Barth’s The Authority of the Word of God (CD I.2 §20.1)
Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics I.2, §20.1 (pages 538-585) on "The Authority of the Word of God" has an extended discussion about the authority of the Holy Scriptures in contrast to the authority of the Church. (You may read it entirety on Google Books here.) The fundamental question is whether the Church gives authority to the scripture and defines what is and is not the Holy Scriptures, or is it the other way around that the Church has authority because it is derived from the Holy Scriptures?
Karl Barth says that the Holy Scriptures are the oldest witnesses to the revelation of God. Barth points to Jesus Christ as the objective revelation of God earlier in this volume I.2 of his Church Dogmatics (CD). Barth says that Jesus is very human and very God, and even if other religions teach similar truths as Christianity they are still not the revelation of God (even if they are religions of grace) because they do not have the very man and very God person of Jesus Christ.
End Times Passages
The Book of Revelation has had a long and rocky road into biblical canonization, and has generated a myriad of interpretations and migraines among its readers. Although I believe John's Revelation is inspired, I first recommend reading what Paul wrote about eschatology (the study of end times)! In two of Paul's earliest, clearest and widely read letters exists two significant end times passages: 1 Corinthians 15:12-58 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11. I've seen more ink spilled on these two passages than any other eschatological passage (except possibly the Olivet Discourse.) The best part about them are that they are not written in the symbol-laden apocalyptic genre, so they are easy to understand! After Paul, I then recommend Jesus' Olivet Discourse: Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. Although the gospel writers wrote much later, they record Jesus' very words on the End Times, and who would know better than Jesus Christ, the Son of God? There are also eschatological versesscattered throughout the New Testament that reveal significant pieces of what is yet to come. Here are a few: Rom 11:25-36, 1 Thess 1:5-2:12; Col 3:4.
Lastly, review a brief history of the bible, before tackling Revelation and there will be far less interpretations and migraines for us all! Also, remember to check out my review of Robert Mounce's commentary on the Book of Revelation.
By: Wyatt Houtz 
Paul’s Undisputed Letters
Thirteen of the New Testament books internally claim to be written by the Apostle Paul. The Epistle of the Hebrews is anonymous, and is considered inspired, but very few theologians believe it was authored by Paul. We have found many other letters outside of the bible that claim to be authored by Paul, but they are likely pseudopygrapha ("false writings.") In the academic community, only seven of these fourteen books are undisputed as authored by Paul. First Thessalonians, Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon. If a scholar has rejected six of Paul's New Testament letters as pseudopygrapha, then I don't think you will change their mind, but its still valuable to know. Some of the disputed letters have a dubious history, but by comparing the word-choices, themes, phrases, and theological arguments to those in the undisputed letters we can use textual criticism to prove that the disputed letters are rightly placed in the New Testament canon.
Aside from apologetics, knowing that letters like Romans are undisputed allows me to take every word as if it came directly from Paul. I read 1 Timothy today, and there are several verses that Paul wrote to Timothy that if taken alone, apart from the undisputed letters, may lead you to believe in Pelagianism or even Universal salvation! This is also applicable to other non-Pauline passages of scripture like Mark 16, where some have developed strange doctrines about poisonous snakes.
Very few people have read the extra-biblical letters of Paul (part of the New Testament Apocrapha) and just because they are not in the bible, doesn't mean they have no value. The most important thing about Pseudopygrapha is that the author wants you to believe that Paul wrote their false letter, so they will write in a believable way that may reveal several facts along with their lies. By considering the way they argue, or what they are arguing, we can learn about the problems of the time period or some revealing details of contention that may give interesting background info toward understanding the undisputed letters better.
Non-canonical Pauline Epistles:
- Third Epistle to the Corinthians (canonical for a time in the Armenian Orthodox)
- Epistle to the Laodiceans (found in Codex Fuldensis)
- Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul (addressed to Paul, not written by him)
- Epistle to the Alexandrians
Non-epistle text claiming Pauline authorship:
- Acts of Paul and Thecla
- Acts of Peter and Paul
- Apocalypse of Paul
- Coptic Apocalypse of Paul
- Prayer of the Apostle Paul
- Epistle to Seneca the Younger
Last of all, there is certainly a chance that one day an archeologist will discover a previously unknown letter by Paul. There are many lost books that are referred to in the bible, including several Pauline letters. If one of these were unearthed, we may find it very valuable, even if it is never included in our bibles! Here's a list of lost Pauline epistles:
- The first Epistle to Corinth (cf. 1 Cor 5:9)
- The third Epistle to Corinth aka "Severe Letter" (c.f 2 Cor 2:4; 7:8-9)
- The Earlier Epistle to the Ephesians (cf. Eph 3:3-4)
- The Epistle to the Laodiceans (cf. Col 4:16)
By: Wyatt Houtz
Paul: In Fresh Perspective
I'm reading Paul: In Fresh Perspective by N.T. Wright. It's a short 170pg book that briefly covers N.T. Wright's conservative (and reasonably orthodox) version of the New Perspective on Paul that is different from the liberal extremes of E.P. Sanders and James Dunn. In "Paul", N.T. Wright discusses the three worldviews of Paul: Second Temple Judaism, the Roman Empire, and his association with Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Each of these world views are analyzed against N.T. Wright's meta-narrative approach to understanding Paul: Creation vs Covenant, Messiah vs Apocalyptic, and Gospel vs the Roman Empire. The worldviews and the meta-narratives fuse together Paul's theology into a Covenantal Nomism where Salvation History soteriology is stressed as building throughout history rather than an a-historical view of salvation. The cross of Christ is still defined as the unexpected event that has always been a part of the plan that causes the election of God's people. The cross extends the holy people and land to all peoples and the entire earth by consider creation and covenant as synonyms in the dikaiosune theou ("righteousness of God").N.T. Wright uses his meta-narrative approach to prove that Colossians and Ephesians and the Pauline portions of Acts are correctly ascribed to Paul. This wins him favor with conservative scholarship (and myself!), but I fear it is at the consequence of clouding our understanding of Paul over all. N.T. Wright's three-fold analysis of Philippi does add clarity by explaining the pros-and-cons of the city's annexation by the Rome Empire, and I found Wright's exegesis of Philippians 2 very good when he used his hermaneutic to exegete the church's charge to "work our their salvation when it is God who actually works." Wright's methodology also demonstrates that the letter to the Galatians was among the first books written in the New Testament. So I find the book valuable two fold, for using the world-view of second-Temple Judaism to read Paul's literature, and second to put down disputes against Paul's authorship.
N.T. Wright also considers 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra and a few other Jewish Apocalyptic writings. I believe this would be informative to many Christians who do not know about these letter's existence, but my reading of those letters didn't bring me to the same conclusions that he arrived upon, so I was skeptical rather than intrigued. I am no expect, so maybe I should read those letters again.
Lastly, my overall gripe against N.T. Wright is that I would value his literature far more if he didn't put me on the defense all the time. I feel that the New Perspective on Paul has some value but its forced at the loss of a plain reading of Paul's writings. This is also my concern with Karl Barth as well. Reinterpretation is very valuable as long as it doesn't interpret away what is obviously before our face.
Overall, I consider N.T. Wright's view orthodox and very good, with only a few hesitations. I recommend this book as an introduction to N.T. Wright.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Early Church Literature
I'm reading the Apostolic Literature by Polycarp, Clement, Papias, Tertullian, and also some pseudepigrapha such as the Epistle of Barnabas. The Apostolic Fathers are the disciples of the New Testament writers that didn't receive the divine revelation bestowed on the 12 and the 70. Sadly, few people read the myriad of writings left behind by the Apostolic Fathers or any of the Early Church Fathers because few have even read the entire bible straight-though. I don't recommend reading any of these writers unless you've read the entire bible and have a good understand of what is in it, otherwise the later writings won't make any sense. Today, I read Polycarp's "Epistle to the Philippians" and the alleged Epistle of Barnabas. Here's a sample page:
I heard that the Early Church and Apostolic Father's quoted the bible over a million times, and its also possible to reconstruct the entire thing based on their writings. Unfortunately, they make many mistakes because they are mere men like you and I who were witnesses of people who knew Jesus. Polycarp was a disciple of the disciple John (like Irenaeus and Papias) and I don't know if he knew Paul, but polycarp quotes the pauline body extensively in his epistle. This is what Polycarp says about Paul:
"For neither am I, nor is any other like me, able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who when he was among you in the presence of the men of that time taught accurately and steadfastly the word of truth, and also when he was absent wrote letters to you, from the study of which you will be able to build yourselves up into the faith given you." ~ Polycarp to the Philippians 3:2
Polycarp's letter is short, and I read it in under twenty minutes. It's interesting that he has a compassionate introduction to the Church in Philipi as Paul does in all his letters. Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna and wrote to Philipi concerning an elder who had "shipwrecked" his faith and I believe was excommunicated, and Polycarp encouraged them to have compassion on him and long for his repentence. It contains many quotations from Pauline epistles as well. Most of them were unreferenced but I could easily find the references. The second purpose of the letter was to include the writings gathered by ignatius (Another Apostolic Father).
I also read the pseudepigrapha called the "Epistle of Barnabas." This epistle was even included in the canon temporarily by some churches. It is a valuable document for it goes through many events in the Torah (the five books of moses) and explains who each law is a typology of christ. It has 21 short chapters. I enjoyed it because his old testament hermeneutic is the same way that I read the Old Testament (through typologies). A memorable antecdote was when "Barnabas" says that Ezekiel 11:19 "replace my heart of stone with one of flesh" referred to how Jesus' covenant in his fleshly body was greater than the stone tablets of Moses. Although he may have stole this idea from Paul (2 Cor 3:3).
The translation I used for Barnabas and Polycarp was: Apostolic Fathers I by Kirsopp Lake.
By: Wyatt Houtz
Gifts to Men
Last year I was confused by the differences between Ephesians 4:8 and Psalms 68:18 because Paul's quotation seems opposite of what is in the Psalm. Read each verse and compare "received among" to "gave gifts too":
And He gave gifts tomen. ~ Ephesians 4:8
You have ascended on high, You have led captive Your captives;
You have received gifts among men, ~ Psalm 68:18a
Last year I had three reasons to explain the differences:
- My initial explanation was to show how "gave to" and "received among" were equivillent. Captives are property of their master, so if the master gives anything to his slaves, then he is also giving it to himself vicariously through the slave, since the master owns the slave also.
- Paul used the Greek Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Old Testament (circa 300BC) instead of the original Hebrew, because everyone spoke greek and only the Jews spoke Hebrew. Translations by definition aren't perfect, and since Paul spoke both Hebrew and Greek, then he had a mastery over the languages that allowed Paul to clarify the Septuagint's version of Ps 68:18 that was more true to the hebrew and therefore render it as it is in Eph 4:8.
- Paul had "Apostolic Authority" that he received directly from Jesus during his conversion on the road to Damascus and only the disciples were given this authority until now. So this means that Paul had the authority to say what was the true word of god, and to correct others. So when Paul approached Ps 68:18, he saw that this verse was actually about Jesus Christ, and not about Moses, and intentionally translated it such that it was clearly about Jesus without corrupting the original. So Ps 68:18 is correct, but Eph 4:8 is more correct.
Between these points, I felt comfortable explaining the differences but some of my friends were still unsure. I've been listening to DA Carson's lectures on the New Testament's use of the Old Testament, and I heard him say that he believed the Psalms 68:18 was refering to Numbers 18:6 (or Numbers 8:19). I've been reading numbers, and have realized that its not whether its supposed to be "gave gifts" or "received among" or an intersection of the two, but the answer is that is both "gave to" and "received among" at the same time. The answer comes by comparing Christians to the Levitical Priests. Read this verse:
Aaron was the high priest but it was impossible for him to do everything, so God gifted the sons of Levi to Aaron as a gift to help him in the temple. Not all Levites had the same responsiblities, and they were divided into three groups: Kohathites moved the ark of the covenant and holy instruments, Gershonites rolled up the tent coverings and the Merarites handled the pegs. Although the Levites who carried the tent's pegs were not as important as those who carried the ark, all Levites were necessary for the temple to be established. Conversely, only some levites handled the sacrifices in the temple, but all of the Levites kept a portion of what was sacrificed in the temple. A portion of the gifts to god ( money, food, etc.) were distributed back to the Levites to help them survive.
The problem isn't semantics at all. Ephesians 4 is about spiritual gifts and explains that all Christians in the Body of Christ have them, in the same way as the Levitical priests all had responsibilities in the temple. Christians are gifts to our High Priest Jesus, like the Levites were to Aaron. In the same way that some Levites were assigned to carry the Ark, some Christians were made Apostles, Pastors, etc. There are varying spiritual gifts, etc.
My solution from last year was right but it missed Paul's point that the Church is a body of priests, like the Levites working in the temple. When a Pastor teaches, he is exercising the gift God gave him, but when he edifies the Church it glorifies God. So it's both "gave to" and "received among" at once.
By: Wyatt Houtz
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