Kindle Notes & Highlights
In the gospels, Jesus associates with the stigmatized, the lost, and the worthless: with prostitutes, tax-collectors, illiterate fishermen, children, and women marginalized by illness or ethnicity.
This is not a grace where “anything goes.” Time after time, Jesus makes clear that strong expectations are laid on those who are welcomed into the kingdom: the forgiven are expected to forgive (Matt 6:12), the fig tree is expected to bear fruit (Luke 13:6–9), the disciples are called to serve (Mark 10:41–45), the wealthy are expected to give (Luke 19:1–10), and the loved are commanded to love (John 13:34–35). These are not means to earn a second gift but the proper result when “salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9).
The proper result of a relationship
But this grace does not leave its recipients as they were: Jesus Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).
Bu what are the implications for us today?
We cannot simply transfer texts and concepts across the distance of time and culture that separates us from Paul.
I will outline here three ways in which Paul’s theology of grace could have resonance today: in equipping communities to challenge inherited systems of worth; in addressing contemporary crises in personal self-esteem; and in fostering the practice of reciprocal generosity, forms of giving not to but with the poor.
In Paul’s good news, human worth is founded on the grace of God, which is not dependent on any form of symbolic capital, ascribed or achieved.
Rather, it creates what is pleasing and good, confers it, and fashions it out of nothing. As Luther commented on this thesis: “Therefore sinners are attractive [to God] because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive…. This is the love of the cross, born of the cross, which turns in the direction where it does not find good which it may enjoy, but where it may confer good on the bad and needy person.”8
Central Western values, like autonomy and choice, are beginning to show their limitations if they do not serve a larger social purpose, and Paul’s theology of gift-sharing, community, and reciprocity could offer resources for a more balanced and sustainable political economy.
Both at the international level (in international “aid”) and in more local, charitable enterprises, the one-way gift frequently proves to be patronizing, demeaning, and disempowering.
Well-intentioned giving on this model can backfire, creating resentment or continuing dependency rather than partnership, growth, and mutual respect.
the expectation that the community itself will already contain multiple gifts, ready to be discovered and developed; the determination to bring in outside resources, financial or personal, only in such a way as to develop and enhance the gifts within the community; and the desire to create partnerships, cooperation, and solidarity both within local communities, and, where appropriate, with other agencies.
Paul’s theology of community aligns closely with this vision in many respects, especially in the formation of communities of mutual dependence, where every member of the body has something to contribute and no one can say of another, “I have no need of you” (1 Cor 12:21).14 In this respect, it is unhelpful (even harmful) to speak of “the poor” or “deprivation,” if one thereby implies the presence of nothing but lack. On a Pauline model of the body, everyone has something to give to others, and one should expect to give not to the poor but with them.
