[Dialogue] 2/25/10, Spong: The Origins of the New Testament, Part XVI: The Elder Paul -- Philemon and Philippians

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Thursday February 25, 2010 

The Origins of the New Testament
Part XVI: The Elder Paul — Philemon and Philippians

The process of aging works wonders on the human spirit. Battles once so emotional that they seemed to pit life against death lose their rancor in time, and the differences that once divided people so deeply lose their potency. Age brings both mellowing and perspective. That was surely true of Paul. In this series I have tried to read Paul chronologically — that is, in the order of his writings. It is an inexact science, but I am comfortable with the order we have adopted. In that way we can see the changes taking place before our eyes. In I Thessalonians, written about the year 51 and thus Paul's first epistle, he was concerned about the fact that the second coming of Christ had not yet arrived. Why, they wondered, had Jesus not returned by now to inaugurate the desired kingdom of God on earth? Paul tries anxiously to explain the delay. In Galatians, his second epistle, we see the white hot anger that separated Paul from those he called "the Judaizers," who are symbolized in Galatians by James, the Lord's brother, and by Peter, both of whom were demanding that all converts keep the Torah and only be allowed to come into Christianity by way of Judaism. Paul, deeply touched by what he came to call "grace," would never submit to this legalistic point of view from which he had fled, namely that salvation came through one's deeds, one's obedience to the Torah.
The Paul of the middle years of his career was thoughtful, systematic and good at problem solving. In this phase of his life, he penned his letters to the Corinthians and his masterpiece, his epistle to the Romans. In the Corinthian letters, he was majestic in spelling out the meaning of love: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" and also in that epistle he wrote the fullest understanding of Jesus' resurrection that we possess. In Romans he comes as close as he ever would to systematizing the meaning of Christ in beautiful words that ring across the ages like "Nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
The years rolled on for Paul, however, as they do for all of us and he grew mellow. He was no longer convinced that Jesus would come again in his lifetime, so he settled into long range plans and even began to contemplate his own death. In this phase of his life, which is true for most of us, he lived more in the "now" and less in the future and so relationships grew in importance for him. It was at this stage of his life that he wrote the two epistles that we consider today, Philemon and Philippians, both of which reflect the more contemplative Paul. With the completion of our consideration of Philemon and Philippians, we will have probed the seven epistles about which there is no debate as to their being the authentic work of Paul. Next we will look at those epistles that have much Pauline substance, but increasingly scholars suggest they are "pseudo-Paul," that is,written in Paul's name but not by Paul himself. They are II Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians. There are other epistles that bear the name of Paul, namely I and II Timothy and Titus, that are in a third category. Universally they are regarded as not authentic and they are actually dated later than some of the gospels, so we will look at them later. If we are trying to study the New Testament in the time sequence in which its various books are written, we will have to place Mark and perhaps Matthew ahead of these "Pastoral Epistles." For now, however, we focus on Philemon and Philippians, the epistles of the elder Paul. Both are written, according to majority opinion but certainly not the unanimous opinion of the reputable scholars, while he was imprisoned in Rome only a couple of years before his martyrdom.
Philemon is fascinating in that one wonders why it was preserved at all, and why it was placed in the collection of Paul's letters that circulated among the churches before the first gospel was written. It is so different in essential ways from every other epistle. Philemon is a personal letter of his, less than one page in length. It is addressed to an individual, not to the church community. It has to do with a request made by Paul to have a runaway slave named Onesimus, who has become Paul's valued companion and primary caregiver, be set free so he can once again be in Paul's service. Paul makes this request even as Onesimus is being returned to his master because, in the culture of that day, it was the right thing to do. Paul hopes that by obeying the law, his request to allow Onesimus to come back to him will be granted. Paul tells his friend Philemon, to whom he writes this letter, of Onesimus' conversion and of his indispensable faithfulness in Paul's service. Paul wants Onesimus pardoned so that he can freely come back to be Paul's assistant. It is hardly the kind of letter that would rank inclusion in a group of epistles written to various churches that also included the carefully reasoned argument of the Epistle to the Romans. Yet here it is.
John Knox, a top-tier 20th century Pauline scholar, offers a fascinating explanation as to why it was included. Basing his argument on an epistle written by one of the church "fathers," Ignatius, in the early years of the second century that indicates that a man named Onesimus had become the Bishop of Ephesus after Paul's death, Knox suggests that this was the same Onesimus about whom Paul was concerned in the Epistle to Philemon. The reason it might have been added to this collection of Paul's letters, says Knox, is that it contained significant material that was important to the church in Ephesus, which scholars now believe was to have been the destination of this first collection of Paul's epistles. It is an interesting speculation and worthy of being passed on, so long as it is clear that it is a speculation. There seems to be no other plausible argument as to why this private and very short letter became treasured church property.
When we move on to Philippians, we come to the most affectionate letter Paul ever wrote and also to the picture of a Paul who knows that his life is nearing its end. The Philippian congregation clearly cares for Paul emotionally and Paul clearly cares for them. He writes them as "saints" for whom he gives thanks "upon every remembrance" of them. Philippi was the first city in Europe that Paul had visited and where his first European church had been planted. The Philippians had sent him gifts in prison and they were clearly worried about both his safety and his personal well being. Paul's agenda in this letter is to thank them and comfort them about his situation. He fears he may never see them again. He promises to send Timothy to assure them of his well being. He fills the epistle with words of joy, hope and consolation. He no longer expects the return of Christ in his lifetime and so he wrestles with his own death, which he assumes to be imminent. He wonders out l oud whether it is better to depart this life to be with Christ or to persevere for the sake of his churches. He suggests that when one stands at last in the presence of Christ, this earthly life will be seen as being of no great value. "To live is Christ, to die is gain" is his conclusion. There is a deep-seated contentment in Paul that finds expression in this epistle. "I have learned," he says, "to be content in whatever state I find myself." I can do all things, he assures his readers, through Christ who strengthens me. In his conclusion, he does not go into a long ethical treatise as he does in so many of his earlier epistles, where he moves from spelling out his understanding of Christ to drawing from that the implications for those who seek to live out the Christ life. In Philippians, his ethical teaching is one verse (4:8) "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excel lence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
The most memorable passage in Philippians and one of the most mysterious and oft-quoted of all Paul's work is found in 2:5-11. It is called the "self-emptying" passage. My sense is that in these words there is a powerful affirmation that for Paul, all that we mean by God has been experienced in Christ, but when these words were translated into English, they reflected the ancient battles in which the church sought to determine how it was that Jesus could have been both human and divine. I do not think that the Jewish Paul ever thought in those categories. The way it is read today is that Christ did not grasp after the divinity that was his, but rather emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and he was, therefore, exalted by God to the status for which he was qualified. So Paul then draws his conclusion by stating that "At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow." Many scholars believe that Paul is quoting in these "self-emptying" verses an early Christian hymn. T hat may be so but I believe it also reflects Paul's vision of Jesus as "The New Adam." The first Adam did grasp after the dignity of God. The serpent's temptation in the Garden of Eden story was that if Adam would but eat the forbidden fruit, "you will be like God." The people in the Philippi church had tensions in their lives over how to worship, what to believe and how to act. Each side in each debate claimed superiority. Paul urges them to let the mind of Christ be their mind. Then he explained that Christ did not grasp after a superior status but emptied himself. It was in the fullness of his humanity that he found the freedom to give his life to others and that was how God was seen in him.
The ultimate purpose of human life is to love the face of hatred, to forgive the face of pain, to live in the face of death. In doing those things one must be free of the need of self exaltation. That is what it means to reveal the divine in the human. It was this concept that convinced Paul that the God presence has been experienced in Jesus. The pathway into divinity is through humanity. The pathway into eternity is through time. This is the closing theme in what we now believe was the final authentic letter of the Apostle Paul.

– John Shelby Spong
 



Question and Answer 
With John Shelby Spong


Hilda Flint from the U.K. writes:
Would not the apparently regular meetings of the followers of the Way have held the major part of the oral tradition? It seems from the first chapters of Acts that they were certainly not in the synagogue (e.g. Acts 5:13), even if the gospel writers were anxious enough to keep the Jewish tradition firmly under girding the Jesus stories.
Hilda Flint from the U.K. writes:
Would not the apparently regular meetings of the followers of the Way have held the major part of the oral tradition? It seems from the first chapters of Acts that they were certainly not in the synagogue (e.g. Acts 5:13), even if the gospel writers were anxious enough to keep the Jewish tradition firmly under girding the Jesus stories.



Dear Hilda,
The book of Acts is probably the least trustworthy source one can use to establish first century facts. It was probably not written before 95 C.E. and has a pro-Roman, anti-Jewish bias. The oral tradition was recalled and remembered in the synagogue where the disciples were actively engaged until excommunicated around the year 88 C.E. By the time the first gospel (Mark) was written, the Hebrew Scriptures had been wrapped around Jesus so tightly that he was proclaimed to be their fulfillment.
The tension Paul had with the people at the synagogue occurred in the Diaspora, the Jewish communities around the Gentile world. For the most part, however, the "Followers of the Way," as the disciples of Jesus were called, were members of the synagogue into a third generation.

Best wishes,
John Shelby Spong






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