What Shall We Call Each Other? Part One: The Issue Of Self-Designation In The Pastoral Epistles -- By: Paul Trebilco

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 53:2 (NA 2002)
Article: What Shall We Call Each Other? Part One: The Issue Of Self-Designation In The Pastoral Epistles
Author: Paul Trebilco


What Shall We Call Each Other?
Part One: The Issue Of Self-Designation In The Pastoral Epistles1

Paul Trebilco

Summary

This paper discusses, in two parts, the ‘self-designations’ for their readers which were used by the authors of the Pastoral Epistles (here in part one), the Johannine Letters and Revelation (to follow in part two). Different ways in which self-designations might relate to terms coined by outsiders are considered in the introduction. It is argued that the term ‘Christian’ was an ‘outsider-coined’ term, which does not seem to have been regularly used for the purposes of self-designation in the literature considered here. The key terms used for self-designation in the Pastoral Epistles are ‘brother and sister’ and ‘the believers’, which, it is argued here, are used both by the author and the readers. Reasons why these particular self-designations were used are offered. Comparative conclusions will follow the investigation of self-designation in the Johannine Letters and Revelation in Part Two.

I. Introduction

Members of groups tend to develop ‘names’ or ‘self-designations’ that they use for one another. Within the group that became popularly known as ‘the Quakers’, the terms ‘Children of the Light’, ‘Friends in the Truth’ or ‘Friends’ became the preferred ‘self-designation’ by members of the group themselves.2 Thus George Fox wrote of ‘a

meeting of Friends’ in a town near Derby, and went on to say with regard to the Vale of Beavor that, ‘the mighty power of God was there also in several towns and villages where Friends were gathered.’3 However, outsiders came to call the group ‘Quakers’.4

What terms were used within earliest Christianity in this way to designate other members of the group? How did authors refer to members of the communities to whom they were writing, and how would these members have referred to each other? This is the issue we will address here.

We need to distinguish between three different sorts of terms. Firstly, there is ‘insider language’ for self-designation; that is, the term or terms that would be used to designate other members of the group when speaking strictly within the group. Secondly, there is ‘out-facing language’; that is, the terms that would be used to designate members of the group when addressing outsiders, or to represent oneself to outsiders. Thirdly, there is ‘outsider-coined’ la...

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