Strangers to the world but members of God's household- The Christian Church in a Non-Christian World (1 Peter)

Having concluded postings on St Paul's Jewish and Hellenistic background, I would like to move on to a NT letter that comes from a different corpus, the Catholic Epistles - the First letter of St Peter. This letter is a powerfully moving and encouraging letter to the early Christians to stand firm in the grace of God as they encounter diverse problems and issues in a world that seems increasingly alienating.

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1 Peter is addressed to ‘visiting strangers’ (1:1), ‘resident aliens’ (2:11), terms that indicate the precarious condition of Christians in the pagan world. They were mainly of pagan origin (cf. 1:14, 18; 2:9, 10; 4:3-4), probably recently converted (cf. 1:14; 2:2; 4:12), and in danger of giving up the Christian faith in the face of pagan hostility.

There is no indication of an official state persecution: the letter counsels respect for government and emperor (2:13-17). By recalling the greatness of their vocation and by showing that persecution is a sign of their calling, the writer encourages and exhorts his readers to stand firm (5:12). Those who are regarded by the world as aliens and strangers have found a home in the Christian community.


The Christians for whom Peter was writing were basically converts. Living in society as a minority, there was a tendency to fall back into the religion and culture of their surrounding environment. The letter will exhort them to witness through their Christian way of life. If they are faithful to this Christian witness, they will not be spared suffering and persecution. But the letter encourages them by insisting that they share in the suffering of Christ.

Aim of the Epistle

The expressed aim of 1 Peter was to encourage its suffering readers to stand fast in the grace of God (5:12). Its literary, theological and social strategy was to set the issue of Christian suffering within the context of the tension between the readers’ social estrangement and their divine vocation, their ‘homelessness’ in society and their ‘at-homeness’ in the family of God.

To counteract the divisive and erosive effect of innocent suffering upon the confidence, cohesion, and commitment of the brotherhood and its mission, the letter reassures its readers of their distinctive communal identity as God’s favoured family, encourages winsome conduct among the gentiles along with love within the brotherhood, and urges continued trust in God who vindicates the faithful who share the suffering and glory of their exalted Lord.

Who are the strangers and aliens?

One of the most notable features of 1 Peter is the identification of its addressees by a pair of Greek terms best rendered as ‘visiting strangers’ (parepidemoi – 1:1; 2:11) and ‘resident aliens’ (paroikoi, 2:11; cf. paroikia, 1:17).

In the Greco-Roman world of 1 Peter, paroikoi and parepidemoi were regarded and treated as permanent or temporary ‘strangers in a strange land.’ Literally, ‘parokoi’ were foreigners who lived alongside (par-) the ‘home’ (oikos) of others. This conditions of geographical and social displacement was the constant and typical lot of God’s ancient people.

Resident aliens formed a specific social stratum of local populaces (ranked below full citizens and above complete foreigners (xenoi) and slaves). Their cooperation or noncooperation with the native population could result in their moving up or down the social ladder. Legally, such aliens were restricted in regard to whom they could marry, the holding of land and succession of property, voting and participation in certain associations and were subjected to higher taxes and severer forms of civil punishment.

Set apart from their host society by their lack of local roots, their ethnic origin, language, culture, and political or religious loyalties, such strangers were commonly viewed as threats to established order and native well-being. Constant exposure to local fear and suspicion, ignorant slander, discrimination and manipulation was the regular lot of these social outsiders.

Because of their marginal status as outsiders, they frequently joined clubs or cults which offered the promise of social acceptance, mutual support, or even salvation.

Strangers who had embraced the Christian faith for the communion, hope and salvation it promised were discovering that membership in this sect provided no escape from the prejudices and animosities of the larger society. To the contrary, membership in this strange and exclusive movement resulted only in an increase in social friction and suspicion of strangers now banded together in a missionising movement.

As Israel’s history indicated, a social alienation and oppression had been the regular experience of God’s chosen and estranged people. From this history, 1 Peter drew on models and memories of dispersion and gathering, suffering and deliverance, societal rejection and divine acceptance so that continuity with the past, along with the faith of the present, might serve as an effective basis for hope in the future.

Vocation and Dignity of the Elect and Holy People of God

What about us Christians? What is our relationship with the larger society and the world? This letter is addressed to “those who live as strangers” (1:1-2) – they are strangers by virtue of their unique Christian vocation in a pagan society. ‘Strangers’ but yet chosen (1:2). There is a Trinitarian dimension to this election: “chosen in the foresight of God the Father, to be made holy by the Spirit, obedient to Jesus and sprinkled with his blood.” The elect are consecrated by the Holy Spirit for a purpose – ‘obedience’ to Jesus, the Jesus who has resealed the new covenant with his own blood (this also points to the persecution which the Christians will experience). The emphasis is on the person of ‘Jesus’ and not just ‘Jesus Christ’ – Jesus = God saves.

And it is only by the mercy of God (the gratuitous gift) that these strangers/aliens have become the elect and the holy people of God, the household of faith/ God. In 2:9, we see them described as a chosen race (a covenanted people) and a kingdom of priests (mediating god’s reality in the world through their ‘witness’ or martyrdom).

At the outset of the letter (1:1-2:10), a rich array of terms, images, and contrasts serve to underscore the dignity and distinctiveness of the community to which the readers belonged. The letter wishes to bring home to its readers what is the ‘grace’ into which they have come by their conversion. This new situation, graphically described as a transition from darkness to light, rests upon God’s election, mercy and calling (1:2-2:10).

God’s election had been announced by the prophets of the OT (1:10ff), effectuated by Jesus’ work, and preached in the gospel. All these things have been prepared from the beginning of the world, but now ‘at the end of the times’ it has been complete revealed in the coming of Jesus Christ (1:20). This is the great turning point, the decisive step in God’s salvation of the world. It is the ‘end times.’

Elected by God (1:1), sanctified by the Spirit (1:2; cf. 1:22), redeemed by Christ’s blood (1:18-19), believers in Jesus Christ, God’s elect agent of salvation, belong to the elect and holy covenant people of God, the household in which the Spirit resides (2:4-10).

In contrast to Jews (1:4, 10-12), pagans (1:18), and all who reject Jesus as the Christ (2:4-8), those believing the enduring good news (1:23-25) have a permanent inheritance, a sure salvation, and a firm basis of hope (1:3-5, 13,21).

Reborn by God the Father (1:3, 23; 2:2), believers as his obedient children are not to conform to the passion of their former ignorance but to the holiness of the Wholly other in the time of their alien residence (1:14-17). Through sincere love of brothers and sisters in the faith and avoidance of divisive behaviour, they are to maintain the solidarity of the brotherhood (1:22; 2:1; 3:8; 4:8).

Throughout ancient society the household or family was considered the fundamental form and model of social, political and religious organization. The strategy of 1 Peter was to mobilize the resources of faith and concerted action which would enable the Christian addressees to stand firm and persevere as the community of God in a society from which they are estranged. Basic to this strategy, as the stress upon solidarity in suffering illustrates, was an emphasis upon the distinctive collective identity and responsibility of the believers.Although the term ‘church’ (ekklesia) is never employed, in the broader theological sense 1 Peter is one of the most church-oriented compositions in the New Testament.

Conclusion

In society, Christians are indeed strangers and strangers they should remain, as signs of holiness and beacons of hope. Endurance of suffering and steadfastness in faith is possible because of their incorporation in the household of God. In the family God the faithful the homeless of society (paroikoi) have a home (oikos) with God. The church, according to 1 Peter, is a home for the homeless.

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 6

Paul, the Hellenist

Although, Paul was in every sense a ‘Jew,’ he was undeniably also a Hellenistic Jew who wrote in Greek, used the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and was certainly influenced by Hellenism. According to Grant, his Judaism (although he was zealously devoted to it) was not the orthodox variety current in Palestine. “Instead it was the Judaism of the Western Diaspora, already tinged with Hellenism through the use of the Greek language and the consequent adoption of certain Greek modes of thought.”(1) From his own account and as was noted earlier, Paul was born in Tarsus and would have lived in this cosmopolitan city during various intervals of his life. If the latter was true, then Paul would have grown up in an atmosphere in which he was as familiar with Greek and Roman thought as he was with the Jewish thought of his own race and nation. To what extent or in what way was Paul influenced by the prevailing Hellenistic culture? The tendency in the past was to say that a Hellenistic milieu explained the emergence of Paulinism. This view is not generally held at present. Still the thought world of Paul and that of contemporary Hellenistic culture had much in common. In his writings and speeches as recorded in Acts, Paul’s theology did contain certain elements of Greek culture as is seen in his use of concepts and ideas like freedom, reason, nature, conscience, sobriety, virtue and duty.

An example of Paul’s familiarity with Greek philosophy and rhetorical methods can be seen in his address at the Athens (Acts 17). The main arguments of the speech (17:24-29) building on the common ground of Jewish, Christian and Hellenistic sources, make a case for the nature of the one true God and a case against idolatry. Hansen argues that Paul’s connection with early Greek philosophers is strengthened by the way that Luke weaves several allusions to Socrates into his narrative.(2) Like Socrates, Paul engaged in dialogues – “… in the market place he debated every day with anyone whom he met” (Acts 17:17). Also like Socrates, he was charged with proclaiming ‘foreign gods’ (17:18). So like Socrates, Paul was put on trial to give account of his ‘new teaching’ (17:19). Luke, according to Hansen, is trying to indicate the favourable reception which the Aeropagus address should receive from his readers in the Greek world by this association of Paul with Socrates.

We also see hints of Paul’s contact with Greek philosophy in some of his writings. For example, Paul, like the Platonists before him, wrote to the Romans that human reason is a way of coming into contact with the absolute Good, but of course he gave that ‘good’ the name of God: “For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse” (Rom 1:19-20). But Paul had also to temper the thought of the Platonists. They were too pessimistic about the body and the material world. He wrote to the Corinthians: “But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? … What (the body) is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious; what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful” (1 Cor 15:12, 43). The Platonists were also too optimistic about self-knowledge. Paul wrote likewise to the Corinthians: “Any one of you who thinks he is wise by worldly standards must learn to be a fool in order to be really wise. For the wisdom of the world is folly to God” (1 Cor 3:18-19). Against Stoicism, Paul offered Christian insights into a personal God, into an eternal afterlife, and into an active love of others rather than passive self-interest. But like Stoicism, Paul also affirmed the mystery of Divine Providence and provided glimpses into the unity of the human race and of all of creation. In Corinthians, we see that he especially liked the Stoic concern for self-discipline in ethics: “Do you not realise that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one of them gets the prize? Run like that -- to win. Every athlete concentrates completely on training, and this is to win a wreath that will wither, whereas ours will never wither” (1 Cor 9:24-25). In Thessalonica Paul found something to affirm the philosophy of the Epicureans, though, he had other purposes in mind: “… we do urge you, brothers, to go on making even greater progress and to make a point of living quietly, attending to your own business and earning your living, just as we told you to, so that you may earn the respect of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone” (1 Th 4:10-12). Still, Paul warned the Corinthians about Epicurean hedonism: “If the dead are not going to be raised, then Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead. So do not let anyone lead you astray, 'Bad company corrupts good ways” (1 Cor 15:33-34). Verse 33 of 1 Corinthian 15 may actually be a quotation from Menander.(3)

As important as philosophy was to culture of Paul’s cities, it was centered on the individual and gave little sense of community. To those alienated in the society – especially the freed persons and salves, but even others who were uprooted from their native lands – philosophy brought no sense of belonging or of salvation. Since the state religions were in decline, some people turned toward magic, many others toward ‘mystery religions.’ These were a way of getting control over life or to influence the powers who did have control. The Galatians and Colossians were both tempted to such practices and Paul warns them: “whereas now that you have come to recognise God -- or rather, be recognised by God -- how can you now turn back again to those powerless and bankrupt elements whose slaves you now want to be all over again?” (Gal 4:9). The people who were entering mystery religions or cults also yearned for a saviour God, for acceptance by an intimate community. Here too, Paul met their needs, preaching Jesus as the true saviour, stressing Christian life as a community in Christ with its initiation by baptism and its sacred meal of the Eucharist. Still, Paul also had to encourage them to ethical concerns beyond a feeling of salvation and to an open community without secrets. In fact, this Hellenistic influence is detected more in Paul’s ethical teaching than in his theology proper.

What of Paul’s style of writing? Certainly he was completely at home in the Greek language, which would only support the presupposition of his Hellenistic background and education. Although he does not write literary ‘koine’, his style betrays a good Greek education. In fact, Greek was the language of commerce and government in the eastern parts of the Roman empire. But although Paul’s style is individual, recent studies prove beyond doubt that Paul knew and used the methods of the Greek orators of his time. Even if Paul had not been trained as a professional rhetorician, his mode of composition and expression often reveals the influence of Greek rhetoric. Again and again the structure of his letters conforms to models set forth by Quintilian and other ancient rhetoricians. In dealings with his opponents in Second Corinthians he resorts to the types of arguments and emotional appeals that we find in Socrates and in the whole Socratic tradition. The apparent digressions that have puzzled commentators in such a letter as First Corinthians had a definite and recognized rhetorical function. In defending his policy not to accept financial support he argued like a Cynic philosopher. His writing sometimes reflects the Cynic-Stoic diatribe (Rom 2:1-20; 3:1-9; 9:19; 1 Cor 9). His catalogues are similar to the catalogues of vices and virtues put forth especially by Stoic philosophers (Gal 5:19-23). The content of his ethical teaching may be Jewish, true-and-true, and the theological basis and motivation of it are certainly Christian, but in persuading his hearers Paul often uses ‘commonplaces,’ i.e. standard topics and examples to be found in Hellenistic philosophy, such as the athletic metaphors (Phil 2:16).

The influence of a Hellenistic culture is also seen in his use of images and terms derived from a city-culture (note that Jesus uses images drawn from the rural countryside): ‘commonwealth’ (Phil 3:20) and ‘fellow citizens’ (Eph 2:19) are Greek political terms; ‘account’ (Philemon 18) is a Greek commercial term; ‘will’ (Gal 3:15) is a legal designation and ‘slave-free’ (1 Cor 7:22) is an expression drawn from the slave-trade found different parts of the Roman Empire. He employs the Hellenistic ideas of ‘freedom’ (Gal 5:1, 13) and ‘conscience’ (1 Cor 8:7, 10, 12; 10:25-29; 2 Cor 5:11; Rom 2:15), and the Stoic ideas of ‘sufficiency’ or ‘contentment’ (2 Cor 9:8), and ‘nature’ (Rom 2:14).

Though it is easy enough to underestimate the influence of the Hellenistic culture on Paul’s life and thought, it is not easy at all to define its extent. Indeed, the phenomenon of ‘Hellenisation’ was so extensive in Hellenistic Judaism (and even in the Judaism as practiced in Palestine) that it is often difficult to segregate and label concepts as either Jewish or Hellenistic. Whatever may have been the actual influence of Hellenism over his theological thinking, we cannot deny the fact that he was born and sojourned in a Hellenistic city, a crossroad of the Empire, a center of Greek learning, and that he was a citizen of Rome. These factors would certainly have contributed to a universal vision, to his becoming par excellence apostle to the Gentiles. In many ways, then Paul addressed the world of his times. He moved Christianity from its Jewish roots to the Gentiles. This would lead to great struggle between Christians of Jewish background and the Christians of Gentile background, an issue that we will see recurring in his letters and recorded in Acts.

1. Frederick C. Grant, Roman Hellenism and the New Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962) , 146.
2. G. Walter Hansen, “The Preaching and Defence of Paul” in Marshall (ed), Witness to the Gospel, 310.
3. Menander, Thais, frg. 218, Joseph Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology” in Raymond E. Brown et al (ed), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990) 1382-1416, cf. 1385 n. 82:12.

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 5

The Hellenists

We have seen the essential Jewishness of Paul; and we must now turn to the other side of the picture. But before we can consider this other facet of his life, something must be said about Hellenism and the Hellenists. Acts 6 tells of a dispute that arose in Jerusalem between the so-called Hellenist and Hebrews. The descriptions do not indicate clearly who are intended but the context has helped scholars decipher these two specific designations. The Hebrews were most probably the Aramaic-speaking Jews who had become Christians. Their Judaism was indigenous to the land of Israel, was centered on the Temple, and was more resistant to Greek culture and to the acceptance of Gentiles into Judaism. Consequently after conversion to Christianity, these Hebrew Christians were inclined to maintain the importance of Jewish practices even as an expression of Christian faith (Acts 3:; 5:12). As one commentator would observe, we already “find world salvation in the horizons of the Aramaic speaking church of Jerusalem but we do not find there the enabling conditions of a mission to the world.”(1) Acts tells us that this world mission would only take place through the mediation of Greek speaking Jewish Christians whose perspectives made a mission to non-Jews possible and whose initiative made it actual.

These Greek speaking Jewish Christians would come to be known as the Hellenists. They appear to be Jews of the Diaspora, with a background of Hellenistic Judaism; i.e. they spoke Greek as their primary tongue, used the Septuagint, were comfortable in Greek culture and were willing to accept Gentile converts into Judaism. But, long before the Christian era, the phenomenon called Hellenism had already exerted its influence even on that bastion of intransigent conservatism, Judaism. Not only were the scriptures translated from Hebrew into Greek, but the very core of the Jewish religion felt in varying degrees and in many subtle ways the effects of Hellenistic ideas and philosophies. These Hellenists probably came out of the Greek-speaking synagogues that existed even in Jerusalem, catering to Jews who had emigrated to Jerusalem from outside the Holy Land. Since their perspectives originated in the Diaspora, where there was not much opportunity to get to the Temple regularly, they were less impressed about the importance of the Temple in Jerusalem When these Jews became Christians they carried over their openness to the Gentiles and their ambivalent feelings toward the Temple. The more radical among them (e.g. Stephen) began to feel that Jewish practices (especially the Temple) no longer had significance for any Christians, thus laying the foundation for the Christian mission to the Gentiles without prior initiation into Judaism.

With the execution of Stephen, one of the leading men among the Hellenist (Acts 7), the conflict and persecution of the Christians by the Jews began to broaden quickly. It is interesting to note that the first mention of Saul-Paul is found here. “Saul approved of the killing. That day a bitter persecution started against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone except the apostles scattered to the country districts of Judaea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). Apparently only the radical Hellenist Christians (those who opposed the traditional Jewish institutions like Stephen) had to flee. The Hebrew Christians, although not specifically mentioned, while sometimes criticized by the Jews in the early chapters of Acts, remained largely tolerated in their Aramaic-speaking Jewish synagogues, since their Christian faith did not diminish the importance of their Jewish practices. That is why Acts records the fact that the Church in Jerusalem scattered except ‘the Twelve’ (who were Hebrew Christians). We would later find that this persecution was indeed a blessing in disguise, for it marked the beginnings of the mission to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19-21). The Hellenists, therefore were of decisive significance for the spread of Christianity, “both because they first formulated the gospel message in Greek, the common language of the eastern Roman Empire, and because they took their gospel from Jerusalem to other cities, and shared it with non-Jews.” Therefore, “if the (Hebrews) were the link of the earliest community with the past of Jesus, the (Hellenists) by their self-understanding made themselves the link with the future.” Ironically, although the Hellenist Christians were the most active proselytizers, the Hellenist Jews (Paul before his conversion must be counted among them) were the most active opponents of the Christian gospel (cf. Acts 6:9ff; 7:58; 9:1; 21:27; 24:19). For example, it was members of the Synagogue of Freedmen (6:9), most probably the Hellenist Jews, and not the Palestinian Jews (the ‘Hebrews’) who opposed the preaching of Stephen, instigated the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem to arrest him and finally to execute him.

We would also find in Acts the record that the apostles are closely associated with Jerusalem and the Jewish People (3:12, 25f; 4:2, 8, 10; 5:12f; 20, 25; 10:42; 13:31). Their witness and teaching is crucial to the foundation of the church among the Jews. It is not they, but ordinary believers who, due to persecution are scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria and who go about evangelizing (8:1, 4). Eventually these disciples travel as far as Antioch, where some of them begin to speak to Greeks also (11:19ff). Although Luke emphasizes Peter’s conversion of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, as a special breakthrough for the mission to the Gentiles, Luke did not suppress the historical circumstances that the initiative for preaching to Gentiles did not come from Peter. In fact, as this has already been pointed out above, this mission to the Gentiles goes back to the dispersion of the Jerusalem Hellenists (cf. Acts 8:4). At Antioch Paul and Barnabas later teach and preach the word of the Lord ‘with many others’ (15:35; cf. 13:1). Neither evangelism nor teaching the word is confined to a select few. For example, like the apostles, Stephen does great signs and wonders among the people (6:8) and gives a Spirit-filled exposition of the scriptures with prophetic authority (6:10; 7:2-53). Philip proclaims Christ, performs signs and miracles, experiences the leading of the Spirit and expounds scripture to lead his audience to faith in Jesus (8:5, 26-40), just as the apostles did. Even an ordinary believer like Ananias sees a vision, and is sent by the Lord to lay hands on Saul (9:10-19). Luke, however, portrays Paul as having a distinctive role in the mission to the Gentiles, comparable to that of Peter and the Eleven in relation to Israel. Luke is concerned to portray the unity of his mission with that of the mission of the Twelve (cf. 9:27-29; 15:1-35), just as in the Gospel he emphasized the unity of the missions of the Twelve and the Seventy.(2)

The transition from a pure mission to the Jews to a mission to the Gentiles conducted by Hellenists should be understood not as a one-time event, but rather as a process.(3) First, they turned their attention to Greek-speaking fellow Jews (other Hellenists – cf. Acts 6:9). The first more organized mission outside Judaism in the narrower sense occurred among the Samaritans (8:4-25), who could, however, still be viewed as members – albeit partially apostate – of the holy people Israel. From these Greek-speaking synagogues, the Hellenists then reached the circle of ‘God-fearers’ (cf. Acts 8:26-39), that is, those Gentiles standing in variously intensive connections with Judaism.

The Hellenist Jews of the Diaspora generally found themselves also within all the classes of Greek society, having settled widely within these territories as far back as 587 B.C., when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and sent many of the Jews into exile. The Jewish communities had learned to live in such cities by separating themselves from others, although there would have been relatively more interaction with the non-Jewish Gentile population and Hellenist culture than would the Jewish communities in Palestine. It was clear that the Hellenistic Jews were much more exposed to the contemporary philosophies of the Roman Empire than their brothers in Jerusalem. Greek philosophy had been flourishing for at least four hundred years before Paul. Philosophic discussion was, of course, prevalent among the aristocracy in important centers like Athens and Tarsus, but it was an important topic in all the cities of the empire and, in popularized version, was part of the conversation at all levels of society.

In general, the Hellenist Jews were an accepted part of the Roman Empire and participated actively in city life, though they were not always fully understood and sometimes shunned behaviour that they could not accommodate to their beliefs, e.g. participating in emperor worship; entering military service; support of local pagan temples etc. The gathering places for these Hellenistic Jews were the synagogues, which served not only as places of worship, but also as schools and community centers. They also provided places of contact for visitors to a city and for travelers in search of work. The strong moral standards of the Jews and their monotheism also attracted Gentiles toward the religion, and the Hellenist were much more open to converts than were the Hebrew or Aramaic speaking Jews in Jerusalem. Thus, there were frequently Gentile sympathizers worshiping with the Jews in their synagogues. It must be noted that not all these Gentiles formally converted to Judaism. Those who did were called proselytes and they underwent official initiation into Judaism (for men this meant circumcision). Those who did not were called ‘God-fearers’ (cf. Acts 8:26-39) and they shared in Sabbath worship or other Jewish activities without becoming Jews. Thus, through the synagogue we may envisage that Paul’s preaching reached beyond the Jews to begin touching even the Gentile world.

1. Ben F. Meyer, The Early Christians: Their World Mission & Self-Discovery (Wilmington: Michael Glazier Inc, 1986) 67. For a detailed discussion of the Hellenists, see Chapter V.
2. Andrew C. Clark, “The Role of the Apostles” in I. Howard Marshall & David Peterson (Ed), Witness to the Gospel: The Theology of Acts, (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmaans, 1998) 182.
3. Rainer Riesner, Paul’s Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy and Theology (Grand Rapids: W.M. Eerdmans, 1998) 109.

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 4

Paul, the Jew (Part 2 of 2)

The beginning of Paul’s apostolic career and foundations of his missionary career can be traced to his conversion or call experience on the road to Damascus. The event is narrated three times in Acts (9:1-19; 22:3-20; 26:4-18) and is also described briefly by Paul himself in Galatians 1:11-17 (there are certainly some differences between these two source accounts and even discrepancies between the three accounts in Acts, although all point to the same reality). It appears that Paul was secure and content under the law as a Jew, and lived as a good Jew as can be seen in this text: “If anyone does claim to rely on them (the prescriptions of the Law), my claim is better. Circumcised on the eighth day of my life, I was born of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents. In the matter of the Law, I was a Pharisee; as for religious fervour, I was a persecutor of the Church; as for the uprightness embodied in the Law, I was faultless” (Phil 3:4-6). So good was he, that he was zealous enough to challenge those who threatened his religion. Paul’s conversion, then, was not from a sinful life to a religious life, but rather “a major shift from one religious perspective to another.”(1) Whatever Paul saw or heard (the different accounts in Acts and Galatians differ) – if there were any external manifestations at all – it is certain that he encountered a Christ whose very life was shared as his own. This encounter with Christ helped Paul see the continuity of the revelation of God which he knew from his Jewish traditions. His God was still active in history, but now in the raising of Christ (Rom 3:1-26). The eschatological kingdom anticipated by the prophets and the Old Testament had indeed come, at least in its first fruits in the Risen Christ (1 Cor 15:20-28). Finally, the experience of the Risen Christ showed Paul that the good things that the Law was given to achieve were in fact achieved through Christ (Rom 8:3-4) and that “it is not being circumcised or uncircumcised that matters; but what matters is a new creation” in Christ” (Gal 6:15). Therefore, while Paul had been nurtured in a world where the distinction between Jews and Gentiles was fundamental, the essence or at least the outcome of his conversion experience was the realization that in Christ “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek” (Rom 10:12). “His conversion meant the abandonment of a set of convictions that was rooted in a fundamental Jew-Gentile distinction and the adoption of a new set in which this distinction was of no continuing significance, having been eliminated or transcended in Christ.”(2)

The Law or Torah remained the fundamental pre-occupation of the Pharisees. The Law meant to the Jews the sum and substance of all that is good and beautiful, of all that is worth knowing.(3) The Law was their guide, their stay, their goal; yet it was more than a code of law; it was teaching, revelation, the Word of God. Being a Pharisee, Paul was not merely a devout Jew but one who had foresworn all normal activities in order to dedicate his life to the keeping of the Law (thus meaning of the title ‘Pharisee’ – ‘Separated One’), and he had kept it with such meticulous care that in the keeping of it he was blameless (Phil 3:6). The basic problem in interpreting Paul’s Christian view of the Jewish law is that he seems to say both positive and negative things about it. For example, apparently negative statements include the following: “So then, no human being can be found upright at the tribunal of God by keeping the Law; all that the Law does is to tell us what is sinful” (Rom 3:20). “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin comes from the Law” (1 Cor 15:56). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law …” (Gal 3:13). But on the other hand, we must consider these positive statements: “So then, the Law is holy, and what it commands is holy and upright and good” (Rom 7:12). “The only thing you should owe to anyone is love for one another, for to love the other person is to fulfil the law” (Rom 13:8). “… be servants to one another in love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in the one commandment: ‘You must love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:13-14). What then can we surmise from this seemingly conflicting and contradictory position? According to Horrell, Paul has taken up thoroughly Jewish themes, themes known from the Jewish Scriptures, and developed them in the light of his new conviction that God’s saving grace is now manifest in Christ. From this Christian perspective, Paul reasons that the law itself cannot save, and thus have to rethink the purpose for which God gave it. Paul rejects the idea that God (or God’s law) is directly the agent of sin; he remains insistent that God’s purposes are being worked out, and that the law played its part in the cosmic drama of salvation that now finds its culmination in Christ.(4) To Paul, “Christ was the ‘end’ of the Law (Rom 10:4), not merely its abrogation but its final goal and consummation, its ‘τέλοϛ’ in the total purposes of God.”(5)

The tension between the confining ‘Jewishness’ and the Hellenistic universalism of Paul can also be discerned from his attitude towards Israel and the Gentile world. It is clear that Paul claims for the Christian believers, both Jewish and Gentile, the status which Israel claims as her own. In particular, Paul spends some time in Galatians arguing that the true descendants of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, are those who have faith, specifically faith in Christ (Gal 3:6-4:31). Certainly for Paul, as in the case of any other Jew, Abraham is central to Paul’s argument here and also in Romans 4. But Paul then moves away from the exclusive understanding of the Jews when he claimed for his Christian converts the status of children of Abraham, and simultaneously denied that exclusive status to those who conventionally claim it, the Jewish people. This was indeed a radical departure, demonstrating once again the seemingly contradictory themes of continuity and discontinuity. We see here as in the case of the Law, Paul wrestling with theological dilemmas: attempting to hold together his belief concerning the need for people to turn to Christ with his belief in God’s promises to Israel and his conviction that God’s sovereign plan of salvation will ultimately be unstoppable; attempting to do justice to both human responsibility and the sovereignty of God. Moreover, Paul insists on holding on to 2 basic convictions, thought they stand in some considerable tension:
1. That salvation is available to Jew and Gentile, without distinction, only in Christ; and
2. That God’s promises to Israel – the people of Israel, the Jews – are irrevocable.

Other examples of Paul’s Jewish theological background can be seen in these instances. First, Paul’s view of man is essentially Hebraic and he derives it from the Prophets (e.g. Isa 40:6 cf. Rom 8:7). Secondly, Paul has inherited the prophetic intuition of the living God (Rom 4:17). The ‘holiness,’ the ‘otherness’ of God was as vivid to him (2 Cor 5:11; 7:1; Phil 2:12) as it was to the psalmists and Isaiah. Thirdly, Paul has certainly been influenced by the Jewish apocalyptic. The pre-occupation with the day of the Lord in 1 Thess 4:13-5:11; 2 Thess 2:1-12, the evocation of the wrath of God in Rom 1:18-20, the sense of the end of the world has come in 1 Cor 7:26, 29, 31; 10:11; 11:32 and the general resurrection in 1 Cor 15, all bear out Paul’s debt to the apocalyptic.

We had already noted the abundant use of the Old Testament in Paul’s writings. At times, he accommodates the OT text or gives new meaning to passages he cites (e.g. Hab 2:4 in Rom 1:17 or Gal 3:11; Gen 12:7 in Gal 3:16; Exod 34:34 in 2 Cor 3:17); he may allegorize a text (Gen 16:15; 17:16 in Gal 4:21-25) or wrest it from its original context (Dt 25:5 in 1 Cor 9:9)(6). Paul’s use of the Old Testament does not conform to our modern ideas of quoting scriptures, but it does conform to the contemporary Jewish way of interpreting and must be judged in that light. Acts 22:3 tells us that Paul was a student of the famous rabbi, Gamaliel. Paul may probably, therefore, had been trained in the rabbinic exegetical methods. A few examples of this method are noted hereunder:(7)

1. Homiletic application of a text - in 2 Cor 6:2, Paul applies the text from Isa 49:8 (which refers to deliverance from exile) to Christ and the Christians.
2. Deduction from a biblical text – in 1 Cor 14:21-22 the text of Isa 28:11-12 is appropriated and applied to the gift of tongues.
3. Drawing a conclusion from the strict meaning of the word – in Gal 3:16, Paul plays on the word ‘offspring’ found in Gen 12:7 to arrive at his own conclusion.
4. Typological exegesis – Adam in Rom 5:14 is a type of the ‘man’ who is to come, Christ.

As a trained rabbi, Paul was also familiar with the rabbinic traditions, e.g. the existence and mediation of angels (Acts 7:53); that the Law was given 430 years after Abraham (Gal 3:17); the miracle story of the rock that followed the Israelites during the Exodus (1 Cor 10:4). Furthermore, when Paul uses the Old Testament, he uses it as a Jew would use it. Again and again he introduces an Old Testament quotation with the phrase: “It is written.” That was the normal Greek legal phrase for a law or an agreement or a condition that was unalterable and inviolable. Paul’s view of scripture as the voice of God, however, was a Jewish view.(8)

1. Anthony J. Tambasco, In the Days of Paul: The Social World and Teaching of the Apostle (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), 30
2. Terence L. Donaldson, “Israelite, Convert, Apostle to the Gentiles: The Origin of Paul’s Gentile Mission” in Richard N. Longenecker (ed), The Road from Damascus: The Impact of Paul’s Conversion on His Life, Thought and Ministry (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1997) 70.
3. Matthew Thekkekara, The Letters of St. Paul: The Face of Early Christianity (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 1997), 19.
4. David Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul (London: Continuum, 2000), 90.
5. Frederick C. Grant, Roman Hellenism and the New Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1962) 147.
6. Joseph Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology” in Raymond E. Brown et al (ed), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990) 1384 n. 82:10.
7. Thekkekara, 18-20.
8. William Barclay, The Mind of St. Paul (London: Collins, 1958), 14

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 3

Paul, the Jew (Part 1 of 2)

What Paul preached and taught was his own interpretation of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection. It was based partly on the tradition accepted by all the churches (1 Cor 15:1-6), but he pondered it over the years and his knowledge of the Old Testament, interpreted to some extent by Jewish tradition, helped him to see the meaning of the Christ-event as no other first century Christian was able to do. “He was our first great theological thinker, not a systematic theologian but an apostolic herald of the gospel, essentially a preacher.”(1) According to W.D. Davies, “both Hellenism and Judaism are Paul’s tutors unto Christ.(2) But it is Judaism which is the more significant.” Paul looked back with pride on his life as a Jew of the Pharisaic tradition (Phil 3:5-6; Gal 1:14; 2 Cor 11:22). As a Jew he thinks and expresses himself in Old Testament categories and images. He quotes the Old Testament often (90 direct citations), usually according to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.(3) The significance of this is often lost to us who do not appreciate the fact that all the wealth of Greek literature lay open to him; yet at the most he only quotes a Gentile writer twice (cf. Acts 17:28 – where he quotes the Greek poet Aratus; Titus 1:12 – he quotes the poet Epimenides)(4). Paul relied extensively on the Old Testament. Possibly it was not all he knew, but certainly it was all he needed. He quotes the Old Testament to stress the unity of God’s action in both dispensations and often as announcing the Christian gospel (Rom 1:2) or preparing for Christ (Gal 3:24). Even if he contrasts the ‘letter of the law’ and the ‘Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:6; Rom 2:29; 7:6), the Old Testament “is still for him a means through which God speaks to humanity (1 Cor 9:10; 2 Cor 6:16-17; cf. Rom 4:23; 15:4).”(5) Indeed, we shall later see that most of his theology and this anthropology clearly reveals this Jewish background.

According to Barclay, Paul, to the end of his life was “proudly, stubbornly, unalterably a Jew.”(6) The polemical passages in which Paul reacts against the Mosaic Law should not be allowed to obscure the fact that even the Christian Paul looked back with pride on his life as a Jew of the Pharisaic tradition (Phil 3:5-6; Gal 1:14; 2 Cor 11:22). When he wrote to the Corinthians in answer to the charges of his detractors, Paul took his stand on his Jewish lineage: “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I” (2 Cor 11:22). Although the three words are basically synonymous, all have their own distinctive nuance. A ‘Hebrew’ was a Jew who could still speak Hebrew (or more accurately Aramaic) in contradistinction to the Jews of the Diaspora, many who had forgotten their native language for the Greek of their adopted countries. An ‘Israelite’ was specifically a member of the covenant nation. To be a ‘descendent of Abraham’ was to have absolute racial purity – proselytes to Judaism were still regarded in many circles as second class. Therefore, Paul’s claim was that “there was nowhere in the world a purer Jew than he.”(7)

Paul did not himself abandon the ancestral laws and customs of his own people; in many things he was still a devout Jew. Again and again Paul’s Jewishness comes out. For example, we can deduce this from his treatment of Timothy in Acts. Timothy’s father was a Greek but his mother was a Jewess, and so we find Paul taking and circumcising Timothy in order that Timothy might be able to work amongst the Jews (16:3). In another instance, we find Paul taking what appears to be the Nazirite vow; when we find him shaving his head at Cenchrea (18:18). When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, we find him undertaking to be responsible for the expense of certain men who were engaged in carrying out the Nazirite vow in order that he might make it clear that he was no destructive renegade from the Jewish faith (21:17-26). In all these instances, we find a man that has never forgotten his Jewish origin; he never turned his back on the faith of his fathers.

But it was not only in his words and actions that Paul’s essential Jewishness came out; it was equally clear in his thoughts. It is not surprising, therefore, that Paul’s theology is profoundly and thoroughly Jewish: it tells the story of how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who spoke through Moses and the prophets, has now acted to fulfil the promises made long before and to enable God’s people to inherit their long-awaited blessings through the coming of the Messiah (e.g. 1 Cor 10:1; Rom 4:1; 9:3, 10; Gal 6:16). Paul’s speeches in Acts paint the same picture as his letters do (Acts 13:16-41; 28:23). Yet according to Paul’s ‘gospel,’ the people who inherit these blessings, the people who are the true ‘children of Abraham’ are not all who are Jewish, but all who have faith in Christ, whether they be Jew or Gentile. Indeed, ‘in Christ,’ according to Paul, ‘there is no longer Jew and Gentile’ (Gal 3:28; cf. 1 Cor 12:13; Col 3:11). So Paul’s theology is essentially Jewish, yet it claims Israel’s identity, blessings and salvation for a community which is not comprised solely of Jews, but of Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ. There is, then, in Paul’s theology “a fundamental tension between continuity and discontinuity: Paul’s message did not represent a rejection of his Jewish ‘past’, but neither was it simply a straightforward continuation of it.”(8)

1. Sherman E. Johnson, Paul the Apostle and His Cities (Wilmington: Michael Glazier Inc., 1987), 32
2. W.D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: SPCK, 1979) 1.
3. Matthew Thekkekara, The Letters of St. Paul: The Face of Early Christianity (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 1997), 18.
4. William Barclay, The Mind of St. Paul (London: Collins, 1958) 13-14.
5. J oseph Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology” in Raymond E. Brown et al (ed), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990) 1382-1416, cf 1384 n. 82:10.
6. Barclay, 11.
7. Ibid.
8. David Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul (London: Continuum, 2000) 82.

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 2

Paul of Tarsus

Paul was born into a conflict of cultures: a Jew in a Hellenistic environment. This may be seen from the fact that he, like so many of his contemporaries, is known by two names, one Hebrew and another Greek/Roman. His Hebrew name, Saul can be found in the Acts of the Apostles prior to 13:9 whereas the Roman-Greek name, Paul, can be found for the first time in that same passage and thereafter. The Roman-Greek name of ‘Paul’ is also used in 2 Peter 3:15 and in his letters. There is however no evidence to show that the name ‘Saul’ was changed to ‘Paul’ at the time of his conversion.(1) Marrow suggests that Luke had used the Hebrew name in the Jewish part of his narrative in Acts, and the Latin name in the part given to the Gentile mission.(2) In other words, the former name was probably used in the Jewish circles and the latter in the Roman-Gentile circles, for he possessed a Roman citizenship as well. In any event, we are really not certain as to the reason for the change in name. But as a Jew, we have come to know his pedigree from his own account that runs as follows: “Circumcised on the eighth day of my life, I was born of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents. In the matter of the Law, I was a Pharisee; as for religious fervour, I was a persecutor of the Church; as for the uprightness embodied in the Law, I was faultless” (Phil 3:5-6). According to O’Connor, such a concern to affirm his Jewish credentials betrays the expatriate, i.e. a Jew living in the Diaspora.(3)

Perhaps it is only by accident that in Paul’s letters preserved to us he never mentions his native town. Our information comes from the Book of Acts. After Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus, a Christian named Ananias was told to go and inquire for a man from Tarsus named Saul (Acts 9:11). Paul then was baptized and went to Jerusalem to meet the apostles, who brought him to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus (9:30). Some time later, Christianity came to Antioch in Syria, and because of such great success there Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Paul and brought him to Antioch (11:25-26). The great missionary journeys of Paul begin after this. There is one other reference to Tarsus. When the Roman tribune allowed Paul to speak to the mob, he told them of his conversion and began with the words, “I am a Jew … and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. It was under Gamaliel that I studied and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty (‘zealous’) towards God as you all are today” (22:3). This last statement suggests that Paul while still small was brought to Jerusalem by his parents, spent his childhood and youth there, and received something like an education under one of the most famous of rabbis. No doubt it was his heritage that led Paul to be concerned, as we shall see about the relevance of the Jewish tradition for Christianity. The strong concern of the Pharisees with proper living of the Law would lead Paul to later considerations of the place of the Law in the light of the resurrection of Jesus. Paul’s letters also show clearly that the content of his thought was essentially Jewish, based on a knowledge of Jesus’ life and death and on thorough acquaintance with the Old Testament and Jewish tradition.

Paul certainly claimed to be a Pharisee, a member of the tribe of Benjamin and a Hebrew born of Hebrews (Phil 3:5); that is, both he and his parents spoke Aramaic or Hebrew. But there is a slight puzzle here. As most scholars would point out, although Paul’s letters show much acquaintance with Jewish tradition, his thinking and methods of argument are only partly Jewish, and he obviously had some Greek education. Unlike the Pharisees of Holy Land, Paul’s later career certainly demonstrated his openness to Gentiles. This would have been possible if Paul was exposed to the Hellenistic influence of a Gentile city like Tarsus. On the trade route between Syria and Asia Minor, Tarsus was prosperous and cultured – a center of learning. As Paul would describe it in Acts, Tarsus was “no insignificant city” (21:39). It is therefore suggested by Johnson that it is likely the family returned to Tarsus from time to time as Paul did after his conversion.(4)

It may very well be that Paul also had some formal training in the Greek culture within which he lived, for Jews in the cities of the empire often attended the schools and had training in athletics and rhetoric. Education was uniform throughout all the Hellenist cities and everyone shard a common treasury of poems, stories and speeches which they had memorized. Higher education consisted mostly of rhetoric. There students learnt the structures of speech, manner of delivery, and models that could be used for various circumstances. Tarsus, for example, was wealthy and ancient enough to support the higher forms of culture. It was a famous ‘university town,’ one which had both philosophical schools and schools of rhetoric.(5) Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia (a Roman province), in other words, was a microcosm of the Hellenistic world. Paul would have learned here some of the quotations from Greek writings that found their way into his letters. Although later on he downplayed these principles as external show (1 Cor 2:1-5), Paul nevertheless learned and even used them when they were helpful. Thus, this part of his early education would also have been significant for Paul’s later career.(6)

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1. Matthew Thekkekara, The Letters of St. Paul: The Face of Early Christianity (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 1997) 15, n. 11.
2. Stanley B. Marrow, Paul: His Letters and His Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) 7.
3. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 32.
4. Sherman E. Johnson, Paul the Apostle and His Cities (Wilmington: Michael Glazier Inc., 1987) 26.
5. On the history and background of Tarsus, see Johnson, 26-30.
6. Tambasco, 6-7.

St Paul - Jew or Hellenist? Part 1

I begin teaching a course on the Pauline and Catholic Epistles in the Church of Assumption, Petaling Jaya today. This module is part of the bible study course offered by the Regional Biblical Commission (RBC) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. I have decided to post the following paper that I wrote several years ago on the Jewish and Hellenistic influences that had impacted St Paul and his writings. As the paper was quite lengthy, I have decided to serialise it for the purpose of this blog.

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If there is, after Jesus, any person of stature and importance in the early Church, that person is Paul. Till today, the vast influence of Paul, rightly called the first Christian theologian, is met with mixed reception. For some, Paul is indeed the great hero of the Christian church, the one who most clearly perceived the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ and most enthusiastically presented the message of the good news. For others, however, Paul was largely responsible for taking the pristine Jewish message of Jesus and corrupting it, turning it into a Hellenistic type of religion which Jesus could hardly have recognized, let alone approved. Still others are also annoyed by some of his statements about women (1 Cor 11:2-16; 1 Cor 14:34). Similarly, on the topic of human sexuality, Paul seems to have minimal respect for marriage when he asserts his preference for celibacy (1 Cor 7:8-9). These reactions may not appear to be too alarming if we were to consider that Paul was noted to be a controversial character even in the New Testament writings (e.g. in the Acts of the Apostles). The 2nd letter of Peter tells us how from the beginning Paul was held in esteem, and yet was in the storm of controversy: “Think of our Lord's patience as your opportunity to be saved; our brother Paul, who is so dear to us, told you this when he wrote to you with the wisdom that he was given. He makes this point too in his letters as a whole wherever he touches on these things. In all his letters there are of course some passages which are hard to understand, and these are the ones that uneducated and unbalanced people distort, in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture -to their own destruction” (2 Pet 3:15-16).

Certainly Paul is a strong personality and his letters indicate that people either loved him or hated him, but were scarcely ever neutral or indifferent toward him. Yet we must appreciate that he addressed all of his letters to specific problems of specific communities and often in the heat of battle. His occasionally strong statements (strongest in his letter to the Galatians), need to be properly interpreted, and must be balanced by his total vision of Christianity. Another important area of study would be to see how the Jewish and Hellenistic background of Paul had influenced his mission and writings. In fact, we may conclude that Paul was the right person for the right time. Raised a Jew in Gentile territory but educated in the best traditions of Judaism, he was eminently suited for his time to help bridge the gap between Christians of Jewish background and the ever increasing numbers of those of Gentile background.

Christianity did not develop in a vacuum. Neither did the development of Paul’s theology. Paul recognized that Christianity needed to address itself to the questions and concerns of its day. “To the Jews I made myself as a Jew, to win the Jews; to those under the Law as one under the Law (though I am not), in order to win those under the Law; to those outside the Law as one outside the Law, though I am not outside the Law but under Christ's law, to win those outside the Law” (1 Cor 9:20-21). So it may be said, with some qualifications, that “Paul redesigned Christianity from the simple message of Jesus, not to change its essence, but to adapt it from a rural, Jewish setting to the contemporary urban Gentile culture” of the various communities he founded or ministered to. (1)

In attempting to construct Paul the Jew and Hellenist, I will be drawing on various sources. In examining his writings, I will concentrate on the seven letters that are almost universally accepted as authentic: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Another source of information comes from the Acts of the Apostles. As scholars would caution us, we must use Acts prudently. Luke writes Acts in a way that idealises Paul beyond his historical character, and uses him, along with all the other persons in Acts, in order to express Luke’s own faith message and theology. In Acts, Luke wants to paint a picture of the ideal Christian community and their missionary efforts extending over the Roman Empire. A casual reading and comparison of some descriptions in Acts with Paul’s versions of the story will highlight the different pictures we can get and the caution with which we must read Acts. We must therefore pierce through this interpreted history to capture the historical Paul. In spite of the extensive studies that had been done on the subject of Paul and his background, he remains very much an enigmatic figure – he simply resists easy classification. In this study, we will only be examining two facets of the apostle – his ‘Jewish-ness’ and his ‘Hellenistic-ness.’

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1. Anthony J. Tambasco, In the Days of Paul: The Social World and Teaching of the Apostle (New York: Paulist Press, 1991) 13.

Reach Retreat 2010

I spent the weekend (June 5-6) facilitating a retreat for the Reach Deaf Ministry of St Francis Xavier Church, PJ. Around 16 deaf persons and three hearing persons attended the retreat conducted at Villa Hermine, a convent cum retreat centre run by the FMM sisters.

The theme of the retreat was "Mary, the Model Disciple". Most of the deaf had little exposure to Marian devotion or theology. It was an opportunity to share with them the deep spirituality of Mary and how Mary could serve as their model of Christian discipleship.

The retreat took the form of a reflection of Icons and scriptural narratives which involved Mary, i.e. the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Wedding at Cana, the Crucifixion and Pentecost. In the last session, I shared with them the four Marian dogmas which arose from Christian imagination and Sacred Tradition.

More photos on Facebook.

Here's a video of me signing at the beginning of the mass: