Abstract
Scot McKnight and Eerdmans are to be congratulated for not doing what this review does: putting Colossians and Philemon together. Each letter deserves its own volume, and McKnight has produced two important commentaries. Each commentary contains the text of the NIV (2011), with frequent notes about the Common English Bible (CEB) translation. The CEB may be unfamiliar to some readers, and its alternative translations are worth contemplating, but some references to the NRSV would also have been useful. Both commentaries include extensive notes for students, scholars, or pastors who wish to pursue a text or topic in more depth, or to see McKnight interacting more fully with other interpreters.
Philemon
Philemon, Paul’s shortest letter, at just 335 Greek words, is also one of the apostle’s most controversial in terms of both its original meaning and its ongoing significance. McKnight enters the exegetical and theological fray by devoting about forty percent of the commentary to “introductory” matters. Yet these are important to him and to us. McKnight places the letter and his commentary within the framework of both ancient and modern expressions of slavery. At the same time, he is particularly attentive to Paul’s impressive, nonstop display of rhetorical power and his theology. The purpose of this theological rhetoric, McKnight contends, is to effect forgiveness, reconciliation, and the reconfiguration of relationships in Christ, for Onesimus is now a Christian brother whom Philemon should welcome as such. Secondarily, the rhetoric serves to persuade Philemon to release Onesimus for continued ministry with Paul. (McKnight sometimes qualifies this aim with “probably.”)
Critical to note, then, is what Paul does not attempt to do, according to McKnight. He does not attack slavery per se, or even hint in that direction, for Paul “was not disturbed by slavery as an institution” (p. 45). Later Christian anti-slavery and other liberation movements go beyond Paul’s intentions and beyond the letter’s reception for more than a millennium. Nor does Paul seek Onesimus’s manumission, which would actually not have been radical in the Roman context, McKnight contends.
Rather, Paul focuses on the church, not the empire; on “ecclesial liberation,” not manumission. In a culture of reciprocation, he calls on Philemon to pass on the grace he has received. Paul envisions a “grass-roots revolution” in the ekklēsia, a forerunner of the eschatological kingdom: a fellowship of equals in which hierarchies disappear, slaves and slave owners are siblings, and “Christoformity” (McKnight’s term for Christlikeness) is the substance of life together. Thus McKnight contends that the letter embodies “a new vision for humanity” while also being “a deeply disturbing text” (p. 1) that reveals an apostle “blind” to slavery’s immorality (p. 11).
This new vision, however, means that both Paul’s churches in his world and contemporary Christians in ours are called to “subvert slavery . . . by finding it, by naming it, by fighting against it, and by embodying a way of life that establishes social equality” in Christ (p. 5). That is, the church is called to be a space of reconciliation, and those who are reconciled in Christ will naturally work for reconciliation in society.
There is much to commend in this reading of Philemon, especially its sensitivity to slavery and its exposition of the letter’s mixture of rhetorical strategy and theological depth. In fact, theological insights and quotable nuggets abound. At times, however, one wonders about three interrelated matters.
First, is Onesimus “still a slave” (p. 2) or “no longer a slave but a brother” (p. 11; cf. pp. 82–83, 98)? While McKnight generally claims ignorance about what the new relationship might mean practically, what real difference does this relational change make if Paul’s ultimate goal is to get Onesimus back?
Second, McKnight’s overall interpretation leads him not to make much of the phrase “both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16, NRSV). But the parallelism in that phrase suggests that Philemon cannot treat Onesimus like a brother in church and like a piece of property at other times and places. In other words, the seeds of Christian anti-slavery sentiment and practice may be more plentiful and intentional in Philemon than McKnight allows. Is Paul really morally “blind” to slavery?
Third, the commentary would be stronger if it saw in Philemon, or if it at least argued from the letter itself, a more robust theological rationale for Christian efforts at reconciliation beyond the church walls. This practice is asserted as appropriate, but not justified. Furthermore (and this might help explain these various issues), the book would have benefitted from better editing for both argumentative flow and mechanics.
Colossians
As for Colossians, the sister-letter to Philemon, McKnight again offers us an extensive introduction, followed by a thorough commentary that attends to all the historical, grammatical, and theological aspects of the letter. He identifies his ultimate interpretative task as that of Augustine: to increase love of God and others among his readers.
McKnight joins the growing ranks of those who favor Pauline authorship of this “disputed” letter, but he does so with an interesting twist. He contends that the stylistic and theological differences among Paul’s letters are due to the fact that none is “pure” or “quintessential” Paul because all involve named or unnamed co-authors and assistants—composition by committee. (This proposal will likely draw some critique; it will be hard for many to imagine Romans as anything but undiluted Paul.) McKnight dates the letter earlier than some who subscribe to Pauline authorship, arguing that Paul is imprisoned not in Rome but in Ephesus.
As for the character of those whose “philosophy” is criticized in the letter, McKnight labels them “halakhic mystics” or “Torah-shaped transcendentalists” (p. 32): those who believe that wisdom and life can be found in Jewish law and practices, and in mystical experience (including encounters with cosmic powers), rather than in the crucified and resurrected cosmic Messiah Jesus. The fullness of God in Christ means that those who have been baptized into Christ and walk in him have the full experience of God.
For McKnight, then, as for many interpreters of Colossians, Christology is the rhetorical and theological entrance into the letter. This Christology—indeed, this “christological monotheism”—is found in the hymn of 1:15–20 as well as other key texts (e.g., 2:3, 9). In a summary phrase, McKnight says Colossians proclaims that “King Jesus rules the cosmos” (p. 2). More fully, this means that “God has conquered the powers, delivered all humans from sin and its powers, and reconciled the entire cosmos to himself in, through, and under Christ” (p. 3). Paul is not, however, directly taking on Rome as if he were writing an anti-imperial diatribe.
Growing organically out of this christological starting point is McKnight’s interpretation of the ecclesiology and ethic found in the letter. Emphasizing what he calls the ecclesial and missional focus of the letter, he calls the church in Colossians an “embodied manifestation of cosmic reconciliation” (p. 58). It is not the replacement of Israel, but an expansion of God’s people. Arguing against certain common modern readings of Colossians, he finds the letter’s ethic, including its household code (or Christian-family guidelines; 3:18–4:1), to be a fundamental challenge to the Roman way of status, hierarchy, honor, and domination. The holy people of the new creation are to live and love “in the Lord,” meaning in a Christoform pattern. The commentary proper both substantiates and fleshes out these basic perspectives.
The strengths of McKnight’s exegesis are many. He provides a rich theological exposition of each part of the text in its various contexts—those of the letter itself, Pauline theology more broadly, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the entire scriptural narrative. Words such as grace, wisdom, firstborn, fullness, and submission receive sophisticated in-depth analysis, going beyond traditional “word studies.” For the most difficult passages (e.g., “completing Christ’s sufferings” in 1:24; the household code), McKnight presents key aspects of the interpretative tradition before arguing his own case.
McKnight’s ecclesial (rather than merely individualistic) and missional focus is especially welcome, as is his reading of the household code as a Christoform challenge to ancient Roman—and many modern/postmodern—values and practices. Furthermore, McKnight rightly perceives and describes Paul’s own missionary vision and pastoral heart throughout the letter.
Preachers and teachers of these two letters are in Scot McKnight’s debt. Both commentaries challenge us to grapple with Paul’s writings so that they may speak anew to us.