The church grieved his death and never forgot its founding pastor. He learned that Tom Shipp had dictated his sermons into a Dictaphone, and that the week he died he had left a sermon two-thirds finished on the Dictaphone. The tape was still around. He preached part of it nearly word for word but completed the last third of the sermon, which Shipp had never finished, and adapted it for the church of his time.
Though Shipp had died twenty-one years earlier, two thousand people showed up to hear the message. His radical views on, for example, slavery and patriarchy, are being retrofitted into Roman cultural expectations and Roman social presuppositions.
Watch, then, how it works in terms of slavery I leave patriarchy for my next blog in this series on Paul :. The radical and historical Paul sent back the now-converted slave Onesimus to his owner and told him that a Christian could not own a Christian for how could Christians be equal and unequal to one another at the same time?
He reminds him "to do your duty," to free Onesimus, and to consider him "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother -- especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord" Philemon , Next, the later, conservative counter-Paul takes Christian owners with Christian slaves absolutely for granted, addresses both classes and reminds each of its mutual obligations.
Christian-on-Christian slavery is back but now in kinder, gentler mode! Finally, the still later and reactionary anti-Paul never mentions mutual duties, addresses only the master, and says to "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and What is at stake in that sad progression from Paul to anti-Paul?
Why is it of importance that -- at least with regard to slavery -- radical Christian liberty is being changed back into normal Roman slavery. It means this: Jewish Christianity is becoming Roman Christianity. Gundry, adapted from resources in the new Learn the New Testament Pack. Galatians: Against the Judaizers A. In other words, Galatians insists on Christian liberty from any doctrine of salvation that requires human effort in addition to divine grace. First Thessalonians includes congratulations upon conversion and Christian growth and exhortations to further progress, with emphasis on comfort from and expectancy toward the second coming.
Authentic Letters from Paul There are seven letters which virtually all scholars say were written by Paul. But look carefully! The earliest letter, 1 Thessalonians , declares at the start that it was written by Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy 1 Thess A latter letter to the Philippians , states that it was written by Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus Phil , and so does the letter to Philemon Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, Phlm Of the two letters to Corinth, 1 Corinthians is identified as coming from Paul … and our brother Sosthenes 1 Cor , whilst 2 Corinthians comes from Paul..
So joint authorship of letters was a common practice. Clearly, Paul was using a scribe to write down this lengthy letter, which he most likely was dictating and, if the state of his Greek sentences are any indicator, at times he was speaking with great rapidity!
Disputed Letters, written in the name of Paul Many scholars have come to doubt that all of the thirteen letters were authentic letters of Paul. They have been able to come to this view because of what is known about the widespread practice, in the ancient world, of circulating letters and other documents in the name of an eminent person from an earlier age—a great scholar, or philosopher, or religious leader, or teacher.
The suggestion is that members of the church in the later decades of the first century did this, using the name of Paul, because they regarded him as a teacher of note and an apostle of the church. There were already many works like this in Jewish circles, and a number amongst the gentiles also; so this was a well-known practice. And the ancient world did not have the strict laws of copyright and intellectual property which characterise the twenty-first century!
However, the problematic situation addressed, the theological ideas expressed, and the ethical instructions offered, each point to an origin after the lifetime of Paul. The situation envisaged in Ephesians is quite different from that of Colossians; we know little, if anything, about it. This is supported by various observations. Instead, there is a lengthy blessing in which a grand theological statement is developed —14 , before a brief thanksgiving is offered for the faith and love of the unspecified recipients — These are generic qualities, and the prayer veers off almost immediately into further theological exposition — The end of the letter simply replicates some of the greetings of Colossians in shortened form, suggesting a later writer imitating the style of an earlier letter.
The body of the letter indicates only that Paul is a prisoner ; and that the recipients are Gentiles ; , while the final prayer and grace —24 is likewise entirely generic. The first twenty words of the opening address of 1 Thess are repeated exactly in 2 Thess —2a; this is unusual amongst the seven authentic letters of Paul, for in every other case there are variations of both minor and major significance in this opening section. They point towards the institutionalised church of the second century and beyond, in which the way of Jesus would become determined by the authority of the apostle and his local representative, the bishop.
Each of these letters follows the standard formula for a letter from Paul, and they each identify only Paul as the author 1 Tim ; 2 Tim ; Tit And yet, the format of the letters and the distinctive vocabulary used throws doubt on the claim that Paul was the author.
Whilst they each have a traditional framework for a letter, the body of the letters often read more like a sermon or a moral treatise. Over one third of the words found in these three letters are not found in the authentic letters of Paul. Many words found frequently in the authentic letters do not appear anywhere in these three letters. In addition, the situations addressed, the theology of the letters and the ecclesial structures envisaged reflect many differences between each of these three letters and the seven authentic letters of Paul.
Together, all of these elements point to the conclusion that the author wrote these letters after the lifetime of Paul. He reaches back in time to the figure of Paul in order to validate the teachings given to the community of faith in his own time.
The figures of Timothy and Titus represent the leaders in the communities of faith in this later period. This piece originally appeared on his blog, An Informed Faith. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. To add an event listing email us your event details.
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