BASIC RIFFS ON PAUL

THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF THE JESUS WAY.

After the life and death and purported resurrection of Jesus, his closest followers decided to make their center in Jerusalem rather than in the wilderness. And so they did not go the way of John the Baptist or the sect inhabiting Qumran— instead they rapidly spread the message of the crucified and raised messiah to the Jewish Diaspora. The first Christians looked a lot like other pietistic/messianic sects of Judaism (think pharisee, essene, whatever John was, etc…), except they were not set against the temple center in Jerusalem like John or the Essenes.

The Jesus way was diverse from the get go. There was a mix of prophetical and apocalypticism like you encounter in the Book of Revelation (no backsliding, hate the whore of Babylon stuff) and more established leadership promoting wisdom and daily discipline (James the brother of Jesus was a pillar of this stripe of Christianity in Jerusalem). Christianity spread super fast in the Greek-speaking synagogues— Hellenistic Jews like Stephen decried the temple system for its exploitation. Because remember, the high priesthood had been sold to the highest Hellenized bidder (this is why cats like John are out in the dessert and not running sacrifices like his father).

I think it is interesting that Christianity became such an urban movement, unlike Jesus’ largely rural ministry to the Galilean people of the land. But in any case, this Hellenistic church grew up whose members had no first-hand experience of Jesus himself and lived in a much more cosmopolitan setting. The frustrating question of Jews relating to participation and socializing towards mobility in the Greek world was given a way forward because of the Christian message. Through Jesus there was a new way into the covenant with God. And so a story that seems rando, like Peter eating with Cornelius is actually a huge move for religious Jews, and demonstrates an intent to participate and evangelize to all nations.

With James leading the Jerusalem church, Christians actually had pretty good relations with the Pharisees (they get a bad rap in the gospels because the gospels, especially John, are finalized late enough that the church and synagogue were parting ways). In fact Paul, has a lot to do with this separating between covenantal Jews and Christians. The direction Paul would lead the Church towards combining fellowship between messianic believers and religious Jews was already happening in James’ community.

CIRCUMCISION AND FOOD LAWS…

And yet, how Jewish one had to be is the primary debate being kicked around in the New Testament and in the early Church: And so Acts 15— The issue at the Council of Jerusalem was specifically about whether converts to Christianity had to be circumcised (kids ask your mama) and keep food laws. If the council answered yes, it would legitimize the Christian claim to be part of Israel. If the answer was no, there was huge opportunity to expand among the Gentiles. Luke— remember the same author wrote Luke-Acts— its really one book— Luke gives a very cleaned up account (Acts 15), at least compared to Paul’s own version in Galatians 2! The decision in Jerusalem was huge though. It’s probably why I’m a Christian! By standing down on the Jewish ethnic markers as necessary for inclusion, Paul, James, Peter, and the like opened the way for all who rejected polytheism but did not accept the narrow limits of Judaism. These folks were often called “God-fearers” in ancient texts. If you hear this term, that’s the big idea— believing in one God of the Jews but not undergoing a little surgery. Just keep swimming…

THE CONVERSION OF PAUL.

So Paul preached Jesus the God-man known by faith, not merely Jesus the torah embodying prophet of Nazareth. To be fair, I don’t know that Paul could really step into Jesus’ rural context all that easily. He was a highly educated Hellenized Jew from one of the largest cities of the Roman empire, Tarsus. Paul was a zealous Jew set against the Jesus way and in some way was converted to believing that not only was Jesus the Jewish messiah promised in scripture, he was also the whole world’s savior from human sin and the curse of evil and death. We have a few narrative accounts of the conversion in Acts, where Paul is blinded on the way to Damascus. Which is fantastic literature— the one claiming to have foresight for the Jewish tradition is blinded by light in Maccabean style, causing him to lose all sight for days… so that he could see the truth. The author of Luke-Acts is such a baller.

Paul’s own account is a little different, and really brief. From his letter to the Galatians we hear how he was dead set on stamping out the Jesus Way:

” I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ...But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.”

Galatians 1:11–16

And then like a flash again, in First Corinthians he writes:

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”

1 Cor. 15:3–8

I think Paul’s own account is so fleeting because he is writing to communities he has already told the full story to and while he was not all that well known in wider Rome, in the Church itself Paul’s conversion was a big deal.

Whatever the case, Paul’s conversion likely led to your own if you prize yourself a Christian and are not Jewish. He essentially disappeared for a decade, and then we are witness to a frenzy of activity and determination to tell the gentile world about Jesus. Paul believed that the resurrection of Jesus had in some mystical way, forced the evil spirits back and provided an end of days opportunity to reach as many people as possible before the world ended. Perhaps like next Tuesday. Seriously, I’m not being funny. Paul and every New Testament author expects the movement of this Age into the Age to Come to happen sooner rather than later. They did not anticipate an age of the Church like most of us assume. Nope. Paul believed that the end was rapidly approaching— people had one final shot to repent.

PAUL THE MISSIONARY.

Paul’s Jewishness made it hard to teach to a pagan Greek audience (e.g. in Lystra or Athens). But he did really well with the God-fearers – they desperately needed this kind of message. Paul’s Jewish and Jewish-Christian adversaries did not mind his ministry to the Gentiles, but Paul ticked them off by not requiring converts to first become Jewish— circumcision and food laws, remember? These “Judaizers” reacted with anger, physical aggression, and their own endurance. And so he not only ran into constant conflict, the verdict was not in on Paul in most of his lifetime and in many Jewish communities in the cities where he brought his message.

Most of the individual features of Paul’s theology are already in the various stripes of Second Temple Judaism and educated Hellenistic Jews had heard these ideas. However, how he combined them into one package surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus was new. The concepts of Davidic Messiah and the personification of the creative power in Greek philosophy (Logos or Sophia) developed in Judaism as well. But Paul combined Messiah (Promised Davidic King) and Creative Power (logos) in the person of Jesus Christ. This was a hard pill for monotheistic Jews to swallow. Paul accepted the Jewish teaching of Adam’s sin as the root of human sin, an idea already in the thought bank, but then transferred it to Jesus Christ in an allegorical move. Just as the first Adam sinned and cursed creation, the second Adam took on the consequences of the sin of every man since Adam. This is a big break with the Judaism of the past, because the old man/new man archetype boldly claimed that Christians (Jews and Gentiles) were a brand new humanity and a first fruits of the world set to rights again.

WHAT MADE PAUL… PAUL?

Tarsus was at the crossroads of language, culture, and religious ideas, and this shaped Paul. Tarsus was known as an academic center and a breeding ground for Stoic philosophy, which shows up all over Pauline thought if one has eyes to see. For example, some basic Stoic tenets are very akin to what theology calls “general revelation”: humanity’s innate natural belief in God and natural equality of all humans. And then, lots of the metaphors Paul employs are Stoic faves— the analogy between the church and the human body, athletic imagery, soldier imagery, etc.... Paul’s theology also has commonalities with the very mystery religions (e.g. Isis-worship) being targeted in Colossians (its ok Paul didn’t write that one likely…). But for example, the mysterious salvation achieved through baptism that somehow identifies one with Jesus the dying and rising Savior. There are even parallels with Iranian religion, when Paul likens coming to faith in Jesus to awaking from a deep drunken sleep.

Paul’s social and political outlook was not revolutionary— he actually very conservative compared to other New Testament and early Christian writers. He has been called revolutionary by some because he employs the rhetoric of emperors to describe Jesus… but on the other hand, Paul does not see the Kingdom of God in direct conflict with the empire of Rome, but rather with the powers and spirits of the Age— you know…team evil. Fist bump. Paul’s ideas worked and they were livable– an educated person who particip[ated in daily Roman life, and those with their own households… they could do this kind of Jesus way.

Unlike Jesus, Paul did not reach out to the outcasts and misfits of society. Instead he was strategic in finding benefactors to support and lead Jesus communities, of which the poor could of course be included. Also, Rather than following the priestly model from Jerusalem, Paul organized his churches with office holders resembling Roman government to some extent– some were ambassadors who moved about and others were administrators/governors who served a local congregation. He laid the groundwork for bishops and sees, etc… Paul’s churches evolved a liturgy much like the Hellenistic synagogue, and regular services began to be held on Sundays with a fellowship meal was a separate gathering. All this to show— Paul was uniquely equipped and organized to achieve so much and have such a legacy.

I think a final amazing thing about Paul, is that he never lived to see any of what he built take off. I mean next to none of it. Instead, he constantly played wack-a-mole with infighting in his communities on the left and religious opposition on the right, only to end up in house arrest and eventually executed without ability to resolve any of these tensions. The Pauline mission did not really grow until paganism was placed under an intolerable strain during the upheavals of the third century. Think about that Text and Rockers— those of you building things that matter and bending culture in ways that celebrate God and his world… Paul did not see most of his results. That matters a great deal to me. And I hope it helps you too.

much love, swift-footed markilles