Conclusion

This concluding chapter returns to the Letter to the Philippians, considering the ways in which a framework of theo-economics helps one to better understand the letter. Theo-economics highlights the multiple transactional entanglements of human and divine beings in early Christ communities in Philippi. As comparing Paul's Letter to the Philippians and Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians helped to trace one of many afterlives of the theo-economic themes present in early Christianity, a broader study compiling evidence from several texts and contexts would begin to untangle the diverse ways in which gender, economy, and theology are intertwined in early Christianity. The chapter then looks at some of the broader implications of the book's approach for New Testament and early Christian studies, for Roman historians, and for the study of religion. By taking seriously the ways in which persons in antiquity understood themselves to be participating in transactions with the divine, one can begin to break down some of the scholarly categories that separate theology from economics.