Paul the Teacher
Psalm 85, 86 • Psalm 91, 92
1 Sam. 2: 1-10 • Eph. 2: 1-10 • Matt. 7: 22-27
There was a time in my career when I thought I wanted to do research and write about the rhetoric of Paul's letters. But once I dipped a toe into the voluminous scholarship about Paul, I felt like one of the three blind men trying to describe an elephant, and I put the project aside. Two things I did learn, however, were (a) that Paul (and perhaps others who hung around with Paul and wrote using his name) had an uncanny ability to adapt the tone, stance, and message of his letters to the particular audience he was writing to; and (b) that Paul was nothing if not a forceful, some might say pedantic, teacher.
I pick up the latter characteristic in today's passage from Ephesians. While this epistle might have been a "circular letter," meant to be read to several congregations in Asia Minor, certainly the church in Ephesus was at least a major, if not the primary, audience. And who might the folks at this burgeoning church be? Commentators suggest that many of these new Christians came from Jewish and Hellenistic religious traditions, so Paul's letter, I'd maintain, adopts a kind of "let's get things straight and let's get everyone on the same page" flavor: You were dead, he tells the audience, because you had followed Satan. We all (notice how Paul now includes himself) were "deserving of wrath." But even though we were "dead in our transgressions," God saved us by grace by raising us up in Christ. Any questions? Buehler? Buehler?
The one issue that Paul seems to anticipate a question about is whether one is saved by faith or by works. Paul famously dismisses the difference: We are saved by the grace of God through faith, not by works (notice how he preempts the would-be "good works" boasters), but "we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." A wise, accommodating position to take, both in the century following the first Easter and in our own time.
Written by David Jolliffe
David loves the letters of Paul, is happy to hear a portion of them almost every Sunday, and admits to having been a rather pedantic teacher himself at times.