Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CITIZENSHIP

In biblical usage, a term signifying the community where one is a member. Throughout the Bible, individuals are portrayed holding citizenship in three types of community. The first type is citizenship within a concrete geographic entity. In Acts 21:39 Paul declares his being a “citizen of Tarsus . . . no mean city,” accenting the identification of his home city with some civic pride. The second type is a group that shares a special, temporal status that transcends geography. While preaching in Philippi and again later in Jerusalem, Paul twice reveals his Roman citizenship to the authorities who arrested him (Acts 16:37; 22:25). He did so to claim the rights only those who held citizenship enjoyed throughout the Roman Empire. The third type is a group united with God as a local church. Paul proclaims to the Philippians that they already hold citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3:20). He sees not just a physical group of persons who hold faith in Jesus Christ, but a community who collectively hold the eschatological quality of Christian faith: hope in Christ’s return, when they will be glorified. The letter to the Ephesians portrays the believers there as citizens of God’s “household” (Eph. 2:19); once alienated from God by sin, their faith in Christ makes them citizens of a special community where God’s Spirit dwells.

The portrayal in Acts of Paul’s exercising his rights as a citizen of Rome is the most explicit demonstration of citizenship in the Bible. Roman citizenship was a political status granted only to free males throughout the empire. He who held it enjoyed explicit legal rights, and implicit privileges extended due to holding this status. The explicit rights of Roman citizenship were protection from unjust punishments (cf. Acts 16:37; 22:25), appeal of one’s judicial case to Caesar (25:9-11), and the right to vote in Roman elections. (Some freedmen, upon receiving Roman citizenship, did not gain this right.) The first two rights held the most relevance for Roman citizens outside Italy. (A citizen had to be physically present in the city of Rome itself to cast his vote.) Paul used his rights to ensure that he continued to preach the gospel throughout the empire. His citizenship gave him a status before the local authority, whereby he could defend himself against the legal challenges leveled by opponents attempting to obstruct his evangelizing activity (e.g., Acts 17:22-23). Sometimes, Paul did not need to open his mouth, the charges being simply dismissed for not violating Roman law (e.g., Acts 18:14-15).

Later, when imprisoned by Roman authority, Paul had certain privileges extended to him due to his holding citizenship. He could receive visitors (Acts 23:17; 28:30), make pastoral visits as he did while on Malta (28:8), and order a Roman centurion to do his bidding (23:17). Most important was his privilege to preach the gospel without restriction, even as a prisoner of Caesar in the heart of the empire (Acts 28:30).

Bibliography. A. Berger, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Philadelphia, 1953); M. Black, “Paul and Roman Law in Acts,” ResQ 24 (1981): 209-18; P. van Minnen, “Paul the Roman Citizen,” JSNT 56 (1994): 43-52; J. J. O’Rourke, “Roman Law and the Early Church,” in The Catacombs and the Colosseum: The Roman Empire as the Setting of Primitive Christianity, ed. S. Benko and O’Rourke (Valley Forge, 1971), 165-86; J. Richardson, Roman Provincial Administration, 227 b.c. to a.d. 117 (London, 1976); A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford, 1963).

Ramón Luzárraga

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CITIZENSHIP

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)