LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–While the Apostle Paul is often understood as primarily being a theologian or a pastor, in reality he was foremost a missionary and a church planter, a new book on Pauline theology argues.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Thomas Schreiner, professor of New Testament interpretation at the Louisville, Ky., school, is the author of “Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ: A Pauline Theology,” published by InterVarsity Press.
Schreiner argues that the common belief about Paul — that he focused solely on theology — is a bit off base.
“Paul, was first and foremost a missionary,” he writes. “He was not a systematic theologian who wrote treatises in which the various parts of his theology were logically related and explained.”
Schreiner adds that Paul’s letters are deeply theological and that the church should study his arguments carefully and systematically to understand Christian doctrine. However, Schreiner asserts, the explanation of doctrine was not Paul’s primary aim.
“He was a missionary who wrote letters to churches in order to sustain his converts in their newfound faith,” Schreiner writes. “He saw himself as a missionary commissioned by God to extend the saving message of the Gospel to all nations. Thus, he was fulfilling the covenantal promise given to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through Israel.”
Schreiner also includes a chapter on suffering, a key theme that recurs throughout Paul’s writing.
“For Paul, his distinctive apostolic calling was to suffer. His suffering is a means by which the Gospel is brought to the Gentiles,” Schreiner said in an interview. “He is filling up the afflictions of Christ to fulfill the Word of God, to proclaim the Gospel where it hasn’t been proclaimed before.
“I think in a derivative way that’s true of missionaries today and those who proclaim the Gospel. Of course, none of us is an apostle. But God has still willed that, generally, the Gospel goes to new areas, to virgin areas where the Gospel hasn’t been proclaimed through the suffering of the missionaries. The validity and authenticity and credibility of the Word is manifested through the suffering of the messenger.”
The book deals in detail with all key aspects of Pauline theology, such as law and Gospel, the person and work of Christ, the power of sin, justification by faith and the church.
Schreiner also interacts with a newer understanding of Paul’s writings, which is commonly known as the New Perspective. This view, which came to life in the early-1980s, argues that Paul is not the author of many of the epistles traditionally understood to have been a product of his pen.
Some New Perspectives scholars argue that Paul does not intend his writings as an argument against legalism, but against ethnocentrism and exclusivism. Some of them hold that Paul indicts the nationalism of the Jews — but not their legalism.
This view is particularly prevalent among liberal scholars, although versions of it have also found a voice within evangelical scholarship. Schreiner interacts critically with the view and argues for Pauline authorship of all 13 epistles — a view held by most conservative evangelicals.
“[The New Perspective] is an interesting thesis and any new thesis ought to be considered carefully,” he said. But in my reading of the evidence, [it] is mistaken. There is still in Paul an indictment of legalism. Paul does say there is a human inability to keep the law. So I examine this issue in some detail.
“Today you couldn’t write a Pauline theology without dealing with this issue. I don’t interact extensively with other scholars, but I had to deal with that issue and others along the way.”
The heart and hub of Schreiner’s book is its relationship between the theology of Paul and God’s glory — thus the title. Schreiner says that Paul’s theology is always written with the ultimate goal of displaying God’s glory in Christ.
“When we look at Pauline theology, so many people have (themes) like justification or redemptive history, or reconciliation or new creation,” Schreiner said. “And I think all those things are very important in Paul. But I argue that all of Paul’s theology is intended to magnify God in Christ. That’s what the book is about. ”
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