My New Testament 3 course has been something like a wild safari tour of Canberra as Brian Rosner has pointed to various aspects of the letter creating a deeper understanding of Paul’s world and his theology. Well, maybe safari tour is the wrong metaphor - actually, Brian’s lecturing style sometimes makes you think you’re at a trivia night! (a foible I’ve come to whole-heartedly embrace). In any case, we’ve not only seen the sights of the strange (and even obscene) culture of the place, but also, once you see the letter from the heights of its proper Jewish context, you see how amazingly well organised it is and how well it fits together! Surely a feat worthy of our own Walt Burley-Griffin! So for you bible readers out there, there’s no doubt that Brian’s forthcoming commentary in the Pillar series will be well worth the purchase price.

Current college work, combined with my fascination with the argument of Romans last year, has recently compelled me to read Paul in my quiet times each day and so I’ve started with Galatians. Galatians is confusing and riddled with statements under hot debate (cf. recent discussions on the meaning of pistis christou and ‘justification’ or ‘righteousness’ language) but also lines of passionate devotion to life in living Messiah - Jesus. I love it. Check this out:

I have been crucified with Christ; and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:19b-20, HSCB).

Paul is SO personally charged by his understanding of Christ’s love for him that he busts into the first person in the middle of his rebuke to the Galatian church. If I was to get a tattoo of something that said something meaningful about me and who I wanted to be, these words be right up there as a candidate. On second thoughts I might end up looking like Ben Cousins without the physique…

I say this as a means of saying that I’m keen to nut out Paul some more on this blog. I want to think out loud some of the things where my faith and traditions have been challenged and some of the things that I’ve been learning in class and reading in writers like Michael F. Bird, Francis Watson, Tom Wright, and Richard B. Hays (not to mention Brian S. Rosner!). The above verse is a great example of a verse that can be ripped out of its context and be made to mean something completely different to what it’s intended (along with Romans 7, 8, and 9… I could keep counting!).

So anyway, stay posted for some more wrestling with Paul, trying to capture what he knows of my life in Christ.