Material relating to sin
1. Paul draws a connection between increasing and abounding in love and being established blameless in holiness before God (3:12-13). We don't want to read this anachronistically and invest some wholesale theology into the words.
But it's hard to deny that Paul links loving one another and, indeed, all people with being blameless in holiness before God. Holiness has to do with being in a condition appropriate to belonging to God. We often speak of this condition in terms of purity, and that works. But we should notice that "purity" in such things is a very "deep" construct. It is not like telling a shirt is dirty because it has stains or smudges. Impurity in religion is, from an anthropological perspective, can appear somewhat arbitrary from those looking in from the outside.
Paul here implies that wholeness, blameless holiness before the Christian Jewish God, implies loving one another and in fact all.
2. In the first part of 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul is clearly concerned with "how it is necessary to walk and please God" (4:1). There is no sophisticated theology here. It says what it says. Believers have to please God in how they live, period.
The will of God is their "sanctification," their holiness 4:2). Paul then gives one poignant example of what this might mean--"that you stay away from sexual immorality." We should be careful not to equate holiness here straightforwardly as ethics. Rather, holiness implies certain ethics.
To be in a condition appropriate belonging to the Christian Jewish God, abstention from sexual immorality is required. Someone who participates in sexual immorality is not "blameless in holiness."
Paul then presents a sexual ethic that holds ones "vessel," one's body, "in holiness/sanctification and honor" (4:4). I presume that Paul has men primarily in mind. They are not to operate "with the passion of desire" like the Gentiles, wronging their brother.
The brother would most naturally refer to a fellow believer. Paul indicates that God will avenge that brother (4:6). Whether Paul has in mind committing adultery with a believer's wife or sleeping with his daughter, I don't think we can say. Perhaps Paul has all such things in mind.
Paul contrasts "uncleanness" with "holiness/sanctification" in 4:7. Uncleanness is simply that which is inappropriate for someone belonging to the Christian Jewish God. The person who rejects these ideas is not rejecting Paul but "the God who gave his Spirit, his Holy Spirit to you (plural).
The presence of the Holy Spirit inside believers individually and corporately is very relevant, for it is the Holy Spirit more than anything else that makes a person be in a status of belonging to God. Uncleanness is incompatible with God's presence in a person--holiness and uncleanness represent opposite statuses or conditions.
Other matters of interest
1. Whether Paul was still in Athens when he was writing, 3:1-2 tell us that Paul had sent Timothy to Thessalonica to make sure they were holding up under persecution. Timothy has just returned at the writing of the letter (3:6).
This sequence poses a small issue with regard to Acts. In Acts, Paul leaves Timothy and Silas behind in Berea, while he goes on to Athens (17:14-15). Acts does not tell us about them rejoining him until 18:5. By contrast, 1 Thessalonians has Paul and Silas in Athens sending Timothy back to Thessalonica.
I personally don't think that Acts means to be precise in its history, so I am not bothered to try to reconcile these accounts. I am very willing to believe they can be reconciled. But my default inkling is to go with Paul and see 1 Thessalonians written from Corinth, with Paul and Silas sending Timothy back to Thessalonica when they were at Athens.
2. Paul considers persecution to be appointed to at least him and Silas, but he may imply persecution is appointed for all believers (3:3-4).
3. Paul refers presumably to Satan as "the tempter" in 3:5.
4. Paul apparently expects the Thessalonians to be alive when Christ returns (3:13).
5. Of course the eschatological passage of 4:13-18 has many interesting facets. I have suggested that Paul did not discuss the resurrection much with the Thessalonians while he was there, his focus being almost completely on the second coming or parousia, as he puts it.
Paul refers to the dead as those who sleep, and I am not sure that Paul had any sense of an intermediate state for the dead at this point in his ministry (he would later, I believe). Notice it is only the dead in Christ who rise. If Paul believed that the OT saints would be a part of the resurrection at this point in his life, he gives us no indication of it.
N. T. Wright has suggested that meeting in the air should be understood on the model of a group going out to welcome an ambassador approaching a city in order to lead the person in. I do think Paul sees us meeting Christ in the air not to go off to heaven but to assemble for participation in the judgment of the world and of angels.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
In your first writing on Thessalonians, you state in conclusion that the "Jews opposed Christ and Paul may not know the truth either", then you state "Paul doesn't address the state of their knowledge"...I would think that this is where reason (the academic disciplines) is to be used with Scripture (as Tradition) in coming to understand fully what God intends for today! These Jewish believers were not perfect in their knowledge...(understanding)..and we are commended in Scripture to seek understanding...(wisdom)
In today's entry, you state that "from the anthropological standpoint" the definition of sin would seem a little fuzzy...Again, wouldn't we use reason in understanding the "Tradition" of Scripture...not taking wholesale the Book as Written, but understanding the interplay between the Book, Tradition, and the prevailing Philosophy (culture). That is why I think it was important for the Church Fathers to formulate an "apology" for the faith in the earliest centuries...that is what maintaining the "tradition" without limiting "revelation" through the "academic sciences"...
In specifiying sexual purity, Paul was setting boundaries around the family structure...But, as you have stated that loving one another is the fulfillment of the "law"...that means that when one loves (meaning wanting the best for someone, not wishing ill on someone and blessing that someone), God is pleased...it is not about lines and definitions of "Sin", but a full hearted acceptance of another because of Christ...This was what the Ten Commandments were all about..and yes, I do believe that it is about ethics...that is "faith"...in that we each must stand before God with our conscience clear as to what HE wants...not what others necessarily want for us, no matter how "benevolent"...No one can determine for another "what God will is"...but can "help" define, clarify and affirm someone's "call"...The work of the "spirit" is God's work and not man's...(that does not mean that we don't need one another in gaining insight)...God only deisres worship...and that may have many "looks"...it is the heart that is important...(that is what faith is all about)!And Faith is how we are justified!
I went back and reread the sentence... HA! It was not clearly worded at all! The sense of it was "those who opposed Christ and Paul" ... "may not know the truth either." What I meant was that they may not have intentionally opposed God's will.
Perhaps I should also make clear what I am doing here. In these posts I am asking what was in Paul's head rather than how these writings might apply to us as Scripture. In other words, I am engaging in historical research to ask what Paul's theology was rather than what our theology should be. The two are related but not exactly the same.
In the vast scheme of things, purity and impurity are fuzzy things, I believe. For example, it is hard to imagine any "objective" reason why pork would be any more unclean than lamb, but it was for ancient Israel. In the words of Paul, if someone thinks a food is unclean, then it is unclean. Although sexual uncleanness still remains deeply engrained in our psyches, I'm not sure that we could demonstrate a significantly concrete (as opposed to theological) basis for our thinking here.
If I'm playing the original meaning game, I'm not allowed to bring in the Ten Commandments or the family or even the two great love commandments unless Paul seems to be thinking about them. I will be able to show this about the two great commandments.
The discipline of the original meaning game is not to import into the discussion anything but what the text indicates Paul brought into the discussion. Broader theological language games are perfectly legitimate too--in fact are more Christian, I would say. But in these posts I am trying to play the historical game...
I am SOOOOO glad that you see the "blameless and holy" being related to abounding love for the brothers and for everyone, since this is what Jesus says: "Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect" - of course meaning that we ought to be good, generous, forgiving, merciful, kind and LOVING to everyone, not just our friends, but even our enemies and those who can't repay us. I was trying earlier to see if anything like this was implied in 1 John when he says that "love is made complete in us" . . . what do you think?
If you mean "God's will" as written in the text, then that is the Church's business, I guess... I was speaking as to the individual within the context of the Church...and I believe that just as a clear conscience comes by faith and that is in which we stand, then, the Church must guard how it maintains the "freedom of the individual" as far as conscience. Otherwise, just as the Jewish legalist were looking for an occasion to "catch someone" (a self-delegated prophet) would disturb the "peace" of the community....straining out gnats and swallowing camels....
You have stated that judgment is not in opposition to love, but mercy is extended before judgment...We all extend mercy to those we love because we hope that there will be "reasons" to justify an action...we do not delight in judging, but with sorrow do so, when we see there is no other way to address our concern (that has been collaborated with evidence...or still remains a question for us as far as the other's "flourishing")....Judgment is based on defined lines, but are not "set in stone" as we are all fallable...so we in meekness correct others, taking heed to ourselves, lest we also be tempted...Rashness, harshness, or any other "hard" response is not the response of love, as love is patient and kind...tender, merciful, etc...
Taking advantage of someone, whether it is adultry, stealing, or undermining of that person in any way is the breaking of the Commandments and therefore not loving...that is ethics...I don't see how one can break the Commandments and not be aware of it...unless one is not self-reflective, but self-righteous...But, then again, we all "see" through different glasses.
I appreciate your trying to get to the historical thinking of Paul, as that is important in discussing where Jew, Gentile, and Christian intersect, come together, etc...and that is important as to how we understand our faith, develop our theology and apply our ethics....
Just one question about covenant nomism....If Paul didn't delight in his heritage as a Jew, or his tradition as one, then, don't we understand this as the "death of his ego identity"....? And what does this mean as far as our "evangelical Christian identity"????
mzI think Paul was indeed at a stage 6 moral development according to Kohlburg...and since most people do not get beyond a stage 3 or 4 (the religious stage) then, would his thinking be political or contractual...using the "language game of his listeners"or the stage above (as people only grasp the one stage above their development) and yet, knowing that this was the stage of their development...moral order of society, for society's sake...the love for one's enemies reaches stage 6...for it is beyond mutual contractual understanding of morality....and lays down their life for the "cause"....whatever "cause" is deemed worthy of one's life...the Jews functioned on a "moral order" basis...maintaining the "status quo" and THAT was their identity...as they could not "see" or "view" things differently...Jesus, Paul, as any moral model...fulfill a "destiny" from within...as they knew who they were and were not "afraid of thier faces"...but with resolve did the work they were "called" to...and designed for....irregardless of what other's assessment of them would be...(Oh no! Now I "see"...)
Post a Comment