Reading the Letters of the Apostle Paul - Part 1

This article is taken from Issue 1 of NT Magazine, 2013.

You wouldn’t think that the act of writing a letter was particularly dynamic, would you?    But the art of written communication is changing all the time.  If you’re under 30, do you know when the convention is to sign off a letter with “yours sincerely” or “yours faithfully”?  (Which one you choose tells you something interesting about the relationship between the author and the recipient of the letter.)  In the French language, the rise of communicating by tweets and texts has contributed to the use of the informal “tu”, in situations where the formal “vous” would have been used in the past; and let’s not get into talking about “txting”!

If things have changed over the last 30 years, imagine how much things have changed in the 2,000 years since the apostle Paul wrote his letters!  Even Peter said at the time that what Paul wrote could be difficult to understand - so modern readers need all the help they can get to really get to grips with them.  So, in 2013 NT’s , we’re going to be taking a closer look at Paul’s letters.

Professor Richard Longenecker points out that there are three ways to approach what Paul wrote:

1) Devotionally – this is something that you’ve been doing since you became a disciple and it’s vital in helping you to learn more about God and how He wants you to live, amongst other things.  But reading this way can have its dangers; for example if you take verses out of context and incorrectly apply them (deliberately or accidentally!) to force-fit your own situation and/or what you might like to hear.

2) Homiletically –if you’ve ever sought to explain Paul’s writings to a person, either in a public forum or privately, then you have likely taken this approach, perhaps without knowing it.  Reading to distil a message in a homily for others can give very different results - you might try to boil the content down to an essence and/or find creative ways to slice and dice it for easy digestion.  Every Christian needs this skill, for each of us have a responsibility to preach; but there are dangers here also, especially if you cut corners and over-simplify, build flawed explanatory models or fail to practice what you preach!

3) Academically – some Christians frown on an academic reading of Paul’s letters and even view it as unnecessary, pointing to the Reformers teaching on 1) “perspicuity” of Scripture (i.e., that Scripture is clear in its basic message and can be understood by everyone as to the essential content of that message; that Scripture is lucid and understandable, even to those of limited intellect and different cultures), and (2) the effectiveness of the Spirit in illuminating the Scriptures and witnessing to Christ. While these are true, an academic approach can greatly enhance the other two approaches – in fact, employing all three is important to get the most from Paul’s writings when looking to transition from “milk to meat”.

It is the academic approach to Paul’s letters that will be the primary focus of this series – or at least the merest taste of just one or two of a series of distinct disciplines that, overall, aim to help with the following:

·         the history of interpretation – how have Christians interpreted the letters down the ages?

·         understanding epistolary structures and conventions (i.e. the art of letter-writing)

·         spotting modes of presentation and persuasion (e.g. the use of rhetoric)

·         unlocking the meaning of words, phrases, idioms, expressions and sentences in the text (philology)

·         comparing and contrasting with Jewish and Greek culture and literature

·         identifying early church “confessional” material  in the text

·         tracing the development of thought and expression on a topic in Scripture

·         supporting the authenticity and the accuracy of scripture translations

Of course, an academic approach should also be approached with caution – it should never be an end in itself nor is priding oneself on one’s knowledge is ever acceptable; there is also a risk of futile research that becomes so arcane as to be of no practical use!  Next time we will take a look at the opening and closing of Paul's letters.

To Tattoo, or Not Tattoo?

Our inked up generation doesn’t give it a second thought—but should they?
The Pew Research Center reported in 2010 that nearly 40 percent of millennials sport at least one tattoo, more than double the number of our parents’ generation. While most of those tattoos are covered up by clothing, that doesn’t mean we’re ashamed of them. If anything, twenty- and thirtysomethings are proud of our body-art, but cognizant that not everyone will get it. As sociologist Mary Kosut writes in the academic Journal of Pop Culture, people with tattoos today “are not exotic or deviant others—they are everyday people with aesthetic sensibility.” Now when friends show off their new ink, many of us inquire what prompted it, and then move along.

Yet many younger Christians’ relationship to tattoos is still more complicated than most people’s. Those who grew up in the Christian subculture have memories and battle scars of the heated and contentious debates with parents and youth pastors over Levitical laws. My first confrontation over tattoos occurred when I was convinced that my neighbor’s newly minted Tweety ankle tattoo was the first step on the short road to perdition.

Parents and pastors may still have their objections, but most younger Christians don’t seem to be very concerned. Discussions about tattoos have often been limited to a single question: “Should I or should I not?” While that’s an important line of inquiry, it’s not the only one. And answering it requires first thinking through what tattoos mean, and why they’ve become such a prominent form of self-expression at this point in our history. Why not poetry or pixels instead?
The Christian faith is in a God whose concern for human bodies is such that He became one in order to accomplish salvation. The most basic intuition of American culture is that our “rights” allow us to treat our bodies how we want, but the Gospel sets forth a startling alternative: “You are not your own, but you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”
So what does that mean when it comes to permanently altering a body?

What the Bible Says

It’s nearly impossible to draw a straight line from the Bible’s teachings on tattoos to today, as the meaning of tattoos has drastically shifted. The Bible knows nothing of tattoos for purely aesthetic purposes, or as artistic self-expression. Instead, tattoos in the ancient Near East were punitive, expressions of fidelity to the local deity, or marks of ownership over slaves.

The debates over Leviticus 19:28 are officially worn out, and most everyone knows the exegetical troubles that come with trying to interpret and apply the Old Testament law. The more interesting Old Testament passages are in Isaiah, where the Lord suggests that some Israelites will one day write on their hands, “Belonging to the Lord” (44:5), and that the Lord has written their names on His hands (49:16). In the former, the marking seems to be tied to the Israelites’ perfection as the people of God. Isaiah points to a day when the people of God will be so faithful that some will mark the name of the Lord on their bodies. The tattoo, or tattoo-like mark, signifies a permanent status—a physical expression of human faithfulness and God’s ownership.

As for the New Testament, Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has famously pointed to Revelation 19:16 as proof that Christ the tatted warrior will return with His sword someday. It’s a stunning image, and one that plays well in the grunge-oriented city where Driscoll preaches. There’s only one problem with it: It’s resting on a bad translation. Biblical scholar Grant Osborne points out that grammatically, the verse is better translated along the lines of “on his robe covering his thigh he has a name written”—rather than on his thigh directly.

Otherwise, the closest you’ll find in the New Testament to a commendation of tattoos is when Paul writes that he carries on his body the “stigmata,” or the Greek word for tattoo. The reference is sometimes used as an argument for voluntary tattooing, but it shouldn’t be. Paul’s tattoo (if he, indeed, had one) was most likely administered as a punishment, as tattoos in Greco-Roman culture were almost exclusively punitive.

Paul is undermining his punishment by identifying it with the sufferings of Christ. In other words, Christians shouldn’t collapse the distinction between the bodily persecution Paul experienced for the cross of Christ and a voluntary decision to add the Ichthus to their forearms. Otherwise, there is the risk of emptying out the uniqueness of the suffering of the martyrs and improperly inflating an individual standing in the Kingdom.

The record from Scripture is mixed. There aren’t necessarily any explicit prohibitions of aesthetic tattooing, but it’s not exactly endorsed, either. Instead of focusing on the diversity of self-expression through the body, Scripture repeatedly turns its attention toward the pattern for self-expression: the person of Christ and the means He established to bring believers into conformity with Him. The Christian identity is given in union with Christ and by a life within Christian community, as the book of Ephesians repeatedly emphasizes—not in tattoos or the histories written on a body. The primary concern of the New Testament is not aesthetics or fashion, but faith working through love.

Practical Considerations

So what can one make of all this? In one sense, the popularity of tattoos within the younger Christian culture could be read as an indictment of the Church, which has largely left the younger generation on their own to interpret their experiences and discover their own sense of meaning. And not surprisingly, twentysomethings have turned to the culture for cues. The absence of meaning-making rituals within the Church has left an empty space that tattoos have admirably filled.

Yet in this, there may be reasons for caution. When self-expression takes a religious form through tattooing crosses or other iconography, there is the risk of obscuring how the Bible enjoins believers to express faith through their bodies. The faith, hope and charity that set Christians apart in the world are not aesthetic markings per se, but rather expressive behaviors that reshape a Christian’s muscles and organs (including the skin). Holiness, in other words, can’t be tattooed on—it can only be cultivated through the practices of the Christian life.

Whether any particular Christian should get a tattoo is, then, an open question. But Christians should think about them differently than they have. In short, the question of whether to get a tattoo should be a question of Christian discipleship, rather than purely individualistic forms of self-expression.
For instance, if Christians are tattooing themselves as a reminder of God’s work in their lives, it might make sense to bring a Christian community into the discernment process in order to ensure the correct meaning. The same principle holds, in fact, for those seeking tattoos simply because they look good. It’s tempting to treat tattoos as an expression of autonomy, or the individual freedom to do to our bodies as we will. But if individuals are to avoid the chasm of individualism, then people must open themselves in the discernment process to the counsel of others.

The permanent things are faith and hope, without which any tattoos are simply empty symbols and meaningless art. Many twentysomething Christians have been frequently misunderstood or ignored during debates about tattoos, which can be deeply frustrating. But Christian freedom doesn’t primarily mean anyone can get a tattoo if they want one.

The purpose and goal of Christian freedom is love and unity, which sometimes may mean joyfully relinquishing desires for the sake of others. Tattoos should not be occasions for asserting one’s rights against others, but of listening, learning and seeking the unity God has brought in Christ.
Tattoos will continue to matter because bodies matter. Because “the form of this world is passing away,” Christians ought to enter into the permanence of tattoos the way the Anglican Book of Common Prayer advises believers to enter into the permanency of marriage: “reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God.”


This article originally appeared in RELEVANT magazine. Want full access to print content? Subscribe here.

A Letter to the Apostle Paul

I wish I had written this - pure genius (taken from http://ecclesia.org/truth/paul.html


Rev. Saul Paul
Independent Missionary
Corinth, Greece

Dear Mr. Paul,
We recently received an application from you for service under our Board.
It is our policy to be as frank and open-minded as possible with all our applicants. We have made an exhaustive survey of your case. To be plain, we are surprised that you have been able to "pass" as a bonafide missionary.
 
We are told that you are afflicted with a severe eye-trouble. This is certain to be an insuperable handicap to an effective ministry. Our Board requires 20/20 vision.

At Antioch, we learn, you opposed Dr. Simon Peter, an esteemed home missionary and actually rebuked him publicly. You stirred up so much trouble at Antioch that a special Board meeting had to be convened in Jerusalem. We cannot condone such actions.

Do you think it seemly for a missionary to do part-time secular work? We hear that you are making tents on the side. In a letter to the church at Phillipi, you admitted that they were the only church supporting you. We wonder why.
Is it true that you have a jail record? Certain brethren report that you did two years time at Caesarea and were imprisoned at Rome.

You made so much trouble for the business men at Ephesus that they refer to you as "the man who turned the world upside down." Sensationalism, in missions, is uncalled for. We also deplore the lurid "over-the-wall-in-a-basket" episode at Damascus.

We are appalled at your obvious lack of conciliatory behavior. Diplomatic men are not stoned and dragged out of the city gates, or assaulted by furious mobs. Have you ever suspected that gentler words might gain you more friends? I enclose a copy of Dalius Carnagus' book, "How To Win Jews and influence Greeks."
In one of your letters, you refer to yourself as "Paul the aged." Our new mission policies do not envisage a surplus of superannuated recipients.

We understand that you are given to fantasies and dreams. At Troas, you saw "a man of Macedonia" and at another time "were caught up into the third heaven" and even claimed "the Lord stood by" you. We reckon that more realistic and practical minds are needed in the task of world evangelism.

You have caused much trouble everywhere you have gone. You opposed the honorable women at Berea and the leaders of your own nationality in Jerusalem. If a man cannot get along with his own people, how can he serve foreigners? We learn that you are a snake-handler. At Malta, you picked up a poisonous serpent which is said to have bitten you, but you did not suffer harm. Tsk, Tsk, Tsk!

You admit that while you were serving time at Rome that "all forsook you." Good men are not left friendless. Three fine brothers, by the names of Diotrephes, Demas and Alexander, the coppersmith, have notarized affidavits to the effect that it is impossible for them to cooperate with either you or your program.
We know that you had a bitter quarrel with a fellow missionary named Barnabas. Harsh words do not further God's work.

You have written many letters to churches where you have formerly been pastor. In one of the letters, you accused a church member of living with his father's wife, and you caused the whole church to feel badly; and the poor fellow was expelled.
You spend too much time talking about "the second coming of Christ." Your letters to the people at Thessalonica were almost entirely devoted to this theme. Put first things first from now on.

Your ministry has been far too flighty to be successful. First Asia Minor, then Macedonia, then Greece, then Italy and now you are talking about a wild goose chase into Spain. Concentration is more important than dissipation of one's powers. You cannot win the whole world by yourself. You are just one little Paul.
In a recent sermon, you said "God forbid that I should glory in anything save the cross of Christ." It seems to us that you also ought to glory in our heritage, our denominational program, the unified budget, our Cooperative Program and the World Federation of Churches.

Your sermons are much too long for the times. At one place, you talked until after midnight and a young man was so asleep that he fell out of the window and broke his neck. Nobody is saved after the first twenty minutes any way. "Stand up, speak up and then shut up," is our advice.

Dr. Luke reports that you are a thin little man, bald, frequently sick and always so agitated over your church that you sleep very poorly. He reports that you pad around the house praying half the night. A healthy mind in a robust body is our ideal for all applicants. A good night's sleep will give you zest and zip so that you wake full of zing.

We find it best to send only married men into foreign service. We deplore your policy of persistent celibacy. Simon Magus has set up a matrimonial bureau at Samaria, where the names of some very fine widows are available.

You wrote recently to Timothy that "you had fought a good fight." Fighting is hardly a recommendation for a missionary. No fight is a good fight. Jesus came, not to bring a sword, but peace. You boast that "I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus." What on earth do you mean?

It hurts me to tell you this, Brother Paul, but in all of my twenty-five years experience, I have never met a man so opposite to the requirements of our Foreign Mission Board. If we accepted you, we would break every rule of modern missionary practice.

Most Sincerely yours,
J. Flavious Fluffyhead,
Foreign Mission Board Secretary