We come now to the closing chapter of Walsh and Keesmaat’s Colossians Remixed. The last chp is about a “suffering ethic” and it concerns the imaginary trial of Nympha.
Nympha has been summoned before the magistrates: “It was a summons to me to come and speak for my ekklesia, my church” (221). She ponders as she observes others hushing as she walks by: “Was this not the sort of summons expected by a follower of Jesus?”
She’s informed they think she’s part of a group that is treasonous. She asks to see the evidence. “As a woman I had no legal standing” (221). [If you’d like to see a nice collection of texts on women in Roman society, see JoAnn Shelton, As the Romans Did, pp. 288-306.]
They read to her Colossians 1:15-20. “If treason was the charge, then this document surely supported it” (222).
She explains this as the creation to new creation story of Jesus.