Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as benefactors and citizens
(First-century Christians in the Greco-Roman world)
By Bruce W. Winter. Paternoster. 245 pages. £14.99
ISBN 0 85364 633 3
In this detailed and amply-documented book, Winter, the Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, examines the way in which Christians in the New Testament era related to civic and societal conventions of the day.
The title comes from Jeremiah's instruction to the exiled people of God: 'Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare' (Jeremiah 29.7). Winter argues that this concept was formative for Paul and Peter (the two apostolic writers with whom he deals directly), who taught Christians to do what they could 'to help sustain and enhance the life of the cities in which they lived' (p.1). He aims to map out a New Testament basis for social engagement which steers between the two extremes of radical disengagement and unthinking involvement.
