we might want to go home to be with God, but we can also stay here on earth allowing God to work through us serving others, which is a wonderful activity.
 
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I have seen enough hints from varied cultures (e.g., Japanese farmers, Arab merchants) and psychology studies to suspect that the practice of "obligating the other" is a common enough convention in business-friendship historically; closer to the point in the predominantly gentile Corinth with which Paul had dealings, a well-to-do faction likely started an enmity relationship with the apostle (antithetical to friendship) when Paul rejected their proffered "with strings attached" sponsorship (Enmity in Corinth by Paul Marshall, an Australian). Or in other setting, Pilate caved into Jewish demands to crucify Jesus when they claimed "If you release [Jesus] you are no friend of Caesar's" (John 19:12). If memory serves, Josephus tells us a previous Jewish complaint to Caesar had already left a black mark on Pilate's record in Rome.

Marshall gives evidence there were two forms of friendship in the Greco-Roman world of the apostolic period (and beyond): (1) one between social equals and (2) one between social unequals--patron and client. In the former, each would compete to outdo the other in obligations (tit for tat, as it were, but in positive terms)--from little things like haircuts to big things like major business deals. In the latter (not to be confused with slavery), the client cannot repay in kind, but owes loyalty to the patron (I think like an employer-employee relationship, but probably typically with a greater sense of obligation between the two parties than in the US today, while remuneration of the client might include food and housing and travel expenses and exclude health insurance, which came rather later). And while pagan Roman evidence suggests breaking friendship with one's patron carried serious negative consequences, such consequences were probably less than those for a vassal group rebelling against a Suzerain (unless one's patron was Caesar).

Friendship cultural convention was behind the classical use of the word "grace" (e.g., NIDNTT). Note however that God as patron is in some respects unlike any other patron: e.g., (1) all things are already owed God by virtue of His being Creator and supreme Sovereign, (2) His grace is already more lavish than any other, and (3) obligation to God is far more than profanely economic, but concerns especially the "debt" of ethical and religious offenses.

Furthermore, "grace" in the NT as a word capturing the nature of salvation is flavored with OT and NT semantic and theological seasoning in some respects unlike the word as typically used in Greco-Roman pagan and profane contexts, again such as wrt the "favor" of forgiveness of sin, or adoption into the household of God (or partaking in divine covenant), or redemption from slavery to sin, or love. Divine grace in salvation is gracious beyond the favors of the great in the human sphere even if there are parallels in varied social metaphors. The idea of God as a vending machine ("I'll do this, God, if you'll do that") rather misses the human role cultivated in loving God and neighbor in the Gospels and epistles (even if Wisdom literature often encourages the idea of reward for righteous deeds).

"Cheap grace," to borrow from Bonhoeffer's vocabulary, where in effect synonymous with "license to sin," has no place in the NT, but is in principle refuted. "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" No way (Rom. 6:1f). However, relationship to God is more complex and intimate than mere economic and business obligation even if obligation to God plays its necessary part.

P.S. Paul's epistle "Philemon" comprises an example of a letter of recommendation (cf. 2 Cor. 3:1f); such letters were a common method of extending "friendship circles" and establishing "the 'networking' ... that allowed people to access the resources and relationships they needed." Often employers rely on such letters in hiring practices today.
 
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