David A. deSilva David deSilva (Ph.D. Emory University) is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek at ATS. The term “patronage” refers to a system in which access to goods, positions, or services is enjoyed by means of personal relationships and the exchanging of “favors” rather than by impersonal and impartial systems of distribution. People in the United States and Northern Europe may be culturally conditioned to find the