The Gospel, Paul and Culture

The Bible has four short biographies of Jesus. In them we have a clear description of what Jesus did and what he taught. They all show what Jesus valued and how he wanted people to live. Jesus is a person of captivating character, who taught some things which feel familiar, but also some very startling things.

The three books of Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar in their stories and teachings. (The intended audience of each was different, and so they differ in emphasis.) In these, Jesus reveals himself as God, but at first only privately. Jesus knew the political context would not tolerate him. When he publicly acknowledged his identity at the end, they killed him.

John’s book is different from the others. It starts out by using a key realization of ancient Greek philosophers that there can be only one God. This 'one' is a being very different, very other from us humans. Then however, John surprises us by saying that the logos (the word, or rationality) of this supreme entity, the one, came into the world as a human, as Jesus Christ, to reveal the one God to us. •••

All four books contain a message of good news - a gospel. (So, both the books and the message they contain are called gospels.) They bring news of a new spiritual domain in which people can live in relationship with God.

Jesus, the Gospel and first Jewish Christians

For three years Jesus traveled around Judea, teaching. He deeply understood Jewish religious and civil law, regularly astonishing everyone by what he said (including the religious leaders). The wisdom he showed in his teaching was like no other. However, Jesus was not part of the establishment because he did not require adherence to the Jewish system of laws.

Instead, Jesus taught a way of living that satisfied the spirit and purpose of the laws. He said that above all, people needed to love God and to love people. They needed to repent (change their mind) about their goal for living. People should instead follow his example and be motivated like him by a thoughtful love coming from a changed heart.

Jesus also announced a new spiritual kingdom. Though it is not an earthly kingdom, Jesus established the kingdom by what he did on earth (by his life, death and resurrection). We also can live in the kingdom: he is our king, and we follow his example of love to others. In the structure of this kingdom people can have a right relationship with God.

The original Christians were primarily Jews (in Jerusalem). Many times across history God had spoken to the Jewish people through messengers (prophets). Part of Jesus’ message was a call to return to God. In the context of Judaism that part of his message was familiar and already made sense. (However, there were parts that were very unexpected to them - particularly the part that Jesus was this God.)

Acts 10 tells of when Peter first told non-Jews about Jesus. The Jewish Christians criticized Peter because he had associated with outsiders (non-Jews). When Peter told them the story of what God had done to make this new thing happen, they were then glad that God had brought repentance and spiritual life to the non-Jews. However, they still thought the Jewish religious laws should be followed.

Paul and the non-Jewish Gospel

About that time Paul came into the history. He had grown up in the Greek-infused Roman culture. Though he understood it well, he reacted to it by obsessively pursuing his Jewish heritage. (Acts 9) He became well educated and was a rising star in Judaism. As Christianity grew, he saw it as polluting Judaism and so was vigorously working to eradicate it, thinking this would please God.

However, when he met the risen Jesus, he completely reversed his course. This required a complete rework of his spiritual dogma. He spent time thinking it through away from where Christianity and Judaism was centered. (Galatians 1:11-19)

Once Paul had figured out how Jesus’ teachings differed from Judaism, he started planting churches apart from Judaism. Soon people started coming from the central Jewish Christian group to Paul’s churches with papers credentialing them as official church representatives. They taught something different from Paul’s message, saying that to be a good Christian it was necessary to also to follow the Jewish laws.

Paul vigorously contested these ideas. He eventually presented his gospel to the leaders of the Jerusalem church and they agreed he had it right. (Acts 15, Galatians 2) •••

Not all the Jewish Christians agreed with this ruling. Some kept trying to Judaize Paul’s churches. And, Paul continued fighting their ideas, teaching that Jewish law was slavery to his churches and was not Christianity! (Galatians 5) Because of Paul’s teaching, we do not follow the Jerusalem church’s version of the gospel in which Christianity was an incorporation into Judaism.

We follow Paul’s version of the gospel. He taught a Christianity with all the Judaism removed. Since Christianity initially was Judaism, what Paul did was not easy.

Unfortunately it is easy and tempting to put Judaism back into Christianity, making it become a religion of laws. Jesus never taught this.

Judaism does supply a rich and valuable history to us. It gives us very useful background for understanding God’s dealings with humans across time. However, Jesus never required Judaism.

Paul strongly taught against Judaism for non-Jews. In particular, Paul did not want them bound to laws and regulations that never even had applied to them.

The Gospel and Culture

It was not a wrong thing for Jewish Christians to continue in their Judaism after they started following Jesus. Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God made Judaism better, simplifying it and bringing it right focus.

John connected with the established Greek understanding of the one, the only supreme being, and to the logos of this one. This was something already well-known to the Greek-literate people of the time. Therefore, in the context of Greek thought held by the broader population, this was something that already made sense. The good news of Jesus brought an identity to this one and made the identity personal through Jesus being the logos. The gospel made the Greek philosophical ideas better.

Jesus’ important enhancement to the truth realized in Greek thought and to the Judaism of his day was the aspect of being oriented towards others. The gospel not only gets you right with God, but it asks you to care for others. This love for others is lost the more we fade back into either pure (western) Greek philosophy or into legalistic Judaism.

In Christianity you care for others, but not by personal strength in a journey to goodness. You care for others because God loved us first, because God gives us his strength to love, because it is Jesus’ motivating value system to love, and because we follow Jesus wanting to be like him.

The basics of Christianity are simple: Jesus is our Lord and King of a spiritual kingdom for all people, a kingdom established by death and resurrection. We are to adopt and live his value system of sacrificial love for the benefit of others. God forgives us for our failings; like God, we are to be forgiving to others.

For Jewish Christians this simple message fit well into their existing context of religious thought and practice. However, for the rest of the Greek-thinking world, John’s presentation of Jesus and the writings of Paul were important for understanding the gospel in their context and applying it in life.

The gospels don’t give us much detail about the mechanics of Christianity. The Jews didn’t need it in their context. However, that detail is helpful to all us non-Jews, and we get almost all of it from Paul. Even so, Paul does not make the basic message more complicated while he is explaining what makes it profound.

This simple gospel message fits to all cultural contexts. It retains local cultural distinctives while bringing the moral aspects up to what looks like Jesus. Christianity makes sense when integrated into Judaism, or into Greek philosophy & culture, or into any other culture. It preserves the good in the culture while making the culture good.

Paul and his Teaching

Generally in a writing of Paul, the first half is spiritual teaching (theology) and the second is practical application of this teaching to life. Often Paul wrote to people about correction on very specific local problems. Therefore, it is important to understand the original context to extend his application into our current context.

Some interpret Paul’s instructions about behaviors as new law for Christians. That, however, would be a serious misunderstanding. Paul strenuously argues against laws beyond the law of love. What Paul is giving us is theory and application for Christianity. He explains how it works, and gives practical examples for how to live the law of love.

We would not be missing any aspects of what constitutes Christianity if we did not have the writings of Paul. Paul is in agreement with Jesus about the gospel. Paul teaches the same gospel as Jesus, but Paul expands our context to help us understand the gospel better.

 

The gospel is good news from God, a plan no mere human could implement. It is independent of all human cultures. It contains a deep and simple wisdom that is practical. And consistently, good human culture results from integrating the gospel.

 

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The value system perspective used here is based on ideas I learned from a friend.