Election: Romans 9 – 11, Reading Paul, Part 1

Before we begin to study the text, we need to pause and reflect on how to read Paul. Paul is not easy. But I’ve learned a lot about Paul here lately, and so let me share what I’ve learned.

The Old Testament quotations

Paul quotes the Old Testament nearly every other verse. When Paul quotes the Old Testament or refers to some Old Testament event, he assumes his readers know exactly what he is talking about. And sometimes we do, and sometimes we don’t.

We, in fact, have a tendency to skip these passages, as we think the Old Testament has been repealed. But this means we’re treating part of what Paul wrote as repealed — which is dumb.

When Paul refers to the Old Testament, we need to actually turn to that passage. Sometimes it’s just for context. Sometimes Paul is actually intending to refer to the entire, for example, prophecy that he’s quoted a part of.

And in Romans 9 -11, Paul is arguing about God’s election — the movement of his hand through history — and the passages he quotes tell part of the story.

Second Temple Judaism

Thanks to E. P. Sanders, James Dunn, N. T. Wright, and others, we’re learning that the New Testament becomes much more clear when read in light of the then contemporary culture — which should be obvious. And it is — it’s just that, until now, very few scholars went to the trouble of actually reading the uninspired texts written between the Testaments and by Jewish contemporaries of the apostles to really understand the Jewish culture in which Paul wrote. And a lot of this material has been preserved.

This is not the place to do a detailed analysis. Let me offer a very incomplete summary.

Salvation through Faith

Jews were not Pelagians. They did not seek to earn salvation by their works. They perfectly well knew they had to rely on grace through faith to be saved.

However, many Jews wished to show themselves to be God’s people through certain distinctives, particularly circumcision, the rejection of meat sacrificed to idols (and any other form of idolatry), and the celebration of Jewish holidays. A Stoic might be a moral man, and a follower of Plato might believe in a single god, but only a Jew displayed these peculiar marks.

There’s much more, and a great place to get into this very valuable study is What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?, by N. T. Wright.

I realize that seems like crazy talk, and many will be highly skeptical. But it’s demonstrably true, and this forces a rethinking of the entire Reformation conversation about what Paul is saying. It’s not so much that Paul doesn’t teach salvation by grace through faith (he certainly does!) — but what is he teaching against?

Jews and Gentiles

Most of Paul’s writings deal with the relationship of Jews and Gentiles. We tend to ignore the question, as we see it as irrelevant today (any Jewish Churches of Christ in your hometown?) As a result, we skip passages in our study that are critical to understanding Paul’s thought. You can’t skip pieces and expect to understand the rest. We’re not that smart. At least, I’m not.

Christianity began within Judaism. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but if you read Acts, you’ll see that he generally began his work among Jews and “God fearers,” that is, Gentiles who’d already come to believe in the God of Abraham, even if not proselytes.

Now imagine a congregation that meets in a Jewish synagogue made up largely of Jews and converts to Judaism or near-converts to Judaism. Paul then converts some Gentiles, with clean-shaven faces, togas, and a taste for non-kosher food — and no circumcision. It would have been very tempting for some old Jew to lean over and say to the Gentile, “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable at the Gentile congregation down the road?” (This is what many a white Church of Christ has said to its black converts.)

Or a well-intentioned Jewish Christian might say, “You know, things would go much easier if you were to be circumcised … you know, just to get along. Don’t you think it’s right to honor the scruples of others? You see, we have some Jewish members here who grew up believing they should only eat with the circumcised, so it makes communion really painful for them to see you acting like a Greek.”

Of course, Paul tells us in Galatians that some Jews actually said that circumcision and honoring holy days was essential for a Christian. But even when the teaching was mere social pressure, in a small, struggling, new church, such pressures could easily divide a church and create a Gentile church and Jewish church.

Paul’s attitude was to permit none of this — and in no uncertain terms. He declared it wrong either to demand that the Gentiles conform to the scruples of the Jews or to separate into two churches.

Are you beginning to see the relevance? And yet we skip these passages.