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The Paradox of “Theological” or “Pastoral” Readings

It should strike us as curious that readers today approach even Paul’s genuine letters to discover his “theology.” After all, we do not have a sample of the message Paul initially proclaimed to gather a community (although many interpreters have tried to read Romans as such). Rather, all of the letters were written to assemblies some time after Paul—or, in the case of Romans, others—had founded them. In his letters, Paul sought to strengthen or, occasionally, as he saw it, to correct their adherence to Christ. As a consequence, the letters have a theological character, but they never spell out his convictions in any systematic way. Paul often leaves a key conviction unspoken, since he could presume his audience already had heard, or heard about, his proclamation. The letters are therefore problematic sources, at best, from which the premises and contours of “Paul’s theology” might be constructed as an exercise of historical imagination.

The passage from Philippians cited above, for example, shows that Paul’s understanding of the death of Jesus already depended on traditions he received from early assemblies that preceded him. He explicitly acknowledged as much when he wrote to the Corinthians, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). Note that Paul does not explain here which Scriptures he has in mind, or just what dying “for our sins” meant. In fact, Paul could describe the salvific value of Christ’s death in different ways: as a “sacrifice of atonement” (hilastērion, Rom. 3:24–25), though Paul never elaborates a comparison with the ritual of the Day of Atonement (as does Hebrews); or as the slaughter (NRSV: “sacrifice”) of a Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7)—a very different ritual!—or as deliverance from the “curse” of Deut. 21:23, though, again, this reference seems to have played no larger part in his thinking (Gal. 3:13). Surprisingly, amid these diverse and conflicting metaphors, Paul never offers even a rudimentary explanation of just how he understands Christ to have “died for our sins.” He is more concerned, in Romans, to insist that those who have “died with Christ” in baptism (another dramatic metaphor that is simply asserted, not explained) can no longer live in sin, having been joined to Christ’s obedience (Romans 5–6).

His purpose in these letters (and in the apostolic work of which they are occasional instruments) has been described as “pastoral.” This might also strike us as curious, since Paul was not evidently interested in the sort of long-term spiritual accompaniment of individuals and families in settled congregations that we associate today with pastoral ministry. (Indeed, he seems intentionally to have left such work to others whom he described as his “coworkers,” synergoi.) The “daily pressure” about which Paul complained to the Corinthians, caused by his “anxiety for all the assemblies” (“churches”: 2 Cor. 11:28 NRSV), was less oriented to the self-fulfillment of individuals than to the sanctity in which they were to maintain themselves. (“Saints”—literally, “holy ones” [hagioi]—was Paul’s preferred designation for members of his assemblies.) Looking at the non-Jewish world through the eyes of a Hellenistic Jew, Paul regarded the hallmarks of such holiness in the avoidance of the vices characteristic of that world—the worship of other gods, using tangible forms (“idolatry”), and a range of sexual transgressions to which he simply referred as “immorality” (porneia: see Gaca; Ruden)—and the maintenance of an ethos of affectionate mutual regard characteristic of the idealized Roman household. Paul sought to establish a sort of baseline of such holiness and then, on an ad hoc basis, to perform whatever corrections were needed to maintain it. We might consider Paul “pastoral,” then, to the extent that he was an “advisor” who “counseled” his congregations “in order to be able to present them to Christ at his coming, which Paul expected in the near future” (Dahl, 73, citing Rom. 15:16; 1 Cor. 1:8; 2 Cor. 11:2; Phil. 1:10–11; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23).

He described his work to the Romans in terms of priestly service (latreuein, Rom. 1:9; diakonos, leitourgos, hierourgōn, 15:8, 16, terms associated with public ritual action). He sought to present to God “the obedience of the nations” (Rom. 15:17; see 1:5–6), represented in each city by the holy living of individuals on whom he called to present their bodies as “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1–2), and on an international scale by the sanctified “offerings [prosphora] of the nations” (Rom. 15:16–17). The latter phrase rang with the language of the prophet Isaiah’s vision in which the earth’s nations streamed to Jerusalem, bearing tribute and joining in the worship of Israel’s God (see Isaiah 60, and Paul’s quotations in Rom. 15:8–13); but also with echoes of an imperial vision in which conquered peoples offered their gifts to Caesar (e.g., Virgil, Aeneid 8.720–23). More prosaically, it referred to the collection of money Paul had gathered from various assemblies in Achaia and Macedonia as “aid for the poor among the saints” in Jerusalem (Rom. 15:25–26). Paul hoped those funds would be received as more than relief, as evidence of a fulfillment of messianic prophecy.

It appears, then, that what might be called the “pastoral” aspect of Paul’s work had a much nearer eschatological horizon than many church leaders acknowledge today as they plan decades-long ministerial careers. Even Paul’s expression of concern for “all the assemblies” in 2 Corinthians comes at the end of a recital of dangers Paul had faced in travels abroad (11:23–27). His letters responded to situations that arose after Paul had departed from one city or another, usually after a relatively brief stay—just sufficient to inaugurate an assembly. (Paul’s longest stays in a single place, according to the book of Acts, were eighteen months in Corinth and a little more than two years in Ephesus—hardly what many contemporary denominations would consider lengthy “pastorates.”) Neither did Paul apply himself to what we might call “church growth.” To judge from one admittedly conflictual but nonetheless telling situation, he gave thanks that during his initial stay in Corinth he had baptized only Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas (1 Cor. 1:14–16); the increase of the Corinthian congregation under the baptismal ministry of Apollos, and the lively competition of perspectives that increase generated, precipitated a crisis for him (1 Cor. 2:1–3:15). Paul seems to have regarded innovation with suspicion: his interventions were intended to preserve the assemblies in an initial, pristine state of “holiness” as they awaited the imminent return of Christ. This aspect of Paul’s work shows him ever on the move, eager to establish fledgling congregations and then to move on. He looks back, through his letters or the efforts of his colleagues, to maintain the sanctity of a congregation over what he clearly believes will be the short term.

The culmination of Paul’s story, however, was a series of disappointments bordering on the tragic. We cannot say whether his views immediately prevailed in controversies in Corinth or in Rome. We do know, however, that the anxiety he expressed concerning his last journey to Jerusalem, bearing the collection, was more than warranted. The story told in Acts 21 describes controversy in Jerusalem over Paul’s allegiance to the Torah and the accusation—which Luke considers false—that Paul had brought some, at least, of his non-Jewish delegates into the precincts of the temple that were reserved for Jews alone (21:28–29). The riot that ensued set Paul on a narrative road that ends in Rome, whither he was sent on charges of civil unrest that he was compelled to appeal before the emperor (Acts 22–28).

The deep symbolic significance Paul attached to the collection, his reason for being in Jerusalem, goes unmentioned in Acts; so also, then, is any hint at the effect of its failure on him. Also missing is any account of Paul’s subsequent hearing before Nero, or any reference to Paul’s execution, on the emperor’s authority, events reported in other sources (Acts of Paul 10.6; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25.5). Instead of these catastrophes, Luke offers the reader the triumph of Paul speaking the word of proclamation boldly before assembled philosophers in Athens (17:16–34); before the Roman procurators Felix and Festus and the Judean king Agrippa (chapters 24–26); and—for the first time in the narrative—before an unbiased synagogue audience, in Rome itself (28:17–22). These accomplishments fulfill Jesus’ prophecy that his followers would take his word “before kings and governors” (Luke 21:12), and incorporate Paul’s last days in Rome within Luke’s theme of the inexorable spread of the word “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). But these triumphant notes come at the cost of what Luke must suppress. The reader will not learn from Acts how much hung, for Paul, on the journey to Jerusalem. Nor does Luke convey the purpose behind Paul’s fervent attempts to conform the non-Jews in his assemblies to a life of holiness: namely, in order to impress upon his fellow Jews that they were living in the last days (see Romans 11).

It appears enough for Luke that Paul helped to inaugurate the church of Jews and non-Jews (though he is careful to stipulate that the important first steps were taken by Peter in Joppa, Acts 10). Just so, in the generation after Paul’s death, another writer represented the core of Paul’s gospel as the “mystery” that God intended Jews and non-Jews to worship together in the name of Christ (Eph. 3:1–6). But while Paul had hoped the “obedience of faith among the nations” would manifest the fulfillment of scriptural promises to Israel, the author of Ephesians understood the Pauline “mystery” to involve the dispensability of Torah itself, its having been “abolished” by Christ (katargēsas, Eph. 2:13–16)—an idea that was unthinkable for Paul himself (see Rom. 3:31).

The attention given to reading and interpreting Paul’s letters today, especially in churches, may then be described as paradoxical. The paradox lies not just in the fact that these letters were manifestly written to others, centuries ago. It is also a matter of the letters being directed to achieve specific ends that made sense within an eschatological scenario that has not just been “delayed,” but has manifestly failed. When Paul is read today simply as the champion of a law-free, “gentile” Christianity, he is being read through the lens of Ephesians and Acts. But this is to impose onto Paul’s letters the “perfect hindsight” that our place “downstream” from him allows us. The temptation for those of us who find our place in the current of gentile Christianity is to imagine that our religion is what Paul sought to found.

The Paradox of Paul’s Authority

Some passages in the letters suggest that Paul may have not been the clearest of communicators. In places, Paul seeks to “correct” or manage what he considers his audience’s mistaken apprehension of his own earlier teaching (see 1 Cor. 2:1–6; 5:9–13; 1 Thess. 4:13–18), or hints at obligations that were perhaps not explicit earlier (e.g., the master’s “duty” in Philem. 8). He admonishes the Corinthians for grievously misunderstanding the nature of the Lord’s Supper, though he had passed along to them traditions he obviously considered important (1 Cor. 11:17–34). He is “astonished” at how quickly the Galatians have deserted his teaching (Gal. 1:6–9), though he refers obliquely to having taught something else earlier (did he once “preach circumcision,” 5:11? Is he now “building up” what he once “tore down,” 2:18?). In none of these passages does Paul admit that he has changed his mind, or that he might not have spoken clearly in the first place—even when his advice appears to remain contradictory (compare his advice on food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10:14–22). Further, his readers may well have been confused when he took a different tack than what they may have heard from the tradition of Jesus’ words—regarding questions of marriage and divorce, for example (1 Corinthians 7), or his refusal of the support to which apostles are entitled (1 Corinthians 9). They might have been as vexed by his sometimes cavalier attitude to the authority of other apostles (Gal. 2:11–14; 2 Cor. 11:1–6), or his fierce denunciations of “other” gospels (Gal. 1:6–9; 2 Cor. 11:4). If Paul had such difficulty communicating with his first hearers, perhaps the contemporary reader may be forgiven for not finding the meaning of his letters transparent!

Precisely because Paul’s letters have been read, preached, cherished, annotated, and exposited over centuries of Christian practice, they present their contemporary readers with another paradox that we might call a “lexical illusion.” Put simply, we read Paul, and more, we read Paul as a part of the Bible. We thus may think of him as an influential and articulate writer, picking up his pen to express sublime thoughts. This would have surprised many of Paul’s contemporaries, however, for whom Paul was not, first of all, a writer. (Some adversaries in Corinth contemptuously declared that his letters were the weightiest aspect of his work, and even these were unimpressive: see 2 Cor. 10:9–10.) Nor would many of those who knew him best have regarded him primarily as a “thinker,” and certainly not one whose authority was unquestioned. Indeed, one of the most vivid impressions one gets from these letters is that of an ardent and often scrappy polemicist. Paul appears frequently to argue for a viewpoint or a practice that he expects to be controversial, at least, and likely contested by at least a few of his hearers. The Corinthian correspondence shows that Paul faced considerable opposition from some of the more influential members of that assembly who found his arguments unconvincing. Paul’s prominence in our New Testament hardly justifies the assumption that his voice normally prevailed in his own day.

It is a commonplace that as readers of Paul’s letters, we are “listening in” on only one half of a conversation, but even this is putting the matter too simply. We are listening to an intensely opinionated correspondent! The reverence Paul is accorded in the Christian tradition for his role as paramount guide into the practices of new life “in Christ” is, in large part, the mirror image of the significance Paul claims for himself as he addresses “his” congregations. They may have many guides in Christ, but “not … many fathers,” he tells the Corinthians in a characteristic claim (1 Cor. 4:15); he is an example to be imitated (Phil. 3:17). His letters often give a contemporary reader the sense of riding an emotional roller coaster. In the rhetoric of 1 and 2 Corinthians, for example, Paul alternates between assuring a community that the Spirit of Christ dwells among them, guiding them and guaranteeing their holiness, and shaming them for not living up to even the rudimentary standards of the pagan world (1 Cor. 5:1–8). To contemporary readers more accustomed to modern ideals of mutual respect and equality among persons, Paul’s rhetoric may come across as authoritarian, perhaps even coercive or abusive.

It is the enduring gift of feminist scholarship to have clarified that in his letters (and, we may presume, in his initial face-to-face efforts as well), Paul might claim, but could never presume, his authority. Indeed, in correspondences such as the Corinthian letters, he appears to be scrambling to find the rhetorical ground from which to assert a right to a hearing. We must take into account, then, not only the existence of another “half” of a conversation but also the possibility that Paul’s construal of one or another situation was a minority opinion and may even, on occasion, have been unintelligible to his readers. The point may seem subtle, but it is an important principle to which feminist interpretation calls much-needed attention. A view of biblical authority that presumes Paul’s voice would have prevailed, simply because it was his, is anachronistic. It takes Paul’s letters “out of the public domain where argument is in order and where Paul’s strong arguments could have social impact.” Careful attention to the way Paul argued shows that he never presumed his voice was sufficient to settle an issue. Rather, he hoped to gain the assent of his hearers to his arguments “because they are convincing” (Wire, 10, emphasis added). Today as well, when various and competing appeals are made to this or that passage in Paul’s letters, the same principle suggests that mere resort to biblical authority is insufficient and inappropriate: thoughtful and ethical discernment remains our shared responsibility, within the churches no less than in the public square.