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Philippians and Philemon: Prison Epistles, Part 2

  1. Lesson One
    Overview of Philippians (Philippians 1–4)
    22 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  2. Lesson Two
    Philippians: Suffering and Community (Philippians Review)
    22 Activities
  3. Lesson Three
    Overview of Philemon
    22 Activities
  4. Lesson Four
    Paul and Slavery (Philemon, Romans 6 Review)
    17 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  5. Lesson Five
    Social Impact
    9 Activities
    |
    4 Assessments
  6. Course Wrap-Up
    Course Completion
    1 Activity
    |
    1 Assessment

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The social impact of the Bible is of vital interest, especially in a world where believers are often blamed for how Scripture has been used to suppress people. We’ve noted in other lessons the inclination of younger Americans to choose their religious affiliation based on social agendas (e.g., justice, environment, poverty). Faith commitments now tend to be less about truth propositions compared to the past. Older generations asked, “Is it true” and “How can we prove it?” Books like Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict became best sellers. They helped people assess Christianity based on the values and truth claims that were of greatest concern at the time. 

While truth claims are as important—or more important—now than ever, the increased interest in the Bible’s political and social vision is a welcome addition. And that’s because at the heart of the Bible is a comprehensive moral and social vision for how God wants His image-bearers to live. Biblical Christianity is an inescapably social religion. It involves a social view of God, who is Himself a community of persons:

The absolute mystery of whose life is an agapic threefold donation in which each one wants the other to be, lets the other be, consents to its generation or inspiration, prays to the other and lives with the other in an eternal conversation of expectation and fulfillment, unfathomable gratitude and surprise.
—Antonio López

(NOTE: “Agapic” means an expression of “agape” or godly love.)

And because God is a social communion, salvation is a social reality. The church isn’t really a religion or even a spiritual movement. The church is a society, a social network and community that participates in the life of God. Christianity is not a truth proposition or a creed but a social movement, and a social agenda. Every local congregation is meant to become a community of love and humility that mirrors God’s own divine communion. It’s concerned with breathing God’s life into the world, spreading the circulatory system of God’s eternal love and character into every human relationship. It seeks to repair the broken network of social relations that has fractured and splintered down through history since Genesis 3 where humanity turned away from our original communion with God. Just as the first sin was a breach of our relationship with God:

Sin is always an offense that touches others, that alters the world and damages it. To the extent that this is true, when the network of human relationships is damaged from the very beginning, then every human being enters into a world that is marked by relational damage. At the very moment that a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt. Consequently, each person is, from the very start, damaged in relationships and does not engage in them as he or she ought. 
—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

There are a lot of great causes out there that we might join or get excited about, but the visions that fuel them vary considerably. For Christians, every good cause is subordinate to God’s character and vision. Social engagement flows out of a deeply theological source.

Let’s now look at ways the Bible has inspired and influenced social change. 

Sources: Antonio López, “Eternal Happening: God as an Event of Love,” in Love Alone is Credible: Essays on von Balthasar, 2008, p. 86. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, ‘In the Beginning…’: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall,1995, pp. 72-74.

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