Corpus-Paul

[Ntsearcher AT aol.com]

This post is rather lengthy as I'm trying to address a number of replies in 
one shot.

I've divided it up into sections with subtitles:

***The Story***

Mark N. sent a wonderfully enlightening and gracious challenge my way. 

Thank you Mark. 

German scholars use the term 'sitzenlaben' (sp?) to describe the situation in 
real life behind the epistles.

It is my own observation that most pastors (the scholar's main audience... 
bracketing that of their colleagues) come to the NT with scissors and glue, 
pasting together various proof texts to dissect the NT.

And it is this cut-and-paste mentality that most modern sermons are built 
around.

(Incidenally, there is a natural influence of our discussions here. scholars 
do research. they publish their findings, teach at seminaries. Pastors are 
the recipients of this information. they in turn teach God's people. so 
whatever is trickling down to the level of the congregation, does have an 
affinity to what's happening in the scholarly world... at least in some 
measure.) 

My obervation: Most of the Body of Christ today is plagued by what I'm about 
to say... because, to my mind, the scholarly community has given great 
attention to dissecting Paul's letters with a microscope at the expense of 
looking at the _entire_ backdrop (=the story) in which they were written with 
a telescope.

Let me explain.

Pick up your NT. Let's get a good look at it. 

In 1227, chapters were added. In 1551, verses were added. 

It has been divied up into disjointed sentences.

What is more: The letters of Paul are not arranged according to their 
chronological order. 

What order then?  

They are arranged according to descending length.. a custom of the time in 
which the corpus was bound.

The problem is that most of us... even scholars... are trained to read the NT 
outside of its historic setting. We have a cut and paste mentality. The out 
of order arrrangement of the NT... plus the numbered sentences... have 
strengthened this approach.

The upshot: The average Christian today, including clergy, is not 
conversantant at all with the entire story of the first century church. Nor 
the background to Paul's letters for instance. But he is very converstant 
with disjointed sentences from books written at different times, places, and 
to different circumstances.He may also specialize in the Greek text. Or even 
the historical setting of each book 'individually'.

But the entire, free flowing saga.

This leads to the seminary.. or bible school... that which produces many 
modern clergy.

In the typical seminary,  acts and paul's letters are divided into 'nt 
studies' and 'church history'. and rarely do the twain meet to make one 
holistic model of what really happened.

i realize that we can't be sure on all details of chronology, etc.. but we 
can construct a model that will help us to understand the NT. we have enough 
information to make attempts at this. even so, if each professor would 
construct their own model, we'd be all the better.

Let me give you an example of how ignorant (i use this in its most benign 
way) we are of 'the story.'

How many of us on this list can, without researching it, rehearse the 
movements of such obscure souls as Apollos, Epaphras, Demas, and Trophimus?

When one looks at the story, they all come to life. And help shed light on 
our NTs.

Or how many of us can rehearse what happened before and after Paul got to 
Thessolonica and discuss what provoked the 2 letters?  What is more, how many 
of us can tell how many books Paul wrote before and after he wrote this 
letter? (use n. galatian or s. galatian theories... take your pick.)

I trust my point is becoming somewhat coherent.

G. Edwards, to my mind, is the only person that has built a NT model of the 
story based upon all avaialbe evidence... arrcheological, social historic, 
etc. 

Like Watchman Nee, T. Austin Sparks, and others preacher/theologians of that 
ilk, Edwards writes at a popular level to broaden his audience and go 
straight to the laymen. it is for that reason that their work is not 
noted/quoted among scholars much. (and why it's not in your toronto library.. 
but silas diary is very new.) 

Yet, their work is built on solid scholarship. and their insights 
sophisticated.

I'm no fan of historical fiction. I'd like to see a work that does the same 
think written from a left brain perspective. the closest i've come across is 
donald guthrie's THE APOSTLES. good, but not detailed enough to my mind.

anyways, i trust this helps to underscore why my question about 'the 
story'... this approach.. is unique and important.

So any sources on this score would be appreciated. And if I've peeked some 
interest in some of you, I'd greatly appreciate it if you were to pick up 
Edwards' THE SILAS DIARY. mark it up. and get back with me. you can email me 
in private if you like. but to my mind, nothing has ever been written that 
has opened up the book of Galatians like this work. (despite that it's in 
written in a narrative.) Why? because the author gives a full blown 
sitzenlaben (sp?) behind the writing of Galatians.

***The origin of Missionary Journey and Church Planter***

I want to know this because i find missionary journey to be a misleading 
term. what modern missionaries do is not what Paul did. Paul planted 
communities of house churches. then left them without designated leadership. 
I just want to know where the term developed.

I feel the same way about 'the pastoral epistles.' that term was invented in 
the18th century.

'church planter' is one I like. it's better, to my mind, then the 
transliteration 'apostle.' it best describes the function of such men as 
paul, silas, barnabas, etc. so i'd like to know who coined it or at least 
when it was coined.

***Contradiction of 2 Cor. 8 and Php. 4:15***

Bert P. said that he saw no contradiction. for he said that he was in no need 
to tell the philippians who supported him. 

You may wish to look at the text again.

Paul said in Php. 4, "no church helped... you (philippians) ONLY helped."

that statement goes beyond him 'not' mentioning the others who helped him. 
the language suggests that NO other churches helped him. while in 2 Cor. he 
said that some have... "i robbed other CHURCHES, plural." (And taking into 
acct. the story, he is referring to the same time frame.) 

I thought John D's explanation of it being hyperbole in 2 Cor. (churches) is 
possible. but i'd like to think that there is another explanation that 
doesn't paint Paul as dishonest.

household churches in Philippi is interesting. but as far as we know from the 
record, there was only one house church in philippi at the time.  

well, I drone on. I hope this post is helpful. And I genuinelly want to hear 
your responses and reflections on this materail. I'm building my own model of 
the first centurystory... provoked by Edwards. And I'm looking for missing 
pieces to reconstruct certain things... fine tuning them. 

btw/ feel free to email me in private if you wish to discuss these subjects 
off line. NTsearcher AT aol.com

Regards,
Frank A.
Tampa