The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (203 page)

Third, the dichotomy between the Synoptics' alleged primary interest in history and John's focus on theology is itself highly suspect, as M. M. Thompson and others have shown.
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Many aspects of the historical reliability of John's Gospel have been confirmed by archaeological and extrabiblical sources. Also, scholars have increasingly come to realize
that the Synoptics are also interested in theology, in the sense that they reveal the respective theological interests and emphases of the evangelists. As we have seen above, Luke had a special interest in those with low status in society, such as the poor, Gentiles, women, and children, and he dealt extensively with issues related to wealth and poverty. Matthew presented Jesus' teaching in the form of five extended discourses after the pattern of Moses and the Pentateuch. Examples could be multiplied.

Hence the conclusion seems warranted that
both
the Synoptics
and
John are interested in
both
history
and
theology. This is also confirmed by the strong emphasis on eyewitness testimony in John's Gospel (e.g., 1:7—8,15; 5:31—47).
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It would be hard to imagine why a Gospel that explicitly and repeatedly stresses the importance of eyewitness testimony would at the same time play fast and loose with the facts. Even the author himself claimed to be an eyewitness of the Last Supper (13:23), the crucifixion (19:35), and the rest of the events recorded in the entire Gospel narrative (21:24—25). For these reasons the distinction between history and theology in describing the relationship between the Synoptics and John is false and should be abandoned.

Jesus and Paul

Another alleged point of tension in NT theology is that between the teachings of Jesus and Paul.
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Some have dichotomized between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, and on the basis of this distinction they have proposed that only the latter properly contributes NT theology. What is more, it has been suggested that the apostle Paul, not Jesus, was the founder of Christianity in the sense that he developed a distinct body of teachings that constituted Christianity as a religion on the assumption that Jesus was in fact the Christ and Son of God. Although there may be some truth in this, caution is imperative for several reasons.

First, while it is true that Paul was not a follower of Jesus during his earthly ministry—in fact, he persecuted the early Christians vigorously until his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 8:1—3; 9:1—19)—there are some
elements of continuity
in his letters with Jesus. For example, Paul in a few passages appeals to Jesus' teachings as his authority (e.g., 1 Cor 7:10: “not I, but the Lord”; see vv. 12,25; cf. Acts 20:35: “It is more blessed to give than to receive”; 1 Cor 9:14; 11:23—26; 1 Thess 4:15). On a more subtle level, Wenham and others have identified a number of allusions to Jesus' teachings in Paul's letters (e.g., 1 Cor 13:2 NIV: “if I have a faith that can move mountains”; see Matt 17:20 and parallels), as well as other references to Jesus (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:5).
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Second, Paul did not dichotomize in any way between Christ and Christianity. In fact, Dunn rightly observed that, “In short, for Paul Christianity is Christ,”
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and the
early Christians (including Paul) uniformly held as their first and foremost confession that “Jesus is Lord” (Acts 2:36; Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11). That Paul would set himself off as the “founder of Christianity” over against Jesus is therefore unthinkable.

At the same time, things are not so simple as to say that Paul was thus a mere “follower of Jesus.”
²³
This does not mean that Paul stood in an antagonistic or discontinuous relationship with Jesus—far from it. It does mean that Paul had other significant sources in developing his theology other than direct recourse to Jesus' teachings. S. Kim correctly suggested that Paul's conversion led him to reread the Hebrew Scriptures in light of his newfound conviction that the resurrected Christ had died as the sinless substitute for sinful humanity and thus did not bear the curse of God for his own sins as he had previously (and erroneously) thought.
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In the months and years that followed, Paul's Spirit-led and inspired rereading of Scripture in the light of this new hermeneutical axiom (Jesus = the Christ) led to a body of Pauline teachings that cannot be simply reduced to direct dependence on Jesus' own teachings.

This is confirmed also by the logic of Paul's ministry that typically took its point of departure in the local synagogue where people believed in the coming of the Messiah but not in Jesus. Hence it would have been inadequate for Paul's purposes to cite Jesus' teaching, at least in the initial phase of his apostolic proclamation. Rather, Paul had to show from the Hebrew Scriptures that the events in Jesus' life fulfilled messianic prophecy and that the Messiah was in fact Jesus, moving from the known (and widely expected) to the unknown (or unproven, namely, that Jesus was the Messiah; e.g., Acts 9:20,22; 13:32—41). As the book of Acts makes clear, Apollos and others faced the same challenge and adopted the same strategy (Acts 18:28), as did Matthew and John in their Gospels (both written by apostles who were eyewitnesses) and the book of Hebrews.

Also, it is clear that at least in some cases, Paul was not able to draw on Jesus' teaching on a certain subject. Likely examples include the nature of the resurrection body (1 Cor 15:35—57), the scenario and timing of the rapture (1 Thess 4:13—18; though see v. 15), the Pauline doctrine of the church as the body of Christ (Rom 12:1-8; 1 Cor 12:12-30; Eph 5:25—32), and his teachings on spiritual gifts (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12—14). In these and other cases, whatever Paul's sources were for developing his theology, be it direct revelation or Spirit-inspired extrapolation from the Hebrew Scriptures or other sources, he did not proceed on the basis of Jesus' teaching.

Again, this in no way means there is an actual conflict between Jesus' and Paul's teachings. To the contrary, Jesus and Paul sustain a strong and complementary relationship, essentially grounded in the recognition that Jesus is Lord so that their teachings cohere closely. It also means that care must be taken not to construe the Jesus-Paul relationship in
too simplistic a manner, no matter how well intentioned one's efforts may be. The fabric of NT theology thus is rich in texture, weaving a colorful garment that displays diversity of expression and theological development on the basis of the underlying conviction that there is one God, that Jesus is Lord and Messiah, and that salvation is only through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters

“Is the Paul of Acts the real Paul?” F. F. Bruce asked in an article published in 1976.
²⁵
Especially German scholars in the wake of F. C. Baur have frequently argued that Luke's presentation of Paul in the book of Acts is incompatible with the way the apostle portrayed himself in his Letters.
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Luke's Paul, it is contended, was invincible and moved in victorious procession from place to place.
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But Paul portrayed himself as weak and frequently confounded.
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For Luke, Paul was a brilliant, persuasive public speaker.
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But Paul said of himself that he had little room for rhetoric and that others often viewed him as an inferior preacher.
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S. Porter summarized and critiqued five major reasons that have been advanced against an identification of the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the Letters: (1) Luke's apparent unawareness of the Pauline solution to the problem of the mission to the Gentiles without the law; (2) the portrayal of Paul as a miracle worker in Acts and the virtual absence of references to any such miracles in the letters; (3) the depiction of Paul as an impressive orator in Acts and the characterization of Paul as an unimpressive speaker in the Letters; (4) Paul's claim to apostleship in his Letters versus the difficulty of substantiating it in the book of Acts; and (5) the different portrayals of Jewish-Christian relations in Acts and the Pauline Letters. Beyond this, some also believe to have detected discrepancies in the areas of Christology and eschatology.

Space does not permit us to engage each of these arguments in detail, though this has been done successfully in recent scholarship.
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Once again it can be shown that the present issue is one of different perspectives that can very well be integrated into a cohesive overall
picture.
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Luke did not write a biography of Paul.
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He was interested in Paul primarily as the leading proponent of the early Christian mission, and this mission overcame numerous obstacles—albeit not on account of Paul's strategizing genius or rhetorical brilliance but through the sovereign power of God. By the same token, Paul frequently stressed in his Letters that it is not he but Christ in him who was the driving force behind the Christian mission and that the message of the cross, not his own persuasive powers, took center stage (e.g., 1 Cor 2:1-5; Gal. 2:20).

Bruce listed a whole series of agreements between Acts and Paul's Letters, some of which are in the category of what he called “undesigned coincidences.” First, in his letters Paul pointed to his impeccable Jewish credentials: he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5 NIV; see 2 Cor 11:22); he advanced in Judaism beyond many of his peers on account of his zeal for his ancestral traditions (Gal 1:14). But only in Acts do we learn that Paul had been educated in the school of Gamaliel, one of the most prominent Pharisaic teachers of his generation (Acts 22:3; see 5:35; cf. Phil 3:5; Acts 23:6; 26:5).

Second, Paul's activity as persecutor of the early church was recounted repeatedly in the book of Acts (Acts 8:3; 9:1). In his Letters, the apostle regularly acknowledged this ignominious part of his past (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13,22-23; Phil 3:6; 1 Tim 1:13).

Third, the accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts (9:1-19; 22:6-21; 26:12-23) are paralleled by Paul's statements in his letters that God “was pleased to reveal His Son in me” (Gal 1:15; see 2 Cor 4:6) and his indignant question to the Corinthians: “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor 9:1; see 15:8). The location of Paul's conversion at or near Damascus is consistent with his statement that, after his visit to Arabia, he “returned to Damascus” (Gal 1:17 NIV).
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Fourth, both Acts and Paul's Letters indicate that he supported himself by his own labor (Acts 20:34; 28:3; 1 Cor 9:18; 1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:7-8).

Fifth, both Acts and Paul's Letters reveal Paul's pattern of going “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
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Sixth, in Acts Paul adapted himself readily to Jews and Gentiles as well as a wide variety of audiences, which is consistent with the one who said: “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. …To those who are outside the law, like one outside the law…to win those outside the law. …I have become all things to all people, so that I might by all means save some. Now I do all this for the gospel” (1 Cor 9:19—23, author's translation).

Seventh, while Luke was perhaps the theologian of salvation history
par excellence
, salvation history was not an alien concept to Paul. Although he stressed the centrality of justification by faith, Paul also viewed the age of law as a parenthesis in salvation history,
a mere interlude in the age of promise that was inaugurated with Abraham and consummated in the gospel (Rom 5:20; Gal 3:15-19).

No wonder Bruce concluded at the end of his essay that the Paul of Acts is the “real Paul.” What is more, “Without Paul's letters we should have a very inadequate and one-sided impression of him, but thanks to Luke's portrayal we have a fuller understanding of Paul's place in the world of his day and of the impact he made on others than if we were dependent on his letters alone.”
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Porter concurred: “[T]he differences between the Paul of Acts and of the letters regarding his person and work, once analyzed in detail, …do not point to significant and sustainable contradictions. …[T]he standard arguments marshalled regarding differences in theology…are also inconclusive.” While there may be differences of emphasis and focus, “the evidence is far from substantiating contradictions.”
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Perhaps most importantly, as Porter pointed out, while the Paul of the Letters was an epistolographer, the Paul of Acts was an orator.
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“What differences there are seem to be fully explicable in terms of Acts and the letters being written by two different authors, with their commonalities pointing to close contact between the two.”
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We therefore conclude with Witherington, “The Paul we see in Acts is not un-Pauline, much less anti-Pauline, but in some cases a Paul we do not hear about in the letters, and in some cases a familiar Paul, though from a different and fresh perspective. It is a Paul interpreted through the eyes of admiration and respect.”
⁴⁰

Alleged Developments in Paul's Thought
⁴¹

In certain scholarly circles it has been fashionable to postulate a pronounced development from Paul's earlier correspondence to his later writings.
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Thus it has been maintained by some that the apostle regressed from an egalitarian (Gal 3:28) to a traditional-conservative gospel,
⁴³
or that his expectation of Christ's return changed during the course of his career from an imminent to a more distant one. To cite yet another example, Bruce discussed and critiqued J. Drane's volume on
Paul: Libertine or Legalist?
which sees the apostle as moving, in good Hegelian fashion, from libertinism in Galatians to a kind of “legalism” in 1 Corinthians and as taking a more balanced approach in 2 Corinthians and
Romans.
⁴⁴
While benevolent assessments speak of perceived changes such as these merely in terms of a further development in Paul's thinking, others consider them to amount to blatant contradictions. Paul, it is alleged, frequently altered his position and was mistaken or confused with regard to the role of the law or other issues.
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