There has been a lot of loose talk in the past few years about freedom, well, at least certain kinds of freedom.  The emphasis has been almost entirely on individual freedoms and individual rights, with no corresponding discussion of individual responsibilities, or the freedom of the communities we live in.  Janis Joplin once said ‘freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’.   In one sense at least she was right.  When one is not encumbered with all sorts of... Read more

Equality is a funny and fuzzy word in the English language. One has to ask, equal in what way?  It’s easy enough to argue for equal pay for equal work (and we should do so), but that’s just a matter of fairness, or even justice. Or we might talk about equal opportunity to do various things (go to college, find a job etc.).  Sometimes when things like equal opportunity have gotten way out of balance, we have instituted policies like... Read more

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Q. What I would like to ask as we draw this fruitful dialogue to a close is— what impact do you think it has on the way we evaluate Paul’s thought in general if this is his earliest letter we have? Among things I would suggest it shows that ‘developmental models’ of Paul’s theology are often wrong. Paul’s theology, as Hengel used to say, seems mostly to have developed before he wrote any of the extant letters. Would you agree?... Read more

Q. You and I don’t agree on the meaning of ‘Israel of God’ in Gal. 6, not least because in Rom. 9 Paul is not talking about Jew and Gentile united in Christ. He is talking about Israel i.e. Jews, and when he says not all Israel is ‘Israel’ (the word true is not in the text), at most he is still talking only about Jews, presumably seeing himself and other Jewish Christians as the descendants of the righteous remnant.... Read more

Q. I agree with you (and against various other Pauline scholars) that Paul is no universalist when it comes to salvation. It is interesting how little he says about what might be called the negative afterlife. Here near the end of Galatians he talks about those who will not enter the final Kingdom and obtain everlasting life in the form of resurrection here on earth, but instead will suffer ‘corruption’. What do you think that means? Annihilation? Decay into nothingness,... Read more

Q. I wonder if you had thought much about Galatians being a circular letter written to several churches in south Galatia, separated by considerable distance. Are we to assume the agitators just retraced Paul’s steps and went to all of them? Were all of them facing the same problems with local Jews? Could this letter be mostly addressed to the church in Pisidian Antioch and the one in Iconium? Partly, I ask because too often we assume Paul is addressing... Read more

  Q. I quite agree with you that when Paul says people behaving like that as a settled course of life will not enter the kingdom, the present continual tense of the verb means an ongoing lifestyle or practice, not a one-off action, hopefully later repented of. The question I regularly get when I tell students this is— How much behavior like that counts as too much and so moral apostasy? What would you say? A. A very good question.... Read more

Q. I like the idea of Christian ethics as part of a rehumanizing process. Can you explain a bit more what you mean by that? I take the point that fleshly behavior is self-centered, and the fruit of the Spirit is other directed and creates community. A. The point of being Christian is to be a renewed human . . . ‘conformed to the image’ etc (Rom 8.29; Col 3.10). In Revelation 5 humans are rescued by the Lion/Lamb in... Read more