paul’s early epistles paul’s early letters: fully establishing the churches in the gospel...

Paul’s Early Epistles

Paul’s Early Letters:Fully Establishing the Churches in the Gospel

Session 1: The Intent of the Early Letters


Issue: The Intent of Paul’s Early Letters Questions1.How do you go about determining the intent of a canonical section—a section of Scripture that is grouped together in some literary way or built around an author’s collection?2.What clues are there in Paul’s early letters from the context/occasion of the writings, or from the letters themselves?3.What role do you think Romans has in the collection of Paul’s early letters? of Romans 16:25–27 in determining the intent of the collection?4.Why does grasping the general intent matter?


We have recently embarked on a journey—about a 2-year journey—on a study of Paul’s early letters.

Just as with the Gospels, we will produce a series of booklets designed to be used to fully establish churches in the gospel.

We will reach our goal, and I am confident, doing it carefully, we will see things as fresh and as powerful as we did in the Gospels, and it will be worth the trip.


They will play an important role in the process of establishing churches and believers in the gospel in the same foundation and in the same processes laid down by the Apostles.

And they will greatly deepen our own capacity to stabilize our churches and the movements worldwide we partner with.


The First Principles Series (3 years)

The Establishing Series (7 years)

The Leadership Series (4 years)


The First Principles Series (3 years)

Series 1: First Principles of the Faith (4 booklets)Series 2: First Principles of Family Life (4 booklets)Series 3: First Principles of Establishing Churches (5 booklets)

The First Principles Series


The Establishing Series

New Testament Collection 1.The Gospels (5 booklets)2.Paul’s Early Letters (5 booklets)3.The Jewish Encyclicals (5 booklets)4.Johannine Writings (4 booklets)

Old Testament Collection 1.The Story (1 booklet)2.The Law (2 booklets)3.The Prophets (4 booklets)4.The Writings (5 booklets)


The Leadership Series

Old Testament Theology (4 courses)1. The Law2. The Former Prophets3. The Latter Prophets4. The Writings

New Testament Theology (4 courses)1. Pauline Epistles and

Luke–Acts2. Mark & Matthew3. Peter, James, & Jude4. John


The Early Letters

Book 1: The Early Letters: Fully Establishing the Churches in the GospelBook 2: Galatians: So Quickly Leaving the GospelBook 3: The Thessalonians Correspondence: Conversion to the GospelBook 4: The Corinthian Letters: Fragmentation of the GospelBook 5: The Corinthian Letters: Paul’s Gospel DefendedBook 6: Romans: Complete Treatise of Paul’s Gospel


Book 1: The Early Letters: Fully Establishing the Churches in the Gospel

Session 1: The Intent of the Early LettersSession 2: The Galatian ProblemSession 3: The Thessalonians’ Conversion Session 4: The Corinthian SchismsSession 5: The Roman TreatiseSession 6: Use in Life and Ministry


According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure of New Testament Theology by C. H. Dodd

I believe he cracked the code on exactly how Paul established the churches in the Scripture.

He framed in the kerygma and didache.

And then, by taking the phrases through Acts and the Pauline letters—“according to the Scriptures” or “that the Scriptures might be fulfilled”—he showed the Old Testament portions he went to again and again to build the framework for teaching the Old Testament.


So in 1 year we will deal with the Early Letters.

After that we will put “humpty dumpty” back together again as we turn to the Walk Through—The Story, as it is now understood, and all the pieces will fit!

It will be a “walk through” on steroids!

In 7 years we can complete the entire Establishing Series


The starting point is to determine the intent of the canonical section—in this case Paul’s early letters. His early letters played a very significant role in stabilizing Paul’s network of key churches in his young network.


N. T. Wright, in his new and groundbreaking work on Paul, a “tour-de-force” of Pauline theology, lays a foundation for understanding Paul and how to approach building an intention statement of Paul’s early letters.


“Had I written this book in the 1980s, as I dearly longed to do, it would have been very different. Most of what I now think most important I had scarcely begun to glimpse.”

Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N. T. Wright, p. xxiii


“We are long past the time when one could read, or even skim read, “everything.” As in many other fields, so with biblical scholarship, one has to choose certain conversational partners, and that is what I have done in this book.

“This is what I call finding seminal authors who are carrying the conversation. We have to understand the conversation, and enter it at the right point.”

(See the Sociology of Philosophies by Randall Collins)


“Readers of my earlier works have been reminding me for some while that this book has been a long time coming. It is the fourth ‘volume’ (for all it now appears in two physical volumes) of the series Christian Origins and the Question of God, which SPCK in London commissioned in 1990 and whose three volumes…appeared in 1992, 1996 and 2003 respectively . . . .”

This volume is 10 years in coming.

Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N. T. Wright, p. xvii


“Thus, though I have not collected that diachronic work together as the explicit foundation for the present book, I think it is fair to assume it. … The letters consist of a few bucketfuls of water drawn from a deep well, poured out into whichever vessels Paul thought appropriate for the audience and the occasion. We should therefore expect to find that Paul says briefly and cryptically in one place what elsewhere he spells out in more detail. We should expect to be able to interpret one letter with the help of another, while of course respecting the flow of argument proper to each.”

Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N. T. Wright, pp. xix-xx


“I shall repeatedly appeal to the sequence of thought in a letter as a whole, a section as a whole, a chapter or paragraph as a whole. I marvel at the extent to which this is often not done in works on Paul’s theology or particular aspects of it. I marvel in particular that many commentaries, which one might suppose to be committed to following the argument of the text they are studying, manage not to do that, but instead to treat a Pauline letter as if it were a collection of maxims, detached theological statements, plus occasion ‘proofs from scripture’ and the like.


“I take it as axiomatic, on the contrary, that Paul deliberately laid out whole arguments, not just bits and pieces, miscellaneous topoi which just happen to turn up in these irrelevant ‘contingent’ contexts like oddly shaped pearls on an irrelevant string. In any case, the point is that a thematic analysis of Paul’s theological topics in themselves, and in their mutual interrelation, ought to enhance our appreciation of the flow of thought in his letters and their component parts, while also demonstrating coherence among themselves.


“The best argument in favour of the hypothesis is that this end is in fact achieved by this means. As Ernest Käsemann put it at the start of his great Romans commentary:

‘Until I have proof to the contrary I proceed on the assumption that the text has a central concern and a remarkable inner logic that may no longer be entirely comprehensible to us.’”

Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N. T. Wright, Book II, pp. 609–610.


So what method will we be using to determine Paul’s intention for these letters and validating that intent letter by letter?


Why do you need to understand the letters in depth?

1.The early letters are tools in establishing the churches fully in the gospel.

2.Leaders need the early letters to fully establish and guard the churches.

3.There is power in everyone knowing the early letters with confidence and being able to use them.


The method of argument1. Do provisional work on the argument

of each book of Paul’s early letters.2. Form an underlying intent statement

for the collection.3. Find reliable conversation partners

to help us fully understand the section. These are in the “Quote the Scholars” section.

4. Sketch a theology of the collection—the key teaching of the gospel embedded in the early letters, needed to establish the churches.

5. Put it in instructional form for the churches—booklets.

This is the method we are going through to produce this series. And we will be using this method as you go through the series.


Issue: The Intent of Paul’s Early Letters Questions1.How do you go about determining the intent of a canonical section—a section of the Scripture that is grouped together in a literary way or built around an author’s collection?2.What clues are there in Paul’s early letters from the context/occasion of the writings or from the letters themselves?3.What role do you think Romans has in the collection of Paul’s early letters? Romans 16:25–27 has in determining the intent of the collection?4.Why does grasping the general intent matter?


Romans is key to understanding the entire collection of Paul’s early letters to his network of churches. Several preliminary comments on the context of Romans within Paul’s early letters:

1.It is the final and largest letter.2.It is less occasional than the others—more of a manifesto.3.It is a bookended by sections that tell you it is a more complete treatment of the gospel than the others.4.It’s context is establishing the churches in the gospel, which was the frontlines of the battle.


In trying to discover the intent of Paul’s early

letters, we will being by focusing on Romans—the last of the letters. There are three major passages that introduce the letter and one that ends it. They give us the key to understanding the intent of Romans and unlocking the underlying intent of the collection of the early

letters. The first passage is Romans 1:1–6.


1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3 the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6 including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

Romans 1:1–6


He rehearses the “Gospel formulaic” statement first articulated by Peter in his 5 sermons;

then handed down to Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:1–6; and clarified in a debate with Peter in Galatians 2.


13 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. 14 I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish 15 —hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Romans 1:13–15


So Paul wants to add to the Roman church’s understanding of the gospel by bringing them a complete proclamation,

which will secure, clarify, or build a comprehensive defense of the gospel for them, thus establishing them completely.


25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel, the proclamation of Jesus the Messiah, in accordance with the unveiling of the mystery kept hidden for long ages 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings, according to the command of the eternal God, for the obedience of faith among all the nations— 27 to the only wise God, through Jesus the Messiah, to whom be the glory to the coming ages! Amen.

Romans 16:25–27 (N. T. Wright)


Paul now states his purpose directly: He wants to establish them in his gospel, in the complete treatise.

He notes that it is the same gospel as delivered by Christ. This book is what Jesus was all about, what He radically was transforming and setting in motion.


Notice the term he uses: “establish”

This is central to the purpose of Paul in writing these occasional letters. This can quickly be seen in 3 ways:

1.A central purpose of his 2nd journey was to establish the young churches, Acts 15:36-16:5.2.He sent Timothy to Thessalonica with the first letter to establish the Thessalonians. 3.He summarizes the Romans letter as having established them in the gospel.


We will validate this in sessions 2–5 when we look at each correspondence:

The Galatian letterThe Thessalonian correspondenceThe Corinthian correspondenceThe letter to the Romans


But for now, let’s do a quick glance at the

correspondence of Paul to the churches in Galatia, in

Thessalonica, to the Corinthian churches, and to

the Roman churches.



Session 1: The Intent of the Early LettersSession 2: The Galatian ProblemSession 3: The Thessalonians’ Conversion Session 4: The Corinthian SchismsSession 5: The Roman TreatiseSession 6: Use in Life and Ministry



Session 2: The Galatian Problem

In Galatians they have left the gospel for another. Here Paul makes a case by confronting Peter, who actually formed the “kerygmatic formulae,” and roots the gospel in the Old Testament law, showing how this all fits in the original plan of God.



Session 3: The Thessalonians’ Conversion

In the Thessalonian letters, building on their solid conversion to this gospel, he challenges them to become fully established in it.



Session 4: The Corinthian Schisms

In the Corinthian correspondence, he relates the gospel to all the divisions in the Corinthian church, defending the gospel as the same one preached by all the apostolic leaders. It is affirmed in statement form in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6, and he defends his apostleship in 2 Corinthians, opening the understanding of new covenant ministry.



Session 5: The Roman Treatise

Finally, after introducing the letter to the Romans with the kerygmatic statement, he provides a complete treatise of the gospel, all with the view of firmly establishing the Roman churches in that gospel, thus fully convincing those who may be confused.


Then we will do a more complete treatment of each correspondence to these

churches in the following four booklets.


The Early Letters

Book 1: The Early Letters: Fully Establishing the Churches in the GospelBook 2: Galatians: So Quickly Leaving the GospelBook 3: The Thessalonians Correspondence: Conversion to the GospelBook 4: The Corinthian Letters: Fragmentation of the GospelBook 5: The Corinthian Letters: Paul’s Gospel DefendedBook 6: Romans: Complete Treatise of Paul’s Gospel


Again, N. T. Wright’s comments at the end of volume one are critical.

“So when people say, as they often do, that Paul ‘was not a systematic theologian,’ meaning that ‘Paul didn’t write a medieval Summa Theologica or a book that corresponds to Calvin’s Institutes,’ we will want to say: Fair enough. So far as we know, he didn’t. But the statement is often taken to mean that Paul was therefore just a jumbled, rambling sort of thinker, who would grab odd ideas out of the assortment of junk in his mental cupboard and throw them roughly in the direction of the problems presented to him by his beloved and frustrating ekklēsiai.


“And that is simply nonsense. The more time we spend in the careful reading of Paul, and in the study of his worldview, his theology and his aims and intentions, the more he emerges as a deeply coherent thinker. His main themes may well not fit the boxes constructed by later Christian dogmatics of whatever type. They generate their own categories, precisely as they are transforming the ancient Jewish ones, which are often sadly neglected in later Christian dogmatics. They emerge, whole and entire, thought through with a rigour which those who criticize Paul today (and those who claim to follow him, too!) would do well to match.” p. 568


“What is more, the reason Paul was ‘doing theology’ was not that he happened to have the kind of brain that delighted in playing with and rearranging large, complex abstract ideas. He was doing theology because the life of God’s people depended on it, depended on his doing it initially for them, then as soon as possible with them, and then on them being able to go on doing it for themselves. All Paul’s theology is thus pastoral theology, not in the sense of an unsystematic therapeutic model which concentrates on meeting the felt needs of the ‘client’, but in the sense that the shepherd needs to feed the flock with clean food and water, and keep a sharp eye out for wolves. pp. 568–569


Why do you need to understand this in depth?

1.The early letters are tools for establishing the churches fully in the gospel.2.Leaders need this to fully establish and guard the churches.3.There is power in everyone knowing these letters with confidence and being able to use them.


Listen to N. T. Wright as he deals with these issues in Paul and the Faithfulness of God.

“When Paul urges his Roman hearers to be ‘transformed by the renewal of their minds’, this was not simply a piece of good advice for those to practice their faith with a bit more understanding. It was vital if the entire worldview he was advocating and inculcating was to take root and flourish.

p. 36


Later in Paul and the Faithfulness of God, in “Part II: The Mindset of Paul,” Wright comments,

“The previous section has made it clear just how naked and exposed Paul’s worldview must have seemed. Shorn of its most obvious Jewish symbolic universe, and refusing to embrace that of Greek wisdom or Roman imperialism, let alone the ‘religion’ which subsisted somewhere in between, it must often have seemed difficult to envisage what life was now all about. Approaching Paul in this way thrusts into the limelight questions which traditional approaches to his theology have screened out: in particular, the very existence, and meaning, of the community of the baptized faithful (call it ‘the church’, if you like; but the


Later in Paul and the Faithfulness of God, in “Part II: The Mindset of Paul,” Wright comments (continued),

danger of anachronism is especially present right there, unless we force ourselves to think of seven or eight unlikely characters meeting in someone’s front room in one part of town, and a dozen or two somewhere else, with news of three or four in an outlying village; that is why I have normally spoken of the ekklēsia). It is still common to fond ‘the church’ and related topics tucked away towards the back of studies of Paul, the assumption being that what mattered was sin and salvation and that questions about church life were essentially secondary, or even tertiary. This essentially western and protestant assumption, which has been responsible at a subliminal level for so much



of the shape of how we read Paul, is not necessarily challenged by the present presentation. It might turn out, in the last analysis, that when we move from worldview to theology we find ‘ecclesiology’ setting back into its comfortable place. Nor, we hasten to add, does this present privileging of the topic mean that we are hereby capitulating either to ‘early Catholicism’ or to some more recent variety of that hypothetical movement. No: we are simply asking the question: what were the main symbols, and symbols-in-action, of Paul’s newly envisaged and constructed world? And we are about to find, large as life, on the basis not of a



theological a priori but simply by asking this question, scratching our heads, and looking around, that the primary answer is the ekklēsia: its unity, holiness and witness.”

pp. 384–385

This quote is found in the section entitled “Paul’s Reconstruction of a World of Symbolic Praxis.”

This means the practice of the worldview in small authentic community with a few basic symbols and community practices.


Wright sees 4 elements to the process of reconstructing Paul’s new worldview/mindset:

Praxis—practice with practices (The Teaching)

Symbol—a few basic symbols like the Lord’s Supper

Story—the good news/gospel and inauguration of the kingdom (new storyline)

Question—questions as interacting with other cultural “minds”


A summary of Wright on the centrality of the church (continued)

“With Paul, we now see more clearly what a specifically Christian theology is and why it matters. It matters because the worldview which Paul held, and which he did his best to make second nature for his ekklēsiai, had none of the normal worldview-anchors that the second-Temple Judaism had had, and did not take on board, to replace them, the major worldview-anchors of ancient paganism. In fact, as we saw, the ekklēsia, in its unity and holiness, was itself the central worldview maker, the loadbearing symbol, generating its own necessary and organically appropriate praxis in worship, prayer, scripture reading and (what came to be called) the sacraments.


A summary of Wright on the centrality of the church (continued)

“But the ekklēsia could not bear this worldview-weight all by itself. It would not stay in place simply because Paul and others said it should. As Wayne Meeks saw in his groundbreaking 1983 work, the community of Messiah-believers needed ‘theology’ as its stabilizing, reinforcing, undergirding element.

p. 565

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