One of the main areas I’m working on at the moment is Pauline ethics: For many months now I’ve been wrestling with the question: How does Paul think Christians should live – and on what basis does he think this? So I’ve been going through Paul’s letters, reading up on OT ethics, Greco-Roman ethics, early Jewish ethics, Jesus’ ethics, apocryphal ethics… I’ve been reading books on New Testament ethics (Furnish, Horrell, Hays, Burridge, Rosner, Countryman…), and trying to be as attentive as possible to Paul’s thought.
I haven’t yet finished my current paper (I’m up to 50 pages) but I hope to give it to my supervisor in a week. One thing that has intrigued me is that Paul often seems to use very similar imagery to deal with very similar issues, in a very similar order. Here is a little snippet from the paper that I’m currently working on:
It would seem that for Paul, fundamental ethical godlessness or idolatry may be encapsulated both with the attitude of bold self-assertion (in terms of greed or passionate desire) and with the bodily practice of impurity/sexual immorality. Thus the movement that can be described judicially by Paul as being from boastful works to divine justification; and which can be described relationally by Paul as being from heart-hardened enmity to reconciliation, can also be described ethically by Paul as being from passionate covetous impurity to surrendered loving incorporation.
The church comes to the Christ of the bodily resurrection, and, being bound to him by faith, crucifies sexual immorality, impurity and greed. The members of the personal body are offered to God as risen instruments of righteousness, and each individual finds themself to be a member of Christ’s own body, in which mutual love reigns.
RSS - Posts
The answer to your question is found in 2 Cor 5:20. That, my young friend, is the very core of Paul’s ethic and theology.
And Norelli’s on your roll and I’m not? Now THAT’S ghastly and unethical!
Yep I agree absolutely that Paul’s theology and ethics share a centre, in Jesus Christ himself. And that will be the basic argument of my paper – that Pauline ethics is rigorously Christological… the rest of my paper is an attempt to spell out what Paul envisages it will look like in practice.
And as for the blogroll, consider me rebuked… note that you now appear ahead of nick in the list – mind you it is alphabetical!!
Alphabetical indeed, for I was one of the originals, even when he was on the heinous Blogspot!
Matthew, your snippet has me intrigued. Any chance of getting a copy of the paper when it is finished?
Yeah – thanks for the interest. I’ll be curious to hear what you think of it. Besides giving the whole paper to my supervisor, I’ll be giving portions to a couple of other scholars, and there’s someone at another University who’s considering some related issues, so I’ve promised him a copy of the whole thing too. I think there is room within New Testament studies to continue to stretch our understanding of Paul’s ethics – we’ll see how things go
Let’s hope there is room to “continue to stretch” our understanding of Paul and his ethics!
G’day Matthew,
Stumbled onto your blog via Chris Tilling. I’m actually writing my Master’s thesis on Paul’s ethics (albeit on his political ethics in particular, and their relation to his eschatology [as well as the way in which that relates to the political eschatology of Rome, and the political eschatology of global capitalism... but I digress]), and would love to be able to read this paper.
If this idea makes you uncomfortable, I completely understand, in which case I’d love to see your bibliography! I’m more than willing to share bibliographical (or whatever other) material as well!
Grace and peace,
Dan
Hi Dan,
Sounds interesting: There is an essay by Philip Goodchild on Paul’s political theology that you might find interesting, here: http://www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php
I’m not persuaded by everything in the essay, but it certainly raises some provocative questions, along similar lines to your thesis.
I’m happy to forward you a copy of my own paper as well… I’ll give it to my supervisor and discuss it with him next week, so I’ll pass it on after that.
Hope the research is coming along well
Matthew: I have received the paper, thanks! I’ll give it a read as soon as possible.