Category Archives: Paul

Acts 21:17-36 – Dealing with difference (sermon notes)

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[Notes of a sermon preached at St. Andrew’s, Eaton (Norwich) on 4th May, 2025.  The introductory questions were posed with tongue somewhat in cheek.]

Acts 21:17-36

Are you a Calvinist, or an Arminian?

Do you think that the universe was created in six literal days a few thousand years ago, or did it begin with a ‘Big Bang’ nearly 14 billion years ago?

Do you prefer to sing traditional hymns, or contemporary worship songs?

In the current crisis in the Middle East, are your sympathies more with Israel, or with Palestine?…

Acts 9:7/22:9 – What did Paul’s companions see and hear?

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Acts 9:7 (Now the men who were traveling with him stood there speechless, because they heard the voice but saw no one.)

22:9 “Those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.”

Acts 9:7 appears to be saying that Paul’s companions heard but did not see, whereas according to Acts 22:9 they saw but did not hear.

This apparent discrepancy is discussed as a ‘test case’ in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan).…

Paul and the Pastorals: seven questions for doubters

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The Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles (the letters to Timothy and Titus) is often doubted in scholarly circles.  Andrew Wilson notes some ‘probing questions’ from Gerald Bray:

1. Who would have been sufficiently motivated to impersonate Paul, and why?
2. Why did the pseudepigrapher(s) produce three letters when one would have been enough?
3. If (as many claim) the recipients of the Epistles were not deceived, why was their knowledge so easily lost in the next generation?…

Did Paul abandon his wife?

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Wyatt Houtz (The PostBarthian) asks, ‘Why is it so difficult for Christians to accept that Paul abandoned his wife?’

Houtz’s thesis is that it is likely, from the available evidence, that Paul had been married but that he had his wife had separated following his conversion to Christ.

Here are the main steps in the argument.

1. Paul had been married.  It is unthinkable that Paul, as a strict Pharisee (Phil 3:4-6; Gal 1:13-15; Acts 9:1f), would not have been married. …

Paul and Jesus

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Many Bible readers will have wondered why Paul, in his letters, makes so few references to the Jesus of the Gospels.

Does this mean that Paul was the ‘real’ founder of Christianity, with his teaching having very little in common with that of Jesus?

Craig Blomberg writes:

‘An interesting dimension of a number of Paul’s letters, penned in the 50s, especially Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians are the quotations of and allusions to Jesus’ teachings that Paul could not have gotten simply by consulting a Gospel, since none had yet been written.…

2 Cor 12:7 – ‘A thorn in the flesh’

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12:7 So that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant. 12:8 I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Murray Harris (Navigating Tough Texts) identifies the following characteristics of Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’:

1.…

2 Cor 12:12 – ‘The signs of an apostle’

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12:11 I have become a fool. You yourselves forced me to do it, for I should have been commended by you. For I lack nothing in comparison to those “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing. 12:12 Indeed, the signs of an apostle were performed among you with great perseverance by signs and wonders and powerful deeds.

Two questions may be raised.  An exegetical question: do these ‘signs of an apostle’ to refer to miracle-working, or more broadly to a life and ministry consistent with that of an apostle? …

1 Corinthians 11 – was Paul quoting his opponents?

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It has long been recognised that Paul, in 1 Corinthians, sometimes quotes his opponents before giving his own response to their objections and protestations.

It is generally agreed that Paul has written an earlier letter to this church, and is now addressing issues they have raised in response to that letter.  He is, it is thought, voicing their questions and objections back to them in at least the following verses: 1 Cor 6:12, 13; 7:1; 8:1, 8:4; 10:23; and 15:12.…

The Magi – the Damascus connection

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Dwight Longenecker, in his book Mystery of the Magi, proposes that the magi were courtiers from Nabatea (capital: Petra) in Arabia.

Their journey would have been undertaken on horseback and would have taken a few days.

We know from Matthew’s account that they returned by ‘another route’.  This might have taken them to Damascus (which was at that time also part of Arabia, but later became part of the Roman empire).

If the magi sheltered in Damascus, they would have been ‘in their own country’ but sheltered both from Herod and from their own king, Aretas III. …

Did Paul write the Pastorals (and does it matter)?

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Dr Jennifer Bashaw teaches New Testament, Biblical Interpretation, Ministry, and Homiletics at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina.

Dr Bashaw has contributed a piece to Pete Enns’ blog entitled, ‘Did Paul Write the Pastoral Letters? Well, It’s Complicated…’

I think the piece is unfortunate and misleading in a number of ways.

Dr Bashaw begins:

Evangelical (read: fundamentalist) Christians have all sorts of litmus tests for determining if a person is Bible-believing enough for them.…