Round the Sphere Again: Questions About Paul

Did He Change His Name?
“I have heard it said … that Saul sort of officially changed his name [to Paul] … . But this is clearly not the case.” So what’s up with the two different names? (Theologically Driven).

Did He Write Those Letters?
Some scholars suggest that some of the letters we attribute to Paul were written by others falsely using his name. They would be wrong (Justin Taylor).

Looking for God's Love

From Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach:

[A] lack of clarity about what God’s love is leads to a diminished certainty that we have truly encountered it. The vague, nebulous idea of love so prevalent in our society is very fragile. It serves us well when the sun shines down on us, and life is easy, but it offers no defence against the savage onslaught of personal tragedy. It easily gives way to doubt and a feeling of forsakenness at the very moment it is most needed. This is a far cry from the strong, powerful love spoken of in Scripture. Consider Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians: ‘I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God’ (Eph. 5:17-19).

Can any of us honestly say we know Christ’s love this way? Do we experience the tangible intensity of God’s love for which Paul prayer? And if not, where should we look?

The New Testament repeatedly turns to the cross of Christ as the supreme demonstration of the love of God. The apostle John provides the most famous example: ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us … God is love … This is love: not that we loved God, but that he love us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John 3:16, 4:8. 10). We can begin to appreciate the contours of God’s love by reflecting on the cost of the cross, the depth of our sinfulness, and the perfection of God’s holiness. 

It’s a penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement that gives us the clearest picture of the “intensity and beauty” of the love of God because it does not “diminish our plight as sinners deserving of God’s wrath.”

It also give us assurance that his love will stay with us no matter what. If God gave Christ up on our behalf, “how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” What could separate us from a love like this?

Theological Term of the Week

contextualization
Evangelical Christian jargon: In the best sense, taking the unchanging truth of the gospel and tailoring the presentation of it to a specific cultural context in order to achieve greater understanding; but also used to refer to changing the message of the gospel (always unjustified and inexcusable) in order to make it more palatable in a specific cultural context; also often used ambiguously.

• From scripture:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, rthat I may share with them in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV)

• From Contextualization Without Compromise by Tullian Tchividjian:

Becoming “all things to all people” … does not mean fitting in with the fallen patterns of this world so that there is no distinguishable difference between Christians and non-Christians. While rightly living “in the world,” we must avoid the extreme of accommodation—being “of the world.” It happens when Christians, in their attempt to make proper contact with the world, go out of their way to adopt worldly styles, standards, and strategies.

When Christians try to eliminate the counter-cultural, unfashionable features of the biblical message because those features are unpopular in the wider culture—for example, when we reduce sin to a lack of self-esteem, deny the exclusivity of Christ, or downplay the reality of knowable absolute truth—we’ve moved from contextualization to compromise. When we accommodate our culture by jettisoning key themes of the gospel, such as suffering, humility, persecution, service, and self-sacrifice, we actually do our world more harm than good. For love’s sake, compromise is to be avoided at all costs.

Learn more:

1. GotQuestions.org: What Is Contextualization?
2. 9Marks Journal: Putting Contextualization in Its Place
3. Tullian Tchividjian: Contextualization Without Compromise
4. Phil Johnson: Context and Contextualization
5. John Piper: Don’t Contextualize the Gospel (video)
6. David Wells: Contextualization and Foreign Missions,  Contextualization and Preaching (audio)
7. Together for the Gospel: Panel Discussion on Contextualization (audio)

Related term:

• gospel, the

Filed under Ecclesiology

This week’s theological term was suggested by Moon Poni. Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.