In this final chapter Wright attempts to
tie up loose ends and address some common criticisms of his approach -
particularly with regards to the common Christian juxtaposition of Jesus and
Paul as dissonant voices. Wright rejects both of the common threads used to
connect Jesus and Paul - the first being the the idea that Paul was like a
second generation rabbi seeking to pass on as much of his master’s original
teaching as possible; and the second being that Paul was like a second
generation reformer, seeking to reframe and refine the work of Jesus. Instead
Wright proposes that their relationship “was much more like that between a
composer and a conductor; or between a medical researcher and a doctor; or
between and architect and a builder.” (p. 155) Jesus saw himself the same way
that Wright insists that Paul saw Jesus, but their roles and responsibilities
in light of that messianic calling that was upon Christ were different; they
occupied different roles in the story that was being told and lived out.
Wright things that one of the reasons that
we so frequently get this relationship between Jesus and Paul wrong is because
of the eschatology we inherited from the Enlightenment. He says:
“The Enlightenment, in fact, offered an
alternative eschatology to that of Jesus and Paul: world history didn’t after
all reach its climax with the death and resurrection of the Messiah, but with
Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson. The guillotine, not the cross,
provided the redemptive violence around which the world turned. No wonder
thinkers within this framework of though found it hard to see Jesus with his
genuinely first-century Jewish world, and to understand the way in which Paul
was explicitly honouring Jesus by not saying and doing the same things but by
pointing people back to Jesus’ own unique achievement.” (p. 157)
Specifically, Wright identifies a few
common areas of trouble for people when trying to align Jesus and Paul. The
first and probably loudest objection being the language of the Kingdom of God.
Part of the answer lies in the fact that Jesus was addressing an audience
(Jewish) for which the language of ‘kingdom' or ‘reign' of God were powerful
and familiar ideas. Jesus was giving people the message of God in the language
and idioms they could understand, whereas Paul, preaching to a primarily
Gentile audience spoke of Gospel and Lordship - the language usually reserved
for Caesar to communicate the same, authentically Jewish idea, to his audience
who would largely be lost in the Jewish idioms. (p. 158) Another area Wright
touches on (or more specifically, returns to again) is the idea of
Justification not being about conversion (truly Jesus says little to nothing
about Justification) but about demonstrating a belonging to the people of God.
This idea of justification comports nicely with Jesus own redefinitions of
circles of belonging with his questioning of family in Mark 3, and appropriate socializing
in Luke 15. Thirdly Wright touches on the issue of circumcision, a topic which
Paul speaks volumes about and Jesus is completely silent on. Again, since Jesus
limited his ministry by and large to the Jews, this wasn’t an issue that Jesus
was ever required to confront, but as soon as the church was driven out into
the Gentile world it became an issue for which Paul (and the whole Church)
needed to contend with.
In the end, what Wright claims to be
attempting to do through his work is to “carve out a pathway to a nuanced and
satisfying historical integration, complete with full appropriate
differentiation, of the respective and very different work of Jesus and Paul.”
He believes that, “[t]hey were not intending to do the same sort of thing, not
because they were at loggerheads but because they were at one in the basic
vision which generated their very different vocations.” (p. 161)
In the next section, Wright attempts to
outline what he believes Paul saw as the central focus of his ‘vocation’ as the
Apostle of Messiah by first identifying that Paul saw himself in light of the
servant language of Isaiah. That’s not to say that Paul saw himself there
standing in the role that we usually think of belonging to Jesus, but that Paul
saw himself as one called to a complimentary and similar servant ministry.
Specifically he saw himself as a royal emissary of sorts - one who would
proclaim the name of Messiah where it has not yet been heard. Wright also
describes his self-understood role as that of a pioneer for the gospel.
Practically this vocation worked it self
out through many familiar pauline stories. Paul would stand before many crowds
in the Gentile world and declare to a world full of idols that there was a
“living God who had made heaven and earth and who now called all people to
account.” (p. 163) He even would proclaim this to people for whom idolatry was
an economic necessity. Paul’s vocation worked itself out in his admonition to
the Thessalonians that they continue to love (agape) one another even more than
they already do; redefining social and economic responsibility around the
family of God rather than the household or business. Paul continually tell the
church that they represented a “new model of what it meant to be human;” (p.
165) and that more than anything, being being in Messiah, being in the Church,
meant a commitment to unity within the body. For Wight, one of the best
examples of this commitment to unity lay in Paul’s collection. By asking
Gentiles to give to support Jews (who they hadn’t even met) was the most
ambitious plan imaginable for fostering unity. Especially knowing that “at the
end of the day, the church in Jerusalem might well refuse the gift, since it
had come precisely from uncircumcised people, and might well be reckoned to be
tainted, to have the smell of idolatry still upon it.” (p. 167)
The practical outworking of Paul’s end
times outlook show up in several places too. The first one Wright mentions is
his admonition to lazy Thessalonians to get back to work. The imminent arrival
of Messiah was no excuse to stop being productive and mooch off the labour of
other brothers and sisters in the faith - Paul modelled that in his own tent-making
enterprise. It also shows up in 1 Thessalonians 2 which Wright sees as a
reference to Roman judgment on Jerusalem akin to what is seen in Mark 13.
Paul’s urgency in building unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians stems
from the understanding that he has less than a generation before the greatest
test of that unity comes upon them with the Roman persecution that will be
blamed on the church. (p. 170)
Before he wraps things up, Wright returns
to his '5-Act Play' model of God’s unfolding story, in which we (and Paul) are
actors in the fifth and final act. This act begins with the resurrection and
Pentecost and ends (as we already know) with the return of Messiah - but until
that ending comes, we are called as actors to improvise the script that will get
us to that end. Specifically Wright makes the point about improvisation that
“no musician would ever suppose that improvising means playing out of tune or
time. On the contrary, it means knowing extremely well where one is in the
implicit structure, and listening intently to other players so that what we all
do together, however spontaneously, makes sense as a whole.” (p. 172) Wright then ends by deconstructing three
central planks of modernity and redefining them around Paul’s understanding of
reality. The self becomes less about thinking (I think therefore I am) and more
about loving (Wright says, I love therefore I am); knowledge becomes less about
objectivity (or the postmodern trend toward subjectivity) and more about love.
Knowing and being known are defined around affirming Otherness with love. (p.
173) And then finally Wright challenges the grand narrative of modernity of
progress and claims, once again, that Paul changes that narrative to one of
love.
So ends, N.T. Wright’s “Paul in Fresh
Perspective”. Thanks for following along with me in these chapter summaries.
It’s been helpful for me in preparing for my upcoming course and I hope it’s
been helpful for you as well. I promise in the coming weeks to get back to
something more akin to my usual blogging habits. Until then, be blessed.
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