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?…

12 things God cannot do

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We often focus on what God can do.  But think for a moment of what he cannot do:

He cannot

  • learn
  • be surprised
  • change his mind
  • be seen
  • bear to look at evil
  • change
  • be lonely
  • suffer
  • die
  • be tempted
  • lie
  • disown himself.

But consider, too, that in the Incarnation God did what he cannot do:

  • God cannot learn, yet Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge
  • God cannot be tempted, yet Jesus knew the fullness of temptation
  • God cannot suffer and die, and yet Jesus experienced suffering and death

God cannot sleep. …

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:16-40

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(a) In the lead-up to this imprisonment, Paul deals with a slave girl ‘who had a spirit’. It is not immediately obvious that this was an evil spirit. Why might we suppose that this was indeed an evil spirit and that Paul was right to make it leave the girl?

(b) Paul’s (and his companions’) visit to Philippi was in direct response to a vision from God (verses 6-10). But it led them into big trouble with the authorities, and to flogging and imprisonment.…

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:11-15

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Lydia is described as a woman who ‘worshiped’ God, whose heart the Lord ‘opened…to respond to Paul’s message’.

(a) What do you think it meant for Lydia to have been a ‘worshiper of God’?  Who today might be similarly described, but has yet to hear and respond to the Christian message?

(b) Lydia’s experience of coming to Christian faith seems to have been quite calm and unspectacular.  Paul’s, on the other hand, had been much more dramatic. …

Acts 16:10, etc. – The ‘we’ passages

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Acts 16:10 After Paul saw the vision, we attempted immediately to go over to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

16:11 We put out to sea from Troas and sailed a straight course to Samothrace, the next day to Neapolis, 16:12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of that district of Macedonia, a Roman colony. We stayed in this city for some days.…

1 Cor 11:29 – Eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’

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11:27 Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 11:28 A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. 11:29 For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself.

What is meant by eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’?…

Exhortation in the New Testament

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Exhortation in the preaching of Jesus

Characteristics of Jesus’ preaching:

  • Appeal to the OT (32 times in Matthew, quoting 11 different books).
  • Practical application of the text.
  • Use of illustrations.
  • Preaching for a verdict.

The Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) presents practical applications of the law (e.g. anger (5:21–26), lust (5:27–30), loving your enemies (5:43–48), giving to the needy (6:1–4), and so on), but Jesus does not stop there.  He concludes his sermon with a series of exhortations (Mt 7:13-27):

‘As Jesus began his conclusion, he gave a powerful word picture showing that his sermon does, in fact, demand a response.

…

The Angel Gabriel

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Mitch Chase notes that Gabriel is mentioned in just two books of the Bible: Daniel 8:16; 9:21 and Luke 1:19,26.

In the Daniel passages, Gabriel makes known events that were to occur in the distant future.

In the Luke passages, Gabriel makes known near-future events.  A son is to be born to Zechariah and also to Mary.

There are a number of points of comparison.  Looking first at Daniel and Zechariah:

  • The Jerusalem temple.  In Dan 8:11-14, Daniel learned that something would happen to the temple. 
…

How Messianic are the Psalms?

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This question is discussed by Stephen Kneale.

Do we look for Christ in all the psalms, or only in this customarily considered to be Messianic?

Expositors from Augustine to Luther tended to take the maximalist approach.  Calvin, however, stressed the original contexts of the psalms, and so adopted a more minimal interpretation.

In recent times, Bonhoeffer and Ash have leant towards the maximalist position, whereas others, including Dale Ralph Davis, incline towards a more limited reading.…

Was Mary literally a ‘slave’?

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Luke 1:38 So Mary said, “Yes, I am a servant of the Lord; let this happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The word translated ‘servant’ is doulos, ‘slave’.

It has been speculated (by Mitzi J. Smith, J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, and Professor of Gender Studies at the University of South Africa, followed by Candida Moss and Keith Giles) that Mary’s self-designation may imply that she was actually a slave (and Jesus himself a slave, as the son of a slave woman).…