Tidying up

I finished my paper at the weekend - The Matrix of Leadership: location, social order and authority in early Christianity. (slight title change!)

It's a bit long (7,200 words) but I'm quite pleased with it. In the end, the ideas flowed and I think I made a reasonable case that leadership in the Jesus movement in the second century was just as fluid as leadership in the first; and that just because certain letter writers expressed views about how it should be, that isn't necessarily how it was.

In particular, I explored the issue of social location (what kind of people joined the church) and asked how that might have affected the ways the movement was led in the first three generations.

I really enjoyed interacting with Polycarp - what a lovely gentle letter!

A footnote to my last post: Yes, Tom Wright did talk about jubilee. He argued strongly that Jesus was declaring jubilee when he preached in Nazareth and that is why he is good news for the poor. The jubilee is physical and economic and the proclamation of the Kingdom includes our mentioning and modelling it to the world.

I agree with Lynn, though, it would be a good investment to buy the CD of the talk. It's also available as a DVD but probably isn't that riveting as Tom didn't dance while he spoke!