Paul's Macedonian associations

Richard S. Ascough uses Greco-Roman associations as a comparative model for understanding early Christian community organization, with specific attention to Paul's Macedonian Christian communities. He provides a comprehensive description of the range of voluntary associations, defined as groups of men and/or women organized on the basis of freely chosen membership for a common purpose. The community language and practices reflected in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians are compared to that of the voluntary associations. Doing so helps to explain both Paul's language and the language and structure of the communities to which he writes. The author argues that many of the features of the two Macedonian Christian communities reflected in Paul's letters find ready analogies in voluntary associations. Thus, both of the Macedonian Christian groups would have appeared to outsiders as associations and would have functioned internally as associations, too.