A Rusty Aluminum Age

The letters of Paul are letters to people with serious problems: disunity (1 Corinthians), sexual distortion (2 Corinthians), heresy and doctrinal confusion (Galatians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians), social confusion (Ephesians), racial misunderstanding and doctrinal intolerance (Romans), to name a few.

Some passages are almost embarrassing in their admission of glaring faults in the lives of Christians. I shudder to think that someday someone might discover some letter of mine written to friends containing descriptions similar to the disunity and depravity of the Corinthian church, or the tensions that rocked Timothy's struggling congregation.

Numerous scholars have (rightly) spoken of the 'golden age' of the first-century church as a myth. Instead, we would do better to see it as a rusty aluminum age, like a pile of discarded bicycles sitting in the rain, with various parts removed.

Thus, here is Pauline theology in a nutshell: humans need God's grace.

You Want Egypt? I'll Give You Egypt.

Numbers 14:1-4:

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt."

It is treacherously easy to overspiritualize the Old Testament, especially when it comes to the narratives. If centuries of allegorical interpretation weren't enough to drive this point home, it won't take you long to find a dozen contemporary sermons full of "principles" and "timeless truths of Scripture" painstakingly extracted from the stories of the Old Testament. Whether these practices are useful or proper is another question; the point here is that we are dealing with a record of events. Are there principles here? Truths of scripture? Yes. There is much to be learned in today's passages about God, faith, even politics. But that is not what the narratives primarily are.

What's more, we are dealing with a record of human events. There are a lot of things in the OT narratives that are easy to label 'supernatural'; and while this word is sometimes difficult to shake free of its Deistic trappings, it certainly is more fitting than 'natural'. Nevertheless we read about real people, actual humans. Putting aside for the moment questions of historicity, it should not sound too strange to sat that Moses was a human political and religious leader, Korah was a human revolutionary, and so forth.

In the passage at hand, the Israelites are facing another another human issue: military difficulties. The Israelites have just found out from the agents they have sent into Canaan that the land will be nigh impossible to conquer. It is full of well-protected cities and equally well-armed warriors. One can easily imagine running across a similar passage in a history of, say, Alexander the Great's conquests.

The real intrigue here is that the Israelites, or at least some factions within the larger group, also propose a practical human solution to their issues. "Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt," say the Israelites to one another. In other words, let's replace Moses with someone more competent, and change our policy. The real problems here are our intentions for conquest. This plan has been wrong from the start!

Numbers 21:5-9:

The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

About 40 years later, not much has changed: the Israelites are still worn down and poorly provisioned at the end of four decades of hard survival in the wilderness following their failed attempt to take Canaan's hill country. It is now difficult to find food and water, and the food they do have they find unacceptable. Spiritual allegories and life principles present themselves by the dozen (and this is not necessarily a problem) but we must keep in mind that these are real issues, human events. It is precisely as real issues and human events that these two passages begin to come into a fresh and meaningful light, and take on a meaning that is decidedly more than human.

A recurring theme in the wilderness narratives is the suggestion, when the situation becomes dire, to return to Egypt (cf. Exodus 14:11-12 and
Numbers 11:5, 18-20). The story of the serpents in Numbers 21 can be read as the subversive fruition of that suggested solution. It is not overly imaginative to think of aging Israelites telling their children stories of their old lives in Egypt. Life in Egypt was remembered as difficult but good; a demanding life, but worth it all for the benefits the Israelites enjoyed there. And what splendor was in Egypt! Awesome pyramids, grand cities, majestic rulers -- Egypt truly was a place of glory, power and ideals.

One of the most vivid symbols of Egyptian glory was the serpent, sticking in the Israelites' minds, we may think, much as the hammer and sickle sticks in the minds of former Soviet citizens. But it seems that, at times at least, the serpent did not symbolize oppression for the wandering Hebrews, but salvation. Time after time they urge their leaders to take them back to Egypt, until finally, at a time when most of the group knows only stories of the greatness of Egypt, the Israelites receive salvation from the serpent. The people wake up one morning to find serpents everywhere -- much as their former masters woke up one morning to find frogs everywhere -- and before they know it, the plagues of Egypt have come upon them in new form. Far more than their firstborns die; this serpent kills without judgment. God subverts the symbol of Egypt in order to show his people what Egypt really is. And when the Israelites finally are saved, it is when God co-opts for Himself the symbol of the salvation to which Israel had been looking. Egypt remains symbolized by the serpent, but Egypt no longer symbolizes salvation. God is, as He reminds His people all through the exodus narratives, the one "who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Salvations belongs to YHWH alone.

Understanding the New Perspective on Paul: Questions, Answers and Stories

The chief difference between the "new perspective" on Paul (NPP) and the more traditional Reformed and Lutheran views is a difference of stories. I am no scholar, but I suspect that much of the conflict between the conservative and revisionist sides of the debate (if I may use those labels) results from trying to integrate differing storylines into the wrong stories.

One of longest-running Western storylines is the narrative of personal morality: how do we achieve moral perfection? If we cannot do this, what is our status before whatever god there might be? This question was far more than theoretical; many of the greatest writers on the subject, from Augustine to Luther, wrote from consciences struggling with knowledge of their own imperfection.

One of the greatest answers to this question in Western thought was the answer of the Protestant Reformation. How do I achieve the sort of personal righteousness required to be accepted before God? In short, said the Reformers, you don't and Christ does. "Our righteousness and wisdom are in vain," says Martin Luther. (Commentary on Romans, p. 28). The Reformation sought to abandon the project of building up oneself before God, accepting the alien righteousness of Christ, for "there neither is nor ever was any mere natural man absolutely righteous in himself: that is to say, void of all unrighteousness, of all sin." (Richard Hooker, A Learned Discourse of Justification, p. 2)

The Reformers did not, however, give up the existing storyline of acceptance before God; instead they redefined its answer. What we need is not personal righteousness, but rather "a righteousness which does not originate on earth, but comes down from heaven." (Luther, Romans, p. 29) The personal morality required for acceptance before God was given up for an extrapersonal morality, but the key element in the story -- the need for righteousness in order to be accepted by God -- was accepted, even built up. The Reformation thereby affirmed the existing narrative of man's relationship to God, though they radically redrew the answers to its central questions.

Herein, I suggest, lies the chief factor in the confusion and controversy surrounding the "new perspective" on Paul. The question asked and answered by Lutheran and Reformed thought is, as we have seen, How do we achieve personal righteousness in order to be accepted by God? Their answer is, of course, the righteousness of Christ alone, through faith alone, etc. The answer that Lutheran and Reformed thinkers find in the NPP is something along the lines of, the entirety of a life lived, including faith, works, and the rest of it.

But here is the confusion: the NPP is not asking and answering the same question as the Protestant Reformation. Lutheran and Reformed thinkers generally perceive correctly the answer given by the NPP, but assume that the answer goes with their own question. But instead of telling a story of sinful humans trying to be righteous before God, proponents of the NPP find in Paul a story of sinful humans chosen by God to be His chief agents in restoring His creation. The chief question to be asked, then, is not about achieving righteousness before God, but about how we can tell which people have been chosen as these agents. The (somewhat oversimplified) answer is faith and works.

This answer, if paired with the Reformers' question, does lead us down the path to Rome at best, and to Pelagianism at worst. It would be far more productive, not only from an exegetical standpoint, but also from an ecumenical view, if discussion could proceed on the level of storyline and questions. Only in this context can the answers of the Reformation and of recent scholarship be helpfully compared and discussed.

All Scripture is God-Breathed

"All scripture is inspired by God and useful for refuting error, for guiding people's lives and teaching them to be upright. This is how someone who is dedicated to God becomes fully equipped and ready for any good work."
- St. Paul, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, New Jerusalem Bible

2 Timothy is a dark letter. Compared to the rest of Paul's works, and to the New Testament in general, it is full of conflict, sadness, and struggle both inward and outward. There are moments when the glory of grace could not be brighter, but the most uplifting passages and stirring exhortations of 2 Timothy nevertheless presuppose a difficult road ahead.

In the midst of this comes a small section on "the sacred writings". Paul exhorts his protege to remain faithful to the scriptures and the teaching he has received on and from it. This bidding to hold fast to scripture is not without its urgency. "This is what you will need for the days ahead," says Paul. "And you are definitely going to need it."

Paul's tone, then, is somewhat foreboding. After all, Timothy and his Ephesian church are in a difficult situation to say the least, as is Paul himself. But these words are meant for comfort and assurance. Paul is here offering not merely an old friend's encouragement, but the key to Timothy's difficult task. The experienced apostle's point is that the scriptures are the foundation and means of Timothy's work, and they will not let him down, no matter how rough the road.

This point is driven home by a brief look at the overall context of the letter. Paul is on death row and, if the local heretics have their way, so is Timothy's church. Timothy's mentor and father in the faith has the opportunity -- the necessity -- to tell Timothy all that he needs to know, do, and have in order to build the Kingdom in this hostile environment. In this context his constant refrain is, Hold fast to the scriptures, for they are what you need; indeed, they are given by God Himself for this very purpose.

Here it must be noted that what many tend to read into v. 16 is simply not there; namely, a statement of the modern doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible. Such a doctrine, regardless of its accuracy, is simply absent from this text. Paul is here giving one long exhortation to courage, perseverance, and faithfulness in the thick of opposition; the furthest thing from his mind is the age of the earth and whether Jonah really spent three days in a fish's belly. Only if we read in our own notions of what "inspired" might mean can we find a claim here of Biblical infallibility as it is currently formulated. Paul's literal language, "all scripture is God-breathed (theopneustos)", is an evocative, wonderful phrase for God's personal involvement in the creation of the scriptures, but it is far from being support, by itself, of this doctrine. There is much to be said on either side of this controversy, but none of it will be said here.

What, then, does Paul mean? He is clear about one thing: these scriptures are what you need. They give wisdom, leading to salvation (v. 15); they are our foundation and means for "refuting error, for guiding people's lives and teaching them to be upright." They thoroughly prepare the agent of the Kingdom of God, so that he is ready to undertake and complete "any good work." Truly Timothy would have had a near-hopeless task in front of him had he not "the sacred writings".

What meaning can this have for us? Many of us still seek to answer this question within an overly modernist context. We know what the world needs, and that is good authority; we know what good authority is, and that is facts and laws; therefore the Bible is the source of reliable facts and laws.

Others of us are overly postmodern. We know what the world needs, and that is freedom; we know what freedom is, and that is choice and subjectivity; therefore the Bible must be the great affirmer of such things.

Both of these models, and others like them, assume much too readily that we know what the world needs. All of us alike exalt ourselves above the Bible, putting the scriptures into our own molds. In the words of N. T. Wright, "we have tended to let the word ‘authority’ be the fixed point and have adjusted ‘scripture’ to meet it, instead of the other way round." No one expects that what the world needs after all is the Bible; instead, we look for ways to make the Bible fit our own preconceived notions of problem and solution.

Paul would have us act differently. Paul's message to Timothy is that the Bible is profitable for thoroughly equipping the man of God, not because it is fact or law or timeless call to existential decision, but because by it "the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (v. 17) But Paul's message is not merely utilitarian. The Bible does not just happen to have this effect on and through the church, this is so precisely because all scripture is God-breathed.

Whatever the full meaning of this rich and beautiful phrase, it is the greatest reason we could have for taking the scriptures as they are. Perhaps this is impossible; perhaps we can never quite pull away from our own presuppositions. The question of whether we can ever actually get at the Bible without bringing a bit of ourselves into the picture, or even whether this is desirable, is not for now to decide.

What is clear is that this God-breathedness calls for a robust and vibrant praxis centered around the Bible. Liturgy and living, meditation and memorization, praying and preaching, reflection and research each play a role in building the Church's life on and around scripture. We must rush forward into this great and terrifying book God has given us, constantly working out fresher and more accurate ways of talking about and living by it.