The Doctor and the Apostle. Jeffrey A. Nelson

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СКАЧАТЬ says two things she’s always wanted to say. The first is “Hello, Doctor.” The second is “I love you.”

      The TARDIS is much more than a time machine and a spaceship. It is, in its way, a living being that helps steer The Doctor along certain paths, showing an intuition for what they need. It has opinions and feelings for the characters that ride inside. It remains connected to its passengers and provides assistance even when they’re not onboard. It endows its inhabitants with what they need both inside and outside its walls. It is much more than it appears, bigger on the inside in more ways than one.

      The Moveable Church

      As much credit as we may give to Paul for helping establish the Christian movement in its earliest years, he did not always have the most cordial relationship with his contemporaries. He was regularly at odds with other leaders and with some within some faith communities for reasons related to theology, inclusion, structure, or just basic personality differences.

      The primary issue that shows up in his letters is what we could call “the Gentile question.” There were many at the Jesus Movement’s founding who believed that to become a follower of Jesus meant following the Mosaic law, which included men becoming circumcised. As this movement began within Judaism, they saw the keeping of established traditions, customs, and commandments as still having a place in this new community.

      Paul, however, saw expanding the movement beyond these boundaries as being essential to his sense of call. He describes this at the beginning of his letter to the Galatians:

      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 did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (Galatians 1:13–17)

      At the beginning of this passage, Paul couches his experience in his life in Judaism. Having had his transformative moment that has led to his newfound sense of purpose, he doesn’t divorce himself from what came before so much as describe it as a new direction within it. The “earlier life in Judaism” that he references is his opposition to and persecution of the church; he describes it as a sign of his dedication and devotion to his faith, which he does more than once in his letters.

      When he mentions the revelation from God that he has received, he makes no differentiation between the God he previously knew as part of his Jewish faith and some new separate God who sent Jesus. Rather, it is the same God who has given a new understanding of how Jesus is related to what he knew before. In the same sense, he states that God has given him a new purpose: to advance the church’s mission rather than try to stop it.

Krister Stendahl points out that when Paul describes his new direction, it is never as from one faith to another, what we typically might call a conversion. Rather, Paul presents it as a new calling within the same faith. As illustrated in this passage from Galatians, he believes that God has given him a new assignment: to preach to non-Jewish believers and fully welcome them as part of the church without requiring them to pass through the standard points that his faith would usually require.1

      Unfortunately for Paul, not everyone was immediately onboard with his calling. As he mentions in Galatians 1, he did not confer with other apostles of the early church, but instead immediately set about his mission. Eventually, however, he did travel to meet with them, and it could have gone better:

      Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us—we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you. And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do. (Galatians 2:1–10)

      Jerusalem was a headquarters of sorts for the Jesus Movement, with notable leaders such as Peter, James, and John among those who would have been there for this meeting. Paul says that he finally acquiesced to such a meeting after having a revelation of his own to do so. This, along with what he says later about the other apostles’ authority (“what they actually were makes no difference . . . God shows no partiality”), suggests that he may have been content to continue with his own sense of calling and ministry, but wanted to achieve some semblance of endorsement and unity with the larger movement.

      Contrast this with those whom he calls “false believers,” who were also present, likely a group arguing for the full conversion of Gentiles via circumcision, who were bringing accusations against him. Paul had no interest in their approval, although they were making trouble for him nonetheless. Any challenges or complications to his being seen as an authority among the other apostles necessitated this meeting. Whatever he could do to eliminate some of the questions about his apostleship to the Gentiles, he was glad to do it.

      In Galatians as a whole, a large issue for his writing is again to push back against what was contrary to his proclamation. Recounting this meeting was one way of easing any concerns about this, and to show that his message is fully in line with and accepted by the apostles in Jerusalem. They could have limited or prevented this, insisting instead on a more unified or regulated approach according to what they’d already established, but instead recognized the movement of God in Paul’s life and the importance of his work to their larger mission.

      And so near the end of this passage he notes that Peter, James, and John—whom he is sure to name-drop as “acknowledged pillars”—recognized the grace of God at work in his ministry and agreed to his extension of what they were already doing in other pockets of people around the larger region. Hopefully this would help shore up any doubts that the Galatians had, given the potential influence of other competing messages trying to discredit Paul’s standing among them.

      The book of Acts mentions that Paul’s trade was tentmaking. In Acts 18, he meets two fellow members of his trade, named Priscilla (sometimes Prisca) and Aquila, and the three of them work alongside each other both in their business and in their proclaiming of the gospel. Paul also mentions this couple as beloved friends and coworkers in his letter to the Romans, an important byproduct first established by his plying his trade.

      This would also have allowed Paul to move around from city to city to set up shop during working hours, and then proclaim and debate his message about Jesus in the public square when he was finished for the day. At least at the beginning of his ministry, Paul’s business provided an entry point for his larger calling.

      Paul also alludes to his trade in 1 Thessalonians 2:9, where he reminds them of the labor he undertook while he was with them: “we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any СКАЧАТЬ