Allahabad Bible Seminary

JESUS TRADITION IN PAUL AND PAULINE CIRCLE - BBN08

Submitted to : Sir. Menjiwapong Jamir

In the introduction part the Characteristics of Paul the Apostle is discussed, were he always
been an uncomfortable and controversial figure in the history of Christianity “Troubler Of Israel”.
Paul remained a controversial figure in the generations immediately following him, but, at the
same time, the influence of Paul on subsequent Christianity has been incalculable, the most part
his influence has been positive and creative, challenging new generations as he did his own to a
renewed appreciation of ‘the truth of the gospel’.
1. Part one: Paul’s life and work;
Paul had been a man of conflict and opposed to the Jesus movement before his conversion
on the road to Damascus. Acts of the Apostles and the number of autobiographical passages or
remarks in the letters of Paul gives most of the historical knowledge of life of Paul. Paul was a Jew
by Birth, more preciselyhe was a member of the Jewish diaspora, that could be a reason for his
parents to name him after the first king of Israel “Saul”. It was a common that time to havw two
names, “Paul” was his second name, it was not given to him after his conversion, but, became
popular with that name, may be because of the language in it was named – Greek. He had two
nationalities as he mentioned in his epistle.
Its popularity even among diaspora Jews of Paul’s day is documented by Philo of
Alexandria, who speaks of ‘thousands of vigilantes, full of zeal for the laws, strictest guardians of
the ancestral traditions, merciless to those who try to abolish them’. It is this ideal of Judaism
which Paul strove to live by, which he left behind at the turning point of his life.
When Paul speaks of his ministry he sometimes stresses two priorities, that he considered
himself as called to evangelize among non-Jews and he preferred as a rule to play the part of a
missionary pioneer in planting churches and not to ‘build on the foundations laid by somebody
else. The earliest evidence for his death as a martyr is from late first century AD. Paul may have
lived on until the persecutions in the aftermath of the fire of Rome in AD 64 and died together
with hundreds of unknown believers.
The foundation of Paul’s thought and practice as a missionary and pastor was a life
changing experience of revelation experienced as grace and call. Preaching Christ to the Gentiles
so that Gentiles lies at the very heart of Paul’s work as missionary and pastor. He as an itinerant,
often had journeys especially for ministry, the working Apostle, he earned for his needs, his family
background helped him in it.And also the suffering apostle, who was persecuted by both Jews
aswell as bt Gentiles for his ministerial works.
2. Part two: Paul’s letters;
This part covers from 3rd to the 10th Chapter of the book were the Ephistoles of Paul were
explained and all the baxkground detiles and the histrical contexts of the letters were explained in
detail, from Thessalonians 1 and 2, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, Ephesians,
Colossians, Philemon and The Pastoral Epistles.
3. Part three: Paul’s theology;
Paul’s Jewish presuppositions, he felt himself to be blameless and righteous for pursuing
or even persecuting the early Christian church, because he also says that he was a zealous Pharisee,
we can find a few other details about his former life (Gal. 1:13–14). Again he tells us that, as a
Pharisee, he persecuted the church and tried to destroy it. he means that he has received a Pharisaic
education and that he was quite zealous and convinced of its truth before he converted to
Christianity, emphasised that he is a Pharisee not a Sadducees.
Pharisaic desire to extend the Torah into contemporary areas that were not obviously
covered in ancient scripture, Since Paul continued to see himself as Jewish after his conversion,
he continued to value Torah in some way after his conversion. But how the Torah was to be
interpreted, as much as what its authority and what way the Torah needed to be practised by
Christians was seems to bee the decision to be made. Paul some times made exceptions for example
making circumcision a parameter for faith, Paul was not maily focused on the Torah but for few
things hetakes from his Pharisaic past.
Paul’s gospel: Paul uses a cluster of related terms to refer to his initial missionary
preaching and to the proclamation at the heart of his letters The noun ‘gospel’ is rarely used in the
Old Testament, and never in a religious context with reference to God’s good news. In the first
century, the accession of each individual Roman Emperor was regularly considered to provide new
hope, the dawn of a new era, ‘good news’; hence there could be more than one set of ‘gospels’.
For Paul, and in all NT usage, the noun is always used in the singular: the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus was God’s ‘once for all’ disclosure of ‘gospels’. But his Gospel was
Contextualized often, it changes colour and shape according to the background against which it is
set.
Paul repeatedly insists that the gospel is God’s initiative, the good news of God’s fulfilment
of his plan and his purposes for humankind: its focal point is Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Paul
comments fully and forcefully on the nature of the gospel as God’s initiative in Romans
In Corinthians Paul’s reference to the gospel as God’s effective saving power echoes.
In Galatians Paul’s reference to the appropriation of the gospel through faith or by
believing recalls. In the opening chapter of Galatians Paul emphasizes emphatically that the gospel
is God’s disclosure of Jesus Christ as his Son.
 Paul’s gospel includes God’s raising of Jesus on the third day. Reference to the burial of
Christ is included in the summary of the gospel quoted in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to underline
the reality of his death and to confirm that the appearances of the risen Christ were neither
hallucinations nor the mere revival of memories of Jesus before his death.
Paul’s ecclesiology, Addressing Paul’s understanding of the church (ekklesia ) refers to
the church in terms of God’s ‘call’. Paul sees his churches as continuous with Israel, considered
not simply as an ethnic group but as God’s elect people.
Paul never describes the church’s mission in terms of a specific task that it is to perform,
but in terms of a character of life that it is to exhibit, It is to ‘walk worthily of its call’.
Paul’s understanding of the church is expressed as much by a series of metaphors as by
propositions, the complex metaphor drawn from Paul’s Jewish heritage is that the church is a
family. Jesus as the First born son and Gentiles are adopted sons through the Holy spirit which
brings us into the Family of God.
The other metaphour is that the church is the body of the Messiah. The previous two
metaphors reveal the important roles Paul assigns to the Holy Spirit in his ecclesiology as the
source of its life and as mediator of its identity. The basic understanding of the church as a
community defined by its relationship with God through the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and called to
be a community of moral character, recognizable for its patterns of mutual support and fellowship.
Paul’s ethics, Paul was confronted with a number of complex moral and practical problems
in the fledgling Christian communities which threatened their very survival. Paul’s moral teaching,
however, cannot be isolated from the rest of his instruction. Doctrine and ethics are intimately
related in Paul’s letters. It is commonly observed that some of the letters exhibit a basically two-
fold structure, the first predominantly pertaining to matters of belief, the second primarily to
Christian conduct. Paul undoubtedly drew from other sources, especially traditions about Jesus
and even at times Graeco-Roman philosophy. Paul’s moral judgments cannot be understood apart
from his theological convictions. For Paul, the cross is not just the way of salvation and the
supreme demonstration of God’s righteousness and love, but the paradigmatic pattern for the life
of Christians, Paul emphasizes in spelling out the implications of the gospel for Christian conduct
is charismatic ministry within the body of Christ in humility and mutual service.
4. Part four: St Paul
In the late first or early second century, the letter of James challenged Paul’s gospel of
justification by faith alone without regard to works. In AD 200 Paul was vilified as the enemy, a
helpmate of the evil one, and an impostor preaching a false gospel.
But Marcion’s theology was rooted in Paul’s collected letters, For Marcion, Paul was ‘the
true apostle’, whose true gospel conformed exactly to that of Christ. Claiming Paul’s truth as the
truth, Marcion submitted the preaching of the ‘pillar apostles’ to Paul for approval and found it
wanting.
 Irenaeus based his theology on a small number of Pauline texts that contested Marcionite
core convictions.
Tertullian offered the most detailed exegetical challenge. Central to his position was
Paul’s reliance on the ‘Old Testament’ to secure the concept of salvation-history. He understood
the arrival of the Messiah, the proclamation of the gospel, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as
fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy.
Contemporary perspectives on Paul
The new wave of Jewish studies of Paul is part of the wider reexamination of Jesus and his
first followers by Jewish scholars. One of the issues which have always been pressing when the
Jewishness of Paul has been under discussion is whether or not one should speak of Paul’s
conversion to Christianity, and thus of his apostasy from early Judaism.
Nanos finds a less radical Paul in the Pauline corpus than has often been thought. Thus,
for instance, Paul is seen as not arguing for a law-free gospel, but rather a law-observant one for
Jews and a law-respectful one for Gentiles.
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza: Fiorenza’s treatment of what Paul says about ¨ women is
always carefully researched and stresses that Paul and his churches were simply one part of a larger
Christian missionary movement, which she believes was essentially egalitarian because of the
nature of the movement Jesus himself founded.
Conclussion:
The book “The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul” covered all the dimetion of Apostle Paul from
his personal life prior to conversion to the theology the Doctrin, the Gospel and all the important information
that needed to understand Paul and his teachings.