Banks, Paul | Paul’s Idea of Community

Paul’s Idea of Community: Spirit and Culture in the Early House Churches
Robert J. Banks

Paperback (3rd Edition): Baker Academic, 2018, 222pp.

Introduction

As we work to envision what living the Word might look like in the twenty-first century, some of the most pressing questions revolve around the nature of the community that is daily striving to live faithfully in the way of Jesus. How do they share life together? How often do they gather? What sorts of things do they do when gathered?

Robert Banks, in his book Paul’s Idea of Community examines how the apostle Paul answered these questions as he discipled the house churches of the first century. This book is thus an essential resource for those seeking to live the Word, as it offers a biblical account of what living the Word looked like among the earliest Christians. Indeed, Banks summarizes this volume, “Paul’s understanding of community is nothing less than the gospel itself in corporate form!” (163).

After offering a historical, sociological, and theological backdrop for understanding the first century house churches in the early chapters of his book, Banks then devotes the majority of the book to describing key facets of their life together including where they met, the importance of eating together, the role of gifts, their understanding of leadership, the contribution of women in these churches, among others.

The third edition of this book is especially helpful as it includes the appendix “Going to Church in the First Century,” originally written by Banks as a separate pamphlet, which is an easy-to-read narrative account of what an early church gathering might have looked like. Readers, who may be intimidated by Banks’s academic prose, might consider reading this appendix first as a portal to making sense of the book itself.

Radical Kinship

Banks is emphatic that the equality of all believers in Christ is at the heart of Paul’s vision for community. Drawing on familiar texts like Galatians 3:28 (“there is neither slave nor free … for you are all one in Christ Jesus”) and I Corinthians 12:13 (they are recipients of one spirit), Banks concludes: “Those in the community who possess higher social status do not have any privileged position with God (1 Cor. 1:26-29), for Christ’s life and death has superseded such human evaluations (1:30). Members of the community should reject the way the world judges social status (1:26; 2:1ff)” (96-97). 

He goes on to note that: “Paul’s remarks do not imply that differences between these groups disappear as a result of what has now happened [in Christ]. … [Even] within the new community forged by Christ, some legitimate racial, social, and gender differences continue to exist. Such diversity avoids a complete uniformity between people and adds variety and richness to human relationships” (98). Banks elaborates: “The owners of homes naturally had much to offer the community, given the cramped quarters in which many people lived and the subordinate position of many slaves. Others were among those who gave substantial financial help to those in need. Social differences were not treated as if they did not exist, nor were they subjected to an indiscriminate leveling process. They were used to benefit others” (100, emphasis added).

Table Worship-Fellowship 

Banks explains that in contrast to the prevailing Greek philosophy of his day (which maintained that a person is a soul imprisoned in a body), Paul believed that a person is a body, and thus that Christian faith is always embodied in the world. He thus emphasizes that, “The most profound way a community gives physical expression to fellowship with Christ and one another is through its common meal” (70). He goes on: “The meal is vital, for as the members of the community eat and drink together, their unity is expressed. The meal must therefore be a genuinely social occasion. It deepens their relationships with each other in the same way that participation in an ordinary meal cements the bonds within a family or group” (72). For a rich depiction of the practice of table fellowship in the early house churches, readers are encouraged to pay special attention to the fictional story in the appendix “Going to Church in the First Century.”

Participatory Worship

Worship for Paul, Banks observes, referencing Romans 12:1-2: “is what believers should be doing all the time. It means giving their whole lives to God through discerning his worthy, pleasing, and ideal purposes for them rather than exhibiting the typical attitudes, standards, and actions generally found in the world” (77). Worship is thus more than what happens in a church gathering, and necessarily requires the participation of all believers. All of Christ’s followers are given gifts, Banks observes, and these gifts give shape to the ways that they participate in the holistic life and worship of Christ, both inside and outside church gatherings.

Active Disciplemaking

In Paul’s vision of Christian community, Banks notes, no one is a passive member. Everyone is given gifts for the purpose of serving and building up the church. He writes: “Each person in the community is granted a ministry to others. No one can operate in isolation or impose their own way of operating. The community contains a diversity of ministries, and it is precisely through varied contributions that the unity and wholeness of the body is expressed. God has so designed things that the involvement of every person is necessary for its proper functioning ( [1 Corinthians] 12:14-21). Each member has a unique role to play but is dependent on everyone else. All members, Banks emphasizes, have a responsibility for the health and growth of the church. “All are called to ‘instruct one another,’ to speak God’s word ‘so that all might be encouraged,’ and to ‘teach and admonish one another in all wisdom’” (119).

The Local and Universal Church

In addition to the four practices explored above, two other facets of Banks’s work in this book should be noted as especially helpful for churches seeking to live the Word. First, Banks devotes a significant portion of the early pages of this work to untangling the relationship between the local church and the universal church in Paul’s writings. He argues that Paul’s earlier writings tend to define ekklesia as the local church, and in later writings, ekklesia tends to refer to the universal church. How are the two related? For Paul, Banks writes: “There is no suggestion of a visible, earthly, universal church to which local gatherings are related as a part to the whole. Nor does Paul speak of any organizational framework by which the local communities are bound together. He nowhere suggests that the common life that communities share should be made visible in this way” (38). The universal church is a heavenly reality that will only be realized on earth in the escahtological reconciliation of all things. “A local church,” Banks argues, “is a tangible expression of the heavenly church, a manifestation in time and space of that which is essentially eternal and infinite” (38). 

Paul’s Idea of Leadership

One final facet of this book worth noting, is Banks’s depiction of Paul’s radical notion of how leadership functions in the church. In short, Banks argues that leadership should be defined “by function, not position” (121). Following the wisdom of Jesus (cf. Matthew 23), Paul therefore resisted creating hierarchies in the church by assigning titles and positions, but rather leadership was recognized in the specific ways that a person served within the church community. “Pastoral [leadership and] responsibility,” Banks writes, “can never remain the preserve of a select few but always exists as an obligation upon every member of the community — even if some have a more advantageous position or a greater capacity that enables them to devote themselves more energetically to the task” (125). 

Scripture itself (and especially the Pauline epistles) provides rich wisdom for the shape of our life together as we seek to live the Word in our local congregations. Roberts Banks’s work in this book is an essential guide to understanding this vision.