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Embracing Shared Ministry: Power and Status in the Early Church and Why It Matters Today. By Joseph H. Hellerman. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2013, 313 pp., $17.99 paper.
Joseph Hellerman is Professor of NT Language and Literature at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University and pastor-elder (along with eight other men) at Oceanside Christian Fellowship in El Segundo, CA, where he has served for almost 20 years. He is the author of several books including The Ancient Church as Family (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), Restructuring Honor in Roman Philippi: Carmen Christi as Cursus Pudorum (SNTSMS 132; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus' Vision for Authentic Christian Community (Nashville: B&H, 2009), and Jesus and the People of God: Reconfiguring Ethnic Identity (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007). Basing much of this current work on previous research, Hellerman approaches ecclesiology from a sociological perspective to gain insight into Paul's letter to the Philippians.
Hellerman's basic thesis is that Paul deliberately subverts the social values of Roman culture in order to instruct the early Christians how to live in community. Thus, Phil 2:6-11 becomes a key text for the book, since there Paul intentionally illustrates how Jesus used his power and authority, not to elevate himself, but in the service of others. When this type of humility is applied to ecclesiology, it results in a team of leaders who relate to each other as family instead of a single leader who is the dominant decision-maker and vision-caster for the church. In Hellerman's words: "Ideally, the local church should be led by a plurality of pastor-elders who relate to one another first as siblings in Christ, and who function only secondarily- and only within the parameters of that primary relational context-as visioncasting, decision-making leaders for the broader church family" (p. 17). Although the author acknowledges that this book is "about the institutional structures of our churches" (p. 17), he stresses that it is not about a particular form of government but, more importantly, about the function of leaders in the church. At the same time, he recognizes that certain forms are more conducive for cultivating a highly relational model of leadership that will be more likely to exercise authority in a servant-like, godly manner.
The book...