Paul and Jesus

"(Paul) has spied new meaning of the word 'God', because the person he has firmly in view is Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen one.  Paul has taken the word 'God' itself and has filled it with new content.  Or rather, he would say, he has discovered what its true content always was."

"...at the heart of Paul's theology and indeed gospel, is the news that the one true God consists, through and through, of self-giving love."

It seems to me that Chapter 4 in NT Wight's book, What Saint Paul Really Said, brushes the surface of what would have been an critically important conversation among Paul and his first century Jewish counterparts.  Particularly, it has to do with the relationship between Jesus and monotheism.  Was Jesus divine, and if so how?  Wright argues that Paul did think Jesus was divine and that he did so in a way that maintained the integrity of Jewish monotheism.

But I must say that there is a lot left unsaid in this chapter, and I'm not always sure how to fill in the blanks.  I'll gladly attribute that to my own ignorance as well as the fact that Wright is only giving very brief treatment to this topic (and I'm sure if you want to read Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God you could go deeper).  All in all, I think the main thrust of this chapter is to say what the author of the book of Hebrews says in its opening verses; that in these last days God has spoken most clearly and definitively through his Son, and as Wright interprets Paul on this matter, this is more a clarification of the one God of Israel rather than a modification.

Wright points us to three key scriptures in this chapter to help us understand how Paul placed Jesus within Jewish monotheism.  I'm just going to mention the main connecting point that Wright makes with each, realizing that a lot more needs to be said.

First, Wright connects Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 8:1-6 with the opening of the shema in Deuteronomy 6:4 to show that Paul's language of the One God, the Father, and One Lord, Jesus Christ, draw upon the same language as the key monotheistic passage from the Hebrew Scriptures.  Wright argues that Paul isn't departing from Jewish monotheism but rather has discovered something new about it.

Second, Wright connects Paul's words in Philippians 2:5-11 with Isaiah 40-55.  With this connection we see Jesus linked both with Isaiah's suffering servant and with the one to whom every knee shall bow.  Therefore, to say that every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus does not mean that God shares God's glory with another person or god but rather that the very definition of 'God' includes Christ and the suffering of cross, which is the expression of self-giving love by which God redeems God's people.  

Third, Wright references Colossians 1:15-20.  This poem is an example of Jewish monotheistic poetry in which the one true God acts both as the creator of the world and the redeemer of Israel.  In this poem from Colossians, the stress remains on the one true God who creates the world and redeem Israel, but adds the claim that this one true God is now seen clearly in Jesus.  

As I reflect on this chapter, I have two lingering thoughts.  First, I'm not greatly concerned about the topic.  Starting with Paul, the early church fathers, and throughout the history of the church, the church has articulated both the truth and the mystery of the doctrine of the trinity.  I don't find the need to say any more about this.  Sorting out the doctrine of the trinity was the number one issue for the early church, but it just isn't today.  So while I affirm the doctrine of the trinity, it has already been worked out so the question is now, what do we do with it?  Second, I can certainly understand why it was such and important topic for Paul.  And I can certainly admit that, because the issue doesn't have the same urgency for me and my context today as it would have for Paul and his back then, I easily gloss over the very important connections that Paul is making in how he quotes and alludes to the Hebrew scriptures.

So good on you, Paul.  You tackled a critically important issue by embedding Jesus within the framework of monotheism.  The early church was indebted to your work and carried it on to where it needed to go.  But the question that I am interested in, and the question that presents itself to the church today is, given that Jesus is divine and that Jesus is Lord and that the one true God of Israel and savior of the world is revealed in Jesus, so what?  It certainly can't stop at an idea or an ideology to be enforced, but must move out into a way of life defined by the self-giving love of the cross by those who confess this to be true.  And I believe the other chapters in the book will address some of these more pressing issues.

So yes, an important, but brief, chapter in terms of the study of Paul.  But not may favorite.

Herald of the King

"The story of God and the world, (Paul) believed, was focused on and encapsulated within the story of Jesus of Nazareth.  This story was 'gospel', good news, for all the world. I want now to outline, step by step, the core of the story as far as Paul was concerned.  His announcement was that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead; that he was thereby proved to be Israel's Messiah; that he was thereby installed as Lord of the whole world.  Or to put it yet more compactly: Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah, is Lord."

"(The Gospel) is not, then, a system of how people get saved.  The announcement of the gospel results in people being saved... But 'the gospel' itself, strictly speaking, is the narrative proclamation of King Jesus... When a herald makes a royal proclamation, he says 'Nero (or whoever) has become emperor.'  He does not say 'If you would like to have an experience of living under and emperor, you might caret to try Nero.'  The proclamation is an authoritative summons to obedience - in Paul's case, to what he calls 'the obedience of faith'."

We don't understand what the world "gospel" means.  That's NT Wright's argument in Chapter 3 of What Saint Paul Really Said.  I agree.  But maybe to nuance that statement a bit more, the word "gospel" itself has come to take on so much extra meaning over the two centuries of the Christian church and Christian theology that it's easy to loose track of what Paul really meant when he used that word.  While much of this extra meaning has come as a result of faithful men (mostly, but also some women) trying to appropriate the message of the "gospel" to their time and place, it is important that we not allow the contextual appropriations to replace the meaning of the word itself.  Otherwise we eventually get several steps removed from "What Saint Paul Really Said", as the title of the book suggests.

The word which we translate as gospel in English is the Greek word euangelion.  Other English translations could include "good news" or "announcement" or "message" etc.  To help us understand Paul's use of the word euangelion, Wright points us to two critical pieces of New Testament background.

First, there is the Jewish background for the term.  Greek translations of the Jewish scriptures use euangelion in several key places, including, for example:
      Isaiah 40:9   "Get up to a high mountain,
                         O Zion, herald of good tidings (euangelizomenos)
                         Lift up your voice with strength,
                         O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings (euangelizomenos

      And Isaiah 52:7  "How beautiful upon the mountains
                                are the feet of the messenger who announces (euangelizomenos) peace.

Both of these examples use the Greek root from which we get "gospel" to signify the announcement, the proclamation, of something good - hence, good news.    In the context of the prophet Isaiah, these passages and others are connected with the good news proclamation of God returning to the people Israel and ending their long-endured exile.

Second, there is the Greco-Roman background for the term.  In this context, euangelion was the word used when announcing the "good news" of the birth of an emperor, the enthronement of an emperor, a great military victory of the emperor, etc.  In other words, it was a political term used to announce something that would have been considered "good news" to the citizens of the empire.

With this background in mind, we see how Paul's use of the word euangelion subverts the Greco-Roman use of the word.  It undercuts the "good tidings" of Caesar by applying it to the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth who thus fulfills the prophetic hopes of Israel and is also enthroned as Lord over the entire world, including the emperor.

Euangelion is not a neutral word that simply seeks to denote a personal religious experience or inner faith.  It is a term that established a new world order in Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah and King.  It's the proclamation of the good news of King/Emperor Jesus.  And while Wright doesn't get into this, I would also add that it is simultaneously a proclamation of the distinct nature of Jesus' Kingdom in contrast to that of Caesar's.

This, as Wright helps us understand, is what Paul meant by word euangelion/gospel/good news/glad tidings.  And it was this announcement, first and foremost, that changes the hearts and minds of people to establish God's reign here on earth as it is in heaven.

Questions:
How might this understanding of "gospel" change Christian preaching?
How might it change Christian education and catechism?
How would it change evangelism?
What historical factors and developments led the church away from the empire-subverting understanding of "gospel"?
To many (including myself) Wright offers a welcome corrective to an individualistic and overly-spiritualized understanding of the word, but what dangers might exist in overcompensating?


PS:  A note about the attached image.  It's a design by an artist named Jim Lepage who I've come across, and I find his work illuminating and inspiring.  It's from a series called "Word Biblical Design" in which he created one image per each biblical book.  I have this image for 2 Samuel framed and hanging in my office, and I believe it, along with this chapter, further illuminates how Paul (and for that matter Jesus) re-appropriates the idea of "good news" to communicate the truly different type of King that Jesus is, and the world-redefining "gospel" that we have come to believe.  

Saul the Persecutor; Paul the Convert

"Not only was he a Jew in a world run by pagan goyim, Gentiles, not only was he a Pharisee in a world where (from the Pharisee's point of view) many Jews were seriously compromised with aspects of paganism, he was a Shammaite, a hard-line Pharisee - what we today would call a militant right-winger."

"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, timeless, ahistorical system of salvation.  They were not even primarily interested in, as we say today, 'going to heaven when they died'... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel."


The basic argument in Chapter 1 of What Saint Paul Really Said is that if we are going to understand Paul's Christian theology correctly, we need to understand Saul's Jewish theology first.  So in order to do this Wright spends this chapter giving definition to Saul's Jewish identity and theology.

Within the Pharisaical Judaism of Saul's day there were two main schools of thought; those who followed Rabbi Hillel and those who followed Rabbi Shammai.  Hillel was lenient while Shammai was strict.  Saul was a Shammaite Pharisee, and a zealous one at that.  As such, Saul was filled with righteous anger at the pagan influences that corrupted and compromised his people and his faith.  Saul and his colleagues were therefore willing to go to extreme measures to protect God, Torah, and the Temple, and saw themselves as agents to bring about God's holy revolution, defeat evil, and usher in the messianic age when God's righteous king would come and establish God's reign.

Wright goes on to stress that Saul's hope for the coming messianic age was not for some distant time, nor was it a "spiritual" age.  Rather it was the in-breaking of God's reign within history in which the nations would be judged and Israel would be vindicated.  It wasn't about achieving salvation through works and good deeds.  It wasn't even about salvation as we Christians tend to think of salvation.  It was about the historical fulfillment of the prophesies of scripture that foresaw a day when God would redeem Israel by ending her long-endured exile and oppression at the hands of pagans.

When Saul encountered the resurrected Jesus on the Road to Damascus, his "conversion" (there's a lot of debate about if Saul truly experienced conversion or just came to a new understanding of his Jewish faith) was that he came into a new understanding of who Jesus was.  To Saul the persecutor, Jesus had just been one more compromiser who didn't overthrow the Romans and who blasphemed against Torah and Temple.  But after encountering the Resurrected Jesus, Paul the convert came to see Jesus as the messiah and the one through who God is redeeming not only Israel, but the entire world.  

This "conversion" was obviously a big shift for Saul because it meant a completely new understanding of how God was going to act and bring about the new messianic age.  It was not through war and military victory that God overthrew the pagans and defeated sin and evil.  Rather it was through the cross and resurrection of Jesus that God defeated sin and evil and even death itself.  And that this death and resurrected represented the dawn of the messianic age (even while sin and evil continue to exist) for all people, Jew and gentile alike.

I believe this has several implications for ministry.  First, while we followers of Jesus still look forward to the day when God's complete reign will be fully established rather than just in part, Paul the convert is conscious of how God's reign is already being established in this present age through Jesus (though obviously this looks quite different than Saul the persecutor imagined).  We too need to open up our imaginations to understand salvation in more than just futuristic terms.

Second, it invites us into the company of cross-bearers rather than cross-imposers.  Saul the persecutor sought to impose the reign of God through religious coercion and even violence when necessary.  Paul the convert, having been transformed by the self-giving, self-emptying way of Jesus and his cross, laid down the stones that he cast at the early church (and others) and picked up his own cross so that he might be a servant of Jesus and a servant to others in announcing good news.  We learn from the tragic lessons of Saul/Paul's own life that how we bear witness is as important as what we bear witness to.  To say the least, this steers us away from the path of religious extremism as a viable option for followers of Jesus.

Third, it's the church's job to witness to the reign of God; the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, non-violent, shalom and well being for all creation that is made possible in Jesus.  The church, as the new community of redeemed people witnesses to the fulfillment of God's promises and Jesus while living into the vision of God's reign in all we do.

Questions:
1) Are there examples that come to mind of how and when the church has fallen into the thinking and approach of Saul the persecutor?
2) What do you make of Wright characterizing Saul as a "militant right-winger"?
3)  Is it accurate to say that both Saul the Persecutor and Paul the Convert had a sense of being an agent for God's reign?  If so, how would Saul and Paul have understood that differently?  

What Saint Paul Really Said

At only 182 pages, this is a mere essay by N.T. Wright standards.  This book by the preeminent scholar on Paul is an excellent introduction to Wright's understanding of the ministry and message of Saint Paul of Tarsus.  It's this book, published in 1997, that eventually grew into the 2-volume, 1,700-page magnum ops that Wright just released entitled Paul and the Faithfulness of God.  If you don't have the time, energy, or desire to wade through 1,700 pages (though I am sure they are wonderful pages), this "pamphlet" will give you the outline of what you need to know about Wright's thoughts on Paul.  It's much more accessible for busy pastors, and I would venture to guess no less game-changing.

Essentially, this book represents Wright's attempt to rescue Paul from the western, individualistic categories with which he is often interpreted by the contemporary church.  These categories grow out of the questions and context of the reformation.  And while reformation theologians may have been interpreting and contextualizing Paul for their day and time, Wright is more interested in understanding Paul's thought as it was in his day and his context as opposed to how the reformers understood Paul.

Chapter 1 gives a 10,000 ft overview of Pauline scholarship going back to the turn of the 20th century with scholars like Albert Scweitzer who opened and advanced studies that attempted to place Paul within his original Jewish context under Roman occupation within the mid-first century A.D.  Then with E.P. Sanders' release of Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 a "revolution" took place according to Wright.  Sanders argued that the Judaism of Paul's day was not a works-righteousness faith as it is so often stereotyped.  Rather it was a covenantal faith in which keeping the law was one's response to having already been brought into God's covenant people.

What Saint Paul Really Said is Wrights contribution into this century-long conversation that seeks to faithfully understand Paul in his day so that we might faithfully apply him to our day.  Throughout the book Wright unpacks Paul the person, his message, his Jewish context, his Roman context, his understanding of justification, and his vision for God's people.

I should say a special note of thanks to my grandfather for giving me this book.  It's been on my shelf for a number of years, ever since my grandfather really retired from ministry.  He was cleaning out his book shelf and offered for me to take any that looked interesting.  I chose this title (among others) mainly for the author, knowing nothing about the book itself.  At the time I had no idea I had such a jewel on my hands, but what can I say?  Thanks, grandpa!

The List

For the record, here are the titles in my (not so) empty shelf challenge that are pictured to the right.  As perhaps you can see in the picture, the shelf isn't quite full, so I'll give myself some wiggle room to add a few titles and also to swap out titles if by the time I get a particular book I have lost interest in it.  But, for now, here's the list. In right to left order in the picture:

Christopher Wright, The Mission of God's People

Anabaptist Songs in African Hearts, which is part of the Global Mennonite History Series

Brad Kallenberg, Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Postmodern Age

Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism

Julia Esquivel, Threatened with Resurrection (A collected works of poems, not just the poem by that same title)

David Shenk, Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church

Kelvin Knight, ed. The Macintyre Reader

Thomas Merton, The New Man

NT Wright and Marcus Borg, The Meaning of Jesus

NT Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said

NT Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God

Glenn Stassen and David Gushee, Kingdom Ethics

William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized

David Greiser and Michael King eds.  Anabaptist Preaching

Cleophus LaRue, Power in the Pulpit

Thomas Long, The Witness of Peaching

Walter Brueggemann, The Word Militant

Walter Brueggeman, The Prophetic Imagination

Eugene Peterson, Tell it Slant

Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

David deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kingship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture

Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the time of Jesus

The (not so) empty shelf

This is a picture of a shelf in my office.  It's contents include books I own that 1) either I've never read, or 2) have only ever read parts of them.  Either way, they are books that I have for a long time intended to spend more time with.

A few weeks ago I came across a blog post entitled "The Empty Shelf Challenge."  But rather than getting new books to fill up an empty shelf, I figured I already own an empty-shelf's worth of books that I want to read.  So, my goal isn't to buy any more books but to simply dive into ones that I already have.  And (if I can hold my self accountable to this) my secondary goal is to not buy any new books until I've worked my way through the ones on this shelf.  This will hopefully provide motivation to keep working at it so I can once again buy new books :)

The purpose of this blog, for the foreseeable future, will simply be a space to record thoughts and summaries as I go through each book.  I intend to write an overview for each book and a recap for each chapter or section as a means to stay disciplined and focused as I do this.  I'm interested to see how far I actually make it.

Mic Check

Whoa! Has it really been since 2008 that I last posted to this blog?!?! Well, at least google never deletes anything so it's still exists.  Blogging was never my thing in seminary, and now since being a pastor for 3+ years now it was just wasn't anything that I had the time for.  But actually I now feel like I have the space, and more importantly the energy to pick it back up again.  We'll see.  I've said that before.  More to come...