I received my copy of Sinners: Jesus and His Earliest Followers from the author himself, Dr. Greg Carey. Greg and I met for lunch yesterday in the city and talked about the rise of Neo-Calvinism, Progressive Christianity, Lancaster County’s religious ethos, the college b-ball tournament, our kids, and his latest book. Like I said, I just received my copy of Sinners yesterday and have only had time since then to peruse the table of contents and read the preface and chapter one. That said, I’m already seriously excited about this book!
If you are at all interested in the historical context and setting of the early Jesus movement (the Sitz im Leben) – and you should be – then this is a book that you will want to add to your library, for sure. Sinners is not, however, a mere history lesson; it is that and then some. It is a history lesson accompanied by a very relevant challenge to not only acknowledge how the first generation of Christians defined and forged their identity within their own setting, but also to apply that same sort of devotional methodology within our contemporary world. Greg is not doing history for history’s sake. He’s pointing us towards an aspect of real-time discipleship that does not change but is often ignored because it is entirely too difficult and demanding for 21st Century American faith. This book is founded upon a very serious and unavoidable challenge that Christians everywhere should wrestle with, prayerfully.
I’ll let the book speak for itself a bit. Here are a few excerpts from the preface which will explain the scope and direction of the work.
“The title of this book, Sinner: Jesus and His Earliest Followers, aims to be provocative. In Christian contexts one often hears that Jesus, being divine, did not commit sin. This is a theological claim, grounded in centuries of doctrine and tradition. To place Jesus’ name among ’sinners’ strikes at the heart of Christian reverence for him. I do not intend to demean Jesus. But I do mean to make a point. In their own historical contexts, in their own times and places, people knew Jesus and his earliest followers as sinners. That is, Jesus and the first generations of Christians frequently violated conventional social norms. What is more, they provoked hostility, sometimes violence, as a result. Jesus’ cross, which was a sign of a publicly sanctioned execution, stands as a primary symbol for this movement. This book traces several of the ways in which Jesus and his earliest followers stepped across normal lines of propriety and elicited responses ranging from suspicion to outright resistance” (preface vii).”
“My [Greg] primary focus involves how early Christians came to understand their collective identity within their larger societies. When I discuss Jesus, I mean Jesus as he was remembered by those first generations of followers who produced our earliest Christian literature. From a literary perspective, Jesus is a character in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Mark’s Jesus and John’s Jesus hardly amount to the same character: They talk about different things; they sound different; and they do different things. Although I claim a personal interest in the real, flesh and blood historical Jesus, that is not the focus of this book. Likewise, when I discuss other early Christian literature my main question involves how, say, 1 Corinthians reflects the process of early Christian self-definition – not so much why or how an author like the Apostle Paul wrote this letter (though questions like that are important for this book). Throughout the book I have sought to maintain this focus on early Christian identity in a pagan world” (preface ix).”
Like I said earlier, this book is going to be a good and challenging read. I highly suggest you grab a copy and read it along with me. I’ll be devoting one post to every chapter in the book. It would be wonderful to have some folk reading along with me to share in what will undoubtedly be edifying conversation about Jesus and his earliest followers.
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