{"id":163,"date":"2010-05-20T10:40:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T15:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=163"},"modified":"2010-05-21T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-21T22:48:48","slug":"assigned-seating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/assigned-seating\/","title":{"rendered":"Assigned Seating"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I was reading the Didascalia Apostolorum<\/em> (DA<\/em>), like people do on a bright May morning. Chapter 12.4 has an instruction for bishops in the worship service:<\/p>\n

If, after you are seated, some other man or woman should arrive who is honored in the world, whether from the same region or another congregation, you should not leave off your ministry of the word\u2014whether you are speaking it or hearing it or reading it\u2014in order to show them to a place. Instead, remain as you are and do not interrupt the word.<\/p>\n

For those who may not know, DA<\/em> is an anonymous manual of church order, written largely in the 3rd century. Originally composed in Greek, it survives today mainly in Syriac. Though not especially well studied yet, DA<\/em> gives us fascinating glimpses into early church life before Constantine\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

In this passage, DA<\/em> counsels church leaders not to do what would come naturally. In the ancient world, when people of worldly dignity show up, it would be normal to drop what you are doing and receive them amidst the pomp and circumstance that fits their status. Not to do so would be rude and politically unwise, since surviving and thriving in that society depended so much on playing long-established games of patronage and preferment. From a worldly perspective, one would expect that the ranking \u201cdignitary\u201d of the congregation, the bishop, would be quick to court the favor of local luminaries and visiting VIPs by privileging their position in the church assembly. In public gatherings, the seating chart was a primary way of making and reinforcing a person\u2019s significance in society. But here DA<\/em> encourages the bishop to recognize that attending to the word is more important than attending to worldly status\u2014and that in the eyes of God a minister of the Gospel outranks those whom society would privilege on account of wealth and power. Like it or not, any bigwig who walked in expecting special treatment would get hit squarely with a different set of values than he or she was accustomed to outside the church.<\/p>\n

Later in the chapter (12.6), DA<\/em> gives bishops further advice about seating arrangements:<\/p>\n

But if a poor man or woman should arrive, whether from the same region or another congregation, especially if they are elderly, and if they have no place, then you, bishop, should act for them from your heart, even if it means sitting on the ground yourself. There should be no respect of persons with you, but you should please God through your ministry.<\/p>\n

The arrangements are deliciously ironic: When big-shots show up, yanking the minister\u2019s chain to receive attention and trying to impose their privileged status on the congregation, ignore them. But when someone arrives whom the world would naturally place last, someone poor or feeble and insignificant, quickly move to find them a place\u2014even the place of highest honor, the bishop\u2019s own seat! By subverting the toxic norms of a sick society, the minister\u2019s seating chart becomes a pointer to the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Not everything in DA<\/em> would naturally be to the liking of the contemporary minister, but here we have a worthy teacher. Following Jesus\u2019 lead in Luke 14:7\u201311, DA<\/em> instructs ministers to embody the gospel in ways that will foster the world of God\u2019s new creation.<\/p>\n

Is there a need to rearrange some of the seating charts in your context?<\/p>\n

Dr. Jeff Childers<\/a>
\nCarmichael-Walling Chair of NT and Early Christianity
\nACU Graduate School of Theology<\/a>
\nAbilene, TX 79699<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I was reading the Didascalia Apostolorum (DA), like people do on a bright May morning. Chapter 12.4 has an instruction for bishops in the worship service: If, after you are seated, some other man or woman should arrive who is honored in the world, whether from the same region or another congregation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAssigned Seating - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/assigned-seating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Assigned Seating - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The other day I was reading the Didascalia Apostolorum (DA), like people do on a bright May morning. 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