New Testament as Literature by Keefer Kyle;

Author:Keefer, Kyle;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2008-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Autobiographical details

Something dramatic happened to Paul, and this religious encounter becomes the starting point for what he calls “the gospel.” In his letter to the Galatians, Paul gives more autobiographical information than anywhere else, but even here, he provides only a brief sketch.

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles … I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

Then after three years … I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me. (Gal. 1:13–24)

Paul tells his story in a three-part stage to the Galatian church. First he describes his actions before God’s revelation to him. With no small degree of confidence, Paul admits his zeal for Judaism, manifested in his “persecuting the Church of God and trying to destroy it.” Second, he receives a revelation from God that impels him to “proclaim” among the Gentiles. For some reason, untold to his audience, this revelation results in a sojourn of some indefinite period. The third stage in Paul’s self-narrative shifts toward the proclamation itself, summed up in the anonymous report about him, where those who heard of his conversion “glorified God” because of this new Paul.

This brief narrative closely resembles what Paul says about himself in Philippians 3:4b–9a:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him. (Phil. 3:4b–9a)

These verses in Philippians, like those in Galatians, narrate a life divided into a before-Christ and an after-Christ period. In his before-Christ period, Paul conducted an exemplary life as a Pharisaic Jew. Nothing in Paul’s letters betrays any sense of inadequacy he felt during this period; he was completely confident that his life in Judaism pleased God. Only in his after-Christ period did Paul express any

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