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Final thoughts on Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat's study, Colossians Remixed.

First, this is a definitive study of using empire ideology to comprehend both a Pauline letter and bringing those insights into our world. It selectively looks at Colossians in light of that empire ideology.

Second, the "commentary" is one of the few so conversant with postmodernity and how postmoderns hear a text like one of Paul's letters.

Third, I'm unpersuaded of the centrality of the empire theme in Colossians. It can be "read into" Colossians but I'm not so sure it is that easy to "read it out of" Colossians. The "image" connection isn't persuasive to me; the lordship connection clearly has implications for empire -- whether in Paul's mind or not.

Fourth, this book taps into the anti-Bush, welfare state-leaning critique of Western, esp USA culture and for this reason I predict, if a Democrat wins the next election, this book will no longer have any biting edge. Which is to say, it is a tract for our times for some of us. It is not an exposition of Colossians for all times. My own political independence attracts me at times to some of what they write but many times I come to similar conclusions for other reasons.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. I liked most of it; I disagreed at times because I didn't think the case was proven. If I can see empire implications in the theology of Paul that does not mean that I think Paul had that in his mind as he wrote this letter.

It would be fun to teach Colossians with this book as a constant point of interaction. How, I would ask in that setting, does Colossians speak to our world? For me, it would be other than empire.

We now close off Colossians Remixed with the final section in Walsh and Keesmaat's book.

Paul is in prison (4:3).
Onesimus is now seen as a faithful brother (4:9).
Nympha is a leader in the church (4:15).

Archippus is to remember his call.
Paul asks everyone to "remember my chains" (4:18).

We are called to embody the gospel of a crucified Messiah. This gospel challenges the principalities and powers of our age. The new community is to embody that gospel challenge.

Embrace the one who wears, not a crown, but a cross.
Give Paul a hearing.
Enter into the lived story of the community of Christ.

I will give some summary thoughts on Walsh and Keesmaat's book Monday.

The second to last section in Colossians Remixed concerns the story of Jesus as a story of suffering -- and this, they suggest, provides a foundation for the Colossian Christians to understand their own suffering.

Cross-bearing is integral to being the body of Christ

The church is destined to affliction or, better yet, to oppression. See 2 Cor 1:3-7; Phil 3:8-11 and Rom 8:17. [Question: If "oppression" -- translating thlipsis -- was the analogy between the church and Christ, why is that word never used for Christ's sufferings in the Gospels? It is often used in the Gospels for eschatological tribulation.]

The story of the church is the story of oppression.

"Where does that leave a Christian community that seems to avoid any sort of suffering?" (229).

Paul made known the "mystery" and the "hope of glory."

From the fictional story of Nympha's trial to a justification of the theology behind that story, Walsh and Keesmaat now turn in Colossians Remixed.

Her story is the story of the early Christians in conflict with the empire of Rome.

"The counterimperial vision of cosmic reconciliation in Christ is the vision that has transformed this community into a subversive body politic, counter to the empire" (226).

It is the story of the cross and that means suffering. Israel's hope is the suffering servant (Isa 53); Jesus is the suffering servant; Paul is on the same path of suffering (Col 1:24).

We have to let the Bible subvert even our most cherished interpretive traditions.

Nympha is on trial, an imaginary trial, as Walsh and Keesmaat dramatically close off their book: Colossians Remixed. She's been confronted with the "image" of God poem of Colossians 1:15-20, which the magistrates think is subversion of Caesar.

Indeed, she says: it is a confession that the God who is One has created and sustained all through his Son. She's accused of denying the lordship of Caesar.

Do you no longer have murals with Caesar's image in your home? Someone claims she has eliminated them all. And she is accused of releasing her slaves, given farms aways to the poor, etc. etc. She's accused of undermining the social fabric.

She agrees: Yes, the text subverts Caesar just as the Hebrew Scriptures do.

But the Body of Christ is different. Our ekklesia is different; we challenge everything; we live out justice and peace.

Caesar's peace is not real peace, she says.

They move to gather them all into prison. Her last words to them are that she believes Jesus is Lord.

We come now to the closing chapter of Walsh and Keesmaat's Colossians Remixed. The last chp is about a "suffering ethic" and it concerns the imaginary trial of Nympha. Nympha has been summoned before the magistrates: "It was a summons...

What about women?, so asks Nympha in Walsh and Keesmaat's imaginary dialogue in the church at Colosse (in Colossians Remixed). If Paul is concerned with liberating slaves, she says, so also is he concerned with liberating women. Apphia speaks up:...

The following comment opens up chp 11 in Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed, and it's a good one. "We can argue," they put into the mouth of "Anthony," "until we are blue in the face that Colossians is good news...

Let's get practical -- so say Walsh and Keesmaat in Colossians Remixed. How, they are asking, do we take Colossians 3 and bring it into our world? 1. Patriotism to the empire needs to be re-evaluated. They examine here Romans...

How then is the postmodern dilemma resolved ethically? If there is anxious paralysis or nihilism or simply the resolution in personal experience, is there any way to render moral judgment when one suspects something is wrong? Walsh and Keesmaat, in...

Colossians 3:5-8 (see below) partakes in the discourse of violence according to Walsh and Keesmaat in their Colossians Remixed.Today we look at this passage.\ Col 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust,...

Most importantly, the ethic of relationship and the ethic of narrative leads to an ethic of secession (from the empire) in Walsh and Keesmaat's study of Colossians, Colossians Remixed. W-K begin with Wendell Berry -- and his "The Mad Farmer,...

After mentioning that Paul's ethic in Colossians is a resurrection, ascension, liberation, and eschatological ethic, Walsh and Keesmaat, in Colossians Remixed, contend also that the ethic of Paul is "relational" and "narrative" and (tomorrow's post) an ethic of secession. "Absolutes,...

Walsh and Keesmaat, in their Colossians Remixed, want to know "what kind of ethic" we find in Colossians 3:1-17. Good discussion follows. Is the ethic life-denying and otherworldly? W-K contend Paul's theology and this letter in particular is the exact...

Walsh and Keesmaat, in their ever-provocative study of Colossians in light of postmodernity, Colossians Remixed, devote a chp to Colossians 3 under the thematic heading of "an ethic of secession." Today we look at how postmoderns view ethical teachings in...

We come to the end of our week with chp 8 in Walsh and Keesmaat's Colossians Remixed, and this week has focused on their hermeneutical move from ancient text to postmodern world -- what they are calling a "targum" on...

Now for the final link in the targum of Colossians 3:1-4 by Walsh and Keesmaat (Colossians Remixed). It's not always clear which part of Colossians they are "targumizing" -- what is summary and transition at the end of a secition...

Now for some more targum from Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed. Col. 2:20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its...

This week in Walsh and Keesmaat's study of Colossians, called Colossians Remixed, they once again move into the territory of targumizing -- or updating -- Colossians 2:8--3:4, but this time they discuss first the "hermeneutical method" and view of "biblical...

If knowledge flows from our commitments, is all knowledge relative? So Walsh and Keesmaat ask in Colossians Remixed. The problem one often hears about postmodernity is relativism. There are, they say, no metaworldview criteria that can prove one worldview superior...

Well, then is a proper Christian approach to truth simply a chastened modernity, a humble objectivism? So Walsh and Keesmaat are asked in Colossians Remixed. Here's the philosophy: ontology precedes epistemology. Our understanding of who we are and "what is"...

We are looking at Colossians Remixed and we come again to the question about whether or not truth is "objective." Truth is more than what we agree on. But "objective" truth, Walsh and Keesmaat argue, hasn't worked yet. The 20th...

One of the more potent questions folks ask postmodernists is if truth is anything more than, or other than, a rhetoric used by those in power to justify their power? Walsh and Keesmaat address the so-called "objectivity" of truth in...

What is truth? is the question that shapes chp 7 in Walsh and Keesmaat's Colossians Remixed. The concern of this book is to explore postmodern questions by reading Colossians; they do this creatively and in a variety of ways and...

But this suggestion of a suffering God and a creation-affirming God of redemption ... does this story get carried on by Paul in Colossians or is his gospel the fullness of that gospel? So, we turn to the end of...

Now we are to the big question in Walsh and Keesmaat's Colossians Remixed: Is Paul's gospel, especially since it counters the philosophy's "gospel," just another rhetorical power play? Is it just another constructed regime of truth? They say we have...

In Walsh-Keesmaat,Colossians Remixed, we are exploring how a postmodern world can grapple with Paul's "totalizing" worldview in Colossians. Instead of just accepting the totalizing claim of the opponents and dissing the totalizing claim of Paul, what if we -- they...

So, we remind ourselves from yesterday, what are we to make of Colossians in a postmodern world if Colossians is a worldview text? Another piece of the puzzle we find in Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed. Michel Foucault: "Truth is...

"Regimes of truth" and the "word of truth" is the subject of chp 6 in Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed. The chp begins with this statement: "The Colossian Christians had trouble on both sides. To many Jews they were heretics,...

W-K, in Colossians Remixed, make the observation that many try to see the "thrones and dominions" (shorthand for the four terms found in Colossians 1:16) in either exclusively political or spiritual (angels, etc) terms. They argue that empire is shaped...

We've been hard on W-K in their commentary on Colossians called Colossians Remixed and I'm being hard on them because I want to see evidence and not just explanation. Let me illustrate: I could read everything in Colossians in terms...

I begin our study today of Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed, by quoting this: "As soon as he [Paul] made references to 'image of God,' 'firstborn' and 'first place,' everyone with ears to hear would know that he was contrasting...

Walsh and Keesmaat (Colossians Remixed) suggest we develop, alongside Paul's and fired both by Paul's imagination and the narrative of Scripture, an imagination that is an "alternative to the empire's" (85). Which they do on pp. 85-89, and I'd reproduce...

This is poetry; this is poetry about the "image". And Walsh and Keesmaat, in their Colossians Remixed, argue this is subversive poetry, poetry about an image that undermines empire and Rome and Caesar. Col. 1:15 The Son is the image...

In Colossians Remixed, Walsh-Keesmaat argue that there are three important rules for interpreting a text: context, context, context. Which is what the first four chapters did. What surprises, of course, many today is that they would choose "empire" as the...

What does Paul mean when he speaks of "fruitfulness" on the part of the church at Colosse? Here is Col. 1:5-6: "Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you,...

How do we tell the story of the Bible? Let's keep it simple: the Reformed focus on covenant, the Lutherans on Gospel and Law, low church evangelicals on personal redemption ... and we could go on. What Walsh and Keesmaat...

The second half of chp 3 of Walsh-Keesmaat's commentary on Colossians, called Colossians Remixed, explains how "empire" works -- and their whole commentary reads Colossians as a response to empire. You've seen enough of the commentary for at least a...

Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat's commentary, Colossians Remixed, blends three elements: a postmodern approach, a socio-economic critique of empire in the West, and a creative attempt to get into the realities of the Colossian letter and its recipients. Chp 3...

What is perhaps most interesting to me about W-K's "commentary" (Colossians Remixed) is their explanation of three terms [make that four]: peace, grace, truth, and spiritual wisdom. Shalom: it has to do with "blessing, richness, abundance and a far-reaching harmony...

The targum of Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed, continues: In italics again, Paul's words: Col. 1:9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you...

1Παῦλος ἀπόστολος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ καὶ Τιμόθεος ὁ ἀδελφὸς 2τοῖς ἐν Κολοσσαῖς ἁγίοις καὶ πιστοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ: χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν. 3Εὐχαριστοῦμεν τῷ θεῷ πατρὶ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ πάντοτε περὶ...

Just in case you are wondering what Walsh and Keesmaat's understanding of Colossians and postmodernity might look like, they have "updated" Colossians 1:1-14, what the ancient Jews called a "targum." This is from:Colossians Remixed. I feel this question coming on...

We are reading through Colossians along with Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat (W-K), with their Colossians Remixed, and today we will look further at the first chapter. We read Colossians in its context and -- just as importantly -- we...

We begin today a series on Colossians and to do this I will be reading my way through a book many of you have perhaps read: Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmat, a husband and wife team, wrote Colossians Remixed. Here's...

Col. 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, Col. 1:2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our...