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Monday, December 22
Romans 5-6
by
Peter Combes
on Mon 22 Dec 2008 01:55 PM GMT
We made a little headway with the heavy-duty theology of Romans 5-6, looking at Paul's development of his thesis that as creation had begun, and been corrupted by one man, Adam, so it would be restored by one man, Jesus. In Romans, Paul talks of Christians participating in Jesus' death, with resurrection as a future event. In Colossians, he talks of Christians already participating in Jesus' resurrection. Some scholars (e.g. Ehrmann) take this as evidence that Colossians was not written by Paul, but the class was more open to the idea of a preacher developing his ideas, or for that matter, using different analogies and explanations of complex concepts.
We talked a little of the paucity of archeological evidence for Paul, and, for that matter, Jesus, and wondered if current excavations in, say, Capernaum, might in the future provide some documentary evidence.
Tuesday, December 16
Romans 3-4
by
Peter Combes
on Mon 15 Dec 2008 07:58 PM EST
Some of us can remember when executives had secretaries to whom they could dictate letters. Usually, this worked well, but occasionally things could go wrong, as when the executive digressed into conversation, which the secretary included as part of the letter, or when the secretary, at the executive's request, included a well-used paragraph, but without making a clear transition.
Possibly we see some such phenomena in the epistles, as in chapter 2, when Paul goes into a long digression about the activities of some sinners, which does not further his argument, or later, when a dissertation on civil authority seems to have little to do with the particular problems of the church in Rome.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Paul recovers from his digression, and again puts forward his hypothesis that Christian Gentiles were "children of Abraham" -- the idea that we saw earlier in I Corinthians. This time, however, Jews are not excluded, and a two-track theory is proposed "the circumcised shall be justified by faith and the uncircumcised by faith". What then is the advantage of being a Jew? Well......
Paul has been accused of many things, and he repeats some of the accusations. Was he preaching the idea, that since forgiveness of sins involved the grace of God, we should sin more so that grace might abound? This is the heresy of antinomianism, and is, in fact not confined to Christianity. Paul strongly repudiates the idea.
To buttress his case, Paul uses long excerpts from Scripture. On examination, they turn out to be a collection of somewhat out-of-context verses, taken from the Septuagint translation of several Psalms and a couple of sections of Isaiah. One wonders what literature Paul carried with him, and it is tempting to believe that he carried "Verse of The Day" selections, particularly for the use of his Gentile converts, who might find wading through the whole of the Law and the Prophets rather heavy going, even if they had access to them.
Monday, December 8
Romans 1-2
by
Peter Combes
on Sun 07 Dec 2008 10:33 PM EST
Paul did not found the Church at Rome; indeed, it is uncertain who did. Catholics are quite clear that the church was founded by St. Peter, but protestants point out that there is no scriptural support for this. Some have suggested that the “visitors from Rome” stated to have been present at Pentecost may have returned to Rome and founded the church there. Members of the church may have been among the “Jews whom Claudius expelled from Rome” (Acts 18:2). Two of them, Aquila and Prisca, turn up again as colleagues of Paul in Corinth and are mentioned in Romans 16, still away from Rome. The Roman historian Suetonius mentions that Claudius expelled from Rome “those who had rioted under one Chrestus”, and some historians have been tempted to suggest that Suetonius was getting confused with Christians – though Chrestus was an accepted Roman name. If the Christian church in Rome was founded early by Jews, who were then expelled, the Jewish Christians may have found on their return that the church had become dominated by Gentile Christians. Conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome may have inspired Paul to write; some Catholics suggest that he was asked to write by St. Peter.
Some have said that Paul was a great preacher but a poor systematic theologian; he appears not have been a great diplomat either – he starts Romans with a massive denunciation of a poorly identified group who have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images …….. “ Accusing this group of a great variety of sins, including robbing pagan temples and blasphemy, he mentions that they are homosexuals. The language is most intemperate, though perhaps it may be said that he cites homosexuality as one feature of these sinners, not vice versa.
Oddly, there is no mention of the Roman Christian church in Acts, when Paul eventually arrives in Rome; the Jewish leaders there (when did they return?) seem to have heard of the Christian church only by rumor.
It is a truism that Paul’s letters were written before the gospels were produced; at the beginning of Romans he appears to be unaware of the doctrine of the “Virgin Birth” – “… he was Son of David, according to the flesh…….”
In a complex argument, Paul says that Jews are not really Jews if they do not keep the Mosaic Law, and more surprisingly, that Gentiles become Jews --“real circumcision is a matter of the heart”.
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