Steward, prophet, keeper of the word--these three roles reflect the hierarchical social structures, religious experience, and faithfulness to tradition found in ancient Mediterranean cultures, and, as Ritva Williams argues, influenced the development of early Christianity. The linear progression of leadership (apostles to bishops or apostles to presbyters or charismatics to office holders, etc.) commonly held to have emerged in the early church does not appear in early Christian texts from the mid-first to early second centuries. Instead, what these texts reveal is a variety, diversity, and plurality of ways that Christ-followers adopted and adapted these dynamic roles from antiquity as they struggled to organize and live in their local situations.

Ritva H. Williams is associate professor of New Testament at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

http://www.christianbook.com/stewards-prophets-keepers-leadership-early-church/ritva-williams/9780801048081/pd/048081

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