The form of this order of things is passing away: who is wrong—Paul or Matthew Thiessen?

I said I would come back to Matthew Thiessen’s “incoherent” account of Paul’s eschatology, so here we are. Chapter four of A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles is about Paul the “End-Time Jew.” Thiessen begins: “Paul never wrote an autobiography. Why would he when he expected an imminent end to the current structure of the cosmos?” (49).

This “apocalyptic expectation” was central to Paul’s thought. His response to concerns expressed by the group of believers in Thessalonica was not that the parousia would be delayed indefinitely but that many of his readers would live to see it. Paul includes himself among the living who would be caught up in the clouds, after the resurrected dead, to be with the Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:15-17). Thiessen says: “Paul expected Jesus to return during the lifetime of some of his readers (and possibly during his own lifetime)” (50).

Read more...
In what sense was the kingdom of God “in the midst of” the Pharisees?
I don’t think that the “kingdom of God” is half as complicated or mysterious as people sometimes make it out to be. In the Synoptic Gospels, it has in view a future moment in time when Israel’s God will intervene in the history of his people to put things right—to punish sin, to defeat enemies, to… ( | 2 comments)
Questions about the death of Jesus
This post is a response to some questions put to me by a young Christian who is exploring his faith, as he puts it. He writes: “I’ve been absorbed in your blog for the past couple of hours as I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s very different, and I’m sure you can sympathize with any feelings of… ( | 20 comments)
Summarising Romans again: from individuals to groups to apocalyptic narrative
Pete Enns has an excellent Bible for Normal People podcast on Romans in which he “shares 10 things essential to understanding the book of Romans.” I wrote about this last year, but since Geoff Leslie asked about it, here’s a brief rerun.Enns’ emphasis on the importance of groups gives a… ( | 2 comments)
Does God intend all people to be saved? The universalism of David Bentley Hart
The first thing to say about David Bentley Hart’s book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, & Universal Salvation is that it takes as its point of departure the “Question of an Eternal Hell”. Immediately here, I think, we have the trouble with universalism. It has been devised as a… ( | 4 comments)
Paul’s letter to the Romans in 24 tweet size pieces
I’m impressed by Andrew Errington’s lively tweeted summary of the argument of Romans—so impressed, in fact, that I thought I’d try a narrative-historical version. It’s an excellent little exercise, given the complexity of the letter. It’s crucial for good interpretation to have a sense of the whole… ( | 6 comments)
That sinking faith feeling
Here I want to try and answer some questions sent to me by someone who grew up in the “reformed, fundamental, SBC” tradition but has spent the best part of the last year deconstructing his faith “down to nothing.” He has been reading the work of historically-minded interpreters like Pete Enns and… ( | 5 comments)
What sort of hope do we find in the New Testament?
Certain core emphases or tenets have emerged over the years as I have dug myself deeper and deeper into the pit of the narrative-historical perspective:The key to understanding the Bible is history, not theology.What holds the whole thing together is the historical existence of a people that tells… ( | 5 comments)