Summary
Highlights
The session begins by highlighting Paul's significant role as a theological thinker and the foundational nature of his teachings for Christian belief. It sets the stage for exploring his theology in context, making it relevant for today. Pauline theology is framed as a form of biblical theology, serving as a connecting role between exegesis and systematic theology, and ultimately integrating into a grand biblical theology.
Understanding Paul's theology is challenging due to its 'coherence and contingency,' a concept coined by J.C. Beker. Paul did not write a systematic theology; instead, his theology is found in thirteen separate letters, each addressing a particular pastoral situation. The 'contingency' refers to these occasional writings, while the task of Pauline theology is to find 'coherence' within them. N.T. Wright describes the complexity of this task, comparing it to trying to describe a box of fireworks.
Various approaches to studying Paul's theology are discussed. One approach is to examine each letter individually, which preserves the original context but can result in thirteen distinct theologies rather than a unified one. Another method uses a single letter, like Romans, as a template, as seen in James Dunn's work, but this risks privileging one letter over others. Some scholars impose categories from systematic theology, which can be useful but may not align with Paul's own thought. The speaker advocates for finding categories from Paul's letters, emphasizing concepts over specific words.
The role of narrative in Paul's theology is explored. While many scholars advocate for a narrative approach, the speaker argues that Paul's letters themselves are not narratives but rather arguments addressing specific issues. However, Paul always has a grand narrative in the background—God's unfolding plan in history, from Adam to Christ and the culmination of the universe. This deep-seated narrative underpins Paul's theological thinking, even if it doesn't structure his arguments directly.
The speaker outlines a two-part approach for the video series: first, examining each of Paul's letters chronologically to understand their contexts; second, adopting a conceptual approach, focusing on emergent topics, specifically using the broad category of 'realm' to organize Paul's theology.
Paul's theology originates from several sources. Foremost is his direct revelation from Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, which drastically reshaped his understanding. Additionally, Paul was deeply influenced by the Old Testament, which he knew primarily in the Greek Septuagint. His Jewish upbringing provided a diverse background, from which he selectively drew. The teachings of Jesus, though rarely quoted explicitly, were also a formative influence on Paul’s language and concepts.
The session concludes by introducing three fundamental ideas. First, Paul's theological framework is 'salvation history,' recognizing God's plan unfolding in stages, with Jesus's cross inaugurating a new age that overlaps with the old age of sin and death (the 'already/not yet' concept). Second, the organizing concept for this series will be 'realm.' Third, the center of Paul's theology is identified as 'union with Christ,' emphasizing the frequent phrase 'in Christ' and the idea that all Christian realities stem from this union.