Last week we talked about the Apostle Paul. It is hard to read Paul with fresh eyes, without the jaundice of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the Enlightenment. Through those interpreters, Paul has become more rigid, shriller, and more pedantic. It is hard to unhear all of those voices, so I have to reconstruct my apparatus for reading Paul every time …
Taking Up the Cross
Sorry about the cold last Sunday. Still learning about the building’s reaction to crazy Texas weather. So our conversation was brief, but good. I shared a little (maybe a lot) about the context of Romans. Paul is often read through the eyes of previous interpreters and, in our contemporary context, Romans is often the source of our ideas about what …
The Eternal Becoming
One of my developing theses in this section on the Apostle Paul is that his hopes were bigger than he was. His view of the possibilities for his world and his faith was constrained. For example, we have seen how his understanding of physiology shaped his views of what it means to live a spiritual life. For Paul, equality operates …
Our Bodies, Ourselves
I try to avoid Pauline texts as much as possible. In addition to what in my estimation is a very non-systematic approach, Pauline texts have the unfortunate honor of establishing the language we use to talk about our faith. I say unfortunate because it is impossible to hear these texts without the weight of the entire history of interpretation of …