2 Corinthians 11:21b-28
Whatever anyone dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.
We’ve come to the end of Paul -- for this season, at least. Next week we will discuss our reasons for giving thanks, then the following Sunday we will enter into Advent Season and our preparations for Christmas.
I thought we’d finish up with Paul today, as we began this series, by looking at the man himself rather than what he wrote. The reading we just started with comes from 2nd Corinthians. It is basically Paul-on-Paul – the life of Paul in one paragraph – in his own words.
Through the various Letters and the Book of Acts, we can learn a fair amount about Paul himself. He was a near-contemporary of Jesus, maybe ten years younger. As nearly as we can tell, they never met. He was born in Tarsus, in modern-day Turkey, a large, cosmopolitan city in it’s time. Paul’s missionary work would always take place in established cities – he was not a rural person.
He was an educated Jew – a Pharisee – trained to use his words as teaching tools, or, in his earlier years, as weapons. He was passionate about everything he did. When he attacked the Jesus-followers, believing them to be spreading heresy, he did so passionately. When he “met” Jesus and converted to the other side, he did that equally passionately for the rest of his life.
There is a new work available, which I would love to get my hands on. It’s a DVD series by John Dominic Crossan, titled “The Challenge of Paul.” Crossan is one of the best of our current New Testament scholars, a sometimes co-writer with Marcus Borg, whose work gave us the study for this summer’s series, and, like Borg, a member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars, formed in the eighties, who worked together for years to take Jesus out of the realm of biblical mythology and shape some cohesive idea of an historical Jesus. Celebrated by liberal Christians and most often vilified by conservatives, these scholars, and especially Dom Crossan, have been – and still are -- hugely important in my own theological understanding.
I haven’t seen the DVD and it’s not out in book form (yet) but I found some snippets from an interview done for CNN.* Here is a small tidbit of Crossan’s thoughts on Paul:
I thought we’d finish up with Paul today, as we began this series, by looking at the man himself rather than what he wrote. The reading we just started with comes from 2nd Corinthians. It is basically Paul-on-Paul – the life of Paul in one paragraph – in his own words.
Through the various Letters and the Book of Acts, we can learn a fair amount about Paul himself. He was a near-contemporary of Jesus, maybe ten years younger. As nearly as we can tell, they never met. He was born in Tarsus, in modern-day Turkey, a large, cosmopolitan city in it’s time. Paul’s missionary work would always take place in established cities – he was not a rural person.
He was an educated Jew – a Pharisee – trained to use his words as teaching tools, or, in his earlier years, as weapons. He was passionate about everything he did. When he attacked the Jesus-followers, believing them to be spreading heresy, he did so passionately. When he “met” Jesus and converted to the other side, he did that equally passionately for the rest of his life.
There is a new work available, which I would love to get my hands on. It’s a DVD series by John Dominic Crossan, titled “The Challenge of Paul.” Crossan is one of the best of our current New Testament scholars, a sometimes co-writer with Marcus Borg, whose work gave us the study for this summer’s series, and, like Borg, a member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars, formed in the eighties, who worked together for years to take Jesus out of the realm of biblical mythology and shape some cohesive idea of an historical Jesus. Celebrated by liberal Christians and most often vilified by conservatives, these scholars, and especially Dom Crossan, have been – and still are -- hugely important in my own theological understanding.
I haven’t seen the DVD and it’s not out in book form (yet) but I found some snippets from an interview done for CNN.* Here is a small tidbit of Crossan’s thoughts on Paul:
The primary misconception of Paul is that he was the founder or inventor of Christianity. That is a thought that would horrify Paul, as if all his emphasis on Christ was something like a cover-up for what he was actually doing.
What happened historically is that Messianic Judaism (because that’s what Christianity was at the time of its inception) started in the small hamlets of Galilee. Had it stayed there, it would have been destroyed completely in the Roman war of 66 to 74. By then, however, it had long broken out from Galilee, going first to Jerusalem.
When Paul arrived on the scene, he went to Jerusalem. As a pilgrimage city, Jerusalem would allow this new form of Messianic Judaism to begin to move outward along the pilgrim networks.
The crucial decision facing Messianic Judaism concerned whether Gentile converts could become full members of the Messianic community without undergoing circumcision. Paul was part of that decision, but so were Peter and James, as we know from Galatians 1. That process would have happened if Paul had never existed.
That is an important statement. Because, of course, it's true. It was Peter, after all, who had the vision of the sheet being lowered and offering all manner.of good things, all tossed together and proclaimed good. It was Peter who announced to the gathered leaders that he had changed his thinking and was now convinced the message was for everyone.
Just because Paul wrote about his battles with the traditionalists does not mean that Paul was the only evangelist in that battle. We tend to forget that. But, back to Crossan:
Just because Paul wrote about his battles with the traditionalists does not mean that Paul was the only evangelist in that battle. We tend to forget that. But, back to Crossan:
What Paul added to it was his decision to focus on the major capitals of the eastern Roman provinces and then, after twenty years, to try and move westward to Spain. Paul’s project was to get Messianic Jewish cells going in the capitals, from whence they could expand to the other cities and eventually the countryside. The other major achievement of Paul was to write and to leave behind him letters that slowly but surely formed the theology of Messianic Judaism.
I really want to view/read this series ...
But, back to Paul. In the late 50’s Paul traveled to Jerusalem, where he was arrested by temple authorities and handed over to the Romans, who found him not guilty of anything, but still did not release him. He would remain in confinement for the rest of his life. He eventually invoked his right as a Roman citizen to have his case heard by the emperor himself, and so, began his long final trip to Rome. This was a long process in itself – from the time of his arrest, Paul spent several years imprisoned.
The trip to Rome involved ship wreaks and long layovers and, once in Rome, he spent at least an additional two years under house arrest. Tradition, which in this case appears to be historically accurate, puts his death in the year 64.
Like Jesus, Paul was eventually killed by the world’s powers, for no crime, but simply because he was an inconvenient man.
But, back to Paul. In the late 50’s Paul traveled to Jerusalem, where he was arrested by temple authorities and handed over to the Romans, who found him not guilty of anything, but still did not release him. He would remain in confinement for the rest of his life. He eventually invoked his right as a Roman citizen to have his case heard by the emperor himself, and so, began his long final trip to Rome. This was a long process in itself – from the time of his arrest, Paul spent several years imprisoned.
The trip to Rome involved ship wreaks and long layovers and, once in Rome, he spent at least an additional two years under house arrest. Tradition, which in this case appears to be historically accurate, puts his death in the year 64.
Like Jesus, Paul was eventually killed by the world’s powers, for no crime, but simply because he was an inconvenient man.
* http://religiondispatches.org/paul-for-the-people-john-dominic-crossan-imagines-a-letter-to-the-americans-in-his-new-video-series/
Peter Laarman is a United Church of Christ minister and activist who recently retired as executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting in Los Angeles.
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