You have invited a Neue Testamentler to your Rally and must put up with what you get. If I could think of a more useful subject, I would use it. Of course we are near January 25th and we could look for other reasons– years of the great Reformers. Luther, Zwingli, Wycliffe who all recognized their great debt to Paul. Yet today Paul is unpopular. ‘He spoiled the simple message of Jesus’ (but have they even tried to unravel Son of Man?). ‘Paul had a jaundiced view of human nature (but see Phil. 4.8-9). ‘He hated women’ ( but did more explicitly for their rights than even Jesus– see 1 Cor. 7.4, etc.).
There is no excuse for not understanding him since there is plenty of evidence– letters and Acts. Of course there are certain difficulties (2 Pet. 3.16), but so does anything that gets. beyond mere platitudes and is intended to make you think. What follows is no more than a sketch.
THE YOUTH (i.e. pre-Christian period) A member of a dazzling pluriform religion worth a lifetime of study. The outer framework is Rome. Civil war ended and Empire extended into the provinces. ‘Peace and order’ the Pax Romana. Brigands and pirates put down. Within this framework for Paul two constituents. The Greeks were past their best, but what a past! The place (e.g. Athens) was full of beauty, but to Paul the Jew full of idols. The other constituent– Judaism, which we now understand better than ever. Especially the Qumran texts replacing old methods of looking ar rabbinic literature. A complex picture emerges (and thus in Hellenistic Judaism too). But we can see fairly clearly where Paul fits in. Rabbi Eleazar, ‘a plastered cistern’. Evidently Paul (see Gal. 1) was of their kind. Indeed he was a persecutor, but this leads to…
THE CONVERT. Here is a great place for misunderstanding, and many wish to psychologize Paul. But Rom. 7 is not evidence, and what happened was encounter with Jesus (Phil. 3; 1 Cor. 9,15; and of course Acts). Three issues to consider a) tradition and inspiration. These things convinced him that Christian belief was true. b) eschatology partly realized. Sere below under theology, c) Law was not the way to God. Here we see the absolute continuity between Jesus and Paul.
THE PREACHER. The proto-type of all preachers. The foolishness of preaching saves. An unvarnished style, probably looked down on by those with up-to-date oral skills. The three great Acts examples– Ps. Antioch, Athens, Miletus. If they show anything it is great attention to and recognition of differing audiences. The words offer: 1) saints and sinners, 2)fundamental statements of objective facts, 3) appeal for response to the objective facts, and 4) the importance of not compromising.
THE THINKER. No preaching without thinking, without theology. Of course you don’t have to advertise it in these terms, or adopt the style of the great theological textbooks. Bearing in mind Luther’s discovery of what Paul meant by righteousness, and by justification. This is not the whole of theology but it is the beginning. This hermeneutical principle coheres with the centrality of Christology. Luther again, put together Phil. 2 and Col. 1. Paul must have presented both deity and human bloody death.
THE FIGHTER. An element of the NT we neglect. But note Gal. 2.4; 2 Cor.2.17;11.4,26. Did they want to kill him? I might have done best to set out the story in detail. Lighfoot’s observation–Paul had to fight for the integrity of the Gospel.
How did it all end? Not with a bang but a whimper? Why does Acts end where it does? 2 Tim. 4.16. Did Paul simply fade away in prison? I do not know why Acts ends where it does but I know what moral we may draw from the open end–the work is unfinished and it is left in all its depth to us. a) to absorb all that is best in contemporary culture; b) to be converted, c) to preach one way or another, d) to think to the best of our ability centering on Christ, and e) to fight.
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