Paul or Jesus?

2d year Greek student echo the title, but
it's after two years of Pauline Exegesis.

If you were given a choice, would you have dinner with Jesus or Paul? I’m willing to bet we would all choose Jesus. Let’s face it, everybody likes Jesus better than Paul. Jesus bucked the religious and political authorities; Paul is accused of perpetuating slavery. Little children wanted to sit with Jesus; Paul reminded the church that women shouldn’t speak during the meeting. Jesus actually turned water into wine; Paul probably began the tradition of serving grape juice at the Lord’s Supper. Jesus went around telling stories; Paul went around telling people how to live their lives. In the world in which we live, stories are valuable cultural currency, but putting forward some type of ethical standard comes across as judgmental.

J. R. Daniel Kirk’s book, Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? A Narrative Approach to the Problem of Pauline Christianity (Grand Rapids, Baker: 2011), addresses the growing divide in our culture between Jesus and Paul, which appears to have begun as early as Peter, who had trouble understanding Paul. Kirk makes the case that in reality Jesus and Paul really aren’t that far a part. If we read Jesus carefully, we’ll actually see that he puts forward a standard for those who wish to follow him. And Paul, just like Jesus, believes that God is saving the world through those who are marginalized through society. When we set the two in conflict, we are most likely not reading them accurately.

For me, two aspects of the book stand out. 

First, in the subtitle, Kirk notes that he comes to Paul through narrative. By this, Kirk means that you have to understand the worldview that is behind Paul’s thinking to actually understand Paul. Once that’s clear, then Paul’s writing will begin to make sense. And the divide between Jesus and Paul won’t look so great. Worldview is narrative, or a story about how the world functions. One way to define the Christian life or maturity, is by seeking to conform our own worldview to the worldview of the Bible. I’ve written about this in brief here.

Many biblical theologians will say that theologizing with Gospel literature is more implicit than the didactic literature we get from Paul, and therefore more difficult. This assumes that Paul writes in a straightforward manner. In truth a narrative runs behind Paul’s own theology, and if you don’t understand Paul’s backstory of God’s work through Israel, Jesus, and the church, you'll misunderstand Paul himself. The tragedy is that many who assume that they understand Paul really don’t, because they don’t share the values of the apostle, or understand God’s story they way that he does.

This is becoming somewhat of a popular approach to Pauline theology. Timothy Gombis has written a book about understand the narrative behind Ephesians. A few years ago, Ben Witherington wrote a similar book on approaching Paul through narrative.

Second, Kirk looks at a number of current issues and addresses them through his understanding of the Christian narrative. This is a marked difference in recent work in biblical theology. In the past, biblical theology has been descriptive of the text. The second part of Kirk’s book investigates current issues from women in ministry to homosexuality. Readers will not agree with Kirk on all of these issues, but his critique that Christians have engaged the discussion in a markedly unchristian manner is right on.

For me, good biblical theology should be descriptive, but it should also call us to respond. The Christian story ought to challenge us and our approach to the world. This is a step in the right direction.

What problems have you had with Paul? If you had a chance, how would you steer the conversation at dinner?

Coke Zero--The Power of "And"

When I was a kid, I could only drink one coke a day, so I planned out when I would drink it, or else I would wait for a particularly busy day and sneak two. Once my metabolism slowed down, I learned to drink Diet Coke. It took a while to acquire the taste, but the thought of drinking all of the Coke I wanted was worth it. Pretty soon I became a Diet Coke fiend. Then Coca-Cola came out with Coke Zero--Real Coke taste without the calories. Now I ask waiters if they have Coke Zero. If they don't, I ask for water and glare hoping that they will report to the management the disappointment of another Coke Zero loving customer.

Just recently Coke Zero came out with a genius ad campaign playing off the the conjunction “and” which holds their tagline together. Why settle? You can have real Coke taste AND zero calories. What a deal!? The lead of the commercial loves the power of ‘and.’ He thinks about the times that he refused to settle. It starts at an early age when he upgrades his ice cream with sprinkles by saying “and.” He accepts a job with a great salary and negotiates stock options by simply saying “and.” He goes to bed with the store clerk who helps at the store by just saying “and” when she asks if she can assist him. 

The message is that you can get more out of life by just using the little conjunction. This idea of not settling but grabbing all that you can, really all that you can get resonates with our culture. The consumer mentality that we can never get enough, that we'll never be satisfied, that we ought to get what we deserve, resonates with the Coke Zero ‘and.’ Don’t become a victim of the tyranny of the ‘or.’

Coca-Cola has come a long way from a bunch of hippies on a hill singing about needing to teach the world a song. Before all we needed was a Coke and a smile. The message cuts against the grain of New Testament so much that its hard to think of a single text that addresses this mentality--many come to mind. James states that we don’t have what we ask for because we ask with wrong motives (James 4:1-3). Paul states that whatever he has gained, he counts as loss for the sake of gaining what’s truly important, being found in Christ (Phil 3:7-11). Jesus states that true gain comes from God (Matt 6:25-34). The New Testament provides a unified voice that we should focus on following Christ and seeking his kingdom. All else is futile.

So what if the and gets a little more. The little more will only take us further from where we need to be in Christ.

Green Exegesis

I just finished Richard Bauckham's book Living with other Creatures: Green Exegesis and Theology. Independent of that I stumbled upon a TED talk by Naomi Klein on the Western addiction to risk. The TED talk was about the environment, but its title was a little misleading--“Addicted to Risk.” Both Bauckham and Klein make a similar argument, but on wholly different grounds.

Bauckham’s work responds to an article that lays the blame of the current ecological crisis at the feet of the church. Bauckham responds that the real problem isn’t the church, but a modern approach to the Bible that views the world as a resource that needs to be exploited. Essentially Bauckham agrees with White, but claims its not the Bible that maintains that position. The problem is that we read the Bible in a culture that has taken on thought that the world is at our disposal.

On the other hand, Klein criticizes the prevalent western addiction to risk for our current ecological crisis. Our questions highlight some of the thinking: instead of asking how to keep the planet from getting hotter, we ask how hot can we get the planet before we have to do something different.

The responses that we have to ecological problems usually are high risk/high reward and usually executed without a lot of thought. Klein points to the idea of the junkshot, or the idea of shooting trash down a hole to stop a leak. This was an attempt of BP to stop the leak in the gulf. It didn’t work. It reminds me of a  German saying: “keep the ball low”--stay conservative.

Though Bauckham and Klein are coming from different perspectives, they both take a similar slant on ecological issues. They’re platform is to analyze the dominant cultural scripts at play in our culture and how they impact our behavior. In this case, the idea of consumerism is at work. We thrive on what we can consume. Bauckham’s point is that the biblical understanding of dominion in Gen 1-3 means that we ought to protect the environment, not exploit it. Klein argues that our addiction to risk and the belief that we have unlimited access to resources is the root of our approach to the environment with little regard for for the consequences. Both show how a dominant cultural narrative is challenged. Its interesting to see from both Bauckham and Klein.

Christianity calls us to something similar. Part of being a Christian is to look at the scripts that are at play within our own world and challenge them with the Christian narrative. Paul tells the Ephesians that as children of light they expose the the shameful things in the dark. This means that we have to understand our own Christianity, but also understand the culture in which we live and how our Christian belief challenges it.