In a recent book on significant studies of the Apostle, Paul Ben Witherington reiterates the complaint "there's an appalling amount of Paul in the New Testament." He is also referring to the "appalling amount" of commentaries and monographs, articles and essays pouring from scholars year on year and decade after decade. Voices and Views on Paul is the sequel to The Paul Quest, a book Witherington wrote in 1998, and still an excellent survey of scholarship on Paul up to that date.
The new book co-authored with Jason Myers, deals with some of the most important developments in our understanding of Paul and includes interaction with some of the towering Pauline scholars – E P Sanders, J D G Dunn, N T Wright, Beverley Gaventa, J L Martyn, Douglas Campbell and John G Barclay are amongst the most influential Pauline scholars of the last four decades. Witherington's book is an exposition of their ideas, with some searching critique and helpful comparative comments on the different approaches taken to the same corpus of biblical text.
But apart from commending both of Witherington's books for their usefulness in orienting us to where we are in the study of Paul's theology and ideas, I mention it for a more personal reason. My long engagement with Paul's letters has included regular reading through the whole 13 letter corpus of the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. It works like this.
Alongside other ways of reading the Bible, for years now I've used a couple of my own reading plans when I want to immerse myself in one section of the Scriptures. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it helps me, and gives discipline and focus to my reading, and if recent research is half-way accurate, might help keep my neural connections sparking!
Years ago I made out a daily reading plan for the Gospels and Psalms, and another for the Letters of Paul which I've used now for a number of years. Each can be completed over three months. As a way of becoming familiar with the texts the process is slow and the benefits cumulative over time.
Like most exercise regimes, regular and repeated circuits have long term positive effects. C H Spurgeon once said he soaked himself in the text until his blood became bibline! I think he meant something like this slow accumulation of text and response, the transformative effects of regular exposure to the good news of God's reconciling love refracted through the lens of his flawed and often vulnerable apostle, and written with hopeful passion and reckless trust in the One whose love was even more reckless in its self-expenditure and hazarding all in obedience to the Father.
What is everywhere evident in the writing of the scholars mentioned above is these scholars' own deep engagement with and detailed familiarity with the biblical text, and Paul in particular. Taken together, they are amongst the most productive, provocative and informative group of scholars writing on any genre or section of the biblical canon. Reading them is helped by having more than a passing acquaintance with what Paul actually wrote, to whom, and for what reasons.
This photo shows the reading plan for the Letters of Paul, but the format works for any set of biblical texts.Tomorrow I launch once again into 2 Corinthians, containing some of Paul's most outspoken, self-revealing writing, some of his most profound theology, and some of the best rhetorical writing on Christians giving money to the work of Christ's reconciling mission.
If you can read chapters 8 and 9 and keep your bank card in protective custody, then you're missing the heart of the Gospel.
If you can read Paul's catalogue of hardships and not realise how easy we have it as Christians today, then perhaps we need personal seminars on sacrifice.
If you can read chapter 5 and not have a deeper sense every time you read it, of the anguish and glory of the Cross, and of the Christian imperative to be ambassadors of Christ and ministers of reconciliation, then somewhere along the line you have missed the whole point of "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself."
And that's just one of Paul's letters.
(Here is a photo of what I use for reading the letters of Paul. Click on the photo to enlarge it to make it more legible.)
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