Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Trinity Talks. My name is Kyla, and I'm so glad
that you are joining us today. I am really excited
to be sitting down with Dr. Stephen Chester,
who is a professor of New Testament at Wycliffe
College, and his research areas really focus
on the theology of Paul. how Paul's texts have
been received throughout history, particularly
in the Reformation area, as well as focusing
on conversion in the ancient world and the theological
interpretation of scripture. So we're going to
dive in here to talk a little bit about the epistles
or those letters that are in the New Testament
and what they have to say to their ancient context,
but also what they have to say to us today. So
thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Chester.
Thank you. It's good to be with you. Yeah. So
maybe we'll start by just getting to know you
a little bit more. What prompted you to want
to study the New Testament or to look at Paul
and the epistles in particular? Okay. Well, the
first thing to be said, maybe it was a long time
ago. Okay. So we're talking here 1991. Okay.
So 30, 34 years ago. So I was born in the north
of England. But then when I was 21, I went for
a year to work for a church in Glasgow in Scotland.
And through that, I began to feel a call to ministry.
And it was a Church of Scotland congregation.
And so I finished up going to study theology
at the University of Glasgow, which was simply
the nearest place to where we lived. where you
could train for Church of Scotland ministry.
So I was going there to study theology, intending
to be a parish minister. But I can remember very
clearly the first class that I took was a class
on 1 Corinthians. And it was taught by a scholar
called John Barclay, who was at Glasgow at that
time. Through that class, I really fell in love
with studying the New Testament. I think what
I hadn't realized, because I'd just gone to Glasgow,
because it was nearest, what I hadn't realized
was at that time, Glasgow had a particularly
talented team of New Testament professors. And
so their teaching was excellent. And this class
in particular really inspired me. And I think
what was so compelling about it for me was that
you felt as if you could begin to understand
some of the life of the Corinthian congregation
and some of the challenges they were facing.
And you could begin to see yourself in their
place. And therefore, as you began to see yourself
in their place, you began to have a sense of
what the text might have to say to Christians
in subsequent eras like our own. And so I found
that Very inspiring because 1 Corinthians takes
you through all the challenges of living and
witnessing as a community of Jesus' followers.
You know, in that letter, there's material about
divisions in the church. There's material about
sexual ethics and marriage. There's material
about the challenge of idolatry. There's material
about worship. including how we should celebrate
the Lord's Supper and the use of the gifts of
the Spirit. And all of those practical issues
about church life are framed at the beginning
by a powerful reflection from Paul on the meaning
of the cross, and at the end by a powerful reflection
on Christ's resurrection and its implications.
And so there was just something as well about
that interaction between the theology and the
practice of the life of the church. And, you
know, some of the resources that were used in
that class were Gordon Fee's commentary. So Gordon
Fee is no longer with us. He died a few years
ago, but he was a particularly beloved New Testament
scholar who did great work in building up the
church. And then there was also a collection
of essays by a German scholar called Gerd Theissen,
who had. done a lot of work in thinking about
the life of the Corinthian congregation and how
we might use some insights from sociology in
order to understand what was happening in that
congregation. And so for me, that was all a heady
mix that I found really attractive. And then
I think the other thing is that it struck me
forcibly that this was a church that was having
difficulties. Because nobody in the church had
been a follower of Jesus for more than a few
years. Right. That this was part of this incredible
process by which a Jewish movement was reaching
out to Gentiles. And here in Corinth was Paul
as a Jewish apostle of Jesus working with a largely
Gentile congregation. Right. And so the challenge
is. that they were experiencing were really one
of the very first episodes of intercultural mission.
So I was also kind of drawn in by being able
to see how that's relevant for the life of the
church in today's world, especially. And I think
it's often a challenge in how we think about
the first generation of believers is sometimes
we read the New Testament epistles. as if they're
written to people who have a long history with
the Christian movement. But in fact, in many
cases, they're written to communities that are
working all of this out for the very first time.
And so I found that kind of intriguing and interesting
as well. So those are some of the things that
really drew me into New Testament study. And
to cut a long story short, instead of becoming
a parish minister, I finished up doing more study.
And so teaching became my ministry instead. Yeah,
no, that's really cool. And I think really helpful
to think about, like, we often think, at least
I often think of the early church as kind of
monolithic in some sense. You know, they're just
the early church. But actually, as you said,
they are these different cultures, these different
places. And they're working out the stuff we're
working out. Yes, that's right. They're having
to work it out for the first time. And you can
see some of Paul's frustrations with them. But
you can also begin to understand when you start
to think about their social world and you start
to think about what society was actually like
in first century Corinth, you begin to realize
why the Corinthians may have had some of the
challenges that they faced. they're going wrong
in various ways right but they're not going wrong
just because of their own perversity they're
going wrong because this is actually a challenging
thing to do to work out how to be the first you
know kind of gentile followers of jesus right
it's not a straightforward thing for them yeah
yeah for sure so you've spent 34 -ish years now
studying the New Testament and then teaching
it to students. So are there any common challenges
or misconceptions that you see as people try
to read the epistles? Oh, several, I think. Yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of them arise from the
fact that these texts are God's word for us.
Right. but they're not originally written to
us. They're written to groups of people in a
very different time and place. And so a lot of
our challenges in interpretation come from grappling
with the blessing and the difficulty of the Holy
Spirit having chosen to work in that way. Because
effectively, the Spirit is offering ongoing guidance
to the church. And I'm not saying this kind of
just Myself, I'm paraphrasing something that
Pauline scholar Richard Hayes wrote in one of
his commentaries. You know, the Holy Spirit is
offering ongoing guidance to the church through
us effectively reading somebody else's mail.
And so there are big blessings with that. And
there are challenges and ways in which we can
misunderstand. And so one of them, I think, is
that because we are reading somebody else's mail,
we're always hearing one side of an interaction.
And so in order to interpret the text that we
have, we, with the epistles, have to say things
or surmise things, work things out about the
situation into which those letters were speaking.
And that can go wrong. Sure. And the typical
way in which it goes wrong, I think, both in
scholarship and in the life of the church, is
overreach or being overly confident. So again,
maybe 1 Corinthians is a good example. In the
first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about
divisions in the church. And some of them say,
I belong to Paul. Some of them say, I belong
to Apollos. Some of them say, I belong to Peter.
Some of them say, I belong to Christ. And in
the history of scholarship, there are all kinds
of overconfident reconstructions of... four battling
groups in the life of the church at Corinth with
descriptions of their theologies. And really,
we just don't know that much. Or you could take
Paul's letter to the Galatians. It's clear that
sometime after Paul has left Galatia, there have
been other Jewish believers who've come along
and said to... The Gentile churches that Paul
has established that in order to be authentic
followers of Jesus, it's necessary for their
men to be circumcised and for them to become
obedient to the Mosaic law. And Paul says no.
Right. And argues passionately against that position.
But he never names his opponents. Right. And
beyond the fact that they advocate circumcision,
he doesn't say very much that enables them. enables
us to identify more about them than the things
I've just said. Right. But the history of interpretation
is littered with attempts to say a great deal
more in a lot more detail. Sure. And so I think
there's a challenge for pastors and for late
Christians, which is that if you're reading you
know, scholarship that does that, that is overly
confident in its own capacity to reconstruct
things, then you can finish up being misled in
various ways. So on the one hand, we can't avoid
saying something about the situation to which
these letters were written. Otherwise, we're
not really interpreting the text. Or at least
it becomes very difficult for us to have anything
very clear to say on the basis of the text. On
the other hand, we really need to be careful
in how we do that. Otherwise, we can finish up
reading in a great deal that isn't necessarily
true. So I'm actually always quite sympathetic
in sermons on the epistles when a preacher says,
it's possible that, or it's probable that, rather
than presenting something as this was the situation.
So that kind of, that kind of careful handling
of God's word so that we don't over -claim certainty
for our own interpretation or reconstruction
of the situation of an epistle. I think that
can be challenging, and it's a way in which sometimes
things go wrong. And I think it's a really easy
thing to do, right? Because we're reading...
paul saying these things and we're saying okay
well paul is obviously upset about something
yes or paul is trying to correct or respond to
something so yeah our minds want to make up the
other half of that story right yeah and it's
not even necessarily always just a process of
making up you know sometimes you can demonstrate
things that are happening in the life of ancient
city in the first century to which an epistle
is written. And you can say, well, this must
be the background to a particular issue in the
text. But in fact, these are cities. They're
not cities necessarily on the scale of our modern
cities, but they're cities. So there's substantial
populations. And the believers in Jesus are a
tiny group within that wider population. And
so We can't necessarily assume that because something
is happening in the life of the city, it's having
a direct impact on the group. Sure. So a good
example of this and, you know, one that's controversial
today would be, you know, where we have difficult
Pauline texts in relation to women in ministry.
Yeah. Those in favor of women in ministry sometimes
want to. those texts being of universal application
by finding something specific about the way in
which Greco -Roman religion was practiced in
a particular place that could provide the context
to Paul wanting to say something specific, limiting
the role of women in a way that was only intended
to apply to that particular time and place. Now,
I should be clear. I believe in the ministry
of women and in women's ordination and think
that that's justified on the basis of the New
Testament texts. But I have doubts about our
capacity to do those reconstructions with enough
certainty to make our claim on that basis. My
argument in favor of women in ministry would
much more be about... the texts where we can
see women engaged in ministry in the New Testament
and the texts where we can see Paul partnering
with women in the work of the gospel rather than
on our capacity to explain away the texts that
we find difficult. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Using those
like positive examples that we see rather than,
yeah, looking at trying to prove or argue our
way out of a particular verse or passage. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So that's one
of the challenges that comes with it being, you
know, the text being written for us, but not
written to us. Another one would be we need to
understand something about the social world of
the New Testament in order to understand the
advice that's offered. So, for example. the New
Testament has a lot of advice to offer to slaves.
Now, there are ways in which the institution
of slavery in the ancient world was the same
as our experience of slavery in the early modern
world. But there are also ways in which the institution
of slavery in the ancient world was quite different.
And so it's really important to understand some
of those things. So, for example, in the ancient
world, there is no necessary... obvious difference
in race between those who were enslaved and those
who were owning slaves. And so slavery is not
directly connected to race in the same way that
it was in the early modern world. And that's
a fundamental difference. And there's a whole
host of ways in which there are also similarities.
And none of that is to say that slavery in the
ancient world was not a bad thing. I mean, everything
we have, everything we know about it suggests
it was an oppressive institution in lots of ways.
But we still need to understand some of the differences
if we're not going to misconstrue things. Or
another very good example would be in 1 Corinthians
7. Paul gives a lot of detailed advice about
marriage. Now, that advice. has profoundly important
things to teach us about marriage today. But
if we're going to understand what those are,
we also need to understand the ways in which
marriage in the first century was different from
marriage today. Right. Otherwise, we're going
to misconstrue the advice. Sure. So one of the
challenges is, you know, Well, maybe it would
be helpful just to give a couple of examples
of the ways in which things are different. Yeah,
for sure. So one of the big ways in which things
are different is that typically men are significantly
older than their wives in the ancient world.
Women marry very young, men don't. And so there's
that fundamental difference in age dynamics.
So another group the New Testament is very concerned
about is widows. There's advice at the end of
that chapter to widows about remarriage. And
one of the reasons is that widows are not necessarily
older women. Because their husbands were significantly
older than them at the age of marriage, there
are a lot more younger widows in the ancient
world. And so that's part of the context. we
need to understand divorce laws. You know, Paul
offers some advice about divorce. His fundamental
concern is to uphold Jesus' teaching that divorce
is a bad thing and that marriage is something
holy in the eyes of God. But nevertheless, he's
got to grapple with the fact that he's got to
grapple with the fact that in the greco -roman
world women could legally initiate divorce as
well as men okay whereas in the jewish world
formally speaking at least it was the husband
who had to legally initiate divorce so there's
a difference in context there um and we also
need to understand ways in which paul is counter
-cultural in his own world so he emphasizes the
value of singleness and celibacy. That was not
something that was highly regarded either in
Jewish culture at the time or in Greek and Roman
culture. And so his emphasis on singleness and
devotion to the Lord is really very significant.
And that would be something where I think the
church today also has something to hear from
this text. Because in our culture, we've got
two things going on. We've got the fact that
at the Reformation, the Protestant churches objected
to compulsory clerical celibacy. And I think
they were obviously, I think they were right
about that because Paul's clear that this is
about gifting. But in the Protestant tradition,
We've therefore tended to emphasize the value
of marriage. But actually, in the text, although
Paul makes it clear that singleness is for those
who are called to it, he does emphasize the value
of that calling and its importance in the life
of the church in a way that we don't necessarily
do today. And that might be a corrective we need
to hear. And understanding that Paul was not
simply repeating what was common in his own time
and place, but actually composing something quite
radical can be helpful in letting us see that
and letting us see how it might apply to us.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So we spent a bit
of time talking about... But Paul isn't the only
one who wrote letters that have ended up in our
scriptures. So what are some of the key similarities
or differences between Paul and other New Testament
writers? Yeah, well, I think here we need to
understand that it took a while before the New
Testament began to circulate. as the entire new
testament sure um so we're a few centuries into
the history of the church before we begin to
have surviving copies of the entire new testament
because of to state the obvious before the invention
of pre -printing all texts have to be hand copied
right yeah so what we what we typically have
circulating are portions of the New Testament
in single manuscripts. Okay. And were those mostly
like whole letters or even just portions of letters?
Well, they vary. Okay. But typically we have
two epistle collections in the New Testament.
We have the Pauline epistle collection. Okay.
And then we have the other epistles, which are
known as the Catholic epistles. Okay. And so
there are... There are differences. So with Paul's
13 letters, we know they're all written by him.
And we know typically which cities they were
written to or which individuals they were written
to. With the other epistles, the Catholic epistles,
so that's the epistles of John, 1st, 2nd, and
3rd John, 1st and 2nd Peter. and then the letter
of James and the letter of Jude, we then have
texts where tradition or the texts themselves
attach a name to the author, but don't tell us
anything else. Okay. And where typically we also
don't know to whom those letters were sent. Right.
Or if we do. they're sent to a very wide range
of churches. So 1 Peter, for example, is sent
to churches scattered over a large area of what
is now modern -day Turkey. So there is a difference
in that the other epistles appear much more general.
And this is why they get the name the Catholic
epistles. Right. Catholic here being used in
the sense of universal. Right. Yeah. So in some
instances in those letters, there clearly were
individual situations that prompted their writing.
But we really have a lot less idea about what
those situations were than we do with the Pauline
letters. Right. That's a kind of difference in
origin. And then there's a very broad difference
in content, I think. There's a general contrast
between Paul's concern to define the nature of
the gospel and of salvation, especially for Gentiles,
and the concern of the Catholic epistles with
holy living and the right way to behave. Now,
we can overdo that contrast because there are...
plenty of ethics in Paul and there's plenty of
theology in the Catholic epistles, but it works
as a very general contrast. And it kind of prevents
any temptation to read Paul in a way that focuses
only on the message of salvation and says how
we live doesn't matter. The Catholic epistles
kind of emphasize very profoundly the importance
of how Christians live. And so between the two
collections, they give us a kind of rounded view.
Sure, yeah. And then, finally, there's an epistle
that doesn't quite fit in either place. Yes.
There's Hebrews. Yes. And Hebrews is very interesting.
Because it's an anonymous text. We don't know
who wrote it. We don't know to where it was sent.
And so in those respects, it would seem to fit
more naturally with the Catholic epistles. Right.
But in fact, traditionally, for much of the history
of the church, it's been thought of as theologically
a perfect complement to the Pauline collection.
Yes. So Hebrews has this kind of dual identity.
And it's provoked a lot of speculation about
whether Paul could have written it. But the Greek
of Hebrews is so different from the Greek of
Paul's letters that that's quite unlikely. And
Hebrews itself weaves together theology and ethics
in a wonderful way all through its argument.
So it's the text that's a little bit different.
Sure. But essentially you have Hebrews and you
have two collections. You have the Pauline collection
and you have the Catholic epistles collection.
And with a text like Hebrews and there are other
epistles, you know, where authorship is a bit
debated, I guess, like how much weight do you
place on like figuring out exactly who wrote
it? Is that really important for us in the church?
I mean, obviously it has some value, but. I think
it's natural for us to be curious about it. Of
course, yeah. Because one of the things we're
doing in reading is, I think, inevitably kind
of taking ourselves to this far -off time and
place so that we can feel the foreignness of
the text, but then... Again, I'm kind of paraphrasing
Richard Hayes. You know, we can hear the foreignness
of the text, but then allow the text to draw
near and claim us again and to see how this advice
offered to people far away kind of speaks to
us today. So I think it's natural for us to want
to know as much as we can. Of course. But actually,
we can't answer this question. We just don't
have the evidence. And so there may be reasons
for that. I mean, actually, just yesterday, I
came across a quote about Hebrews in a new book
that's been written by the scholar Amy Peeler.
She says about Hebrews, Hebrews comes to us as
one unknown, as it has from almost its earliest
days. And so it provokes an existential encounter.
It is the word we hear, not the personality of
the author, not the identities of the first recipients,
but the God who speaks therein. And so she kind
of says, yes, this is not the way the Holy Spirit
chooses to work with every text. But with Hebrews,
from her perspective, and I think she's right,
there is something powerful about the fact that
this text comes to us in mysterious ways. know
so little about the author and the first recipients
yeah it removes some of those additional distractions
and questions and it just it comes to us as it
is and god speaks as it is yeah yeah and actually
although although hebrews clearly is addressing
a situation although the author is clearly concerned
about the potential for the first readers to
drift away from the faith and the author wants
to strengthen their faith. Apart from that very
general concern, we don't know much, and clearly
the text is drafted almost in sermonic form.
It almost reads like an ancient sermon. or series
of sermons yeah it would be very long sermon
but yeah yes that's right uh whereas if you if
you read some of paul's letters for example it's
there is this specific situation going on in
the life of the church yeah or maybe several
situations going on in the life of the church
as in first corinthians uh and he paul is feeling
like he needs to address those specific things
yeah and and provide people with guidance. But
in the text like Hebrews, there is this general
concern with persevering in the faith. But beyond
that, it's more crafted so that it's sermonic
in form. And so it's a very different kind of
reading experience. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So
all of these different authors that we have in
the New Testament, we have Paul, we have Peter,
James, John. I'm going to assume they don't always
agree. They don't always get along. And in particular,
I think there's this history maybe that comes
out of scripture. Maybe it just comes out of
context that, you know, Peter and Paul especially
don't always get along. Yeah, so maybe can you
shed some light on what is behind that and what
does that sort of tell us about the life of the
early church? Thank you. Yeah, I think it's a
really important question. I'm going to say something
general about it before I come. Paul and Peter
first. And the general thing I want to say is
that in some issues, Scripture has one voice.
So there are certain issues that Scripture just
says the same thing every time it addresses that
issue. But there are other issues where there
is more than one voice within the canon. And
when that happens, I take that to be part of
the Holy Spirit's provision. That actually it's
important that there's more than one voice for
the church to hear. And sometimes we feel like,
you know, Scripture can only have one voice.
But actually, sometimes it's about Scripture
providing us with a diversity of voices. And
sometimes it's about Scripture being painfully
clear about particular issues. So we need to
allow for that. Paul and Peter, I think there's
a couple of places where they seem to come into
tension. The main one is Galatians 2, where Paul
recounts a quarrel that they had in the church
in Antioch in Syria. And then, as you say, in
2 Peter, there's a reference to... There's a
reference to Paul's letters being difficult and
being misinterpreted by some people who twist
them in ways that are not right. So there's clearly
different tensions there. And that may play out
over a longer or shorter period because there
are questions about to Peter and the authorship
and whether it's written in Peter's own lifetime
or whether it's somebody else later writing in
Peter's name. But I think all the challenges,
arise from the same fundamental issue, which
is the first followers of Jesus are Jewish. They're
different from their fellow Jews because they
believe Jesus is Messiah. But in terms of other
aspects of their practice, they'll have been
just as committed as other Jews to obeying all
the commandments of the Old Testament law. Right.
But Paul understands himself to have been called
to be apostle to the Gentiles. Right. take the
gospel to people who are not Jewish, and he believes
that they can become authentic followers of Jesus
without themselves also first having to become
Jewish. The law doesn't apply to them in the
same way. Now, the New Testament portrays some
Jewish Christians as rejecting this view. So
clearly, Paul's opponents in Galatians actually
think that the Gentiles need to become Jewish
in order to be true followers of Jesus. And if
we read about the council at Jerusalem where
this issue was debated in Acts 15, at the start
there, there are some who Luke says belong to
the parties of the Pharisees who believe that
Gentiles need to be circumcised and to obey the
law of Moses. But Luke also portrays all the
significant leaders, including Peter, as accepting
Paul's view that Gentiles don't need to become
Jewish. However, that agreement doesn't in and
of itself solve all problems. Sure. Because Jewish
and Gentile believers still have to work out
how to live together as one community of believers
in Christ. If Jewish believers are committed
to obeying the law, they may accept that Gentile
believers don't need to, but there may be points
at which, in their life together, it's difficult
for Jewish believers fully to obey the law while
being in close fellowship with the Gentiles who
are following Jesus. And so this is the probable
context of the quarrel in the church at Antioch.
Peter's been eating with Gentiles, but Paul says
that when certain people came from Jerusalem,
came from James, the leader of the Jerusalem
church, the brother of the Lord, Peter withdrew
and stopped his previous practice of having table
fellowship with Gentiles. And so Paul is horrified
and feels that this is... This is excluding the
Gentiles. It's not clear to us completely whether
Peter has decided that it's okay to eat food
that is forbidden by the Old Testament law, and
that's what he's been doing in his meals with
Gentiles, and so that's why he then withdraws,
or whether, in fact, he may have been eating
kosher. But it's the actual practice of eating
with Gentiles that's a problem. Now, the Old
Testament law doesn't anywhere prohibit eating
with Gentiles. But the Old Testament law does
say, of course, that there's only certain kinds
of foods that Jews can eat. And there are also
some things in the Old Testament and then they're
elaborated in Jewish tradition about how food
has to be prepared. Right. And so. For a Jewish
person, it may have been difficult to be certain
that all those things about which food you eat
and how they're prepared are being honored if
you eat with Gentiles. It may have seemed easier
to be certain you are being obedient if you just
simply didn't eat with Gentiles. So the context
is complicated, but it is clear that from Paul's
perspective, the problem here is that Gentiles
are fully believers in Jesus, and they're just
as much authentic followers of Jesus from Paul's
perspective as anybody else. And yet he feels
that by withdrawing, Peter is implying that they're
not. And for Paul, this is kind of incompatible
with his whole call to be apostle to the Gentiles,
and it constitutes some kind of betrayal of the
gospel. And that's very interesting. He talks
about Peter and the others, you know, having
failed to walk in line with the truth. And so
they may have seen this issue as a practical
pastoral issue. And they may have seen it as
very important in terms of their standing with
other Jewish Christians and very important in
terms of the relationship of Jewish Christians
with other Jews. But Paul construes it as a dispute
about how people are accepted by God and put
right with God, how they're justified, the term
he uses. And he accuses those who disagree with
him. of putting something else alongside faith
in Jesus as a requirement for being justified,
of being authentic followers of Jesus. So whether
Peter and the others saw it as a question of
the fundamental nature of the gospel or not,
Paul does see it in those terms. And this is
one of the reasons why those letters, Galatians
especially, have always been ones that, Christians
have reached for down the centuries when they've
been debating issues to do with the fundamental
nature of the gospel. The Paul sees this as a
question that's about that. Are you put right
with God purely through faith in Jesus, or is
there something else necessary that has to be
put alongside of that? And he's very concerned
to say, no, it's faith in Jesus alone that counts.
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, like, just as you
were describing these different approaches, I
even was in some ways drawn back to that distinction
that you made earlier between the Pauline epistles
and the Catholic epistles, where Paul is very
concerned about theological issues, whereas,
you know, Peter, I tend to see Peter, and maybe
this is just my perspective, but I tend to see
Peter as a little more pastoral, and Peter is,
or Paul, rather, is a little more academic. Yeah,
I mean, I think if you take 1 Peter, there is
a rich theology in that text. But you're right,
there's not a debate about the nature of the
gospel. But 1 Peter is more, we know what the
gospel is. How does that work out in terms of
how we live as followers of Jesus in a culture
that we're now... to some degree, alienated from
because we're following Jesus as Gentiles. And
again, 1 Peter is clearly written to largely
Gentile churches. They're following Jesus as
Gentiles, but that puts them at odds with some
of the most profound assumptions of their society
about religion and some of the most profound
assumptions of their society about how social
life works. And so the kind of controlling image
in 1 Peter is the image of being a resident alien
or an exile. And of course, the believers that
received the letter haven't gone anywhere. They're
probably living where they've always lived. But
because they have accepted Jesus, they're now
living in a very different way from the surrounding
culture. And 1 Peter is about how do we grapple
with that? So in the process, there is plenty
of theology, but it has this practical pastoral
edge. And it is somewhat different from what
we see in Paul, where there is this grappling
with the nature of the gospel in the context
of the earliest Gentile missions. Yeah. And I
think the other thing that sort of stands out
to me about that discussion is, again, that we
are dealing with different cultures here, right?
Like we're dealing with... the Jewish culture
and the Gentile culture. And those aren't just
religious differences. They are actually cultural
differences, which then I think helps us in the
Canadian church where Canada is such a multicultural
place, right? It then helps us to say, oh, like
Paul and Peter and all of these people are speaking
to our context, not in exactly the same way.
We're not talking about exactly the same cultures,
but it is about how do we bridge? culture and
the gospel and create some sort of church that
gets along well enough i guess yeah yeah so there's
uh there's interesting things for us to learn
there i think um you you're right it it's directly
relevant in that way um so we have to both hear
paul's insistence that people don't need to become
Jewish in order to be authentic followers of
Jesus. In other words, we have to hear his insistence
that there is not something that makes people
closer to God simply by virtue of their identity
or their cultural tradition. So that's one side
of it. But the piece that that has to be balanced
with, that we sometimes miss in the contemporary
church is that it's also true that the people
of Israel are chosen by God. And so their culture
is shaped by God's law and the principles that
are expressed in the Old Testament. And although
Paul is insistent that Gentiles don't need to
become Jewish, For a casual observer of Paul's
congregations in the first century, there are
various aspects of how they behave that would
have looked from a Gentile perspective as if
they were becoming very Jewish in certain aspects
of their practice. So first of all, there's their
devotion to the scriptures of Israel, what we
now call the Old Testament. And then there's
their ethical practices. The kind of teaching
about the holiness of marriage, the undesirability
of divorce, practices within marriage, all of
that is much more Jewish in flavor in the New
Testament than anything that you would find in
Greco -Roman society. Sure. So there are whole
strands of... identity and behavior where Gentiles
begin to take on Jewish practices. The other
big one, of course, is what the New Testament
calls idolatry. Because Greco -Roman religion
had many deities and Judaism believed in one
God. And Judaism was unusual in the ancient world
in worshipping only one God. And of course, from
the very start, although Christians develop the
concept of the Trinity and see Jesus as part
of that one God, they never compromise on that
kind of commitment to worshipping only one God.
Right. On the one hand, there is this kind of
insistence that we can't prioritize one ethnic
identity or one tradition in a way that excludes
other people. But on the other hand, there is
a profound recognition of Israel's election.
And the fact that there are features of the life
of Israel which are to become features of the
life of the church, which represent God's will
for human beings. Right. And at some points in
the past, the church has not been very good at
hearing the first half of that, which is the
kind of radical inclusiveness of the gospel.
But in our contemporary world. precisely because
we do live in societies that are so multicultural.
We often tend to be able to hear the piece about
the radical inclusivity of the gospel, but sometimes
we're less able to hear some of the specific
things that the New Testament says. First Peter,
again, would be a good example. First Peter,
at one point, talks to the Gentile believers
about them having left behind the worthless way
of life they inherited from their ancestors.
It is not it is not particularly accepting or
welcoming of Gentile culture because it sees
it as leading people away from God's purposes
in various ways. So there's that two -sidedness
to the New Testament's witness, and we need to
hear both sides. Yeah, it's not that the culture
in and of itself is the problem. It's the way
that the culture potentially leads you away from
God and the way that following Jesus, might call
you to leave behind some pieces of your culture,
but not because of the culture of them, but because
the way of Jesus is so radically different. Yes,
and I think the other thing we don't often understand
is the magnitude of all of this, given that they're
not living in a world where religion is perceived
as a private choice. We live in a world that
construes religion as one sphere of life. And,
you know, it's a sphere of life where we value
the capacity of individuals to make decisions
for themselves and to go in different directions.
And there are good reasons for that. But the
ancient world is very different. And so for the
first Christians, particularly if they're Gentile,
when they take the step of ceasing to worship
the deities of their particular city, or their
particular community or step out of practices
that have been hallowed by the traditions of
their particular ancestors then other people
in their community may have reacted very negatively
to that not just because they perceive it as
a a kind of insult to their identity but also
because they will have believed that the well
-being of the human community The gathering in
of the harvest, the prospering of their trade,
that all of that depended upon the favor of the
gods. And so from their perspective, by refusing
to worship those gods, the early followers of
Jesus may have been doing something dangerous
that put the welfare of the community at risk.
So they're living in a world where they're doing
something very radical by committing themselves
to following. the God of Israel with Jesus as
Messiah. So the other part of your research has
been looking at how some of these letters and
Paul's writings have been interpreted throughout
history, the history of the church beyond the
early church. So are there any sort of key differences
between how Paul was understood maybe in the
Reformation era versus how Paul is understood
now? Yeah, we live in a time of enormous debate
about how to interpret Paul, especially. So,
you know, the simplest way of putting this is
to say that although, of course, there are enormous
varieties in how people have interpreted Paul's
texts across time, broadly speaking, for 500
years following the Reformation, the interpretation
of Paul follows trajectories that were established
through the work of Martin Luther. Okay. In very
broad terms. But then from the late 1970s onwards,
we get a re -evaluation of Paul, which is called
the new perspective, which wants to say that,
in fact, Luther misunderstood Paul in very significant
ways and that we have to interpret Paul in...
in a radically new way and you know that's now
what 45 almost 50 years ago the new perspective
originates um and there are there are now ways
in which there are uh you know various movements
in interpretation that go on from the new perspective
and they may you know disagree among themselves
as as well as with traditional ways of interpretation
But nevertheless, there is that turning point,
that big change. And the nature of the change
is really to do with how people perceive Judaism
in the time of Jesus and his first followers.
In the past, Judaism was often perceived as a
religion of legalism, and Christianity was contrasted
with it as a religion of grace. And really what
the new perspective did was to recognize the
second temple Judaism. It's often called second
temple Judaism because it's the time or the era
of the temple as it was rebuilt following the
return from the exile. Right. Babylon. So it's
not the first temple of Solomon. It's the second
temple following the exile. The post -exile temple.
Yeah. So in that era, In Jewish texts, there's
actually plenty of evidence of an emphasis on
grace. Why does that matter for the interpretation
of Paul? Well, when Paul says, as he does several
times, that justification is not by works of
the law, but by faith in Jesus. Traditionally,
he was understood to be saying, it's not through
your own efforts. It's not through this kind
of legalism. where you spend your life trying
to put him to practice the works of the law.
And if you succeed, then you're justified before
God. But if you fail too much, then you're not
justified. And so that had been broadly what
Paul had been taken to mean. And the new perspective
wants to say, but hold on a minute. If Jewish
texts at the time actually emphasized grace,
that can't be what Paul means. He must mean something
else. And so the New Perspective argued that
when Paul says justification is not by works
of the law, he's particularly concerned with
the practices of the law that mark the boundary
between Jews and Gentiles. So he's particularly
concerned with the practice of circumcision for
men. with the practice of food laws, and with
the practice of Sabbath observance. Because these
are all things that Jews did that Gentiles didn't
do, and therefore all things that functioned
as a kind of boundary marker between the two
groups and served to maintain Jewish distinctiveness.
And so New Perspective scholars like James Dunn
and Tom Wright and E .P. Sanders, they argued
that instead, Paul is really saying, well, you're
not justified by works of the law. You're not
justified by these boundary markers. You're not
justified by maintaining Jewish distinctiveness.
That maintaining of Jewish distinctiveness may
be important in various other ways, but it's
not important in terms of your being put right
before God. Right. And so what that new perspective
movement did was to change people's sense of
what Paul is opposed to. Because in the traditional
view, Paul's preaching of the gospel was opposed
to legalism or the idea that we could earn our
own salvation. Right. Whereas in a new perspective
view, Paul's gospel is opposed to the idea that
being Jewish. is an essential part of what it
means to be justified before God. And therefore,
Paul is not opposing legalism. He's opposing
a kind of ethnocentrism. Okay. Yeah. And then
I think that then also sort of reinforces this
idea of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles specifically,
right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean,
there's a question about how you would evaluate
that. And this change has been widely controversial
within Pauline studies. So lots of scholars would
have different viewpoints. But in terms of how
I think about it, I would say there's been a
big gain and a big loss with the new perspective.
The big gain is a more positive evaluation of
Judaism in the time of Jesus. Because there were
certain obvious dangers with Judaism being characterized
as a narrow -minded religion of legalism. Number
one, there's a sad and very long history of Christian
anti -Semitism where that kind of attitude on
the part of the churches feeds into creating
an environment where it's particularly in European
society. creating an environment where it's okay
for Jews to be discriminated against in various
ways. So there's that long, unfortunate history.
But there's also the fact that the kind of legalism
that's being talked about is a legalism that's
based on what we call the Old Testament. It's
a legalism that's based on portion of what is
God's Word to us. So, you know, yes, we may suppose
the ancient Jews got the interpretation of the
text wrong in various ways, but the idea that
the whole kind of legal structure around which
Judaism was organized was some kind of fundamental
mistake. That's a very odd idea for people who
believe in the Old Testament as God's word. It's
a very odd idea for people to propose. So there's
a big gain there, but there's also a loss. There's
a loss because, in fact, what the reformers actually
said about these issues was not quite as simple.
as what i've just described sure so so yes they
do think that when paul says no to the works
of the law he is saying no to attempts to earn
our own righteousness but they have a rather
more sophisticated view about how that relates
to the old testament law than than it had typically
become in modern scholarship okay um and and
secondly i think i would say You know, if you
think about the boundary marker view, why do
boundaries matter? Boundaries matter in the Old
Testament, not so much for their own sake, but
in order to preserve Israel's capacity to be
able to devote herself to obedience to God, to
be able to prevent Israel from being drawn into
sin. by adopting practices from the surrounding
societies that were incompatible with obeying
God. And so those boundary markers function as
a dividing line between a way of life with Jews
that is oriented around fulfilling and obeying
God's commandments and a way of life in various
Gentile cultures that is very different. The
boundary markers are not just communal boundary
markers. They're also boundary markers between
holiness and a way of life that's different.
And so I don't think that Paul is always, when
he talks about the works of the law, protesting
against the idea that we can earn our own righteousness.
But I do think that in that kind of context,
it is natural. if you're Jewish, to understand
your own practices as righteous and Gentile practices
as unrighteous. And so I do think there are occasions
where Paul is saying, hold on a minute, we're
right about Gentile practices. These are not
the things we're supposed to do. But let us not
imagine that. you know, our attempts to obey
the law actually can establish ourselves before
God. We're always fundamentally dependent upon
God's grace. And so I think he does emphasize
grace alone in a way that other Jews of his time
may not have done, which doesn't mean that they
didn't think grace was important, but that they
thought about God's grace in electing Israel
as being answered by Israel's obedience and by
Israel's efforts to put into practice God's will.
Whereas Paul, I think, partly on the basis of
his own experience of having fallen into the
sin of persecuting the church, is wanting to
say, no, you know, if we could do all the law
commanded, that would be fine. But in fact, we're
not able to. And so we need to recognize that
we're dependent on grace alone in a way that
we perhaps otherwise wouldn't have realized.
And that radical, total grace is what comes to
us in Jesus from Paul's perspective. Yeah, no,
I think that's really helpful because it... For
me, this conversation has been really helpful
to sort of balance out who Paul is. You know,
like I feel like we often fall into this trap
of, yeah, Paul is the theologian. Paul is the
guy who sort of sets some rules, but also says,
you know, like that our faith doesn't depend
on those rules. But yeah, this has been really
helpful to sort of think about how he interacts
with the life of the church and not just with.
you know pen on paper yeah yeah yeah so i mean
i think this is another thing that's really important
to understand about paul and you make a really
helpful point there um he he is saying that we're
not justified before god by our own efforts of
right behavior yeah that doesn't mean that for
him right behavior is unimportant yes what it
what it means is that our capacity to engage
in that right behavior, in Paul's view, flows
from the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And so what's so important about that being put
right with God through Jesus is that it, number
one, brings forgiveness, but number two also
brings with it the gift of the Holy Spirit. And
therefore, from Paul's perspective, the capacity
to begin to put into practice the behavior that's
consistent with God's will and that therefore
produces the fruits of the Spirit in people's
lives. So it's not at all that right behavior
is not important to him or that it can be set
aside. It's rather that for him, right behavior
flows as a consequence of being. put right with
God through faith in Jesus rather than as a precondition
for being put right with God through faith in
Jesus. Simply because I think in his view, our
quote unquote attempts at good behavior could
never actually be good when measured against
the goodness of God. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Well, thank you so much for taking some time,
sharing some of your knowledge with us. Like
I said, I think this has been a really helpful
conversation for us. as followers of Jesus to
understand how we read scripture and to understand
the real people and real messy situations that
gave us this sort of scripture in the first place.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I've enjoyed it. And I,
yeah. And I think that is, that is an important
thing. You know, the, the texts, the texts are
God's word to us. They're, they're inspired by
the Holy Spirit. but they're inspired by the
Holy Spirit through ordinary people like us who
2 ,000 years ago were grappling with these messy
practical problems. And so Scripture emerges
for us as God's Word in the midst of all those
human difficulties and challenges. And so if
we're looking for something that kind of floats
down from heaven and provides us with this kind
of voice that simply and easily solves all problems,
then we are going to be disappointed. But on
the other hand, if we're looking for something
that speaks to us divine wisdom in the midst
of our human struggles, then that's exactly what
we've got with this collection of texts. That's,
yeah, again, super hopeful and I think a really
helpful way to sort of think about scripture.
Yeah, so thank you. And thank you for tuning
in to this week's episode of Trinity Talks. I
hope that this has also been an encouragement
for you and a place for you to learn a little
bit more about how we read scripture, but also
how God is working from the very beginning until
now through all of our messy situations. And
we'll see you again next week.