Corpus-Paul

["David Inglis" <david AT colonialcommerce.com>]

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003 Jeff Peterson wrote:

>The remaining question is how the church structure advocated in 1 Tim
>relates to what we find in the undisputed letters: Does it reflect
>formalization of the ministry a generation or two after Paul, or
>merely an attempt to tighten up the structure evident in the
>undisputed letters in arguably the most important church of the
>Pauline mission so as to limit the spread of teaching Paul opposes?
>On this question I confess myself firmly undecided, leaning on MWF to
>Pauline authorship and on TThSat to deutero-Pauline; I take Sundays
>off.

Jeff,

I think it's also important to remember something you yourself wrote only a
couple of days ago:

>What appears more elaborate in the Pastorals is the degree of
>definition these functions have acquired, but this may be a trick of
>the light as we don't know what Paul told the Thessalonians,
>Corinthians, Philippians, et al. about the qualifications and
>functions of these roles in the course of his work to establish
>stable churches that would endure after his departure (which would
>require some degree of structure).

We must have, in the letters, only a tiny fraction of what Paul communicated
to the people that he wrote to.  We call the Pastorals by that name
precisely because they are the only Paulines that focus on leadership issues
(and arguably 2 Tim should not be so named), so we should not rely on the
other Paulines to provide anything like the same degree of information on
these issues.  It is possible that Paul could have supplied *all* the same
'Pastoral' information to his other churches, but we have no way of knowing.
Therefore, we have no way of knowing what structure Paul advocated in the
other churches, nor at what stage in their growth did this structure come
into force.  Instead, we have to rely on the small pieces of 'incidental'
information that have already been mentioned:  The use of specific terms for
different leadership roles, 1 Thes 5:12-14, 1 Cor 16:15-16, Php 1:1, Phoebe,
etc.  As a result, I contend that it's impossible from the Paulines to
determine when the structure seen in 1 Tim came into use in Paul's churches.

There is another point that I believe is worth considering.  Is it not
possible that the reason many consider that the Pastorals represent a later
ecclesiology is simply due to the use of different terms for the leadership
positions?  If the Pastorals are genuine then there is a strong possibility
that Luke was Paul's amanuensis at the time, in which case we could just be
seeing the difference between how Paul (aided by an earlier amanuensis)
describes the leadership roles vs. how Paul/Luke describe them.  This would
certainly tie in with Acts 20:17,28.  The NET Bible has the following note:

BAGD 299 s.v. ejpivskopo" 2, "superintendent, guardian, bishop Ac 20:28."
This functional term describes the role of the elders. They were to guard
and shepherd the congregation.

In other words, 'overseer' (or "church leader," L&N 53.71) is another term
for the same official position of leadership as 'elder.' This is seen in the
interchange of the two terms in Titus 1:6-7 and in Acts 20:17, 28, as well
as in the parallels between Titus 1:6-7 and 1 Tim 3:1-7.

So, overall I believe that the argument that the ecclesiology of the
Pastorals represents a situation that did not exist until after Paul's death
is, at best, extremely tenuous, and should not be used as evidence when
debating authorship issues.

Dave Inglis
davidinglis2 AT attbi.com
3538 O'Connor Drive
Lafayette, CA, USA