Reviewed by: Suffering as Participation with Christ in the Pauline Corpus by Wesley Thomas Davey Channing L. Crisler wesley thomas davey, Suffering as Participation with Christ in the Pauline Corpus (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. viii + 225. $115. The title of this book is an apt description of its aim. Wesley Thomas Davey aims to demonstrate that, for Paul, suffering with Christ is “constitutive of Christian existence” (p. 1). His overarching thesis is that, by reading Paul’s letters within the “tripartite construct” of exegesis, canon, and theology, one discovers “three foundational convictions” that function as the basis for the apostle’s statements on suffering and foreground “four correlative convictions” (pp. 2–3). Based on a careful exegetical examination of relevant texts, D. articulates Paul’s three foundational convictions about the believer’s suffering. First, suffering follows from being united with Christ so that the believer’s life will follow the same trajectory of Christ’s life, namely, suffering, death, and ultimately glory. Second, suffering verifies the arrival of the “last days” and thereby the attainment of God’s purposes for a “new creation.” Those purposes are inaugurated through the death and resurrection of Christ and are extended through the church’s “embodied reiteration of the gospel” (p. 3). Third, the cause of suffering is the “cosmic war” being waged against God by “principalities and powers,” while the consequence of such suffering is that it paradoxically accomplishes the church’s missional role of bearing witness to the cosmos that “Jesus Christ is Lord” (p. 3). With these foundational convictions in tow, D. posits four correlative convictions for Paul. First, vindication on the “last day” requires faithful endurance of suffering. Second, Christ’s sufferings are “democratized” in that believers share in them. Third, no distinction exists between suffering that emanates from bearing witness to the gospel and “natural” suffering. Fourth, the believers’ suffering is a “profound experience of the love of God in Christ” (p. 3). Methodologically, D. employs what he refers to as a “tripartite construct” of exegesis, canon, and theology. In his “exegesis,” D. applies the definition of “close readings” by Terry Eagelton (Literary Theory: An Introduction [3rd ed.; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008]) to his analysis of Paul’s participatory suffering language and compares various occurrences of this language in a manner that is narrower in scope than larger projects such as those by Constantine R. Campbell (Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012]) and Grant Macaskill (Union with Christ in the New Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013]). The exegesis of chap. 2 revolves around three key texts: Rom 8:12–39; 2 Cor 12:1–10; and Phil 3:7–11. D. meticulously works through each text extracting several elements that he thinks might [End Page 137] inform Paul’s larger understanding of the Christian’s suffering. D. makes several interesting and promising inferences. Perhaps most notweorthy is a recurring inference from each text that Paul does not distinguish between missional suffering with Christ and other forms of suffering not directly linked to persecution for the mission. As D. infers from his analysis of Phil 3:7–11, “Paul provocatively smudges the line between ‘natural’ and ‘mission’ suffering to allow for hermeneutical play” (p. 59). The “canon” portion of the study occupies chap. 3, where Davey challenges the status quo of higher criticism by extending his analysis to portions of the Pauline corpus that many scholars normally deem deutero-Pauline. He examines three texts: Eph 6:10–20; Col 1:24– 29; and 2 Tim 2:1–13. After he defends his “canonical Paul” approach, D. essentially applies the same “close reading” approach to these texts and draws several inferences in his effort to further articulate Paul’s overarching theology of suffering. Among the inferences from Ephesians, D. underscores how descriptions of “principalities and powers” provides a “hermeneutical cypher” with the result that one cannot distinguish between “natural” and “spiritual” suffering in Christ (p. 106). A recurring inference from Colossians and 2 Timothy is the suggestion that suffering with Christ will and must follow the narrative trajectory of Christ’s life. Such an experience both...