Perfection Epistles?

Originally posted on December 21, 2009 – by Andre Piet

During the last study day, the preaching of the apostle Paul to Israel stood central. The core point in this was that from the beginning of Paul’s ministry among the nations (Acts 13), the hardening of Israel as a nation was a fact. This observation is fundamental in order to be able to hold fast to the unity of all Paul’s letters.

ultra-dispensationalism

The so-called ultra-dispensationalism that has the hardening of Israel begin only at the close of Acts is compelled to introduce a division into Paul’s letters, with Acts 28 as the dividing line. What was written after that would be current and applicable today, while what was written before that (such as Romans, Corinthians, and Thessalonians) would stand in the light of the apostle’s earlier ministry with a view to Israel’s conversion. Quite apart from the fact that this latter is not correct, the boundary of Acts 28 is in any case artificial because some of Paul’s letters simply cannot be classified this way with certainty. With the logical consequence that within ultra-dispensationalism there is, to this day, no unanimity about the status of, for example, Titus, 1 Timothy, and Philippians.

on the way to maturity

This, by the way, does not alter the fact that there is unmistakably a progression and growth in Paul’s letters. The later letters build on his earlier letters. Already in the Corinthian letter, Paul teaches that certain grace-gifts (languages, prophecies, knowledge) are temporary in nature and would be discarded whenever the ecclesia should attain a mature status. When maturity (“the mature”; 1 Cor. 13:10) should have come, the childish would be discarded. This maturity implies that the ecclesia will no longer know “in part,” but “fully.” Then Paul would have completed the Word of God (Col. 1:25) and “the body of Christ”…

… should be arriving at the unity of the faith and of the realization of the Son of God, at a mature man, at the measure of the stature which belongs to the complement of the Christ.
Ephesians 4:13

perfection epistles?

On the basis of the above, some also call Paul’s prison epistles his “perfection epistles”: the conclusion and at the same time the crowning of his writings. Fine… but be careful! The word does not occur in the Bible, and it becomes an unhealthy word (>2 Tim. 1:13) as soon as one builds on it or starts drawing conclusions from it. That happens, for example, when on the basis of such a term one begins assigning those letters a separate, elevated status. And with that, automatically regards the earlier letters as being of lesser value…

In order to be able to follow Paul, we need all his letters. The unity of Paul’s letters “is left hanging in the air” by assigning an unbiblical weight to Acts 28:28.

Delen: