The Self-giving Power of God

Abstract

This chapter puts forward the idea of a distinctively early Christian understanding of divine power in terms of a logic driven primarily by concerns about apostolic mission and preaching. It maintains that first-century Christian authors, notably Paul and Luke in Acts, offer a reimagining of the nature of divine power in six different ways: the Christological, communicative, pneumatological, kerygmatic, pre-eminence, and weakness aspects to the concept. Further, the essay seeks to trace the way in which these features of the divine dunamis are reinterpreted, and, sometimes, extended quite radically, by three early Christian authors of very different kinds: Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote epistles to some degree after Paul; Hermas, who wrote about visions and parables in a deeply allegorical style; and Justin Martyr, an apologist who used the language and concepts of contemporary Platonism.