Talk 2
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St. Paul - Eschatology and Salvation. (Slide 1)Prayer on PowerPoint on Romans 8:31-39.
I'll start with a very brief recap on what we looked at last week. We looked at the background to his conversion, his life, the influences on him and we began to look at his writings. I also said that I'd look more this week at his teaching and writings. I will only focus on the 7 I have identified as Pauline and hope to spend a bit of time on the order of the letters, to explain the difference of opinion over the dating of the letter to the Galatians. Then I'd like to look at some of the main theological ideas in Paul. One of the other sisters is going to look his Paul's teaching on the theology of the cross so if I touch on such an important idea only briefly you will understand why. I have to start by emphasising the lack of systematical teaching of Paul's ideas and thought. It's undeniable that he's not trying to construct a philosophy or a theology that would be doctrinal. He's addressing specific concerns, and sometimes his answers seem to contradict each other.
Recap on influences
These were…
It is also essential to remember that Paul was not expecting his letters to be read 2000 years after he had composed them and neither was he developing a systematic thought system. Much of his ideas come from a response to a given situation and a later reflection on a pastoral situation. Much of what Paul wrote was composed ad hoc and that is why it is hard to provide a detailed systematic presentation of this thought. As I said it was a response to specific needs in differing communities or a response to a situation involving people as in the letter to Philemon. Paul was essentially trying to express the meaning of the faith to the people of his day. It is easier to take Paul out of context and judge him from a 21st century perspective. Paul was writing from the perspective of faith and we can only understand Paul if we consider his writings from this viewpoint. Paul isn’t always easy to understand. Even the Bible says that. Listen to this quote from 2 Peter 3:15-16.. “Don't forget that the Lord is patient because he wants people to be saved. This is also what our dear friend Paul said when he wrote you with the wisdom that God had given him. Paul talks about these same things in all his letters, but part of what he says is hard to understand. Some ignorant and unsteady people even destroy themselves by twisting what he said. They do the same thing with other Scriptures too.”
Conflict between Paul and early Christians Before looking at specific ideas in his theology it is important to re-explain the context that many of his letters are addressing, the relationship between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. It involved the following of Jewish customs and the observance of the Law. Could people be Christians and not be Jewish? How important was circumcision and synagogue worship? Could Jewish and Gentile Christians eat together or would Gentiles have to conform to the kosher laws as well? Paul was a Jew and when going to a new town, always went to the synagogue as a starting point for mission. Yet it was Paul, the former Pharisee who came to see that.. Gal 2: 20 –21. “Through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" He came to see that the death and resurrection of Jesus was the turning point of history. This signalled the end of the need to live under Jewish Law. Instead he was to teach of the Spirit in which the power of God was at work in this world. Freedom from the Law set everyone free. It was this teaching which was essential for the Early Church. Otherwise Christianity would have remained nothing more than another Jewish sect. Background and Council of Jerusalem. A party of Jewish Christians in the Early Church, who either held that circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic Law were necessary for salvation, and wished to impose them on the Gentile converts, or who at least considered them as still obligatory on the Jewish Christians. Although the Apostles had received the command to announce the Gospel to all the nations, they and their disciples addressed themselves at first only to Jews, converts to Judaism, and Samaritans. The converts, and the Apostles with them, continued to conform to Jewish customs: they observed the distinction between legally clean and unclean food, refused to eat with Gentiles or to enter their houses, etc. But the Gospel was now beginning to reach the Gentiles, and the question was being asked by new gentile converts. What was their position with respect to the Law? Were they bound to observe it? And if not, what conduct should the Jews hold towards them? Should the Jews waive such points of the Law as were a barrier to free relations between Jew and Gentile? To the mind of most Palestinian only two solutions would present themselves as possible. Either the Gentile converts must accept the Law, or its provisions must be enforced against them as against the other uncircumcised. Neither solution was possible, if the Church was to embrace all nations. Under such conditions it was easy to foresee that the admission of the Gentiles would provoke a crisis. When the brethren at Jerusalem, among whom probably were already converts of the sect of the Pharisees, learned that Peter had admitted Cornelius and his household to baptism without subjecting them to circumcision, they complained and argued. (Acts 11:1-3). The cause assigned for their complaints is that he "had gone in to men uncircumcised and had eaten with them", but the underlying reason was that he had dispensed with circumcision.) But new conversions soon gave rise to far more serious trouble, Paul’s work in particular, which for a time threatened to produce a schism in the Church. What prevented this from happening? The Council of Jerusalem. Council of Jerusalem |