Serve the Community of the Church

This new six-volume series (First-Century Christians in the Graeco-Roman World), which gathers contributors who are specialists in the intersection of the New Testament with the Graeco-Roman world, seeks for the first time to describe systematically the challenges, difficulties, and necessary adjustments involved in being a Christian in first-century Graeco-Roman society.

This volume explores the nature of leadership in the Christian community, especially as it was variously taught by Paul and practiced in the congregations of the first century.

Exploring valuable ancient source material as well as the New Testament texts, Andrew Clarke describes the theories and practices of organization and leadership in key areas of first-century society—the city, the colony, associations, Jewish synagogues, the family—and discusses the extent to which these models influenced the first-century Christians as they sought to define the parameters and distinctives of their own communities.