New Testament Survey: Epistles and Revelation

Transcription

1 New Testament Survey: Epistles and Revelation NT508 LESSON 13 of 24 Craig L. Blomberg, Ph. D. Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies at Denver Seminary in Littleton, Colorado This is lecture number thirteen. In our last lecture we were looking at three of Paul s so-called prison epistles. There is one yet to be treated, the epistle to the Philippians. It is traditionally attributed to Paul in Rome during the years 60 62, at the end of the book of Acts, during that period of his house arrest, but usually separated from the other three prison epistles Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon because it does not reflect the same greetings or greeters or circumstances, and indeed, at two points, seems to have a decidedly more negative tone as Paul wrestles firstly in 1:21-25 with the question of whether he expects freedom from imprisonment at all. He debates whether it is better for him to depart and be with Christ, suggesting that he thinks execution is perhaps a real possibility even though he concludes then, as the result of his deliberations, that he does not believe it will happen. Again, in 2:17, he alludes to his experience of imprisonment in sacrificial language, language of a drink offering, one who is being poured out on the sacrifice in service coming from your faith, language that is reminiscent of the animal slaughterers that attended to a variety of the temple sacrifices. So traditionally it has been assumed that this comes from a later period of Paul s two years under Roman house arrest when perhaps he was more pessimistic about the possibility of release. The same two alternative options, however, that we treated briefly in our introduction to the first three prison epistles have also been suggested from time to time: namely, either an Ephesian or a Cesarean imprisonment and we refer the listeners to the various New Testament introductions and surveys for a more detailed debate over those options. The outline of Philippians seems to resemble II Corinthians more than most of Paul s other letters to the extent that theories have been suggested of composition combining various fragments of different letters together in composite form. The most noteworthy literary scene appears after 3:1 where it looks as though Paul is beginning his conclusion by writing, Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. And if one were to pass 1 of 12

2 directly from there to 4:2, one would pass naturally on to his closing exhortations. Instead, however, there is again what seems to be an abrupt digression from 3:2 4:1 where he begins to use very strong language to combat yet another appearance of Judaizers in a local church. More recent studies of the question of the unity of Philippians are beginning to favor the hypothesis that this, in fact, is a letter Paul wrote all at once, designed in the fashion that we now see it. One of the more helpful of those studies is an article by Loveday Alexander, a British woman scholar, who wrote in The Journal of the Study of the New Testament in 1989, on Philippians as a family letter. One can see the major sections of Philippians as they have usually been identified as falling into a typical conventional form that a person would use to send greetings back to members of their own household. Specifically after the greetings and thanksgiving of 1:1-11, Paul sends reassurance about the sender, that is himself, description of his imprisonment, and reassurance that despite these negative external circumstances, he is doing well (in 1:12-26). Then it was typical for a family letter to include a request for reassurance about the recipients which, in fact, Paul does in 1:27 2:18 with his call for Christ-like living. A third major part of a body of a family letter included information about the movement of intermediaries, those were traveling back and forth between the letter writer and his or her recipients. Paul does that, referring primarily to Timothy and Epaphroditus in 2: At that point the conventional family letter passed on to closing instructions and greetings similar to what we read in 4: But if there was situation-specific information to be communicated, it would be inserted before these closing greetings. It seems that that is what Paul does in 3:1 4:1 as he introduces a special concern the warnings about the false teachers in Philippi and then sends a special thank you as well as some situation-specific exhortations in 4:2-19. Following this basic outline, then, Philippians can be seen as a deliberately intended unity following a conventional form but modifying in line with the flexibility that form offered at key places to reflect Paul s unique circumstances as well as those of the Philippians. If we now go back through the letter and unpack each of these sections in a bit more detail, probably what is most striking about his greetings and thanksgiving in 1:1-11 is his confidence in God s ability to help the Philippian church grow, and to preserve and perfect them, and derivatively, therefore, the individual believer as well. Note especially 1:6, an important verse among those that promise security for the believer, that Paul is confident that He 2 of 12

3 who began a good work in you, He being God, and you being the Philippians, will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Again, in verse 10, the essence of his prayer, therefore, is that, granted this promise, he prays that the Philippian church, and derivatively, the individuals in it, may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. In the section that provides reassurance about the sender, namely Paul, as elsewhere we discover, perhaps to our surprise, that persecution actually advances rather than hinders the spread of the gospel. Verses refer specifically to Paul s imprisonment and make reference to the palace guard. In Greek the praetorium which most naturally, though not exclusively, would have referred to the soldiers in Rome. If that is a correct inference, it is interesting to note there were over 9,000 praetoriani and as the daily change of guard led Paul to, in a two-year period, no doubt, to meet with hundreds if not over 1,000 of these soldiers, it is not surprising that he can write that the gospel has become clear throughout the whole palace guard. Interestingly, by way of contrast, in verses 15-18a, Paul notes that others, apparently under freer circumstances in Rome, were preaching the same gospel out of rivalry and selfish ambition, perhaps trying to outdo Paul in evangelism, perhaps basing their philosophy more on a triumphalist mentality that prided themselves in their more outwardly free circumstances. Paul s response is interesting, representing a theme that re-occurs throughout the letter and that some have seen as a dominating theme of the whole letter, namely rejoicing in all circumstances, and that is he repeatedly says that he will rejoice and continue to rejoice when the gospel is preached. It is the content and not the motivation of the preaching which is crucial for him. God often blesses Christians faithful testimony even when they are not feeling or acting very spiritual or are acting out of immature or even disobedient motives in some area of their lives. On the other hand, sincerity itself is no test of acceptability. If the message is wrong, all the good motives in the world do not compensate. In the final part of this first main section of the body of the letter, Paul then debates the merits of living or dying, verses 18b-26. When he says, I did not know which I would choose, this is not, as some recent writers have suggested, his contemplation of suicide but choose here takes on the sense of to prefer. He is trying to determine what is more in God s will and realizes that, humanly speaking, avoidance of suffering could make it very attractive for him to prefer and to pray for even execution. But in considering the possibility, he weighs what is in the best interest among whom he is 3 of 12

4 ministering instead and, therefore, comes to the conclusion that he will remain in this life. These verses also give rise, as did II Corinthians 5, to the traditional doctrine of the intermediate state: being with Christ and departing (being apart from the body) has suggested that, for those who do die before Christ s return (3:20-21 in the Philippians context), they will be alive and conscious with Christ but in a disembodied existence. In 1:27, we then pass to Paul s request for reassurance about the recipients. This section is introduced in the closing paragraph of chapter 1 with a reminder, with an intimation, that some in the Philippian congregation are experiencing (perhaps even extreme) pressure from the non-christian world around them. But Paul calls them to a unity in the faith, particularly in 2:1-4, which, combined with the closing chapter of chapter 1, reminds them and us that such unity, such self-sacrificing, selfless service of putting others first is, in fact, a sign both of the ultimate destruction of the gospel s opponents and of salvation of believers. Into this context of promoting unity, Paul inserts what is doubtless the most famous passage in this short epistle, 2:5-11, which contains in verses 6-11 what has often been seen to be an early Christian creed or confession of faith or even a hymn. It is, in the Greek, highly poetic in structure. One prominent way of outlining it has seen it falling into two major stanzas: verses 6-8 dealing with Christ s condescension and verses 9-11 dealing with His exaltation. Each of those stanzas then can be divided into three strophes, one per verse, dealing with firstly, Christ s attitude, His abandonment and humiliation, and then within the second stanza, His restoration, adoration, and confession. Within each of those strophes in turn one can identify three lines of three beats, or accented syllables, each in the original Greek, with one exception: the original two-beat line to be added at the end of verse eight and at the end of the first stanza, even death on a cross. Although we can t prove it, there is, therefore, much to commend this suggestion that Paul is taking a very early Christian hymn or creed and adopting it and endorsing it, but then adding to it this one line which reflects so central a feature of his theology. Recall how in I Corinthians 2:2, the crucifixion was the very heart of his message that he preached to the Corinthians. The poem or hymn, as a package, is therefore a model for the unity that is commended among the Philippian believers, but in the process, much precious and important christology is taught. In the stanza dealing with the incarnation, we read of Christ s full deity and humanity using parallel language. And if indeed it seems self-evident He was fully human, then we must equally believe that He was fully God. 4 of 12

5 We read, as well, of His pre-existence in the form of God prior to the incarnation, which was not a form that He insisted on clinging to or preserving without change, which would have prevented the incarnation, but rather led to the kenosis, a key term coming from the Greek verb kenoo, meaning to make oneself empty, to pour oneself out, to make oneself as nothing, found in verse 7. [It s] traditionally understood by historic Evangelical and Orthodox theologians as referring to the relinquishing by Christ of the independent exercise of His divine attributes, while still preserving His divine nature, during the incarnation. Verse 8 then describes the extent of His humiliation and condescension, even to the most degrading and excruciating of human deaths, but that becomes triumphantly counterbalanced by His exaltation in verse 9 literally to a higher position, not in the sense that He was not previously fully God but that now He is recognized by those who follow Him in a way that was not as clearly evident prior to His incarnation: that hyper-exaltation to overly literally translate the Greek. Verse 9 then leads in verses to universal allegiance and confession that Jesus is Lord. Here is a direct allusion to Isaiah 45:23-24, the larger context of which makes clear that this is not universal salvation but universal acknowledgment, when Christ visibly returns, that He is indeed God and master of the universe. Some saying so grudgingly against their will, as it were, and not leading to salvation but still acknowledging cognitively the undeniable truth. The result of this powerful Philippian hymn is to be encouragement for Christians (verses 12-18) in the outworking of their salvation even as God works in them (12-13). Here we see one of the classic formulations of the tension consistent throughout Scripture between divine sovereignty, and human responsibility, neither portion of which may be jettisoned. There is encouragement for Christians in verses as they provide a shining contrast to the world around them even in the midst of suffering. Little theology but much personal encouragement then appears in 2:19-30 as Paul notes that both Timothy and Epaphroditus have proved exceptionally faithful servants of Paul and of God, and that the Philippians are to welcome them so that Paul in turn will be cheered. Paul s special concern, warning against the Judaizers, appears in 3:1 4:1. As in Galatians and II Corinthians, Paul reserves his strongest condemnation for these legalists. And as in II Corinthians 10 13, he talks about how he can match their triumphalist credentials, but that he has counted it all as garbage, language that literally means manure but in less euphemistic tone than that English translation might suggest, all for the sake of Christ, 5 of 12

6 that is, for following righteousness by faith. Nor does Paul presume, perhaps again against this triumphalist mentality, that he can say he has arrived (Philippians 3:12-17). Instead, he strives that he might ensure that he does indeed attain to the resurrection. Conversely, those who oppose Paul (3:18 4:1) are focusing on earthly, not on heavenly, things. Their god is their belly, no doubt including, though probably not limited to, the dietary laws promoted by some of these Judaizers. [Chapter] 4:2-23 then begins the section of final greetings and instructions. Unity is enjoined, particularly among two quarrelling women in the Philippian church, even if intervention by others is needed (4:2-3). The theme of rejoicing, oteworthy throughout the letter as we have noted, is emphasized again by repetition in verses 4-5. God s peace is offered as the antidote to human anxiety (verses 6-9), and the language here is primarily not that of subjective feelings, either in terms of the anxiety or the peace, but rather in objective state with respect to circumstances and with respect to God. The method of alleviating this anxiety and attaining peace is prayer in all things plus focusing all attention on that which is good and upright. Paul then comes in 4:10-19 to what may be the most specific occasion for why he wrote this letter at this specific point. As he gives thanks for the Philippians gift, presumably a gift of financial support which was delivered by Epaphroditus, but he never comes out and explicitly says thank you which in itself was a convention in Greek letter writing. [He] goes out of his way to express his ability to be content in all circumstances, whether he is amply provided for materially or not. Verse 13, a famous memory verse, must surely be kept in this context, I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. This is not, as it has sadly been at times alleged, a blank check for Christians to believe that they are able to do things, either physically or spiritually, for which they simply are not trained or gifted, but rather a way of saying I can be content in all circumstances. And Paul closes this section by affirming that the givers will receive more of a blessing from the giving than the receivers, for then form the formal closing as Paul signs off as it were. Applications for ministry from the letter to the Philippians can, from one point of view, be seen as simply following each of the main sections of the letter: Encouragement and reminders of the security that we have in Christ from Paul s greeting and thanksgiving; and encouragement to us to encourage others about our well-being as leaders in ministry, particularly in adversity, paralleling Paul s reassurance from the second part of chapter 1; a challenge that we should give to others to the unity that comes from treating others 6 of 12

7 as more important than ourselves, paralleling Paul s main theme of 1:27 2:18; and commending faithful believers publicly, as Paul does in the latter part of chapter 2 with Timothy and Epaphroditus. We are often quick to talk badly about others in public. We need to commend them far more often. Warning against heresy next, and at times, using forthright language. In fact, people s salvation is at stake, but only in such instances as we balance Paul s very harsh words in chapter 3 with his surprisingly tolerant words for those preaching the right message but for the wrong motives back in chapter 1. And finally, thanking individuals for their support and being content (here is the more difficult challenge) however little or great that support is. There are only three letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament left to be surveyed, and they too are often treated as a package as we have spoken of Paul s four prison epistles. Scholars and students of the Bible often speak of his three pastoral epistles. First and II Timothy and Titus are all written, not to churches, as the remainder of Paul s letters save for Philemon are though even in Philemon there is reference to the church that meets in his house but rather I and II Timothy and Titus are written to the two individuals who are named in the titles of those letters while they are functioning as pastors of local churches. Timothy, while he is pastoring the church in Ephesus where Paul spent a roughly three-year period of ministering earlier and Titus, who is pastoring the newly evangelized church of Crete, about which we know nothing other than what we can infer from his short epistle. There are extensive problems with the authorship of the three pastoral epistles to which detailed reference must be reserved in the various New Testament introductions, but which can briefly be summarized under three main headings. First, the vocabulary and style and linguistic structure of I and II Timothy and Titus and of I Timothy and Titus in particular is quite similar, yet at the same time highly divergent from all of the other letters attributed to Paul Secondly, many readers have sensed a different collection of theological emphases in these three letters, often summarized under the heading of a more greatly institutionalized church. It seems to reflect a second or third generation of Christian history towards the turn of the century from the 1st to the 2nd century, perhaps reflecting a more positive attitude towards society as a whole, a reflection on theology now as a first body of doctrine to be passed on in ways that the more charismatic and primitive and less institutionalized forms behind Paul s undisputed letters tend to reflect. Thirdly, there is a problem fitting these letters chronologically into the book of Acts. Paul, has been at Ephesus, is now traveling again, 7 of 12

8 apparently as a free person in I Timothy, and yet there does not seem to be any place in the book of Acts for him to write a letter back to Timothy as pastor of the church of Ephesus; unless it is perhaps in Acts 20, just at the close of his third missionary journey, though even then it is not clear from Timothy s travels that he is functioning as a settled pastor in Ephesus. Nor is there any indication when Paul lodges with his prison ship in Crete in Acts 27 of any Christian congregation there much less any indication in Acts that Titus ever travels there and he too becomes a settled pastor. Second Timothy seems to reflect a period after I Timothy when Paul has been put in prison. But again, if I Timothy is not easily fit into the book of Acts, then neither is another imprisonment apparently separate from the imprisonments of Paul s four so-called prison epistles. There have been roughly, again abbreviating drastically the type of information that New Testament introductions give in more detail, there have been roughly three major solutions and combinations of solutions to account for these anomalies and unusual phenomenon. One, and that which is by far the most widely held among scholars, almost though not quite, universally among non-evangelical scholars, is that these three letters are pseudonymous. They are not written by Paul, not written during Paul s lifetime, but probably by one who was a follower of Paul, attributing the spirit of his writing to his master and applying the gist of Paul s teaching, in a newly defined key, to a new situation, in a new generation. A second hypothesis, popular earlier in this century, though largely abandoned in more recent scholarship, is what has been called the fragmentary hypothesis. On this view, the personal greetings, which are harder to account under theories of pseudonymity, particularly the very personal touches between Paul and Timothy in II Timothy are accepted as fragments of genuine letters of Paul which have then been edited, combined, rearranged, and supplemented by additional information by a later pseudonymous writer in a milieu, similar to that proposed by the first hypothesis. The third possibility, still defended by many evangelical writers, is that this is, in one sense, genuinely Pauline writing, that perhaps he gave greater literary freedom and style to a different amanuenses and, again, Luke has been a popular name suggested even as he was for the cluster of similar issues surrounding the composition of Ephesians. But more appositely dealing with the problem of chronology, it is often assumed that these letters are written after the book of Acts, after the details described in the book of Acts, which would explain why we cannot fit them into the chronology of the book of Acts. We are simply not told in Acts 28 or in any other canonical document 8 of 12

9 what happened to Paul after his two-year imprisonment, and one passage from the turn-of-the-century Christian writer Clement suggests that Paul ministered to what Clement refers to as the furthermost limits of the empire, seemingly most naturally taken as referring to Spain, though some think that it can be interpreted as a reference to Rome. If it does refer to Spain and if it relies on reliable tradition and not just inference from Paul s desire to visit Spain that he described in the letter to the Romans, then one has to assume that Paul was released from this two-year house arrest and free to travel and minister more widely. Another piece of evidence could suggest that this hypothesis is accurate, namely, a law which was on the books at a time not too long after Paul s imprisonment, though somewhat unevenly enforced. Namely, that a case which did not come to trial within eighteen months was to be thrown out of court. If Luke s reference to two months indicates a longer period of time than this during a period when this law was being enforced, it could even be Luke s way of hinting that Paul was eventually freed. We will therefore operate under the traditional Evangelical hypothesis that I Timothy and Titus are to be dated from a time after AD 62 when Paul was again a free man, traveling, as it describes in the opening verses of I Timothy, among other places in Macedonia, hoping to meet up with his two young pastor disciples. And it s II Timothy [that] reflects a second and later imprisonment after the Neroic persecution begins in earnest, AD 64, and before it ends with Nero s death in AD 68, which again finds corroboration among some early extra-canonical Christian testimony that Paul was martyred during this period in Rome. First Timothy and Titus, then, were written before II Timothy after the other letters of Paul but beyond that we have little information to enable us to determine their sequence or to determine where Paul was, and under what circumstances any more specifically. We will simply, for convenience sake therefore, deal with Titus first so as to keep I and II Timothy together in our sequence of surveying the letters of the New Testament. We may think of Titus as what has been called A Manual on Church Order. It begins in 1:1-4 with greetings somewhat more theological than some of Paul s letters, perhaps reminiscent of his more theological and extended greetings in Romans or in Galatians. But the heart of the body of the letter, the body that begins in 1:5, is one that can be thought of as instructions for various groups in the church, a tactic that he will return to and indeed expand on in I Timothy. The first group that is given instruction are those leaders known as the elders, the word from which we get our English term presbyter and the two seem to be synonymous in Scripture. Those who are 9 of 12

10 appointed, the word in 1:5 can also, but probably less likely, be translated ordained, harks back to Paul s settled missionary policy described in Acts 14:23 in which he and Barnabas regularly appointed elders in the communities which they had newly evangelized. It seems that Crete, too, has been newly evangelized, so it makes sense for Paul to instruct Titus to finish this process, even though there is also New Testament evidence that, in more settled communities, perhaps reflecting the contrast that we will see in I Timothy 3, the choice is more directly a congregational choice. It is interesting that we perhaps should distinguish, therefore, the apostle one like Paul, who was in the etymological sense of that term a missionary or church planter, or one like Titus, who is the local pastor left in charge of a newly evangelized setting from those individuals that are formally called elders. One of the interesting issues to be debated again in more detail in I Timothy is that there is no clear evidence of any but male eldership, at least in these churches in Paul s day, though there is evidence throughout the New Testament of women in virtually every other role in Christian congregations and even in church leadership. We ve already noted, for example, how in Romans 16 there is reference to Phoebe, the deaconess, and to Junia, the woman apostle. How could Paul, if these observations are accurate, rule out, at least in his day, female elders and yet have apostles who were perhaps more naturally think of as the higher authority? Perhaps this verse suggests an answer, namely, that Paul is, even with newly evangelized congregations such as the church in Crete, very concerned to lay the groundwork for congregational leadership. The true local leadership is to be the eldership. Paul never stayed long, with two exceptions, at any of the churches he evangelized, and still did not stay nearly as long as most modern missionaries would. And even his delegates whom he appoints as his replacements are not the ultimate leadership at the local level. This is to be left to the elders. Paul goes on to describe the criteria for these elders, which will largely be repeated and amplified in I Timothy where we will pay greater attention to them. But one which is not phrased in the same language and has troubled many is worthy of note here, namely in [Titus 1] verse 6, that the elder is to be a man who, as the NIV says, whose children believe. This perhaps is a misleading translation and leads to the improbable criterion and one which simply cannot be expected, given the free will of children, that elders have children who all become Christians. Probably this is to be understood, instead, as children exhibiting faithfulness. That is, a generally appropriate and culturally acceptable level of respect and obedience within the Christian household. Verse 7 makes clear what is somewhat less clear in I Timothy, that 10 of 12

11 the term overseer, from which we get our English word bishop, is synonymous with the role of elder, at least in Paul s churches, so that all of these terms elder, presbyter, overseer, and bishop are somewhat interchangeable. Acts 20 demonstrates that fact as well as Paul talks to the Ephesian elders at Miletus and calls them overseers and pastors as well. The teaching ministry, which will be an important distinction among the criteria for eldership in I Timothy 3, is amplified here in Titus 1:9. It involves both encouraging, and refuting. If either one is lacking, our message is truncated, and imbalanced. In 1:10-16, Paul then shifts from instructions for elders to instructions for false teachers how to respond to them. It is here that we learn a bit about the nature of the false teaching in Crete. And the description reminds us quite a bit of the false teachers in Ephesus behind I Timothy, about whom we will say more later, and to a certain degree, of the Colossian heretics on which we have already had occasion to comment. There is a Judaizing element there described as of the circumcision party, holding to Jewish myths and commandments, apparently including the dietary laws and a Gnosticizing or Hellenistic emphasis seeking dishonest gain, as so often tempted Hellenistic philosophers to claim money for ministry with wrong motives and claiming to know God (the Greek root of gnosis), but denying Him by their actions. More generally, they are said to be rebellious, leading households astray, and corrupting consciences. And then in verse 12, they re given a distinctively Cretin touch in which Paul quotes a commonly held proverb, not applying it as some would have to all the individuals at Crete across the board, but at least to this particular brand of false teaching. Paul s main rebuttal to what seems to be a heresy with a fair amount of ascetic tendencies is simply to shun asceticism. As in Romans and again in I Timothy 4, these statements must be seen in the limited context of things which would have been considered ritually impure by those who Paul opposes food, drink, celibacy, marriage, and the like rather than as a blanket license to sin. For men and women of various ages, in [Titus] 2:1-8, Paul enjoins dignity, moral living, and a good example to the young. Here we see women s teaching role as a prominent one particularly for younger women. Their submission to their husbands is reiterated as in Ephesians and Colossians, but in verse 5 they are encouraged to be literally good homeworkers not a word that appears in a few late manuscripts meaning to stay at home but goes to work at home as women often led professional lives out of their local houses. Injunctions similar to those found in Ephesians and Colossians are given to slaves in 2:9-10, and then a concluding rationale appears in 11 of 12

12 2:11-15 for all of these various injunctions. On the one hand, as the latter parts of verses 2:5, 2:8, and 2:10 have already stressed, the fulfillment of all these proper role relationships is, from one perspective, for the sake of the furtherance of the gospel and the squelching of unnecessary objections to the Christian lifestyle in a period where knowing one s place in society and staying in it and living nobly within it was highly valued and treasured. It would have been greatly counterproductive for Christians to start liberationist movements in a society that valued staying in one s place as the sign of high spirituality. Yet, on the other hand, 2:11-15 sum up Paul s rationale for these commands for referring to an even more fundamental principle, namely, simply doing what is good what God requires in and of themselves. We will return to this tension as we come to our application of Titus s letter. It s worth noting in passing also verse 13, an important passage following a grammatical principle in the Greek that makes it relatively clear that Christ is being directly equated with God. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 12 of 12