Survey of the Pauline Epistles (Part 1)

Alright, 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 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, you know, after you've exhausted your memory, you can reference your book, or whatever you think you need to. Alright, so, Brother JP, would you pass these out? Alright everyone, if we have done all we can do, and 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're watching this by video, you're probably just coming in now, because I'm not going to post a twenty 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 will be posted on the website. And if you don't find it there, you can email me 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 haven't taken the quiz. Alright, let's go through the questions. 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 Autopic Gospel?

John. John. What are the others called? Synoptic. The Synoptic Gospels, right? So, John is the Autopic Gospel, or the one that comes from a singular view. Now, this next one, there can be a variety of answers, but I was looking for three particular answers, but if you gave other answers that are right, I would still obviously count it 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 in all four Gospels.

But, did anyone have anything other than that? Yes, sir? Teaching. Is what? Teaching. Okay, Jesus certainly taught in all four Gospels, I'll accept that. What's that? Was it the Attitudes? No, the Attitudes would be in Matthew, and 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 we're good? Yeah, all right. All right. Why is the death, burial, and resurrection important? That's what Paul identifies as the Gospel, right?

That's what Paul identifies as, in 1 Corinthians 15, these things I delivered to you, once we're all delivered, 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.

The Gospel in the Four Gospels and the Heart of 1 Corinthians 15

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 given information about. What was the purpose of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15?

The issue was circumcision. Really, it was the acceptance of Gentiles into the church. Whether or not the Gentiles would be accepted without circumcision. 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 issue of whether or not someone has to be circumcised to be part of God's kingdom.

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 around 49.

Yes, sir, you had your hand up. Yes, I would accept that, because it wasn't circumcision only, but circumcision immediately would be the first thing, but other Jewish laws, of course, as well. Give him half a credit.

Give him half a point. Because that's true. That was Paul's argument, but I want to hear something about Jewish law or circumcision, because that really was the heart of it. So, yeah, that's fine. All right, number six.

Acts focuses primarily on the ministry of which two apostles? Paul and Peter. Peter and Paul. Paul and Peter. For extra credit, how do you divide the book? That's how we did it in class, so yeah, that's what I was looking for.

Good. I just watched the video. Okay, yeah, so the first 12 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 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 was what I just wanted to do. Honestly, the answer I was looking for is it doesn't. It doesn't say no, but if there's something to that effect, I'm fine with it. All right, hand them back their paper, and you can put that in your notebook.

That is for you for now to keep. I will look at it when we have our notebook checked. 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 over a period of two weeks.

The reason for that is because Paul wrote the majority of the books of the New Testament. And so, giving at least two weeks to his writing is 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 Derbe, when you're reading through Acts, that's the Galatian region.

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 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Ephesians, 1 and 2 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 so we can at least extrapolate some historical context from Acts 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 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's 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 has the theology of Paul, but the language of Luke, so we'll look at that for a little bit 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 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, next week, in 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 important to really kind of understand.

But, as your syllabus says, tonight is Romans to Colossians, next week is 1 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 I 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 just of one of Paul's books, but all of his writings, and we're going to see 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 biblical writer save 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've spent a lot of time with this man, and he is the theologian of the ancient church. He's the theologian that God chose to give us a full-orb view of the gospel, and to really exegete the life of Christ.

Paul provides to us an explanation of what Christ did. You know, the gospel writers 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, on a personal note, this is to me a very, this is a lesson from the heart, if you will. Alright, so let's begin with authorship.

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 Emanuensis. An Emanuensis 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 Emanuensis will cite himself as the writer, but the book came from Paul, because it starts, in the ancient world, letters began with the source.

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. The letter started with the person that it's coming from.

And so, like in Romans, we have Paul's letter, 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 Emanuensis is making a note of his participation.

So, there's several reasons people kind of try to determine why Paul would use an Emanuensis. He certainly was an educated man. Certainly was an illiterate man. A literate man. 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 a secretary? I think there are, there's some evidence that Paul may have had eye problems, and 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 would certainly make sense. That's, there's some debate around that. When Paul tells the Galatians that 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. But some people see that as more euphemistic. You would have given me your eyes. You know, it's somewhat hard to really nail it down for sure.

But I do think that, 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. That'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 mentions eye problems in Galatians, we know he was blinded on the road to Damascus. And he's using an amanuensis later.

We kind of create a scenario here that may be the reason for that. Paul is described, as I said, as 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, 7 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. It says, Of the 27 in the New Testament, 13 or 14 are traditionally attributed to Paul. Though only 7 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 are 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, this is one of the arguments, right? Paul didn't write 1 and 2 Timothy.

That's a huge thing among higher critical scholars. They argue that the language is different. They argue that the theology is somewhat more refined than what we see in other letters of Paul. And so 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 1 and 2 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 choose Ephesians or 1 and 2 Timothy, I want you to include in your paper an argument for his authorship. Make that part of the paper. Because I think that especially now in light of higher critical scholarship, that is one of the things that we as Christians should be able to defend.

It's why we believe 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, I'm going to expect that.

So keep that in mind. 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 remember this. There are some higher critical scholars out there that don't believe anything in the New Testament is authentic. If you ever hear somebody talk about searching for the historic Jesus, almost always that's a higher critical approach.

Because 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 to try 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 really had a weird process. 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 think he didn't say it, you put your marble in this box. If you don't know, you put it in this box. It was just sort of this odd, almost seemed almost like cultic practice.

And then they'd add up the marbles to determine whether or not Jesus really said something. 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 when I say higher critical scholars think whatever, know that they're coming from a hyper-skeptical perspective. And that's important to keep in mind. Do you have a question?

What are the six books that people think that are not from Paul? You said 1st and 2nd Timothy, Ephesians.

I thought I had it on here, but I don't. I have to get it for you, brother. I know that it's 1st and 2nd Timothy, Ephesians. I could probably figure it out if I sat here and looked. I think Colossians is one of them.

1st and 2nd Timothy, Colossians, Ephesians. I have to look for the rest. I'll get you the list, though. I'll get you the list. Do you guys have your handout from the first class where we talked about 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 Philemon. A lot of people believe that because it's so personal that that's Pauline. But if you look, most people will accept the Pauline authorship of Galatians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and Romans.

But then when you start getting into Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, that's where the questions really come up. It's really early Paul versus later Paul. But honestly, Galatians is not really a debate.

Almost everybody accepts the Pauline authorship of Galatians. Almost everybody accepts the Pauline authorship of Romans. So, yeah, it's really the more later ones would be the ones that you would want to make a case for 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 have you think on this. Because one of the arguments is, well, Paul's, if you read 1st Timothy, the language and the theology is different than the language and theology of Galatians.

That's the argument, right? And so here's something you have to consider. Look at the sheet and look at the time difference between Galatians and 1st and 2nd Timothy. You're looking at a period of over a decade or more.

Up to almost two decades of time. And I want to say this. I know myself, my writing style has changed in 15 years. My use of language has certainly matured in 15 years. And someone might say, well, 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 bring in their own use of vocabulary and their own use of structure. And there's also different purpose.

Galatians is the most passionate of Paul's letters. Because he's mad. You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Remember that? He's angry. Galatians is the only letter that doesn't include any salutation.

Goes right into almost an attack. He says, hi, I'm Paul and you're doing bad. I mean, it's not that easy. He writes to the Corinthians, I'm so thankful for you. I love you and grace and truth. You don't see that.

Galatians, the attitude is one 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 certainly be a little different than if I were writing a letter of love and concern.

Yes?

Since they didn't have the New Testament, do you think there are things that you have changed on since you were in seminary? As far as dispensation, stuff like that. So, do you think maybe that is Paul's growth?

Yeah, I would be careful. Because I don't think there is a different theology. The other thing I was going to say is I don't think the theology of 1 Timothy or 2 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 there was a wholesale change in his theology.

I do see, though, that there were, and I mentioned this I think a few weeks ago, I think that we do see a structuring of the ideas. So, Galatians is very powerful, but it's emotional. It's coming from this position of being upset.

Romans has the same theology as Galatians. I mean, Romans and Galatians are 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 different way. Yeah, and God knows what his people need, right? We needed both. But yeah, I would say his theology was always right.

It just is better expressed maybe in the later letters as to structure.

Yes, sir. You think he had time, like he was sitting down in jail?

Yeah, I think there's something to that. Romans is a masterpiece. I mean, 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, Abba, Father, the promise that our present sufferings are not to be considered to the glory that has 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 nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor 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 think about Romans, and obviously the amount of 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 we've looked at authorship, we've looked at dating, and we see the dating is Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians are the earlier books, Romans and Philippians, Colossians, the middle point, and then you have Philemon, Ephesians, Timothy, 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 message or 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's an interesting reality that we have to accept, is that Paul speaks in Corinthians of having received a letter and he is responding to it. That's 1 Corinthians 7. 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 1 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 1 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 needed to be understood.

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 would be better if you could just stay unmarried, if you're not married, if you can. But what does he go on 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 sort of reverse engineer the question.

What do we think is the situation? And 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. That are somewhat hard for us to understand.

So there are other times where other letters are mentioned. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 and 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 1 Corinthians. Our 1 Corinthians is the 2 Corinthians because that's the first letter that he wrote. We don't have that. That bothers some people.

They say, oh, 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 providentially ensured 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. Some people ask about the book of Enoch or other things like that. And they say, are we supposed to have that?

No. We can say emphatically, no. For no other reason than 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. Go ahead. I like what you said. You told me this before, that even if we found the letter tomorrow, that it still wouldn't be scripture. That's right.

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 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.

They're 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, and therefore I would not believe it to be scripture.

So, I'll give you a good example. If you have your Bible, turn to Colossians 4 .16. In Colossians 4 .16, Paul makes reference to something that's very interesting. Somebody read it. Yeah. Alright, so when this letter, which is 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? It's not in your Bible. So 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 Greek works there, it's a little ambiguous. And that's why, 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 book of Ephesians.

Because Ephesians, even though it was written to Ephesus, had a universal aspect to it. 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 that's possible, right? 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, 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? No. 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? A kid threw a rock in a cave, they heard a crash, and went and looked in, and there's these giant pots that's got these scrolls.

Nobody had seen for, 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 opened it up and it was just a bunch of books.

It was still treasure, but it wasn't the treasure they thought it was, right? So there's likely... I mean, there's a chance that tomorrow some archaeologist is going to shove his spade in the ground and 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 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 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 ascribe an overall purpose to Paul, because this is what we've been talking about, the purpose, I would say that his epistles are pastoral in nature. Now, I'm not saying that... Three of his epistles are actually called the pastoral epistles.

1 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 correct and rebuke and encourage and exhort.

And we see that. 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 subsets of Paul's epistles.

We would say they're the prison epistles. That is Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. And then there's the pastoral epistles, which are 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. And then they can be broken down.

The easiest way to break down his letters are the ones written to churches and the ones written to individuals. Obviously, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, these are written to churches.

But then you get to Titus, Timothy, Philemon, these are written to individuals. So if you were creating a chart, the first subset of the chart would be to the churches, to the individuals, and you'd do it 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 break down 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.