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  Chapter 12: The War of the Lamb Summary 1972: With our focus on Jesus and Paul, other biblical witnesses have been left out, notably Revelation. Christian social ethics is obsessed with discovering the meaning and direction of history. It turns out this is no easy task because of the plethora of free agents in [...]

  Chapter 11: Justification by Grace through Faith Summary 1972: One major objection remains to the premise that Jesus’ social ethic was active and important in the early church. The primary message of Paul has been understood to be justification by grace through faith, especially since the Protestant Reformation. Works (i.e. social ethic) has nothing [...]

  Chapter 10: Let Every Soul Be Subject: Romans 13 and the Authority of the State Summary 1972: Romans 13:1-7 has traditionally been appealed to in order to support the God-ordained role of the state to wield the sword. It follows that if the Christian is enlisted by the state, a God-ordained structure, then the [...]

  Chapter 9: Revolutionary Subordination Summary 1972: Many point to the Haustafeln (e.g. Colossians 3:18-4:1; Ephesians 5:21-6:9; 1 Peter 2:13-37) as proof that the early church simply borrowed their ethical instruction from earlier Hellenistic (especially Stoic) and Jewish sources since Jesus didn’t provide an adequate ethical foundation for the growing church. Dibelius championed this view. [...]

  Chapter 8: Christ and Power Summary 1972: Some have argued that Jesus’ radical personalism makes him irrelevant to questions of power and structure. When the post-Constantine Christians found themselves in positions of social responsibility, they had to look outside the New Testament for their ethical guidelines because Jesus had nothing to say about the [...]

  Chapter 7: The Disciple of Christ and the Way of Jesus Summary 1972: Since it’s possible to posit a gap between the kingdom Jesus announced (as recorded in the Gospels) and the shape of the early Christian church, we will now reflect on the apostolic ethical tradition. One of the strongest themes that relate [...]

  Chapter 6: Trial Balance Summary 1972: We agree that Jesus had a ethical-social vision of the Kingdom. Does that vision as recorded in the gospels translate into the rest of the New Testament? Again, we will not be exhaustive, but prove that Jesus’ ethical-social vision didn’t end with the ascension. When Paul speaks about [...]

  Chapter 5: The Possibility of Nonviolent Resistance Summary Chapter five is a mere three pages long with one page consisting of a lengthy quote from Josephus. In it Yoder demonstrates that there were ways the Jewish people of Jesus’ day could resist Rome without turning to violent Zealotry. Using Josephus, he showed how the [...]

  Chapter 4: God Will Fight for Us Summary 1972: Here Yoder surveys key moments in Israel’s life where God fights so they don’t have to. This motif is grounded in the Exodus where Israel did nothing to destroy the Egyptians (Exodus 14:13). It continues on, being especially prevalent in 2 Chronicles. Even after the [...]

  Chapter 3: The Implications of the Jubilee Summary 1972: The thesis of this chapter is simple: Yoder believes that Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee year in his Nazareth sermon. (The entire chapter is an adaptation of André Trocmé’s work, Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution.) Yoder sets out to discover allusions throughout Jesus’ ministry to the [...]