Notes on Philippians 3:17-4:1

3:17 In 2:5+ Paul exhorted the Philippians to have the mindset of Christ, who humbled himself, took the way of the cross, and ultimately received resurrection and exaltation. Similarly, in chapter 3 so far, Paul has set himself as an example of following in Christ’s footsteps - of having the mindset of Christ - leading ultimately in the future to resurrection and being with Christ. Now, Paul says that the Philippians are to follow Paul’s pattern (and that of those who also follow the same pattern), being of the same mindset (3:15), like that of Christ (2:5 - which is echoed explicitly in 3:15). Why? They are to follow Paul’s pattern because he follows Christ’s and this is precisely how they can follow Christ’s pattern, being of Christ’s mindset, putting aside all else, all other advantages (compare what Christ did, and what Paul did), counting them as dung in comparison.
(Christians learn Christ’s pattern and how to follow it in everyday life most often by observing those who have already been doing it longer - who are more closely conformed to that pattern than they are. Rules or laws may help, but ultimately it’s about the shape of one’s life - Christ-shaped or not - and this is most easily achieved through following examples. Rules alone can be misunderstood, misapplied, rationalized, treated overly rigidly or overly loosely, subject to loopholes, etc. - but whether something fits a pattern or follows someone’s example can often be much more difficult to “escape” from. Ancient students, in fact, tended to learn primarily by an apprenticeship - following the example of someone who was further along in the subject than they. Examples: Think of a set of instructions but with no example or model to look at or follow - say, instructions for putting together a set of furniture, a model kit with no pictures or information as to what is being assembled, a kid’s toy which requires a lot of assembly, etc. Or maybe trying to learn how to excel at a difficult magic trick or sports technique by reading written instructions alone - it probably won’t work!)

18-20 Some people outside the congregation - likely currently (or formerly) claiming Christ - behave as enemies of the cross by behaving in ways opposite of Christ’s pattern which Paul would have the Philippians continue to follow. Paul weeps over them! They are focused on their own desires rather than on Christ. Instead of working to further God’s kingdom, they work to further their own wants. But “we are citizens of heaven”. Philippi was a colony of Rome; its citizens, citizens of Rome. The point of a colony like this was to bring the homeland - here, Rome - to the place colonized - here, Greece. The point was not for the citizens in the colony to work to get away from Greece and go to Rome. Similarly, Paul’s point is not that the Philippians are working to get away from the physical realm and go to heaven but rather that they are there to bring heaven to earth (“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...”). That is, they were called to bring themselves and creation into the fullness of the heavenly reality of the kingdom of God - God’s reign, his will being done. (Thus the contrast between the v.19 people and the Philippians is not between thinking about physical vs. spiritual things but rather not following Christ’s pattern, not submitting to God’s will or making Christ’s mindset their own, focusing on him above all else, vs. doing all that - there is no place in Paul’s theology for people who are “so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use”) This bringing of heaven to earth is finalized at Jesus’ return. Here, Jesus is called “Savior”, a title Paul rarely uses but which in the current context has great significance since it was a main title of the Roman emperor. This citizen/savior language, then, shows the Philippians where their true loyalties lie - who the true savior is, the true ruler or emperor of the world, calling them to forget their own advantages just as Paul had done his own (3:7 - and as Jesus had done in 2:6). The expression “Lord Jesus Christ” (there is no article (“the”) in the Greek) appears in this form rarely in Paul - here it is taken straight from 2:11 (which reads kyrios Iesous Cristos - the parallel does not show up in English since we have to supply a verb between some of the words in the expression to make it grammatical whereas this was not needed in Greek, so that in 2:11 it gets translated “Jesus Christ is Lord” whereas here the same expression in English becomes simply “Lord Jesus Christ”). This not only brings up again the pattern from chapter 2, especially the end part where Jesus is exalted over all, but it also prepares for the next verse.
(Do we work to bring heaven to earth or do we work only for our own benefit? How have we been false to our vocation as citizens of heaven and instead found our identity or citizenship primarily or first in other things, pursuits, loyalties? To connect this with the previous verses, do we have someone further along in following Christ’s pattern or example that we use as an example of our own to help us in this?)

21 This verse is a play on “form” (morphe) from chapter 2. Jesus in chapter 2 was in the “form” (morphe) of God but humbled himself, taking the form (morphe) of a man. But Jesus is ultimately resurrected and exalted as Lord. Now those who follow his pattern will ultimately be also raised by him, conformed (summorphon) in their bodies to his body. That is, the adoption of the pattern of Christ will be completed in us - our resurrection to be like him, heaven brought to earth, God’s reign through Christ that “every knee should bow” before him - Christ the Lord!
(The work of conforming to Christ’s pattern is ultimately God’s work - Christ’s work - not our own!)

4:1 Paul says all of this out of joy and confidence, not out of disappointment or shame in the Philippians. He knows they are overall doing very well - they just need some encouragement to keep going. (This is wise - knowing when to use encouragement and when, like in some other letters, a rebuke is more what is needed) Paul returns to the issue the letter began with in chapter 1 - that of the Philippians persecution. He had encouraged them to stand firm earlier, but now he tells them how - it is precisely by following Christ’s pattern, the pattern followed by Paul and his associates, that they will heal internal division (chapter 4) and withstand the persecution and hard times they have been going through. Rather than a digression, then, chapters 2-3 are precisely a response to the troubles they have themselves been encountering, a response centered on Christ and Christ alone.
(It seems paradoxical at first that the way to stand firm, to survive adversity and to bring heaven to earth, is through the way of the cross - through being humble, self-sacrificial and faithful like Jesus was. We want to force things through our own power rather than in obedient humility, submitting to God’s will!)

Notes on Philippians 3:7-16

For the Cornerstone sermon-prep study group.  Basically, I see the passage as  an application of 2:5-13ish, which helps organize and make sense of all the material in 3:7-16 and how it all fits together.



Quick summary of the passage:

7-9: Value is found in Christ, not Jewishness (or anything else!), because of what Christ did in 2:6-11.

9-16: Therefore, like, in 2:5-11, we follow Christ’s pattern both in life and in our thinking: humility and suffering and death, but ultimately glory and resurrection, becoming like Christ and truly knowing him. However, we even now have a foretaste of that finale and must live in accordance with this.


Long version:

7-8 We have here financial terms - an accounting metaphor using the idea of a credit (or profit)/loss ledger. Referring back to his activities and privileges in 5-6, Paul is not saying each of them were necessarily bad but compared to how great a financial gain Christ is, they may as well be on the loss side of the ledger! Paul’s privileges in his Jewishness (both in his ancestry or upbringing and in how he lived as a Jew) are nothing - next to worthless - next to Christ. Even if everything else in the whole world was gathered together into the loss column, with Christ in the credit column, the profits overwhelm the losses! (Contrast this with our own privileges and accomplishments - do we really always think of them as dung next to Christ (or at least, do we consistently act like it)?)

9 “Righteousness”: probably here a state of being right with God (and probably others as well, though that’s not the important part at the moment). Being Jewish and following the Law do not guarantee one is righteous - Paul had all of this but what he did not have was Christ and it is Christ who counts, not being Jewish or following Moses. Being in the right with God is a status from God given to those who are in Christ - who have faith(fulness) - and this is based upon what we learned about Christ in chapter 2 - Christ’s own obedience and faithfulness to God and his calling, even to suffering, even to death, as our representative in our place.

10-11 Like in chapter 2, then, the focus is on imitating Christ based on what he has done - being obedient and having faith even if and when that means suffering or even death. It means “having the same attitude as Christ Jesus” as in chapter 2. Suffering for his sake is to participate in his sufferings. And the power of his resurrection - God’s resurrecting, creation-restoring power by which he raised Jesus - is already at work in us and will raise us also just as it raised Jesus following his own humility and faithfulness. Paul says he will attain to the resurrection “somehow”, being hesitant to presume upon his own accomplishments. But the end result, which is guaranteed by and delivered by God’s own power, is not necessarily in question - rather, Paul is acknowledging that his life is a process of following Jesus in suffering and that God will do much in and through him to bring him to that point. As Paul said earlier, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”, knowing that it is God who both puts in the salvation and who is really behind the work. (No complacent Christianity here!)

12-14 As the “somehow” already admits, Paul’s final state of being in complete unity with Christ is still future - full knowledge of Christ, resurrection, and so on, await Christ’s return. Christ took hold of Paul for this final state and now Paul presses on to take hold of that state. Paul, however, has not yet arrived but he keeps moving in that direction. This process or activity is not so much a matter of earning merits or becoming a better person but rather running with one’s eyes on the prize - Christ. This is not an ordinary race with only one winner but where all who run may achieve the prize (but still they must run). With eyes focused on the prize, all else that might seem important pales in comparison (as he said several verses earlier) and this helps to order his life towards the goal, which comes from God’s call into his kingdom. This call into the kingdom is describe as “upwards”, which often has the idea of “heavenwards”. Paul is called to live in heavenly reality - divine reality - the reality of God’s kingdom, his will being done on earth as it is in heaven - the power and the presence of God. As he hints in verse 20 and says also in Ephesians (we are already seated with Christ “in the heavenly realms”), we are already in heaven, though it has not fully come yet to earth. So that final state discussed so far, Paul maintains, is one we have a foretaste of even now.

15-16 The adjective Paul uses to describe himself and others here (“mature” or “perfect”) is the adjective form of the verb Paul used in verse 12 to maintain that he has not yet reached his final state, his goal of Christ. Using this play on words, Paul affirms that though he has not yet reached his goal, he is already living in the light of it, with his eyes focused on it, in the foretaste of that goal, in the power and presence of God already available to Christians in Jesus. Those who are like Paul in this should take Paul’s same mindset, which is that of Jesus. Those in Philippi who might not think in such a manner will have that goal - that final state - revealed to them by God so that they may also have the mindset of Paul and Jesus. We are, however, to live according to what we have already attained - the power and presence of God that we possess in anticipation of that final state which is still future.

So we should set our eyes on Christ. (After all, we veer towards what we stare at - which is why when you’re driving on a cliff it is best to keep your eyes on the road and why drunks tend to crash into lights at night). God has given us his Spirit and empowered us even now in advance of the Second Coming - we should make use of that!

Genesis and Christmas

These are some half-formed, sometimes random, somewhat repetitive notes I made for the sermon prep study group at Cornerstone this week - enjoy!

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Genesis 2-3: Israelites would have seen their own story here, the story of Genesis-II Kings (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were written as a direct four-part sequel to the Pentateuch to form a single story ending with Israel and Judah’s exiles but with a note of hope for ultimate restoration).  Like Israel, Adam was formed in a deserted place (Genesis 2:4-7), brought into a new, lush land – a garden, where they would be with God and take care of the land (2:8-15).  But, like Adam, they disobeyed the commandment given to them directly by God and allow themselves to be led astray by the evil they have allowed to stay in the land and are subsequently cast out of the land, failing to find life and instead bringing on themselves curse and death (Genesis 3). 

Israel was to have been the new Adam, God’s “do-over”, the new representative and embodiment of humanity restored, who were to be the vessels to bring life and initiate the completion of God’s creation-plan as Adam should have done.  But like Adam (since they were in Adam themselves and hence suffered also from sin and death), they failed in their mission.  If Israel was to be restored from its curse, its exile, and if their mission to fulfill Adam’s mission was to be fulfilled, God would have to intervene himself.  As Adam grasped for autonomy – to know good and evil through experience of them and doing both rather than under God’s lordship and through his wise instruction – so Israel also sought freedom from God, only to end in slavery.  So Israel looked to God as Savior to save them from their state of exile/curse and thus to restore all of creation through this – Israel’s restoration would mean Adam’s!  This promise of restoration fills the Old Testament.  For example, Deuteronomy 30:1-10 (all quotes here from NIV):

30When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, ² and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³ then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴ Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. ⁵ He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. ⁶ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. ⁷ The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. ⁸ You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. ⁹ Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, ¹⁰ if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The longing for restoration, for God to act as Savior, comes in many places (it also is partly captured in the first verse of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”).  Here are a few – Ezra 9:6b-9:

6b“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. 7 From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.

8 “But now, for a brief moment, the Lord our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place[a] in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage. 9 Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

Lamentations 5:

5 Remember, Lord, what has happened to us;
    look, and see our disgrace.
2 Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers,
    our homes to foreigners.
3 We have become fatherless,
    our mothers are widows.
4 We must buy the water we drink;
    our wood can be had only at a price.
5 Those who pursue us are at our heels;
    we are weary and find no rest.
6 We submitted to Egypt and Assyria
    to get enough bread.
7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more,
    and we bear their punishment.
8 Slaves rule over us,
    and there is no one to free us from their hands.
9 We get our bread at the risk of our lives
    because of the sword in the desert.
10 Our skin is hot as an oven,
    feverish from hunger.
11 Women have been violated in Zion,
    and virgins in the towns of Judah.
12 Princes have been hung up by their hands;
    elders are shown no respect.
13 Young men toil at the millstones;
    boys stagger under loads of wood.
14 The elders are gone from the city gate;
    the young men have stopped their music.
15 Joy is gone from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
    Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
    because of these things our eyes grow dim
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
    with jackals prowling over it.

19 You, Lord, reign forever;
    your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
    Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
    renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
    and are angry with us beyond measure.

Daniel 9:1-19:

9 In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:

“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

7 “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. 8 We and our kings, our princes and our ancestors are covered with shame, Lord, because we have sinned against you. 9 The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; 10 we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.

“Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. 12 You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. 13 Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. 14 The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.

15 “Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. 16 Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

17 “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. 18 Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. 19 Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.”

In 3:15, there doesn’t seem to be any direct reference to Christ and Satan.  Direct reference is to the serpent, its children, Eve, and her children (the word used is zara‘, which is a collective noun referring to a group of offspring, whether human, animal, or plant (seed)), but there is further, general symbolic reference as well, since the serpent would also seem to symbolize what is anti-God and anti-God’s-creation-purposes.  The enmity described thus also describes that between those with God’s mission – especially God’s people – and those who oppose that mission and seek to sway others from it.  The former will win in the end, but not without struggle and wounding.  In Israel’s own case, the anti-God forces came originally in the form of the Canaanites who led them astray from God’s Law.  Indeed, this is what we see in Genesis 9, where Noah is portrayed as Adam (a man of the soil, who consumes a form of fruit in a bad way, has his nakedness covered, etc.) and the descendants of the villain of the story, Ham, are cursed in a similar fashion to the serpent (referred to explicitly as Canaan).  Canaan was to function as Israel’s serpent.  This pattern, however, is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus’ victory over Satan – in Jesus, Adam and Israel’s missions are finally fulfilled and the pinnacle of evil and temptation is defeated though Jesus is struck (and precisely because he is struck).  This is the culmination of the principle of 3:15 – the ironic victory of God’s people over evil (as in Romans 16:20).  As the representative of God’s people, Jesus is Israel, he is the seed, who crushes the head of evil and takes on the identity and mission of God’s people and succeeds where they have failed (cf. Galatians where Paul identifies Jesus with the promised seed of Abraham (God’s people) and then calls Christians the seed – the former is head, representative, and completer of the latter).  The defeat of God’s enemies – the enemies of his people – means the removal of the obstacle to restoration and the fulfillment of God’s creation-purposes. 

In this light, Genesis 3-11 presents a long description of the continuation of humanity’s Fall that begun in chapter 3.  The solution – what I would call the real protoevangelium of Genesis – is in 12:2-3.  Blessing in Genesis represents the fulfillment of creation-purposes – this passage outlines God’s plan in choosing Israel and their mission as part of this, to undo chapters 3-11.  But first, Israel itself would have to be restored since it too suffered the consequences of those chapters  (Paul has a lot to say about this!).  The one who would do this – who would restore Israel and all of creation, fulfilling Adam’s and Israel’s missions as the new Adam, the true Israel – was, of course, God – specifically, God come in human flesh as the promised king of Israel to usher in this restoration – Jesus Christ our Lord!

Quick note on the etymology of “Immanuel” (“Emmanuel”, from the song, is how it was transliterated into Latin): ‘im is the preposition meaning “with”; with the added first person plural pronominal suffix (i.e., “us”), it has the form ‘immanu meaning “with us”; ’el is the generic word for “god”; so ’Immanuel literally means “with us God” – that is, “with us is God”.

Notes on Galatians 5:1-12

More study notes by me for the sermon prep:

In verse 1, Paul is drawing on the idea that the Law with its Jewish particulars was one of the things that enslaved the Jews in a sense (along with sin and death), separating them from other peoples until the time of Christ (3:23-25), and cursing them for violation of the covenant with God.  Christ, then, provided rescue from this curse and deliverance from sin and the division between Jew and Gentile.  Jesus gave freedom – a new exodus, deliverance, or rescue of Israel from its exile/curse of the Law, something promised in the Old Testament to bring with it the ingathering of the nations (i.e., the Gentiles) into God’s one family.  This freedom from sin, death, Jewish-Gentile division, and the Law’s curse on Israel, then, belongs to those who truly belong to God’s one promised family – as chapter 4 has it, they are the children of God’s promise to Abraham – the Sarah people, not the Hagar people still under bondage to sin, death, division, and curse. 

In other words, Jesus came to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of a single family of all nations on earth by bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the earth beginning with his exhaustion of Israel’s curse which it had acquired for covenant disobedience.  This sets up verses 2-4, as this is precisely what the agitators are, in effect, denying by forcing Gentiles to become circumcised – God’s family, in their thinking, was supposed to be restricted to one nation, the Jews alone.  They in effect deny the work of Christ in bringing about God’s promises.  So to go back to the old use of the Law in dividing Jew from Gentile (as opposed to Jesus’ and Paul’s use) is to reject what Christ has already done, to deny his work on the cross in bringing redemption and reconciliation between the nations. 

Paul’s point in verse 3, then, is that since being Jewish means, for the agitators, following all the Law’s Jewish particulars, Gentiles who obey the agitators (to become Jewish in order to become part of God’s people) are not done there – Gentiles being Jewish will have to go all the way and add to circumcision food laws, and so forth.  This is not about circumcision itself per se but the motives and theology behind why these Gentiles were becoming circumcised (Paul circumcised Timothy and would not say these things in 2-4 about Timothy).  Unfortunately, for centuries Gentile Christians became a version of these agitators themselves when they used this verse to deny that Jews could be Christians unless they became Gentiles first, thus again denying the work of Christ.  Even today, Christians unfortunately use terms like “Jew” or “Jewish” as contraries of “Christian”, further pushing the un-Pauline view that one cannot remain a Jew and be a true Christian.

In 5 and 6, Paul turns to the true marks of God’s family.  What sets them apart are not whether they are Jewish or not but whether they have faith, which is itself expressed outwardly in love, not necessarily in works of the Law (circumcision, etc.) – a love which by its very nature welcomes both Jews and Gentiles.  On the basis of this life led in faith, led by the Holy Spirit (associated with freedom from sin, etc. – see, e.g., II Cor 3:17) who is the sign that the new time of faith and Israel’s rescue has come, believers may now hope for the completion of God’s work in us, fully bringing his kingdom and establishing his new people in his new creation, even among Gentiles. 

In verses 7-9, Paul turns from Christ’s work to that of the agitators.  These agitators are basically trying to counteract Christ’s work in bringing together a family of both Jews and Gentiles, free from enslavement.  And what grieves Paul most is that it seems to be working at least somewhat!  False teaching, if not checked, can easily poison the church and cause people to stumble when they are easily swayed not to attend to the truth.  It takes only a few bad influences to start affecting the life of the whole church if they are allowed to continue.  In verse 10, Paul is, however, confident in the Galatians’ case that they will ultimately side with him over the agitators, no matter what is going wrong at the moment, since it is ultimately the agitators themselves who are to blame for this mess. 

The false teaching, hinted at in verse 11, was that Paul had kept back part of the gospel and of the full Christian life from the Galatians – the part about having to become a Jew in order to be a Christian.  The position was that Paul agreed with their version of the gospel but had been too stingy and had not given the Galatians the whole thing.  Summing up his self-defense so far, Paul makes it clear that he does not agree with the agitators’ version of the gospel and he certainly has not left out what they wanted to put in since it was never a part of the gospel in the first place.  If he had agreed with them that Gentiles had to become Jews, he would not be persecuted by his fellow Jews (who thought he was betraying God and Moses with his message).

Paul concludes then in this section that cutting off part of your body (like in circumcision) does not matter since both Jew and Gentile are now accepted equally into a single family – why not just go all the way and be castrated rather than stop at circumcision?  According to Paul, there is no significant religious difference.  The irony here, of course, is that to be castrated would, by the stipulations of the Law, bar one from the religious assembly of Israel.  Only the time of Israel’s rescue and the ingathering of the Gentiles, as foretold by Isaiah, would break down that barrier and allow eunuchs in on equal footing with others – precisely the work of Christ that these agitators who think they are in a privileged religious position are now denying.  Paul is therefore being even cleverer here than it seems on first glance!

Notes on Galatians 4:12-20

More notes prepared for the Cornerstone sermon-prep study group:

In Galatians 4:12-20, Paul draws on a common Graeco-Roman discussion topic of true versus false friendship, showing that he and the Galatians had had a true friendship – he is the Galatians’ true friend (and, even greater, true family), whereas Paul’s opponents are false friends.  He appeals to them on the basis of that true and intimate relationship to be transformed into the true family of God they were meant to be, with no divisions or exclusions between Jew and Gentile. 

In verse 12, Paul echoes the common Greek idea that true friendship involved, in some sense, equality, unanimity, and likeness – becoming or being like the friend, sharing in their (mis)fortune.  As in I Corinthians 9, Paul became like a Christian Gentile in order to minister to them so they as Gentiles could also become Christians.  Hence they too should be free in Christ to be Gentiles as followers of Christ.  Paul shows that there are no hard feelings and that they have had a true friendship – true friends do no true harm to one another.  Instead, they did the opposite – despite all the reasons not to, they accepted him.  In verses 13 and 14, Paul notes that they passed the test of true friendship at the very beginning of their relationship, where it would have been a temptation to disregard Paul as cursed or wicked because of his illness.  Instead, Paul, as a representative of Jesus Christ, as an apostle proclaiming Jesus’ message, was received as a messenger of God and like Jesus Christ himself. 

While the relationship they had had involved blessing, in verse 15 we have Paul questioning the continued presence of such blessing.  Has so much changed?  Formerly they would have done anything for him – true friendship involves a willingness to undergo extreme sacrifice.  In verse 16, he wonders if the change is because he is speaking the truth to them, yet that should show that he is a true friend rather than a flatterer (a common Graeco-Roman contrast is between the true friend who is frank and truthful and the flatterer who is not).  Rather than an enemy, as the opponents may have made him out to be (since he would be seen as keeping them from becoming “real” Christians by becoming Jews), his truth-speaking marks him out as the complete opposite.

Verses 17 and 18 draw somewhat on the Jewish notion of zeal, which was often applied towards the Law and the covenant between God and Israel.  Unfortunately, in Paul’s time this often ended up being twisted into a hatred of Gentiles and could be turned into violence (the Zealots).  The opponents’ misguided zeal drove them to use the Law to force the Gentiles to become Jews lest they be excluded, and thus the opponents miss the true zeal which is for the God who welcomes the Gentiles into his family on an equal footing with the Jews.  By threatening exclusion, the Gentiles are forced to depend on the opponents for their spiritual status, following their guidance and what they say in order to be proper Jews, putting the opponents on a pedestal for revealing to them the things of the Law that Paul had supposedly left out or kept from them.  True friends, true family, however, do not maintain their relationships based on personal gain.  They have zeal, but it is for good things, not bad.  True friendship is reliable – in this case, it involves a zeal which always seeks good.  And this is precisely the zeal with which Paul meets the Galatians, a zeal which involves bringing the Galatians to meet the God who would have them as a part of his one family.

In verse 19, Paul shows how deep their relationship really goes – Paul is family, he is like their mother still laboring painfully to give birth to them.  He cares for them, wanting Christ to be formed in/among them.  The community is to be Christ-shaped, with Christ as true head, they as his true body, combined together as one family in him.  Yet the opponents are trying to prevent this formation by introducing divisions and exclusions within the community in the form of the works of the Law.  In verse 20, Paul thus reiterates his true friendship, his true parenthood of them, when he expresses his care for them, wishing to be present with them physically and not merely through the letter – they have seemingly cast aside their good relationship with Paul which involved truth and belonging and accepted instead accepted a bad relationship with the opponents which involved falsity and exclusion.  Paul is bewildered that they would opt for the latter over the former.

Some More In-Depth Notes on Galatians 3:1-18

Basically, this is a revised, more in-depth version of parts of this previous post, this time focusing in on the first 18 verses of Galatians 3 and with some other applications:

To understand what’s going on in this passage (and much of the book), we have to understand the Old Testament background – the basic narrative of the people of God – that Paul, in line with other Jewish writers of the time, would have been presupposing as he writes.  As the narrative goes, Adam and Eve messed up and sin entered the world.  God then chooses Abraham to begin his rescue operation – to defeat sin and death and create a new humanity, a loving family, out of all the nations on earth.  The means will be through Abraham’s descendants – they will be the beginning of that family, through which others will also join into it, and sin will be taken care of.  Once Abraham’s descendants are many, God, in order to proceed with the rescue operation, redeems them and gives them a covenant with instructions as to how to live within that covenant (the law) so as to bring others into the family.  But these descendants, Israel, fail in their vocation and suffer the consequences of violation of the covenant – the curse of the law, which is exile and suffering.  The prophets foretell that return from exile, the lifting of the curse, is coming and that this will usher in the completion of God’s rescue operation (the age to come/kingdom of God/restoration of all things as it gets variously called) – Israel’s vocation will be completed, the Spirit poured out on God’s people, sin and death defeated, and all nations will join together in one family along with Israel.  Yet, when they return to the land geographically, they are forced to acknowledge that the prophecies have not been completely fulfilled – they are still in spiritual exile, not fully restored, and God’s rescue operation has not been completed.  Here the Old Testament ends.  Now enter Jesus, who Paul and other early Christians saw as the one who completed Israel’s vocation – as the true king and earthly representative of his people (the True Israel), he took their plight and their mission upon himself, suffering and completing their curse and exile in his own person and thus bringing about the promised restoration, thus paving the way for the Spirit and opening the way for all nations to come into the family as prophesied. 

The point of Galatians 3:1-14, then, is all about what time it is – it is not the time before the coming of the restoration/kingdom of God, for Christ has changed everything and it is now the prophesied time of the ingathering of the nations into God’s people.  The Spirit of God is a gift of the kingdom and associated with Christ’s time, made available by his crucifixion, and not the previous time.  If it is the eschatological gift of the age to come, then it is not associated with being a Jew (“works of the law”), which would instead associate it with the previous epoch.  The promise to Abraham was blessing for all nations as those nations, not as Jews – a promise of a single family made of Jews and all other nations.  Since this promise has been and has begun to be fulfilled by Jesus in his crucifixion, being a Jew and doing the works of the law cannot be tied necessarily to the reception of the Spirit.  Instead, it is trust and faithfulness to God that marks one out as a member of God’s people, not one’s ethnicity since the family is to be from every ethnicity on earth. 

Paul contrasts in this passage those who are “out of faith” (ek pisteos) and those who are “out of works of the law” (ex ergon nomou).  For Paul, who are the ones who are “out of works of the law”? Israel, of course – they are the ones to whom God gave the works of the law and who would be living with their identity marked out by the law.  However, by putting its faith in Christ, ethnic Israel is able to become part of those who are “out of faith” – whose identity is determined by faith, not by ethnicity.  This begins to make sense of verses 10-14, then, since the idea here is not an individualistic focus but one on Israel as an ethnic group.  In 3:10, we find that Israel is under a curse – the curse of the law, the exile which the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings all declare to have ended geographically but not spiritually or in regards to the full restoration of God’s blessings and the ingathering of the Gentiles which was to come from this.  Israel has not been restored or come out from God’s wrath for its failure to abide by its covenant as enshrined in the law.  The quote from Deuteronomy is, in its original context, part of a broader set of passages about Israel’s disobedience and the predicted result of exile.  In other words, 3:10 gives us the following reasoning: if Israel fails to abide by the law, it is cursed/under exile; Israel has in fact failed in that regard (as Leviticus and Deuteronomy predict and Joshua-II Kings (and the prophets) repeat over and over); hence, as the Old Testament affirms, Israel has been cursed/under exile. 

In 3:11, Paul quotes from Habakkuk.  In its original context, this quote comes again in the context of exile.  Habakkuk begins with lamenting over the deplorable state of God’s people, to which God replies that Babylon will come and basically destroy them (Babylon took them into exile).  Habakkuk then laments over this and God replies that Babylon will itself receive judgment, thus presenting a glimmer of hope.  In the midst of this, we find the quote noting that the identity of the true Israelite, the one who is right with God, by contrast with the Babylonians, will be one founded on faith.  In other words, for Paul, coming out from the curse will involve a new era of faith-based identity. 

The Law belongs to the old era, however, as Paul emphasizes in 3:12.  In 3:13-14 Paul says that that era is past – the new era has come through Christ.  Christ brought a new exodus (note the Exodus word “redemption” here) – a return or restoration from the curse of the law/Israel’s exile suffered by Israel (“us” here refers to Paul and his fellow Jewish Christians).  The blessing to the nations, which was to flow from Abraham’s descendants, had been blocked by their own sin, which brought the curse.  But now that Christ has exhausted the curse in his own self, taking Israel’s exile/curse onto himself on their behalf, that has opened the way now for the blessing to come to the Gentiles as well.  In other words, the restoration of Israel, the time of faith-based identity, and hence the gathering in of the Gentiles into a single people of God (and the pouring out of the Spirit) has come, and this has been fulfilled through Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of Israel. 

3:15-18 is basically about how there was meant to be a single people made of both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews, and that one should not misread the purpose of the law as if it was meant forever to exclude Gentiles and thus cancel the promise.  The earlier promise of a single people out of both takes precedence and is fulfilled in Christ, who takes on the role of the single people (Abraham’s seed) as their representative and king and hence all who are in him are part of that seed, whether Jew or Gentile (3:29 – which says that we are Abraham’s seed).  That is, God promised Abraham a single family, the promised seed, which begins with Israel.  Jesus takes on Israel’s destiny as the true Israel/seed, so that those who have him as their representative also take on that identity as part of the people of God.  This shows that the ethnic-specific aspects of the law were never meant for God’s whole people forever.

In other words, Christ’s roles as promised seed and as curse breaker are really the same – he is being the true Israel, taking on both Israel’s punishment and its mission in himself and fulfilling both so that all nations could have a place in him – that is, in his family with himself as head and representative so that what is true of him may be true of us.  We are to follow his example, bringing people from all nations into God’s family and not excluding or ignoring based on irrelevant factors like culture, preferred worship style, etc.  It is Christ’s faithfulness, formed now in us as our own faithfulness to God, that provides us with our identity as part of God’s people, not any of those other things.  And as Christ took on responsibility for his people even when he did not himself sin, so we too can follow his example and take responsibility for the sins of our own groups, whether racial, ethnic, religious, or any other kind of group we may belong to.  This may involve apologizing or trying to make repairs for something we were not involved in (e.g., the legacy of slavery and racism, crusades, past misdeeds of the US, etc.), but it is what Jesus himself modeled for us with his own ethnic and religious group. 

Some Notes on Galatians 3

I wrote these up for the pastor doing sermon prep at my church and then discussed some of this during the weekly sermon-prep study group thing that happens at our church.  Obviously, not all of this is uncontroversial (what in Galatians interpretation isn't?!), but it's the best sense I could make of the text after a long time spent wrestling through it.  Perceptive readers will probably note a lot of influence from N.T. Wright and other narrative-oriented scholars here, though the interpretation at the end of the day is still my own. 

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The general idea of Galatians 3, in my opinion, is this: What time is it?  Prior to Christ, the Law had an old function but this was only to prepare for Christ.  Now that Christ has come, the old function is completed and in the past.  The Galatians, however, are treating the old function as still in play, as if Christ had not come.  This is hence tantamount to a denial that Christ has come and brought the kingdom, fulfilling God’s promises to bring blessing through his people to all nations – a denial of the gospel.  The old function was necessary and needed prior to Christ but that time is past!

In other words, this does not say that the Law is bad or that its rules were overburdensome or bad or that the Law did not reveal God’s will or that there is no function left to the Law in governing Christian conduct or that Christians should not have rules to follow – no first century Jew, least of all Paul, would agree with any of that (Paul over and over endorses many rules and even says that both Christ and believers do fulfill the Law, which in its current function he calls the “law of Christ”), though these are “lessons” Christians often get from taking Galatians out of context.  Nor is this about legalism or earning salvation – it is about whether we live in acknowledgment of Christ and his work or instead live as if it has not yet happened, as if the kingdom had not been begun by Christ on earth and the promises of God fulfilled in him.  For the Judaizers this meant ignoring that Christ had come to make a single people out of Gentiles and Jews in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, requiring that the people be confined to Jews only.  Again, this was not about rules but about ethnicity and about one’s place in salvation history – the Judaizers were placing themselves and the Galatians in the wrong act of the play, so to speak.

For us today this might involve denying the power of God and the presence of the kingdom in our lives or denying that we too have been granted the Spirit of God in accordance with his promises.  We act as if we have not been redeemed or as if we do not have the resources of God in our daily lives.  We act as if the kingdom has not begun in Christ and in us and hence put it into the future and do not take responsibility for our part in it.  Or, like the Judaizers, we deny that Christ came to make a single family of all the families of the earth, and require that everyone look like, act like, or talk like us.

Paul in Galatians wants the Galatians to understand what time it is and not to live as if it was a previous time.  The Spirit of God is a gift of the kingdom and associated with Christ’s time, made available by his crucifixion, and not the previous time, something Paul emphasizes in 3:1-14.  If it is the eschatological gift of the age to come, then it is not associated with being a Jew (“works of the law”), which would instead associate it with the previous epoch.  The promise to Abraham was blessing for all nations as those nations, not as Jews – a promise of a single family made of Jews and all other nations.  Since this promise has been and has begun to be fulfilled by Jesus in his crucifixion, being a Jew and doing the works of the law cannot be tied necessarily to the reception of the Spirit.  Instead, it is trust and faithfulness to God that marks one out as a member of God’s people, not one’s ethnicity since the family is to be from every ethnicity on earth. 

Paul contrasts in this passage those who are “out of faith” and those who are “out of works of the law”.  These phrases get translated in English various ways – “rely on the works of the law”, “take their identity from works of the law”, etc. are various alternatives in the translations of “out of works of the law”.  These are fine as long as “rely on” is not taken to mean “rely on for salvation” or “rely on to earn salvation” since that would be an over-interpretation and does not actually fit the context, where – if we want to speak of “relying on” at all – it is a matter of people relying on works of the law to display their identity as God’s people (in other words, relying on their ethnicity to show that they are members of God’s people).  For Paul, who are the ones who are “out of works of the law”? Israel, of course – they are the ones to whom God gave the works of the law.  However, by putting its faith in Christ, ethnic Israel is able to become part of those who are “out of faith” – whose identity is determined by faith, not by ethnicity. 

This begins to make sense of verses 10-14, then, since the idea here is not an individualistic focus but one on Israel as an ethnic group.  In 3:10, we find that Israel is under a curse – the curse of the law, the exile which the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings all declare to have ended geographically but not spiritually or in regards to the full restoration of God’s blessings and the ingathering of the Gentiles which was to come from this.  Israel has not been restored or come out from God’s wrath for its failure to abide by its covenant as enshrined in the Law.  In other words, if Israel fails to abide by the Law, it is cursed; Israel has in fact failed in that regard (as Joshua-II Kings repeat over and over); hence, as the Old Testament affirms, Israel has been cursed.  The quote from Habakkuk comes in the context of Israel’s unrighteousness and subsequent exile and the future need for a new identity based on faith.  So coming out from the curse will involve a new era of faith-based identity. 

The Law belongs to the old era, however, as Paul emphasizes in 3:12.  In 3:13-14 Paul says that that era is past – the new era has come through Christ.  Christ brought a new exodus (note the Exodus word “redemption” here) – a return or restoration from the curse of the law/Israel’s exile suffered by Israel (“us” here refers to Paul and his fellow Jewish Christians).  The blessing to the nations, which was to flow from Abraham’s descendants, had been blocked by their own sin, which brought the curse.  But now that Christ has exhausted the curse in his own self, taking Israel’s exile/curse onto himself on their behalf, that has opened the way now for the blessing to come to the Gentiles as well.  In other words, the restoration of Israel, the time of faith-based identity, and hence the gathering in of the Gentiles into a single people of God (and the pouring out of the Spirit) has come, and this has been fulfilled through Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of Israel. 

3:15-18 is basically about how there was meant to be a single people made of both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews, and that one should not misread the purpose of the law as if it was meant forever to exclude Gentiles and thus cancel the promise.  The earlier promise of a single people out of both takes precedence and is fulfilled in Christ, who takes on the role of the single people (Abraham’s seed) as their representative and king and hence all who are in him are part of that seed, whether Jew or Gentile (3:29).  This shows that the ethnic-specific aspects of the law were never meant for God’s whole people forever.

In 3:19-29 Paul tells us that the law did have a legitimate function prior to Christ but that the time for that function is over.  3:19 says that the law was added “because of transgressions”.  This cannot mean that it was to restrain transgression since, as Paul states in Romans, there is no transgression without the law (since transgression = sin + law).  Instead, the law creates transgression, it turns sin into law-breaking by making Israel aware of that sin as against God’s will and turns it into explicit rebellion against God.  In the words of Romans, it makes sin “utterly sinful”.  Paul picks up more on what this means a bit further on, but maintains that this function was meant to continue until Christ and the single people of God had come.  The law came via Moses as a mediator.  Verse 20 is difficult but should read something like N.T. Wright’s translation: “He, however, is not the mediator of the ‘one’ – but God is one!”  In other words there is only one God and hence he desires one single people – but Moses was not the mediator of that one single people since that people was still to come. 

The law, however, is not contrary to the establishment of that single family, despite all Paul has said so far.  The bringing in of righteousness and the establishment of God’s promises – the law could not bring these about because of sin.  Instead, the law both condemns and incubates Israel so that, as a result of exhausting the curse laid on Israel by the law, Christ, through his faithfulness to the covenant in doing what Israel could not because of the sin which blocked it (3:22, in the Greek, says “the promise by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”, not, as in most 20^th-century translations, “the promise by faith in Jesus Christ”), brought the promise of a single family to fulfillment, a family marked out by faith, not ethnicity.  Prior to that time, as verse 23 indicates (that is, prior to Christ, not prior to an individual’s reception of faith – that is too individualistic of a reading here and out of context), Israel (note the “we” here again referring to Paul and his fellow Jews) was kept incubated or quarantined by the law.  The law made sin into transgression but also taught the people God’s will (and actually turned sin into even more sinful transgression precisely by teaching this) and helped to keep them separate from other nations. 

But now the time of faith has arrived – the Law, which watched over Israel until Christ (it does not say “to lead us to Christ” – “lead us” is not in the Greek but is read in as an individualistic, subjective reading) has reached its goal not in marking out God’s people by ethnicity but by faith.  And with faith comes the end of the old function of the law in keeping Israel separate to prepare for Christ.  All, Jews and Gentiles, are God’s people marked out by faith since it is now the time of the kingdom as foretold.  Christ, the one seed, the fulfiller of all the promises, is our representative and hence we are inheritors of those promises, the fulfillers of them – in Christ, there is a single people of God as God intended there to be.  Being Jewish or Gentile does not matter – all are equally part of God’s family – to which, Paul also adds that gender and social status are not determinative either.  There is one people, Abraham’s seed, marked out by faith alone – not by denomination, not by how we decide to use the word “justification”, not by race or ethnicity or gender or social status, not by culture or label, but by faith pure and simple.  The gospel is that Jesus is Lord – he has brought the kingdom of God, the new coming age, and we should not deny that in word or action.

Acts 19, Legitimacy, and Spiritual Power

Another paper, this time on an Acts narrative:

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JESUS, PAUL, AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD: VINDICATION AND SPIRITUAL POWER IN EPHESUS

The goal of this paper is to examine Acts 19:11-20 (especially 19:13-16 – the examination of the other verses will be much more cursory) in light of its context in the larger section of 18:24-19:20 and Luke-Acts as a whole, with particular attention to the relationship between spiritual power – whether in the form of exorcism, healing, or magic – and vindication of the subject of such power or his message.  In the course of this study I will be arguing for the thesis that my chosen passage has the effect of re-enacting and re-appropriating the vindication of Jesus and his message, thereby applying this vindication to Paul and his message.[1]

To demonstrate my thesis I will first show how Paul is re-enacting Jesus’ ministry generally in 18:24-19:12.  In the next two sections of the paper, I will then show how Jesus’ vindication in Luke is re-enacted and applied to Paul as Jesus’ legitimate envoy in 19:10-16, with most of my focus being on verses 13-16.  The first of these final two sections will focus on the re-enactment of vindication in the form of both demonic testimony and contrast with other exorcists, and the second will focus on vindication in the form of superior spiritual power. 

Paul Re-enacting Jesus’ Ministry

In this section I will show the ways in which Paul seems to be re-enacting Jesus’ ministry in 18:24-19:12, which will help us to see how Paul, as re-enactor of Jesus’ ministry, can thereby receive Jesus’ vindication.  Like Jesus in Palestine, Paul is preceded in Ephesus by another; in Luke, Jesus is preceded in ministry by John the Baptist, who prepares the way for him, whereas in Acts Paul is here preceded in ministry by Apollos who, teaching accurately about Jesus just as John had done (yet without knowledge of the full truth about Jesus), prepares with his teaching for the fuller message about Jesus to be delivered by Paul.[2] 

As can be seen in Acts 18:24-28, Apollos and John are both portrayed in rather similar ways.  Both, for instance, are associated with “the way of the Lord” (τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου – Luke 3:4; Acts 18:25) and Apollos knows only John’s baptism.  And like John with Jesus, Apollos more or less falls out of the story to make way for Paul’s own ministry in Ephesus.  Apollos, like John, preaches about Jesus, whereas Paul, like Jesus, following, preaches the kingdom of God after his forerunner disappears from the scene (Acts 19:8).[3]  More parallels could be laid out,[4] but the overall effect seems to be that presenting the Apollos episode in the way that it does, and placing it where it does just before Paul’s arrival and preaching of the kingdom of God, has the effect of already inclining a reader towards seeing Paul portrayed as a true successor to Jesus in his ministry and in his message (and makes the further links in this paper to and through the Baptist material in Luke all the stronger). 

Following the material dealing with Apollos, Acts 19 begins with Paul’s arrival at Ephesus and his interaction with more people (called “disciples”) who are associated in some way with John the Baptist and his baptism.[5]  Earlier, John the Baptist and his baptism had prepared for the coming one (a form of ἔρχομαι is used in John’s speech in Luke 3:16 and Luke 7:20, as well as in Acts 19:4) who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  This coming one, of course, was Jesus, who baptized his disciples with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 (see also Acts 1:5; 11:16; 13:24-25).[6]  So now those prepared with John’s baptism receive the Holy Spirit, Paul playing the part of Jesus as the envoy of Jesus, the one who came after John, and mediator of their Spirit baptism. 

Given the connections outlined between Paul and Jesus as successor to John the Baptist and sender of the Holy Spirit, 19:7’s mention of the number of these disciples being “about twelve” (ὡσεὶ δώδεκα) has the effect of calling to mind the original Twelve disciples called by Jesus (who themselves seem to be connected with John’s baptism in Acts 1:21-22) and the group of “about” (ὡσεὶ) one hundred twenty (Acts 1:15) who meet to reconstitute the Twelve by adding one to the Eleven[7].  Indeed, this latter scene is immediately followed by Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit upon the gathered disciples.  Contra many commentators, then, whatever the historical author’s intention, the effect of the narrative at this point, highlighting the number by setting it at the end of the scene in 19:1-7, is precisely to call to mind these other passages.  The addition of ὡσεὶ to the number in 19:7, rather than detracting from the effect (say, because that word is never applied to the number of apostles), adds to it, since the same word also appears in 1:15 (in connection with the larger group in which the apostles appear), as already stated.[8] 

The effect of saying these disciples were “about twelve” in number, then, is to further set Paul up as a successor to Jesus and also connects him further with apostles such as Peter, who themselves are portrayed as Jesus’ successors and bestowers of the Spirit by the laying on of hands (Acts 8:17).  Paul is thus seen as, like the apostles, the legitimate envoy of Jesus and his message is the legitimate one as well, the source for the legitimation and full incorporation of those disciples he lays hands on.[9]  Acts 19:11-12 further links Paul both with Jesus and the apostles as he is associated with displays of spiritual power including exorcism, healing, and the passing on or application of spiritual power from his person to another via physical intermediaries, acts previously associated both with Jesus and with his legitimate envoys, the apostles (see, for instance, Luke 8:43-48; Acts 5:12-16).[10] 

Paul’s entire Ephesian ministry, indeed, can be seen as a paradigmatic fulfillment of Jesus’ mission and his preaching of the kingdom, particularly as he had passed it on to his disciples in Luke 24:46-47 and Acts 1:8 – not only are displays of spiritual power evident but it is one of Paul’s longest, most successful, most universal ministries.  Indeed, it can be seen as a culmination of Paul’s ministry thus far (and thereby a culmination of any and all various portrayals of Paul as legitimate successor or envoy of Jesus).  This ministry (Paul’s last before he goes to Jerusalem for the final time) lasts two years, including a successful three month ministry in the synagogue, where instead of the usual broad rejection he meets with large success and is not kicked out but rather moves out of his own accord when some oppose him, addressing both Jews and Gentiles in his ministry rather than turning from Jews to the Gentiles.[11]  What we have here, then, is a culmination of the various portrayals of Paul so far.

Given what we have seen so far, then, Paul is set up in 18:24-19:12 as generally re-enacting Jesus’ mission and message and is portrayed as, like the apostles before him, a legitimate envoy of Jesus.  In the following sections we will see further how this background serves to help us read 19:13-16 in particular in terms of a transference of Jesus’ vindication to Paul through the topic of spiritual power. 

Testimony and Contrast of Power

In the next two sections I will show how the theme of Paul as Jesus’ legitimate envoy is once again established in Acts 19:11-16 and how Jesus’ own vindication is applied to Paul, thus effectively demonstrating my main thesis.  In the current section I will demonstrate that the effect of 19:11-16, following as it does the previous verses (and seen in the larger context of Luke-Acts), is to display Paul as being vindicated with the vindication of Jesus by demonic testimony and by contrast with other exorcists, which is one example of the pattern posited in this paper’s thesis. 

In various places in Luke, demons recognize Jesus’ identity and power, thus vindicating his message of the kingdom of God and his person (e.g., Luke 4:31-37, 40-43).  As spiritual beings with a grasp of spiritual powers and realities, the demons provide a kind of hostile (though, paradoxically, consistently reliable) witness to Jesus in the Third Gospel.  This is re-enacted to a certain degree in Acts 19:15, where the demon answers the sons of Sceva who are attempting to cast it out, not by recognizing them but by recognizing Jesus and also Paul – that is, it recognizes Jesus, re-enacting earlier vindications, but also recognizes Jesus’ power and its presence in Paul as well (and not in the sons of Sceva).   

In contrast to the spiritual power evinced by Paul, then, including his own exorcisms, the sons of Sceva seem to be lacking – the power of Jesus present in his ministry and in his legitimate followers is not similarly present with them and thus sets Paul up as one vindicated like Jesus, with Jesus’ own vindication, in contrast with these others.  Coming right after 19:11-12 and immediately prior to the response of the burning of magical texts, it would seem that these would-be exorcists use Jesus’ name to rival Paul’s own spiritual power he had been demonstrating in Ephesus.  But instead Paul is the one who is vindicated in connection with Jesus and Jesus’ name, not them – he is the one who is vindicated through the Vindicated One.  Like the greater spiritual power evinced by Paul in contrast with the Jewish sorcerer Elymas in 13:4-12, the power of Paul in Ephesus again is in contrast, this time with these other Jewish seekers after spiritual power. 

The story similarly connects with 8:9-25, where there is a contrast between the magician Simon who covets the apostles’ spiritual power and their bestowing of the Holy Spirit and the apostles themselves (this connection works whether or not we want to call the lesser spiritual power of the sons of Sceva “magic”).  Because of the connection with Elymas and Simon, the proximity to the burning of the magical texts in the following verses – and the fact that this is a response to the current episode – suggests a formulaic usage of Jesus’ name in 19:13; an attempt, like Simon the Magician, to co-opt the spiritual power of the church which had been so apparent in Paul.[12]

The episode here thus re-enacts in these events the situational vindication of Jesus in Luke 11:19-20, where Jesus charges his opponents with inconsistency in ascribing to him illegitimate spiritual power derived from the demonic realm and yet not doing the same against certain other Jewish exorcists – despite the fact that his exorcisms and miracle working are even more unmistakably unlike magical practices than the more ambiguous exorcisms traditionally performed by Jewish exorcists.[13]  But if Jesus’ power is not demonic, his deeds are by God’s own power.  Hence, by the liberating power of God, Jesus’ kingdom message as seen throughout Luke is vindicated and the kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ) – God’s eschatological power and rule which has broken proleptically into the present, constituting the sphere of God’s salvation – are present in Jesus.[14]  Thus his message of the coming kingdom in his person is vindicated and hence Jesus himself is vindicated as well. 

Here again, then, Jesus’ kingdom message, now proclaimed by Paul, is once again vindicated in the display of that liberating kingdom power by which Paul heals and casts out demons.  And because it is Paul who is the legitimate envoy of Jesus here, and is affirmed as such by the demon’s testimony as well as the deeds and words of Paul, the vindication of Jesus now applies to Paul as well.  Hence, like Jesus, demonic testimony and the contrast with other exorcists vindicates Paul.

Jesus’ Kingdom Power against the Demons

In this section, I will now show further how Acts 19:11-16, in its context, portrays that Paul’s spiritual power, greater than that of the sons of Sceva, belongs to him precisely as the kingdom power of God present in Jesus, now manifest in him on account of his being a legitimate envoy of Jesus himself.  The kingdom power present in Jesus makes him the possessor of supreme spiritual power and hence one whose power is greater than that of the demonic realm.  Hence, Paul is in this way also presented as vindicated since Jesus’ defeat of the demonic vindicates both Jesus and his message and Paul is his envoy.  Hence, again, we have an instance of the thesis presented at the beginning of this paper.

In addition to what has been shown in the previous section, Paul’s own displays of spiritual power and their contrast with the failed exorcism of the sons of Sceva also (re-)enact Jesus’ defeat of the demonic realm as discussed in Luke.  As seen in the first section of this paper, in Luke 3:16 John the Baptist, who prepares for the coming of Jesus, speaks of Jesus as the one who is coming (as discussed above).  In the same verse, however, he also speaks of Jesus as “the stronger one” (ὁ ἰσχυρότερος).  In other words, Jesus is not simply the coming one but also one with spiritual power beyond John, one who can grant the Holy Spirit.  In Luke 11:21-22, the notion of ὁ ἰσχυρότερος once again shows up, this time in the context of the defeat of a demonic tyrant, a strong one or strong man (ὁ ἰσχυρός); like the Exodus pattern found in Isaiah 49:24-26 (and 59:16-18), God’s people are rescued from an oppressive tyrant by the even more powerful divine warrior.[15]  Jesus, as the stronger one foretold and prepared for by John, is the one who defeats the powers of darkness by his more superior power – their spiritual power is no match for his, for his power is none other than that of the eschatological reign of God, God’s own kingdom. 

Additionally, Luke 11:21-22 here seems to look back not only to Luke 3:16 but also to Luke 10:17-19 – the spiritual power of Jesus is available to his envoys, whose casting out of demons by that power and in Jesus’ name amounts to the defeat of the demonic realm.  Read together with 11:21-22, the effect is that Jesus not only directly defeats the demonic with God’s power but also does so through his own chosen, legitimate envoys.[16]  Having argued in the previous verses that his defeat of the demonic is not through demonic power, Jesus affirms that it is in fact through God’s own power, which makes Jesus stronger than the demonic, that the demonic realm suffers defeat in every exorcism accomplished by him or his disciples, thus again vindicating Jesus’ message of the coming of the kingdom and its presence in him.

By contrast with Jesus and his envoys in Luke, what we have in Acts 19:13-16, as Richard I. Pervo notices, is a kind of exorcism in reverse.  In a normal exorcism the one possessed by the demon could be naked (Luke 8:27), exorcists were expected to win, and the demons were supposed to flee and the exorcists were left standing.  Instead, the exorcists are the ones left naked and fleeing and the demon is the one who wins and is left standing.[17]  The word used for the demon’s overpowering of these would-be exorcists is a verbal form of ἰσχυρός (the verb ἰσχύω), thus emphasizing that here we have one who is stronger than the sons of Sceva.  Now, Paul is already being portrayed as following after Apollos just as Jesus followed after John and the connection has already been established between the broader passage and Luke 3:16.[18]  And Luke 3:16, as we have seen, itself connects us with Luke 11, thus strengthening the link between Luke 3, Luke 11, and Acts 19.  Hence, the effect seems to be that the sons of Sceva suffer from one who is stronger than them, not being disciples of the even stronger Jesus (truly ὁ ἰσχυρότερος), whose spiritual power is capable of defeating the demon but to which these sons do not have access as they are not legitimate envoys of Jesus – even though, as sons of a Jewish “chief priest” they might otherwise seem entitled to spiritual power and authority.[19] 

In this contrast, Paul emerges as like one of the disciples from Luke 10:17-19, a disciple of the truly stronger one foretold by John the Baptist, a legitimate envoy of Jesus with access to the eschatological power of God which belongs to Jesus.  That kingdom power at work in Jesus, vindicating him and enabling him to defeat evil and hence to transfer that power and authority to his apostles, is now with Paul.  And Jesus’ vindication is once again, we see, now Paul’s own.  Jesus, in other words, is vindicated as the stronger one than the demon in this passage and Paul is thereby vindicated as his approved envoy and disciple – Jesus brings the message and power of God’s kingdom through Paul and Paul is able to bestow the Holy Spirit, do miracles, and defeat the demonic world through him, unlike the sons of Sceva.  Jesus, successor to John and stronger than demons, has sent Paul, successor to Apollos in Ephesus and servant of Jesus the stronger one.

Conclusion

As we have seen so far, Paul has re-enacted Jesus’ vindication by displaying the same power as Jesus and preaching the kingdom message as Jesus did, bestowing the same Spirit, being the subject of testimony by demons, comparing favorably versus other users of spiritual power, and displaying that kingdom power as supreme over all other power.  All other spiritual power is impotent in the face of the kingdom power of God present in Jesus and now manifested through Paul.  In Acts 19:17-20, in direct response to the incident with the sons of Sceva, others seem to acknowledge this greater power of Jesus (and of Paul as his envoy), burning magical texts which might otherwise be thought to be sources of spiritual power for their users.[20]  Next to Paul’s Jesus, these other sources are worthless and illegitimate. 

The Word of the Lord in 19:20 is said to be strong (again, a form of ἰσχύω), emphasizing again that true spiritual power is found in Jesus’ message and hence in Jesus.[21]  And since Paul is his legitimate envoy, it is also present in Paul’s message and in Paul as well.  Jesus is vindicated and so is Paul.  What we see in 18:18-19:20 as a whole (and as it is condensed down into 19:11-20 in particular) is that Paul does and preaches as Jesus, re-enacting Jesus’ vindication through his kingdom ministry and hence that Paul is a legitimate envoy of Jesus and thus Jesus’ vindication transfers to Paul as well.  As a culmination of Paul’s ministry prior to his final “mission” to Rome, this passage arguably thus sets the stage in Acts for the trials and questions concerning Paul and his message that will follow. 

Bibliography

Barrett, C. K. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Volume II: Introduction and Commentary on Acts XV-XXVIII.  ICC. New York: T&T Clark, 1998.

Bruce, F. F. The Book of Acts, Revised Edition. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988.

Caragounis, Chrys C. “Kingdom of God, Son of Man, and Jesus’ Self-Understanding.” Tyndale Bulletin 40 (1989): 3-23, 223-238.

Emmrich, Martin. “The Lucan Account of the Beelzebul Controversy.” Westminster Theological Journal 62 (2000): 267-279.

Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. “Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics: An Introduction.” In Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by E. Schüssler Fiorenza, 1-25.  Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke I-IX: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1981

_____.  The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV. AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1985.

_____.  The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB. New York: Doubleday, 1998.

Humphries, Michael. “The Kingdom of God in the Q Version of the Beelzebul Controversy: Q 11:14-26.” Forum 9 (1993): 121-150.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Gospel of Luke.  SP. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1991

_____. The Acts of the Apostles. SP. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1992.

Kurz, William S. Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978.

_____.  The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary. TNTC. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980.

_____. Luke: Historian & Theologian, Third Edition.  New Testament Profiles. Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Press, 1988

Pereira, Francis. Ephesus: Climax of Universalism in Luke-Acts: A Redaction-Critical Study of Paul’s Ephesian Ministry (Acts 18:23-20:1). Anand, India: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1983.

Pervo, Richard I. Acts: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009.

Shauf, Scott. Theology as History, History as Theology: Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19. BZNW. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.

Shirock, Robert. “Whose Exorcists are They? The Referents of οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν at Matthew 12:27/Luke 11:19.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 46 (1992): 41-51.

Talbert, C. H., and J. H. Hayes. “A Theology of Sea Storms in Luke-Acts.” In Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke’s Narrative Claim upon Israel’s Legacy, edited by D. P. Moessner, 267-283. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1999.

Tannehill, Robert C. The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Volume 2: The Acts of the Apostles. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.

Witherington, Ben, III. The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998.

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[1] Previous readers had trouble with my use of the term “vindication” for what is going on in this passage since vindication generally implies the existence of some opponent, whether that be a human opponent or a more metaphorical one (such as a vicious rumor).  That is, the word “vindicated” is often used to mean that someone is vindicated versus someone or something else.  We do not need to choose just one opponent for Paul here, however.  As Luke-Acts has already demonstrated, there is plenty of opposition to Jesus and his followers and to Paul in particular, both from fellow Jews and from pagans.  Paul even experiences opposition to his ministry in the form of other Christians who do not see eye-to-eye with him on the question of Gentile Christians.  Paul’s vindication here can be understood as vindication of himself and his message versus the many opponents which have shown up in Acts so far and a vindication of him against any opponents that may come against him in the final chapters of Acts, as well as any potential real-life opponents outside the text.  Slander and an unwillingness to accept Paul or his message are both shown to be in the wrong here, just as Jesus was vindicated versus his enemies and those unwilling to accept him or his message.  If a different word is sought, however, “legitimation” and its cognates could handily be used in place of “vindication” and its own cognates, if so desired.

[2] Cf. Francis Pereira, Ephesus: Climax of Universalism in Luke-Acts: A Redaction-Critical Study of Paul’s Ephesian Ministry (Acts 18:23-20:1) (Anand, India: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1983), 60-64.

[3] Pereira, Ephesus, 64.

[4] Pereira, Ephesus, 62-65.  Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 470 notes also parallels between Apollos as forerunner of Paul and Stephen (and to a lesser extent, Philip) as forerunner of Peter and Paul in the Gentile mission.  Compare, for instance, Acts 6:10 and 18:25.

[5] The relation between Apollos and these disciples, their differences, which if any were already Christians, and the nature of the disciples’ puzzlement about the Holy Spirit are all contested questions that go beyond the scope of the current paper.  See C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Volume II: Introduction and Commentary on Acts XV-XXVIII (New York: T&T Clark, 1998), 888, 894; F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988), 359, 363; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1992), 337; I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles: An Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980), 304, 306; Pereira, Ephesus, 56, 86-92; Scott Shauf, Theology as History, History as Theology: Paul in Ephesus in Acts 19 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 107, 146-153; Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Volume 2: The Acts of the Apostles (Minneapolist: Fortress Press, 1990), 232; Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 565, 570-571.

[6] Cf. Johnson, Acts, 332; Pervo, Acts, 470; Shauf, Theology as History, 159.

[7] That is, the original Twelve minus Judas Iscariot.

[8] Those who simply dismiss this verse as a historical footnote with no broader relevance include Barrett, Acts XV-XXVIII, 808; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 642; Marshall, Acts, 308.  On the other side, see Johnson, Acts, 338; William S. Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 97; Pereira, Ephesus, 102-103.  Cf. Shauf, Theology as History, 159-161.

[9] Cf. Fitzmyer, Acts, 642; Shauf, History as Theology, 157.

[10] Cf. Pereira, Ephesus, 182.  Note that in the case of Acts 19:12a, Paul combines two varieties of miracles accomplished by Jesus in one kind of miracle: healing through physical intermediary and healing at a distance.  Hence, rather than going beyond Jesus or doing something radically new, it is merely a different combination of the characteristics of Christ’s miracles.

[11] See Pereira, Ephesus, 135, 148, 153; Shauf, History as Theology, 87, 124, 126, 165-168; Tannehill, Narrative Unity, 234-236.

[12] See Barrett, Acts XV-XVIII, 910-912; Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics: An Introduction,” in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. E. Schüssler Fiorenza (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), 24; Fitzmyer, Acts, 646; Marshall, Acts, 311; Pervo, Acts, 478; Shauf, Theology as History, 194-195, 199, 223; Tannehill, Narrative Unity, 237.

[13] See Chrys C. Caragounis, “Kingdom of God, Son of Man, and Jesus’ Self-Understanding,” Tyndale Bulletin 40 (1989): 229; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (Garden City: Doubleday, 1985), 918.  For an alternative (and less plausible) interpretation according to which these exorcists are the disciples rather than Pharisees (or some other Jews outside Jesus’ circle), see Robert Shirock, “Whose Exorcists are They? The Referents of οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν at Matthew 12:27/Luke 11:19,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 46 (1992): 41-51.  Note that this important move on Jesus’ part in no way implies or requires the acceptance of the other exorcists and their exorcisms by Jesus, contrary to the assumption of the opposite by, e.g., Michael Humphries, “The Kingdom of God in the Q Version of the Beelzebul Controversy: Q 11:14-26,” Forum 9 (1993): 132-134; Shauf, Theology as History, 195-196. 

[14] See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), 154-155.  As I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978), 198, puts it, “In Lk. the kingdom of God is his activity in bringing salvation to men and the sphere which is thereby created; God is active here and now in the ministry of Jesus and will consummate his rule in the future.”  See also I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian & Theologian, Third Edition (Downer’s Grove, Illinois: IVP Press, 1988), 128-136.

[15] Martin Emmrich, “The Lucan Account of the Beelzebul Controversy,” Westminster Theological Journal 62 (2000): 273; Marshall, Luke, 478.

[16] Cf. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991), 183.

[17] Pervo, Acts, 478.

[18] For some further links with Luke which fall outside the scope of the current paper, see C. H. Talbert and J. H. Hayes, “A Theology of Sea Storms in Luke-Acts,” in Jesus and the Heritage of Israel: Luke’s Narrative Claim upon Israel’s Legacy, ed. D. P. Moessner (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1999), 281.

[19] This last point is further strengthened in that Luke 9:49-50 would seem to show that one need not even be one of Christ’s apostles or closest of disciples to legitimately cast out demons in Jesus’ name.  The sons of Sceva, thus, are cast in a decidedly negative light in comparison with Paul.

[20] Though I cannot do it here due to considerations of space, it would be interesting, given how Luke 3:16 has linked to my passage in other ways so far, to examine the potential for reading the burning of the magical texts in its context in chapter 19 in light of John’s foretold baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  It would also fall outside the scope of this paper to discuss the unique situation in Acts 19:18 where we have people confessing sin, something that does not happen often in Luke-Acts.  This issue is, after all, intertwined with the broader issue of who these people in 19:18-19 are – Christians, new Christians, or something else – and the nature of what they are doing exactly.  Since there is no universal agreement among commentators about such issues and they go beyond the scope of the current paper, I have chosen to set them aside, given my overall focus on 19:13-16.

[21] Indeed, according to Fitzmyer, Luke I-IX, 154, the kingdom of God in Luke arrives already in its proclamation by Jesus.