Tag: Pseudo-Paul

Blogging the NT: Colossians 1-2

bloggingthentWe move next from Ephesians to Colossians. These two letters share much similarity, and many scholars now believe they were written close to the same time, by either the same author or two people from the same Pauline community.

Colossians chief interest seems to be in pushing back against some contrary teaching that the people of Colossae had received concerning access to God and the attendant wisdom that comes with that. The author of this letter reminds his readers of the story of Christ, and direct access to God modeled in his life.

In the first chapter, there is a beautiful ancient hymn the author quotes in full, in verses 15-23. I want to share that hymn here, as a source of contemplation and prayer.

He is the image of the invisible God,

The firstborn of all creation;

for in him all things in heaven

and on earth

were created,

things visible

and invisible,

whether thrones

or dominions

or rulers

or powers-

all things have been created through him

and for him.

He himself is before all things,

and in him

all things hold together.

He is head of the body,

the church;

he is the beginning,

the firstborn from the dead,

so that he might come to have first place in everything.

For in him

all the fullness of God

was pleased to dwell,

and through him

God was pleased to reconcile

to God’s self

all things,

whether on earth

or in heaven,

by making peace

though the blood of his cross.

And you

who were once estranged

and hostile in mind,

doing evil deeds,

he has now reconciled

in his fleshly body

through death,

so as to present you

holy

blameless

irreproachable

before him-

provided that

you continue

securely established and steadfast

in the faith,

without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard

which has been proclaimed

to every creature

under heaven.

Next: Colossians 3-4

For an explanation on this series, click here.

Blogging the NT: Ephesians 4-6

bloggingthentOne of the great themes of the Pauline and pseudo-Pauline corpus is the idea of Christian unity arising from the diversity of the people. We see it in this reading, in chapter 4. The author writes,

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it is said,

“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people.”
9 (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended[a] into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) 11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

One of the great challenges of modern progressive Christianity is walking the fine line of diversity and unity. Richard Beck, on his great Experimental Theology blog that I keep plugging, wrote this on Monday:

To take one example, as Westerners progressive (and conservative) Christians privilege individualism over collectivism. And as any church leader will tell you, this individualism makes it very difficult for Western Christians to live as the church. Trying to do church with Western Christians is like herding cats.

And to sharpen the point, I think progressive Christians are particularly and especially bad at doing church. According to the research of Jonathan Haidt conservatives tend to value in-group solidarity more than their progressive counterparts.

We progressives greatly value and trumpet the Protestant ethic of the individual. The power and ability of each person to shape their lives and experience God in their way is something we hold near and dear. And we should. This is one of the things that makes us great, that makes progressive Christianity so vibrant and intellectually alive.

But it can also be our undoing. In the drive for our churches to take action, to be a social presence, each member takes the position that their primary interest is the most important one, and thus the one the church should be focusing on. This leads to inaction, when we can’t get together and compromise on what we should be focusing our energies on.

Paul in his letters constantly stressed the importance of building a unified church by valuing and desiring the individuals who make it up. We progressives need to find a way to practice personal humility, and remember that we are stronger together, working towards a common goal, than we are each forming a committee of one to stroke our pet issue. We have see the importance of what the corporate whole decides to focus on, and use our various talents and energies in the furtherance of that collective goal.

Next: Colossian 1-2

For an explanation on this series, click here.

Blogging the NT: Ephesians 1-3

There isn’t a lot of meat in the first three chapters of Ephesians. Mostly, we get introductions, prayers and a recap of Paul’s ministry to the Gentile world.

bloggingthentThe best stuff comes in chapter 2, where the author ruminates on Christian unity and the building a universal church.

So, let’s take this opportunity to a little background on Ephesians, and the whole idea of “pseudo-Pauline.”

There is a lot of scholarly debate about whether these next few books-Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, Titus, 2 Timothy-were actually written by the apostle Paul. There are strong arguments for each, with Ephesians having the most claim down to 2 Timothy, which seems the least likely (I’m proceeding through them in order of most to least likely.)

So if not Paul, then who?

Good question. And not one we can really answer. But I have a theory. I think, especially for books like Ephesians and Colossians that seem especially close to Paul and his thought, that a close follower or student synthesized some Pauline thought, through their own eyes, into something they could send out to churches.

And remember, assigning another’s name to something even if they didn’t write it was a fairly common thing in the ancient world. Paul’s name carried a lot of weight in the early church, and so signing something in his name was a way to gain legitimacy, and to pay tribute.

Now, the condensation of Pauline thought in these letters is not perfect by any means. The theology is a little less universal than Paul was in his letters. In their great book “The First Paul,” John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg identify three distinct “Paul’s” among the authentic and pseudo letters: radical, conservative and reactionary. The authentic letters fall into the “radical” category; Ephesians, Colossians and 2 Thessalonians as “conservative”; and the three pastoral epistles as “reactionary.”

Borg and Crossan justify this categorization like this:

Our purpose is not to raise a debate about the use of terms like radical, conservative, and reactionary. Rather, it is to insist that the post-Pauline pseudo-Pauline letters are anti-Pauline with regard to major aspects of his theology. They represent a taming of Paul, a domestication of Paul’s passion to the normalcy of the Roman imperial world in which he and his followers lived.

Although it is the closest to the authentic Paul, you can definitely see a taming of Paul already present in Ephesians. We’ll explore that more as we move into the meat of this letter.

Next: Ephesians 4-6

For an explanation on this series, click here.