Nympha is on trial, an imaginary trial, as Walsh and Keesmaat dramatically close off their book: Colossians Remixed. She’s been confronted with the “image” of God poem of Colossians 1:15-20, which the magistrates think is subversion of Caesar.
Indeed, she says: it is a confession that the God who is One has created and sustained all through his Son. She’s accused of denying the lordship of Caesar.
Do you no longer have murals with Caesar’s image in your home? Someone claims she has eliminated them all. And she is accused of releasing her slaves, given farms aways to the poor, etc. etc. She’s accused of undermining the social fabric.
She agrees: Yes, the text subverts Caesar just as the Hebrew Scriptures do.
But the Body of Christ is different. Our ekklesia is different; we challenge everything; we live out justice and peace.
Caesar’s peace is not real peace, she says.
They move to gather them all into prison. Her last words to them are that she believes Jesus is Lord.