Survey of Pauline Epistles (Pt 1)

All right, so that was nothing to do with the class that just happened to be on my mind.

We're going to start tonight with The quiz and I've already been asked.

Can you use your notes? Can you use your book as far as I'm concerned you you are you are welcome to but I would prefer That you go through it without your notes and book It's only ten questions go through it without your books and notes first and see how much you remember then Well, you know after you've you've you've exhausted your memory You can reference your book.

All right, or whatever you think you need to All right, everyone if we have done all we can do gone as far as we can go Please take your paper and trade with someone just like in high school You're going to trade with the person next to you Again if you are If you're watching this by video, you're probably just coming in now because I'm not going to I'm not going to post a 20 minute Video of me just walking around So if you're just coming into the video now, we started today with our quiz and You can get a copy of the quiz from the website.

It'll be posted on the website and if you don't find it there you can email me through the Through the email that's on the syllabus and I will send it to you So if you're getting this in class or rather if you're getting this at home do not watch this part until you've taken the quiz because that would be cheating and part of the rules of the class is academic Integrity so do not if you're watching at home pause the video if you if you haven't taken the quiz All right.

Let's go through the questions that we have seven questions First one which gospel writer is historically identified with the Apostle Peter? Mark according to church tradition and There is some internal evidence to speak to that as well so mark is most Historically identified with the Apostle Peter Number two which gospel is identified as the autotopic gospel John John John, what are the others called? the synoptic Gospels, right so John is the autotopic gospel or the the one that comes from a singular view Now this next one there can be a variety of answers but The the I was looking for three particular answers But if you gave other answers that are right, I'll still obviously count as right The question was name three events from the life of Christ that show up in all four Gospels what I was hoping that you would put is the death the burial and the resurrection because all three of those are all are all in all four Gospels, but Did anyone have anything other than that? Yes, sir Is what? Okay, Jesus certainly taught in all four Gospels.

I'll accept that What's that? The attitude Now the attitude to be in Matthew and and there's a there's a section in Luke's gospel where we have a certain one Anything else that somebody put That we need to address Maybe you don't know Okay, so you're good.

Yeah.

All right All right What why is the death burial and resurrection important That's That's what Paul identifies as the gospel, right? That's that's what Paul identifies as As the in first Corinthians 15 these things I deliver to you that were you know Once we're all delivered It's the it's the death of Christ the burial and the resurrection all three of those are in all four Gospels because that really is The heart of the gospel.

All right Who was the first Christian martyr in the book of Acts? Stephen Stephen is the first one to give his life for Christ that we are that we were given information about What was the purpose of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 The issue was circumcision and really it was the acceptance of Gentiles into the church whether or not the Gentiles would be accepted and Without circumcision.

So it really this remembering and maybe you might remember this I said, I think that this is really important regarding how we date Galatians because the whole book of Galatians is regarding the section or the issue of whether or not someone is has to be circumcised to be part of God's kingdom and Paul makes the argument that no Circumcision is not part of the gospel and I think that argument would have been somewhat superfluous had it happened after the council because the council declared that in Around 49.

Yes, sir.

You had your hand up Yes, I would I would accept that because it's wasn't circumcision only but circumcision Immediately would be the first thing but other Jewish laws, of course as well I Give him half a credit give him half a point because that because that's true That was Paul's argument But I would I want to hear something about Jewish law or circumcision because that really was the was the heart of it So yeah, that's fine All right.

Number six acts focuses primarily on the ministry of which two Apostles Peter and Paul Paul and Peter for extra credit Which how do how do you divide the book? Yeah, that's how I that's how we did it in class so yeah, that's I was looking for good Okay, okay Yeah, so the first twelve chapters primarily deal with the ministry of Peter and the rest deal with the ministry of Paul All right.

Last question number seven.

How does the Bible describe the death of Paul? It does not it doesn't tell us now It does tell us he was imprisoned and we that we we can extrapolate that he died Likely by martyrdom while imprisoned.

So if somebody has something about that, but the Bible doesn't say Specifically how he died or when he died So that that was what I just wanted you.

Honestly, the answer I was looking for is it doesn't you know, it doesn't say no But but if it's if there's something to that effect, I'm fine with it.

All right hand them back to a paper and You can put that in your notebook that is for you for now to keep I will look at it when you When you when we have our notebook check All right.

We have arrived at the midpoint of our survey of the New Testament And Tonight we get to talk about The Pauline epistles And we're going to look at them in over a period of two weeks the reason for that is because Paul wrote of the majority of the books of the New Testament and So giving at least two weeks to his writing is certainly It's certainly not unjust we should do that.

I Want to read to you a quote The man known to us as the Apostle Paul began life as Saul of Tarsus the account of his radical conversion to Christ is found in several places in the New Testament and From the moment he was saved.

He began preaching about Jesus over the next several years Paul traveled extensively Planting churches wherever he went and when not with those churches He still carried the responsibility for them in his heart like a father for his children Much of the New Testament is made up of his letters to some of those churches We know for certain that Paul wrote at least 13 letters that are included in the New Testament and we're going to talk in a minute about the question of the 14th letter which would be Hebrews In our lesson on the book of Acts we looked briefly at the significance of the Apostle Paul as We noted the latter half of the book of Acts recounts his missionary work the book of Acts records three major missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul his first missionary journey is in Acts 13 and 14 with Barnabas the second missionary journey is Acts 15 36 to 18 22 with Silas To Asia Minor and to Greece and his third missionary journey is Acts 18 23 through 20 38 and that is also primarily in Asia Minor Some people believe Paul took a fourth journey, but it is not explicitly recorded for us These missionary journeys are important because it is where we are introduced to many of the places where Paul's letters will be addressed Galatians was likely written to several churches in the southern region of Asia Minor therefore when you read about Iconium and Lystra and Derby When you're reading through Acts, that's the Galatian region.

That's so when you hear the churches of Galatia It's not just one.

It's the Galatian region Corinth Philippi Ephesus and Thessalonica are all mentioned in Acts and that's where we get first and second Corinthians Philippians Ephesians first and second Thessalonians Thessalonians so that is It really takes an understanding of Acts to be able to fit the books of Paul Into a historical framework because we see him going into these cities.

We see him raising up churches in these cities We see him departing from these cities and then lo and behold now We have a letter to these cities or to the churches in these cities.

And and so we can we can at least extrapolate some historical context from Acts by For these books that we study of the Apostle Paul So acts is certainly important in our understanding of what Paul is writing in the in the historic context that they fall into Paul played a vital role in the church's early growth primarily in explaining its doctrinal foundations as We already noted he wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament and some debate that he wrote Hebrews Which would make the 14th? But when we get to Hebrews, I'll explain why I don't believe that So that'll be two weeks from tonight We'll be looking at the general epistles and I will explain why I don't think Paul wrote Hebrews even though I do believe Hebrews is Thoroughly Pauline or Pauline.

I think that Hebrews is has the theology of Paul, but the language of Luke So we'll look at that for a little bit in the in two classes from now Which would mean I would say it's probably a sermon preached by Paul but recorded by Luke so we have We have 13 books for certain and then one more that's possible Now as I said, I've decided to dedicate two weeks of study to the Pauline corpus and as with all of our surveys This will not in any way do justice to the content But we will be able to key in on some important aspects of Pauline theology and that's really my heart tonight I want to tell you I am Next week and our second half.

We're actually going to take a closer.

Look at the books that Paul wrote Tonight we're focusing more on Paul and his theology and So I think that's a that's important to to really kind of understand But as as your syllabus says tonight is Romans to Colossians Next week is the first Thessalonians to Philemon.

So I will at least be giving you a one-sentence Survey of each of the books of Romans to Colossians tonight because that's part of what was in the syllabus So I want to make sure at least stick with that we're going to look at Authorship dating and purpose as we always do but we're looking at authorship dating and purpose not a not not just of one of Paul's books, but all of his his writings and We're going to see his his handprint.

I want to say something.

It's just on my heart It's been on my heart all day as I've been thinking about getting ready for this class.

I love the Apostle Paul I've spent more time with this man and his writings than anybody else ever You know any other gospel any other biblical writer say maybe Luke So In this, you know, I'm reading a lot off my notes here because I know how easy it would be for me to just start talking and go into you know a lot of things that would be not necessarily pertinent to the class, but I Spent a lot of time with this man and and He is the theologian of the ancient church.

He's the theologian that God chose to to give us a Full or view of the gospel and to really exegete the life of Christ Paul Paul provides to us an explanation of what Christ did you know the The gospel writers and and and acts The Gospels and Acts give us the history and Paul gives us the meaning of what that meant why was it significant and so His contribution To Christianity cannot be overstated and So I just as on a personal note this is to me a Very This is this is a lesson from the heart if you will All right.

So let's begin with authorship.

We we've already noted.

We believe Paul is the author of these books But it is important to note that Paul did not write all of the letters Paul dictated them to what is known as an amanuensis and amanuensis is a basically like a secretary or a Person who takes dictation and we have him reference this in a couple of his books.

In fact you'll notice at the end of some of the books the amanuensis will will cite himself as the writer But the book came from Paul because it starts in the ancient world letters began with the with the source So, you know our letters now it's always the we put the name at the end Sincerely Kiefoski or whatever in the ancient world.

It was Paul an apostle You know it start the letter started with the person that it's coming from and so like in Romans We have Paul's letters, you know to the Romans, but then at the end you have this person come in who's oh I'm writing this, you know, it's the amanuensis is making a note of his participation.

So There's several reasons people kind of try to determine why Paul would use an amanuensis He certainly was an educated man certainly was an illiterate man A illiterate man.

I know that sounded like I said he was illiterate.

He was a literate man.

He was a skilled Man in writing so people say why would he use the secretary? I think there are there's some evidence that Paul may have had eye problems and There there's there's some indicators of his eyes maybe giving him trouble and that would have made it difficult for him to write and So that that would certainly make sense That that's there's there's some debate around that when Paul tells the Galatians That they would have they would have gladly taken out their eyes and given to him You remember that when he says when I came to you you would have gladly taken your eyes and given them to me I think that was a I think that's a reference to a certain disability He may have had and and but some people see that as more euphemistic you to give me your eyes, you know It's it's some some somewhat hard to to really nail it down for sure But I do think that at you know, what happened to him on the road to Damascus.

He was blinded Right, and then the scales fell off Could there have been any residual effects, you know, we don't know Yeah It's all kind of conjecture but it kind of leads us to some conclusions if we kind of carry that to its Logical conclusion if he if he mentions eye problems with in Galatians We know he was blinded on the road to Damascus and he's using an amanuensis later We kind of kind of create a a scenario here.

That may be the reason for for that Paul Paul is described as I said is the source of 13 books Throughout the New Testament, but that is but those 13 books are not without debate Of the 27 books of the New Testament seven are Accepted as being entirely authentic however, higher critical scholars argue that the rest are not authentic to the Apostle Paul I'll read to you from the Encyclopedia Britannica This is what it says Says of the 27 in the New Testament 13 or 14 are traditionally attributed to Paul Though only seven of these Pauline epistles are accepted as being entirely authentic and dictated by st Paul himself the authorship of the others is debated and they're commonly thought to have come from Contemporary or later followers writing in Paul's name.

I don't believe that I'm just giving it to you as as This is this is one of the arguments right Paul didn't write first and second Timothy.

That's a huge thing among higher critical scholars, they argue that They they argue that the language is different.

They argue that The the theology is somewhat more refined than what we see and other letters of Paul and So there is there is some argument about him being the author In fact, I'll give you this.

I'll tell you now if you choose because you know you all get to choose a paper to write at the end of this course if you choose to try to Apply for credit if you choose a debatable book such as 1st and 2nd Timothy For your final paper.

I would like you to make a point to provide evidence for Paul's authorship Ephesians is another one if you want to if you choose Ephesians or 1st and 2nd Timothy, I Want you to include in your paper an argument for his authorship make that make that part of the paper Because I think that especially now in in light of higher critical scholarship that is one of the things that we as Christians should be able to defend is why we believe in in authentic Pauline authorship of These letters.

So I know some of you are not doing paper.

Some of you are only auditing But if you are doing a paper and you choose those books, that's I'm gonna I'm gonna expect that so Keep that in mind.

I think and I think it will be helpful to you that research in and of itself will teach you some things about the mind of higher critical scholars how they Make their judgments and their decisions and you remember this when I say hi There are some there are some higher critical scholars out there that are really just they don't believe anything in the New Testament's authentic.

I Mean they know that you if you ever hear somebody talk about searching for the historic Jesus Almost always that's a higher critical approach because they they would argue that the historic Jesus is not the Jesus of the Gospels and So they're searching for what the Gospels doesn't tell us and they're trying to find something about Jesus you know, he was married to Mary Magdalene or had kids or something something to try to to throw away what the scriptures say about Jesus and The Jesus seminar is a group of higher critical scholars that used to meet I don't know if they still do but they used to meet to have those discussions and they were really they really had a weird Process they had like this they had marbles That they would put in a box and the box was like if Jesus really said this you put your marble in this box If you if you if you think he didn't say it you put your marble in this box If if you don't know you you put it in this box and this is just sort of this odd almost seemed almost like cultic Practice and then they you know, add up the marbles to determine whether or not Jesus really said so and by the time they were Concluded Jesus didn't say anything That the Bible attributes to him like one sentence in the Gospels is actually authentically from the mouth of Christ According to these guys.

So so so so when I say higher critical scholars think Whatever know that they're coming from a hyper skeptical perspective And that's important to to keep in mind I Thought I had it on here, but I don't I have to get it for you brother there I know that it's first and second Timothy Ephesians I Could probably figure it out if I sat here and look I think Colossians is one of them Let's see first thing Timothy Colossians Ephesians I Have to I have to look at the rest.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'll get you the list though.

I'll get you the list All right, do you guys have your handout from the first class where we talked about the the order of When we believe the books were written If you look at that list JP it's the later books Yeah, except for except for Philemon a lot of a lot of people believe that because it's so personal that that's Pauline But if you look most most people will accept the Pauline authorship of Galatians first and second Thessalonians first and second Corinthians and Romans but then when you start getting into Philippians Colossians Ephesians first second Timothy Titus, that's where that's where the questions really come up.

It's it's really early Paul versus later Paul But but but honestly like Galatians is not really a debate almost everybody accepts the Pauline authorship of Galatians Almost everybody accepts the Pauline authorship of Romans.

So So yeah, it's it's really the more later ones Would be the ones that you would want to you would want to make a case for the the authorship of Paul When you're doing your paper But the reason why I wanted you to pull out your handout because I want to I want to Have you think on this because one of the arguments is well Paul's if you read first Timothy the language and the theology is different than the language and theology of Galatians, that's that's the argument, right and so Here's here's something you have to consider look at the sheet and look at the time difference between Galatians and first and second Timothy You're looking at a period of over a decade or more up to up to almost two decades of time and I want to I want to say this.

I know myself my writing style has changed in 15 years my my use of language has certainly matured in 15 years And someone might say well, this is the this is the Word of God.

How could you say that? no, remember the Word of God is given through the instrument of the writers and the writers have bring in their own use of vocabulary in their own use of of Structure and so and and there's also different purpose Galatians is is is the most passionate of Paul's letters because he's mad You foolish Galatians who has bewitched you remember that He's angry there the Galatians is the only letter that doesn't include any salutation goes right into and Almost an attack.

He says hi.

I'm Paul and you're doing bad I mean, it's not that easy, but it really there's no there's there's no, you know, he writes to Corinthians.

I'm so thankful for you.

I love you and grace and truth and you know, you don't see that Galatians that the the attitude is one of of Rebuke because that's what it is and it begins and ends with that and so if I were writing a letter of rebuke I think my language would first certainly be a little different than if I were writing a letter of love and concern.

Yes Yeah, I Would be I would be careful Because I don't think there is a different theology that does the other thing I was going to say is I don't think that the Ology of 1st Timothy or 2nd Timothy is different than Galatians.

I think it's a consistent theology throughout I was saying I think his language matures But we do have to remember that he was receiving revelation From God in regard to his theology So I don't think that there was a I don't think there was a wholesale change in his theology I do see though that there were I mentioned this I think a few weeks ago I think that we do see a Structuring Of the ideas so Galatians is is is Very powerful, but it's it's very you know, it's emotional It's it's coming from this position of being upset Romans has the same theology as Galatians.

I Mean it is Romans and Galatians are our sisters But the way that it is structured in Romans is almost like a theological textbook whereas in Galatians it's structured as a rebuke and So the theology is the same but it certainly is presented in a in a different way Yeah Yeah, and God is yeah and and God knows what these people need right? We needed both Yeah, but yeah, I would say his theology was always right It just you know is better expressed maybe in the later later letters as to structure Yes, sir yeah, I think there I Think there's something to that.

Um You know it Romans is a masterpiece.

I mean if the if the if the Bible were a wedding ring Romans would be the stone and Romans 8 would be the shimmering part of the stone Romans 8 begins with no condemnation ends with no separation and in between You have the promise of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the adoption of sons by whom we cry out a father The promise that our present sufferings are not to be considered to the glory There's been revealed to us and that all things will work together for the good of those who love him and neither death nor life nor Angels nor powers nor things present or things to come nor height nor depth or anything else in all creation will separate us from him There's just so much and I know that's not the question you asked but you know you think about Romans the Romans and Obviously the amount of just Just powerful work that went into putting that together in the way that he did Yeah, I think that's a reasonable assumption that he had time.

I think that's a reasonable assumption All right so that so so we've looked at authorship we've looked at dating and We see the dating is you know Galatians Thessalonians Corinthians or the earlier books Romans and Philippians Colossians the mid middle point and then you have Philemon or Philemon Ephesians Timothy and and Titus pulling up the rear But now let's talk about the purpose of each of these books because the purpose of Paul's writings is Contextual they are written always to a specific audience We often refer to them as books, but they're not books.

They're actually letters they are epistles that term epistles just simply means letter or a message or a dispatch and the vast majority of the New Testament Books that we call them are actually epistles 21 of the 27 books of the New Testament are actually epistles And Paul's epistles were written Either to a specific church or to a specific person this is what separates them from what is typically called the general epistles because Hebrews and James and 1st 2nd 3rd John and Jude and 1st and 2nd Peter Don't have a specific audience that they're pointed at they're more general So therefore referred to as general epistles, but the Pauline epistles will always have a specific audience in mind Some of them Were actually even written in response to other letters that we don't have that that's an that's an interesting reality that we have to that we have to accept is that Paul speaks in Corinthians of having received a letter and he is responding to it That's 1st Corinthians 7 1 he says now concerning the matters about which you wrote Okay, what does that tell us it tells us that they wrote him a letter asking him questions we don't have that letter that makes 1st Corinthians a Response and therefore we have to in a sense Try to determine what the question was so that we can arrive at a right understanding of the answer What's 1st Corinthians 7 about? Marriage and divorce it's where Paul says some of the most difficult things that he wrote on the subject particularly It's good that a man not Be with a woman but be single as I am and somebody says wait a minute Paul God said it's not good for a man to be alone.

Are you contradicting God in the garden? No, Paul is dealing with a particular situation in Corinth that was That needed to be understood.

I I believe this is the situation Paul is dealing with The Corinthians many of them had come out of slavery many of them had been married and divorced while in Slave conditions and therefore many of them had been married and divorced several times And I think Paul is saying it'd be better if you could just stay unmarried if you're not married if you can But what is he going to say? It's better to be married than to burn with desire to be married.

So if you want to be married, there's no sin in that So he's dealing with a particular Situation and a particular historical context and again because we don't have the initial letter We have to we have to sort of reverse engineer the question What do we think is the situation in the historic context leads us to at least me to? That particular understanding of why Paul would say some of the things that he did better somewhat hard for us to to understand So there are other times where other letters are mentioned Paul says in 1st Corinthians 5 9 I Wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral people.

We don't have that letter Paul says I wrote to you in my letter.

That was the first 1st Corinthians Okay, we actually our 1st Corinthians is the 2nd Corinthians because that's the first letter that he wrote.

We don't have that That bothers some people they say oh, that's is that a lost book of the Bible No, if it was supposed to be in the Bible, we'd still have it that comes down to the doctrine of Providence and you say Well, that's too simple.

That's too simplistic.

No, I think it's theological The answer is does God desire that we know what his word is? Yes.

Does God intend that his people have his word? Yes, therefore would God have proved? Providentially ensured that our word would that his word would be in our hands.

Yes, therefore we don't have the letter Therefore we don't need it This is the whole issue that you know Some people ask about the the book of Enoch or other things like that and they say are we supposed to have that? No We can say emphatically.

No, it's not For no other reason then we would have to then assume that God does not have the power to maintain the integrity of his word and So I think that we have to at least believe that God has the power to do that Yeah That's right, we wouldn't we wouldn't add another book to the New Testament It would be interesting.

I'd love to read it if we unearthed Proto-corinthians if we want to call it that or first first Corinthians I'd want to know what you know what Paul said and it would certainly have great value But for me it would sit on the same shelf as the epistle of Barnabas or the Shepherd of Hermas or any of the other extra biblical New Testament Times books from the New Testament times are not New Testament books, but there are extra biblical literature from that time A lot of it actually, but it's never been recognized by the church universal.

Therefore.

I would not believe it to be scripture so I'll give you a good example.

If you have your Bible turned to Colossians 4 16 and Colossians 4 16 Paul makes reference to Something that's very interesting Someone give me a somebody read it Yeah, all right, so when this letter which is the letter of Colossians the letter to Colossae he said when this letter is read among you pass it on to the Laodiceans and Get the letter that was sent to them and read it and Everybody's going where's Laodicea chapter 1 is not in your Bible.

So there's a there is a letter to Laodicea That either was written by the Laodiceans to Paul or to Paul to the Laodiceans We don't know because of the way the way the Greek works There it's a little ambiguous and that's why if you if you notice the way you read it It actually sounded like it's from the Laodiceans Could be some people think that that may be the the book of Ephesians Because Ephesians even though it was written to Ephesus had a universal Aspect to it it was it was sent out more than just to the Church of Ephesians So some people think that Ephesians went to Laodicea and now it's going to go to Colossae And and so that's that's and that's possible right could be that could be the letter to the Ephesians and therefore we do have it It could be a book that we don't have That Paul wrote or it could be a book that the Laodiceans wrote to Paul That we don't have either way.

We don't have it But it's mentioned so this is an important reality, right? Because a lot of people say well the Bible mentions It's got to be part of the Bible Not necessarily the Bible mentions the writings of Epimenides who was a Greek philosopher So does that mean we go find all the writings of Epimenides and put them in the Bible? Just because the Bible mentions a book or a writer Does not mean that that book Is supposed to be part of our New Testament.

Yes, sir Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely, but we don't have them anymore.

So Again, it would be great if somebody you know how they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, right? the kid threw a rock in a Cave they heard a crash and went and looked in and there's these giant pots.

It's got these scrolls Nobody had seen for a thousand or four.

Well for 2,000 years The Nag Hammadi texts which are the Gnostic texts were found by a couple of brothers They thought they'd found buried treasure and then they open it up and it was just a bunch of books It was still treasure, but it wasn't what the treasure they thought it was, right? So there's there's there's likely it.

I mean, there's a not there's a chance that tomorrow some Archaeologist is going to shove his fade in the ground is going to come out with a letter to the Laodiceans And it would certainly be something worth our time to examine It would give us historical information.

It would give us it would give us a lot of good information We would be fools to say it doesn't have any value But I don't think that that would mean that we should Open the cannon up and shove in the 28th book of the New Testament.

That's that's the distinction, right? God has ensured that we have what we need and So both historically and theologically I think we can stand on the 27 books and be confident in what we do have All right, if I were to Obscribe an overall purpose to Paul because this we've been talking about the purpose I would say that his epistles are pastoral in nature Now I'm not saying That because there are three of his epistles are actually called the pastoral epistles 1st 2nd Timothy and Titus are called the pastoral epistles But I would say all of his epistles have a pastoral quality because Paul has planted these churches he's now gone on and he's writing to them trying to to correct and rebuke and Encourage and exhort, you know, and we see that that's that's the job of the shepherd.

That's the job of the pastor So I think all of his letters have a pastoral heart But not necessarily would we call them all the pastoral epistles? In fact, just to keep in mind there are two there are two subsets of Paul's epistles we would say they're the prison epistles and though that is Ephesians Philippians Colossians and Philemon and Then there's the pastoral epistles which are 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus And Then you can they can be broken down the easiest way to break it break down his letters are the ones written to churches and ones written to individuals Obviously Romans 1st and 2nd Corinthians 1st 2nd Thessalonians.

These are written to churches, but then you get to Titus Timothy Philemon These are written to individuals.

So if you if you were creating a chart And you the first the first subset of the chart would be to the churches to the individuals and you do that way Then you'd say, okay These are the pastoral epistles and the three of the ones that were individuals would be the pastoral epistles so that you know in your mind I don't have a chart I didn't make a chart, but you kind of got the idea of how to how to break down what what he's doing so that brings us to the theological insights and This by far would be the part that I would want to spend the most time in because Paul is the theologian of the early church when I say the theologian of the early church Therefore it is difficult if not impossible to describe the full weight and breadth of his theological contribution This makes sense because Paul had training as a Pharisee Philippians 3 5 tells us that But Paul does not appeal to his training.

This goes back to the question you asked Bobby about Paul His information Paul never appeals to his training as the source of his theology Paul always appeals to revelation as to his source of his theology Galatians 1 verse 11 For I would have you know brothers that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel For I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

So so and that again, I believe is his first letter And I think and that's in the first chapter of the first letter.

He's starting off by saying What I'm telling you is not from men I didn't learn this, you know because he studied at the feet of one of the greatest rabbis Gamaliel He was the student of this rabbi, but he's saying I didn't get this from Gamaliel.

I didn't get this from the Pharisees I got this directly from Jesus Christ and so That doesn't mean that his former training didn't serve him.

Well It doesn't mean that his former training didn't have any benefit but What we need to remember is Paul's writing is not Paul's interpretation of The events it's God's revelation of the events Paul's not looking at the life of Jesus and interpreting them through his grid as a Pharisee or his grid as a theologian Paul is interpreting Or Paul is writing the revelation of God that he is receiving from God himself When it comes to theology, I think the two books of Paul which are most to be considered in that regard would be Galatians and Romans I've already said those two books are sisters Galatians stands as Paul's first letter as I said, it's corrective in nature.

Its tone is different.

It does not contain the usual pleasantries found in his other letters and Romans is Paul's magnum opus It's the closest thing to a systematic theology.

We possess in the New Testament and in it Paul outlines doctrines such as sin justification sanctification election and adoption These two books would have would go on to have a profound impact on Martin Luther and the reformers both letters stood at the center of the Reformation protest that rocked and eventually split the Christian Church in the 16th century in Fact the beginning of the Reformation can with some justification be traced to Martin Luther's lectures on Romans between 1515 and 1516 and Galatians, which is 1517 to 1518 So if you look at what Luther was doing Prior to the Reformation and at the beginning of the Reformation.

He was exegeting Romans and he was exegeting Galatians so these two books together are the are the are the sisters if it will be of the Reformation now one could argue that Paul's most important contribution to theology regards our understanding of Justification When you discuss the theology of the Apostle Paul It is impossible that you do not or it's impossible that you would not Consider what he says about the subject of justification Justification is the doctrine of how a sinful man is made right with a holy God This is a question which has plagued man since the garden God is holy Man is sinful How can that be reconciled And that is Paul's That is the heart of Paul's theology This is the question as I said, which has really plagued man in all of his dealings forever and Paul explains that the work of Christ is what brings about the reconciliation of man and God and Paul is the one who expresses to us the doctrine that really has to be understood to understand justification and it is the doctrine of imputation and Paul's doctrine of imputation is threefold There is a threefold imputation.

And by the way, if you don't know what imputation is, let me very quickly just explain it Imputation means to credit to someone's account or to charge someone with something If in the easiest way you've probably all heard me say this at some point if you have a ledger book and your ledger is Empty someone else has a ledger book and their ledger is full and they take what's in their account and they put it into your Account and now your ledger book is full and their ledger book is empty.

That is Imputation that's taking from one account and imputing it to the account of another and there is a threefold Imputation taught by the Apostle Paul.

The first is Adam's sin is imputed to all of his posterity so there is the the imputation of Adam's sin then we have the Imputation of the believers sin to Christ That's the second part of imputation We have we our account has been Given the sin of Adam and of course, we include our own sin as well We add to the sin of Adam with our own sins.

And so our ledger book of sin is full our sin and the account is Transferred to Christ Christ takes our sin upon himself the the Imputation of sin from our account to his account and he bears the weight and the guilt and the and the burden of Our sin and so that's the second Doctrine of imputation the second second part or this of the threefold and the third is the the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer so from a to just maybe give a diagram if you consider the believer and His his ledger if you will You have Adam who Imputes his sin to the believer Christ Takes that sin upon himself on the cross and then his righteousness is then given to the believer So we have a threefold doctrine of imputation and this is the process by which God is both just and The justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

That's what it says in Romans 3, right? God is just Because the Believers sin has been paid for and God is the justifier Because the believer has been given the righteousness in Christ and therefore been made right with God.

Yes, sir.

You had your hand up Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer Yeah, so so you have the imputation of Adam sin to us You have the imputation of our sin to Christ You have the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us if you do not have a doctrine of imputation You do not understand Paul's theology Paul's theology is rooted and steeped in the doctrine of imputation It's where we get justification That makes sense if you want some passages for further study, I would encourage you to read Romans 3 21 to 26 2nd Corinthians 5 21 that one is probably the one you all remember God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us That we can become the righteousness of God in him, right? That's the great transaction our sin is on him his righteousness is to us and then Galatians 2 15 and 16 and If you want to study further the relationship of Adam sin to us, that would be Romans 5 12 to 18 What's interesting is Paul Spends so much time in his letters talking about the doctrine of justification but the word Justification in regard to a person being saved is only used once by Christ Anybody know anybody happen to know where it is Huh? Two men went to the temple to pray One was a Pharisee the other a tax collector And one went home justified and not the others the only time the the term justified is used of Christ to to apply to anyone And how was the tax collector justified? by faith It's very important The only time Jesus mentions justification in regard to an individual he uses the word justification other context Jesus said wisdom is justified by our children The word justified is used but in regard to someone being right with God the only time we see that with Christ is in that parable and it is by faith alone That's such an important parable.

Don't don't don't forget.

All right, take three minutes break and when we come back we're going to look at the The difficult interpretive challenges All right, everyone.

We're going to finish up With the interpretive challenges now as I said, I did tell you I was going to do this I'm going to give you one sentence a one sentence description of Romans Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians because that's really the what we were supposed to cover tonight Here here it is If you want to write it down or if you don't want to write it down You can just take a picture of my notes with your phone afterwards if you'd like But because this might be a little bit too right Romans the one sentence description is it is the saving power of the gospel 1st Corinthians The absolute necessity of love 2nd Corinthians is the ministry of reconciliation.

I'm not saying this is one verse.

I'm saying this is the tenor of the book the 2nd Corinthians the ministry of reconciliation Galatians I'll give you two for this one.

You could say freedom in Christ or This is what I prefer the Magna Carta of Christianity Is it's Paul's? Explanation that we are free from the the ceremonies of the Old Covenant Ephesians is the riches of God's grace Philippians I Have two for this one as well Philippians could either be the value of humility or joy and suffering Philippians is often called the joy book It has the word joy or rejoice throughout and it's interesting when you realize Paul's writing it from prison to know that he has joy in a horrible circumstance and Finally Colossians is the supremacy of Christ now, let's talk about interpretive challenges as we finish out tonight's lesson Probably the most important interpretive challenge Regarding the writings of the Apostle Paul Come in the form of what is typically referred to as the new perspective on Paul Now I provided you a handout This handout is actually simply a photocopy of two pages or rather three pages three and a half from the book Introducing the New Testament by Doug Moo and da Carson if you have the book You don't have to keep the handout because you have it in the book, but I would I would note this page in the book I would make a note of it and read it.

I Want to read to you just the first paragraph on page 76 the new perspective on Paul and Judaism first century Judaism played a critical role in the development of Paul's theology both in his upbringing and his Interaction with various Jewish and Jewish Christian viewpoints this interaction is most obvious in Galatians and Romans But it is present in varying degrees in all the letters Determining just what the Judaism of Paul's day look like is Therefore quite significant for accurately interpreting Paul's letters So here here's the argument basically and you can I do encourage you to read this But the argument which if you've ever heard of N.T.

Wright, N.T.

Wright is probably the most famous Proponent of the new perspective, but he is not the first not neither Is he the only and also to say new perspective is a little unfair because there is no new perspective on Paul There are perspectives Because if you consider Wright and James DG Dunn and a few others You will note that they don't always agree with one another But the gist of it if I may try to be so bold as to give you a short gist is this that Paul's Judaism or rather the Judaism of the first century which would have been Second Temple Judaism Was not a legalistic religion.

It was a religion of grace and And therefore Paul's response to the Jews of his day was not to argue that Salvation your relationship with God and your heavenly home is based on your Justification but rather your relationship with the covenant community is based on Whether or not you have to keep the law Now maybe that was a little confusing.

Let me try to clear it up when we talk about justification What do we what do we care about? We care about how we were made right with God The new perspective says no That's not what Paul cares about Paul cares about the covenant community and how someone is made right within the covenant community Because everybody believed that you went to heaven by grace You see for the new perspective they're saying that it's not about how you get to heaven It's about how you are made part of the covenant community So therefore grace Salvation is something the Jews believed now right away.

I Want to give you the I want to give you where this really works out for a lot of folks from my side because I Am a I am a student of and a product of Reformation teachings Someone like N.T.

Wright would say the Reformers got it wrong Because the Reformers were looking at the legalism of Rome and they were applying that Anachronistically to the Jews of the first century Now do you see how it starts to make sense? Because they're saying Paul's issues with the Jews was not the same as Luther's issues with Rome and Luther interpreted Galatians and Romans through the lens of Relationship with Rome and therefore he misinterpreted Paul's relationship with the Jews of the first century That's pretty big accusation Because it's saying essentially all of Reform theology particularly everything I taught in the last half hour Regarding justification is completely wrong So the new perspective is no small argument and it has implications that are widespread But let me just say it like this The new perspective I believe is incorrect In fact, I will tell you this John MacArthur says this N.T.

Wright is N.T.

wrong But that's maybe a little too silly, but that R.C.

Sproul I encourage you look up his video on N.T.

Wright.

It's only two minutes long He was asked in a conference.

Do you think that N.T.

Wright's Theology of justification is heresy and R.C.

Sproul's answer was very simple He said if it's not that there is no such thing as heresy He says if N.T.

Wright's Understanding of justification is not heretical.

He said then there is no such thing as heresy That comes from the mouth of Sproul himself.

I encourage you look it up.

See that I'm not Exaggerating because the other guys on the dais the other guys that were sitting with him All were very nervous because N.T.

Wright is one of the most respected historians and theologians in the world and R.C.

Sproul called him a heretic On stage I mean, that's very serious accusation.

I ain't saying it The late and good Dr.

Sproul said it But I want to just say this about it though.

I think that there is ample evidence That there was legalism in the first century Jewish community And I think it comes from the words of Jesus himself Was it not Jesus who said to the Pharisees that they seek to To establish their righteousness based on their works Wasn't it Jesus who said that of the Pharisees you seek to establish your own righteousness based on what's the definition of legalism To establish your righteousness based on your works Jesus called out the legalism of his own day and I think if if if if we read Paul rightly We will see that there were those in the Jewish community who believed that they're standing before God was not of grace or not of grace alone, but was of grace and law and Paul said no it is by grace through faith alone and not by works of the law So I my position on new perspectivism is I think it is wrong But I do appreciate at least that they are trying to be fair to first century Judaism I do imagine there were first century Jews who believed in grace just like I believe there's Roman Catholics who probably believe in grace I understand what I'm saying.

I think it's important that we do try to be honest historically But to say that no first century Jew Was a legalist or to say that the Jewish community did not have a problem with legalism I think is to deny much of what the scripture says Very clearly.

Yes, sir, please Yeah, not not the Bible Yeah That's right to talk about Second Temple Judaism as a monolith is is false There is no monolithic Second Temple Judaism belief system.

It was all over the map.

This is why you had the Essenes, you know Which were you know had separated themselves from the from the Jewish community in Jerusalem because they said those are the heretics and we're the real We're the real guys.

That's the ones who we believe wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, you know They're certainly there was a divergence there.

I mean even within the Bible We see that the Pharisees and the Sadducees there was there was division on how they understood the proper application of the law and things like that So yeah, absolutely.

So I want to I want to make a reference to something on this sheet.

I added on the back page I Said this is from introducing the New Testament by Carson and new read this But also if you have access to YouTube, I think most of you do There are two videos here now I have the links but typing that link out might be difficult if you just look up Phil Johnson that says John that's wrong let's just say Phil Johnson Phil Johnson a New perspective on Paul just look that up on YouTube He gives a 55 minute lecture and I think he knocks it out of the park I think he gives a very simple concise lecture And if you don't know who Phil Johnson is he is he second in command of grace to you to John MacArthur He's John MacArthur's right-hand man So that's who that's who Phil Johnson is and the other one is DA Carson who wrote obviously the book that many of you have His new perspective on Paul does a three-hour lecture, so if you really want to dig in You can look up Dave Carson's new perspective on Paul there But if you were to ask me, what do you think about the new perspective on Paul? As I said, I think that it does ask some important questions, but I think it gives us Wrong answers.

I think I think it gives wrong answers to to possibly insightful questions And I and I think it all it all comes down to it in my heart I think it all comes down to trying to trying to eliminate that doctrine of imputation N.T.

Wright does not believe that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us He does not and I and that's not I'm not exaggerating.

He would tell you He does not believe the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us him and him and John Piper had a massive debate over this in the back-and-forth writing Many years ago where they went back and forth on this subject In fact There's a little book by by Piper called What was it called the righteousness of Christ or the imputed righteousness There's it's a little book that that he describes sort of the interaction and why it was so important so while while I do think based on listening to right and And obviously reading his work I do think that he would that he would at least say our sin is imputed to Christ It's Christ's righteousness is not imputed to us that that's the big that's the big issue for me is Understanding the righteousness of Christ as our standing Paul says I have a righteousness that is not my own But comes through faith in in Jesus Christ, right the righteousness of caught the righteousness of God which comes by faith Not a righteousness of my own and and so so that's a huge deal All right, uh couple other things just for your own for your notes and I'll ask for an extra five minutes since we did the Since we did the we started with the quiz So I got that took away about 20 minutes of lecture time.

So a couple things to consider other interpretive challenges Peter Speaks of Paul's writings in 2nd Peter 3 15 and 16 2nd Peter 3 15 and 16.

I want to read this to you count the patience of our Lord as Salvation just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as He does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters there are some things in them that are hard to understand which the ignorant and unstable twist of their own destruction as they do the Scriptures that is a massively important passage from the writing of Peter for several reasons number one It tells us that some things that Paul wrote are weighty and hard to understand He said he said there are some things in Paul that are hard to understand Doesn't say it's impossible, but he says the what does he say? He says that the ignorant and unstable twist them I'll give you an example of what I think one of those things is the exact someone who would use grace as a license for sin I think that is an unstable person who is twisting Paul's words to their own destruction but another thing we see here is That Paul's writings are understood as Scripture Because he says as they do with all the other Scripture that phrase other Scripture means that Peter already recognizes that what Paul is writing is Scripture And remember at that time the term Scripture would have applied to the Old Testament not to the new So this tells us that even during the lifetime of Peter.

There's a recognition that what Paul is writing is Scripture So that's important you have Ross your question.

I thought you okay So that so so that passage in Peter I think is important when when thinking of the writings of Paul something else Paul at times Seems to indicate that he is speaking on his own accord Which caused some people to question the inspiration of those passages most specifically 1st Corinthians 7 10 through 12 Where Paul says this to the married I give this charge not I but the Lord the wife should not separate from her husband But if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife to the rest I say I not the Lord that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him he Should not divorce her the main the main issue of that is when Paul says I'm saying this not the Lord and Some people assume that what Paul is saying there is this is my own opinion This is not from God or this is my own opinion.

This is not inspired by God In fact, I had a lady at our church say that one time Now this was back when I first became the pastor and had a lot of in those early years there was a lot of contention and I was really contending for the inerrancy of Scripture and the authority of Scripture and that was really what we were I was hoping that this church would be built upon and and I believe that it is but there was a time when you know, there was a lot of Bobby remembers there's a lot of fussing going on and One of the things I remember somebody said well Paul says himself that he's writing his own opinion not from the Lord And I said, where do you get that? I said, oh, it's right here.

I said that is not what that means What Paul is saying is that there are things that Jesus addressed? Specifically and there are things that Jesus did not address specifically and he is giving Additional revelation to what was already given through Christ and the Gospels Because if you read it again when he says the Lord says If a woman divorces her husband, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband The husband should not divorce his wife.

That's it.

That is a Basically a statement from Matthew 19.

I mean, it's basically rehearsing what Jesus said in in Matthew 19 Matthew 5 which refers to marriage So he's basically quoting Jesus.

Jesus said this not me, but then he goes on to say I Not the Lord also add This and you say well does that mean the Lord's not giving him the inspiration? No, he's saying Jesus didn't say this but I'll say this as well and he goes on to say that if a if a brother has a wife who's an unbeliever and She consents to live with him.

He shouldn't divorce her And this is what he says at the end.

This is the part that they always forget is at the end of that chapter Paul says I too have the Spirit of God That's verse 40, why would he say I too have the Spirit of God Because he's referring to himself as having the authority to say these things He's not denying his authority as an apostle.

He's affirming his authority as an apostle So he's not saying this is not be given by inspiration.

He's saying he's not directly quoting Christ in this passage Paul has the authority of an apostle and he has he's writing with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit All right Question time does anybody else does that's that's the end of my notes except for my last statement Which I'll hold for the end.

Does anybody else have any questions? from the writings of the Apostle Paul Maybe from particularly from Romans to Colossians that you have that you you were hoping I would address tonight and I didn't You might say that's a lot.

Yeah, it is a lot, but maybe you I didn't know How about anything from your your reading this week? You read some pretty heavy stuff Okay Well, that's not MacArthur's commentary, but Well, let me give you this Very important breakdown that was given to me years ago and it's helped me It's very very extensively and then I'll make it quick and I think the book I think this is bore out in your commentary but what what what we are saying is that The two issues at hand are the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man and Arminianism Says because man is responsible.

God is not fully sovereign Hyper-Calvinism says because because God is fully sovereign man is not completely responsible and the biblical record says that God is fully sovereign and Man is still fully responsible and that's where Calvinism lies See, that's why we're not hyper Calvinists but we believe in the full sovereignty of God and The full responsibility of man and That's why I wanted you to read that article.

I am glad you asked because Yeah, I think we have to believe in the responsibility of man because man will go to hell because of his sin he is responsible and This is a mystery, but it is not an irreconcilable one.

It is a difficult one though That's why I wanted you that book is not a quote-unquote Calvinistic book But I think it does do a good job of trying to explain Where the issue lies.

I heard it like this years ago And I really do wish this class were 16 weeks because we maybe could spend two weeks on election and really flesh it out But but I heard it said like this and I do think it is it's an interesting way of looking at it It said above the door of heaven There is a sign and the sign says all who will may enter But once you pass under the sign and turn around and look it says that you have been chosen before the foundation of the world No, I made some maybe somebody else did I'd huh Is it was it? Okay.

Yeah, so that idea is that God has God has from our perspective given a invitation To all whosoever will come may come but we know that no one will come apart from the gracious drawing of Almighty God and Therefore we see in that a bit of a mystery, but not an irreconcilable one We are unable to come until God draws us and when he does we will come and in eternity no one will be able to say I came without the gracious drawing of Almighty God No one came without the effectual grace of God and Again given time we could flesh that out more.

Yep.

Are we done any questions? Let's pray father Thank you for this time I pray that it has been fruitful and encouraging for your people and I pray that you'll bring us back next week hungry to continue To learn in Christ name.