Missionary Theologian
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
———————————————— THINK AGAIN PAUL STUDY NOTES L Missionary Theologian ———————————————— ———————————————— Robert L. Reymond PERSONA 1 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— CONTENTS THINK AGAIN Preface Part 1—Paul’s Missionary Labours 1. Introduction to Paul’s Life and Letters L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L 2. Luke’s Acts 3. Saul, Zealot Jew 4. Saul’s Conversion, Call, New Eschatological Vision, and Gospel 5. Saul’s First Evangelistic Efforts and His First Two Post- conversion Trips to Jerusalem 6. Paul’s First Missionary Journey, Peter’s Later Hypocrisy and Paul’s Letter to the Galatians 7. The Jerusalem Conference 8. Paul’s Second Missionary Journey, His Fourth Post- conversion (uneventful) Trip to Jerusalem and His Thessalonian Correspondence 9. Paul’s Third Missionary Journey, His Fifth Post- conversion (very eventful) Trip to Jerusalem, His Corinthian Correspondence, and His Letter to the Romans 10. Paul’s Journey to Caesarea and to Rome, His First Roman Imprisonment and His Prison Letters from Rome 11. Paul’s Release from Prison, His ‘Fifth’ Missionary Journey, His Second Roman Imprisonment, the Letter to the PERSONA Hebrews, the Pastoral Letters and His Martyrdom 12. The Divine Authority and Canonicity of the Pauline Correspondence 2 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— Part 2—Paul’s Missionary Theology Paul’s Missionary Theology THINK AGAIN 13. Sin and ‘Man in Adam’ 14. The Sovereignty of God in Salvation 15. God the Father’s Salvific Work 16. The Person of Christ STUDY NOTES L 17. The Old Testament Roots of the Pauline Gospel 18. God the Son’s Salvific Work 19. The Holy Spirit’s Person and Salvific Work 20. The Doctrine of Justification 21. The Pauline Ethic: the Christian and the Decalogue 22. The Church 23. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper 24. The Pauline Eschatology 25. Lessons from Paul’s Ministry for Today’s Missionaries Appendix Representative Greek Words Describing Paul’s Preaching Activity Bibliography Persons Index 1 PERSONA 1Reymond, R. L. 2000. Paul, Missionary Theologian (5). Christian Focus Publications: Scotland 3 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— Chronology of Paul’s Life THINK AGAIN (dates are at times not certain) c. 32–33 Paul’s conversion c. 32–35 Paul’s early evangelistic ministy in Nabatean Arabia STUDY NOTES L c. 35–36 Paul’s first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem c. 36–45 Paul’s ‘silent years’ of ministry in Syria/Cilicia c. 45–46 The beginning of Paul’s ministry in Antioch Syria c. 46 Paul’s second post-conversion ‘famine relief visit’ to Jerusalem c. 47–48 Paul’s first missionary journey in Cyprus and South Galatia c. 48–49? Paul’s Letter to the Galatians c. 49 Paul’s third post-conversion visit to the Jerusalem Conference c. 49–50 Paul’s second missionary journey through Asia Minor to Macedonia and Achaia c. 50 Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians c. 50–52 Paul’s ministry in Corinth c. 52 Paul’s fourth (quick) post-conversion visit to Jerusalem c. 52–55 Paul’s third missionary journey and ministry in PERSONA Ephesus c. 55–56 Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians 4 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— c. 56–57 Paul’s travels in Macedonia, Illyricum, and Achaia c. 57 Paul’s Letter to the Romans THINK AGAIN c. 57 Paul’s fifth and last post-conversion visit to Jerusalem c. 57–59 Paul’s imprisonment at Caesarea c. 59 Paul’s ‘fourth missionary journey’ to Rome begins STUDY NOTES L c. 60 Paul’s arrival in Rome c. 60–62 Paul’s ‘house arrest’ and ministry in Rome c. 60–62 Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians c. 62 Paul’s release from ‘house arrest’ c. 62–63? Paul’s ‘fifth missionary journey’, possibly to Spain, but certainly to Crete, Nicopolis, Ephesus, Macedonia, Troas, Corinth, and Miletus c. 62–63? Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy c. 63? Paul’s Epistle to Titus c. 63? Paul’s second arrest and second imprisonment in Rome c. 64? Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews c. 65? Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy c. 65? Paul’s martyrdom in Rome 2 PERSONA 2Reymond, R. L. 2000. Paul, Missionary Theologian (8). Christian Focus Publications: Scotland 5 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— PREFACE THINK AGAIN The question may quite properly be asked, ‘Why another book about Paul? Haven’t hundreds upon hundreds of books already been written about Paul’s life and ministry?’ Yes, and hundreds of commentaries have been written on his letters and well over fifty-seven hundred journal articles about him as well.1 So if I thought that this book was just STUDY NOTES L ‘another book about Paul’ I would be the first to say, ‘Ignore it.’ But sharing as I do the opinion of Jeffrey L. Sheler who opines: ‘[Paul’s] impact on the shaping of [the] post-Easter faith makes the search for ever clearer portraits of the man a worthy endeavor’,2 I think this book will provide such a portrait of the man and his ministry and say some things that most ‘Paul studies’ that are being made available to the Bible student today do not say. First, the reader should know that it is classically orthodox in its approach to Holy Scripture—unlike so many studies out there such as Günther Bornkamm’s Paul,3 Michael Grant’s Saint Paul,4 C. K. Barrett’s Paul: An Introduction to His Thought,5 and the pertinent sections in Raymond E. Brown’s An Introduction to the New Testament6 that 1 Bruce M. Metzger’s Index to Periodical Literature on the Apostle Paul, second edition (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), lists three thousand and thirteen entries. Twenty-three years later Watson E. Mills’s An Index to Periodical Literature on the Apostle Paul (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993) added an additional twenty-seven hundred entries. And seven more years of journal articles since 1993 must be added to that! 2 Jeffrey L. Sheler, ‘Reassessing an Apostle’ in U. S. News & World Report 126.13 (April 5, 1999), 55. 3 Günther Bornkamm, Paul, translated by D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). 4 Michael Grant, Saint Paul (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976). PERSONA 5 C. K. Barrett, Paul: An Introduction to His Thought (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1994). 6 Raymond E. Brown, for example—very likely the most important Roman Catholic biblical scholar in the world before his death in 1998—in his An Introduction to the New Testament (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 1997), accepts historical 6 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— routinely question the accuracy and authenticity of Luke’s Acts and of at least some of Paul’s letters and without any warrant at times virtually rewrite New Testament history THINK AGAIN and Paul’s theology. Second, the reader should know that while I was concerned to portray Paul primarily in his role as a missionary I was also concerned to represent as correctly as I could at least the main themes of his missionary theology (which for the most part I have treated separately and in some detail in STUDY NOTES L Part Two), for we must be under no delusion about one simple fact: if the apostle Paul went astray in his theology, then certainly the Protestant church, if not the entire Christian church, is in serious error because it has primarily followed Paul’s lead in its theological formulations. One should not draw the conclusion from my last statement that in following Paul Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular have in some significant ways departed from Jesus’ teaching. Let me say plainly at the outset of our study: Paul is not the founder of Christianity. Jesus is. For just as Paul taught that Jesus was God incarnate (Rom 9:5; Titus 2:13; Phil 2:6; Col 1:15–20; 2:9; Heb 1:8), so also did Jesus teach about himself before Paul did.7 Just as Paul represented Jesus’ death as a sacrificial death, that is, as a death laid down in the stead of others for the remission of sin (Acts 20:28; Rom 3:25; 5:6, 8, 9; 1 Cor 5:7; 15:3; Eph 1:7; 5:2; Col 1:20), so also did Jesus before him (Matt 20:28; 26:28; Mark 10:45; 14:24; Luke 22:19–20; John 10:11, 15). Just as Paul spoke of salvation in terms of justification by faith (Acts 13:38–39; Rom 1:16–17; 3:24– 25; 5:9; Phil 3:9), so also spoke Jesus before him, though errors in Luke-Acts and regards the ‘we’ passages in Acts as sources possibly from Paul’s companions, but the author of Acts should not be included among these companions nor should the author be PERSONA looked to for information about Paul’s theology. As for the Pauline literature, he regards Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus to be pseudonymous ‘deutero-Pauline’ material and not directly from the hand of Paul. 7 For the evidence see my A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 214–37. 7 LIVING WORD AMI PAUL: MISSIONARY THEOLOGIAN ———————————————— ———————————————— not as often or as explicitly: ‘[On the day of judgment] by your words you will be acquitted [or ‘justified’, δικαιωθήσῃ], and by your words you will be condemned THINK AGAIN [καταδικασθήσῃ]’ (Matt 12:37; note our Lord’s employment of the antonyms of acquittal or justification and condemnation). He elucidates his teaching in his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9– 14), declaring that it was the latter—who had simply prayed sincerely: ‘God, have mercy [ἱλάσθητί] on me, the sinner’— L STUDY NOTES STUDY NOTES L who ‘went home justified [δεδικαιωμένος].8 Finally, just as Paul insisted that faith in Jesus and his saving mission was the only instrument which would bring about justification or right standing before God (Rom 3:22, 28; 4:5; Gal 2:16; Phil 3:9), so also did Jesus teach before him: ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.