Ep 286: The Apocalyptic Paul with Nick Quient

Preorder my new book Politics, Economics and New Testament Interpretation here: https://libertarianchristians.com/store/politics-economics-and-new-testament-interpretation/

In this episode I talk with Reverend Nick Quient, pastor of First Baptist Church of Palos Verdes and host of the New Testament Theologist podcast about his reading of Paul. We discuss his conviction that Paul must be read within an apocalyptic framework and what that means for our interpretation of his letters, the relationship between apocalyptic readings and other schools of Pauline interpretation, the authorship and interpretive methods of the 13 letters attributed to Paul, major themes such as eschatology, the Spirit, and the church, the faith in/faith of Christ debate, what Paul means by “the righteousness of God”, why Romans has become the central text in Pauline scholarship, and Paul’s views on the Roman Empire. 

Media Referenced:

Nick on X: @NickQuient

New Testament Theologist: https://www.youtube.com/@nickquient

John Collins on Apocalypticism: https://libertarianchristians.com/episode/ep-272-the-apocalyptic-worldview-of-ancient-judaism-and-christianity-with-john-j-collins/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everybody. I want to take a quick break from the show to let you all know that my brand new book, Politics, Economics, and New Testament Interpretation, where I argue definitively that the New Testament does not endorse modern authoritarian socialism, is now available for pre-order. The release date is going to be Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. And you can go to libertarianchristians.com, click on the book tab at the top of the page, and then select my book. You can pre-order the physical copy through libertarianchristians.com and you can go to Amazon and pre-order the ebook version, the Kindle version of that book over there. And of course, on September 15th, you'll be able to find the physical copy on Amazon and in many other places where books are sold. I'm extremely excited about this book. This is a culmination of my life's work. I know that many of you guys have asked me about it over the last several months, and I am so ready to get into your hands. Let's go ahead and make this a big hit, get these ideas out there. Again, go and pre-order the book at libertarianchristians.com or at Amazon.com. You can search my name or the title of the book. Thank you guys very much. This is the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I really hope that you guys enjoy today's show. All right, guys. Welcome to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. My guest today is Nick Quinn. Nick is pastor of First Baptist Church of Palos Verdes in Southern California, adjunct professor at Houston Christian University, and host of the New Testament Theologist Podcast. He reads the New Testament within an apocalyptic framework. And today we'll be discussing the Apostle Paul, his letters, and how modern Christians should interpret and apply the Apostle today. Nick, welcome to the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. Thanks, brother. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Well, like we were talking about before the show, you're friends with Cody Cook. I've I've heard you in a lot of different places from Mutuals on Twitter. I've seen your content. I think we have a lot of the same thoughts. So I've wanted to get you on for a while, and I'm glad the schedule finally worked. But this is your first time at the show. So before we get started, just tell us about yourself, your background, and your work.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Well, thanks for having me again. This is this is a pleasure. Nothing better than waking up on a on a uh on a two day to talk in theology. So this is great. Um yeah, uh born and raised Southern California, LA, you know, all that, although um Midwest values. My mom was born in Minnesota, my dad's from the East Coast, so I kind of got the best of all of that. Um so yeah, I I grew up uh Calvary Chapel, you know, non-denominational sort of assemblies of God, sort of Christian dispensationalism, all that sort of stuff. Kind of fell away, then became a, I call it a um a functional deist for, I'd say until I turned about 18. Um, God exists, but God doesn't love us, kind of thing. Like look at the world. God clearly doesn't love us. And then 18 had a, I won't say conversion experience, but I would say a recapturing sort of experience, you know, kind of recaptured that, went to Biola, did undergrad there in film, uh, met my wife there, her girlfriend who had become my wife. Uh, she went to seminary, then I went to Fuller. Um, didn't want to be a pastor. I haven't taken a single class of pastoral ministry, and so I'm just trying to figure it out. Uh wanted to be an academic, wanted to preach or uh teach, maybe preach in a local church here and there. But um, yeah, doing uh, as you said, very kindly, um, first Baptist Church of Palisferides in greater Los Angeles, um, near Long Beach for those who are local. And uh doing a PhD on apocalyptic theology and universalism and Paul on Paul in uh at Ridley College down in Melbourne, Australia. Thankfully, distance. I that's it's an 18-hour flight. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Under uh Michael Byrd and uh Andrew Malone. So yeah, that's me in a nutshell, got a wife, two kids, um nine-month-old named Jane Wesley. There was a boy would have been John Wesley, but we had a girl, so it's Jane Wesley. Uh so yeah, that's that's me in a nutshell, published a few articles here, but all in all, just just your average nerd on the internet with an opinion, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Well, I love that. The one thing I did want to ask you about before we start talking about Paul is you're a Baptist pastor, but you have a lot of Wesleyan leanings. And as you know, like I'm I consider myself to be a Wesley and I very much fit within that tradition. So I want to talk to you about that because that is kind of an interesting juxtaposition. So, what's it like being a Baptist pastor with Wesleyan leanings? And how did you come to that combination of those two traditions?

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, so when I met my wife, she was American Baptist, and that's distinct from Southern Baptist because American Baptists generally speak more theological and politically moderate, meaning um, your average American Baptist, uh, if you brought up the edge of the earth issue, right? You know, young earth, older, theistic evolution, gauge, all that they look at you like, what? Like we're talking like conservative folk. They'd be like, what are you talking about? That just you know, dispensational, miss them. So it's a mainline denomination. So she grew up in a, I would say the evangelical wing of a mainline denomination, American Baptist, one of the, I think the only conservative to moderate mainline uh mainline denomination out of the sisters, right? This I think is the seven, you know, the UMC, the ELCA, and all that. And so I pursued that because at heart, and I always grew up with this, uh, I wouldn't say a libertarian populist mindset already, a working class, you know, had to work for a living, you know, very young, you know, dirt on my fingernails when I was like six, you know, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

And so my sense of the world was very much, you know, I like freedom, I don't like being told what to do, and I also don't like telling others what to do. Because I know I know what bullies are like. I'm not even thinking necessarily politically, but just that kind of mindset. And with American Baptist, with Calvary Chapel, there was, you know, as Protestants, uh, there was a very distinct kind of authoritarian streak in a lot of the way they do it. Because, you know, the Moses model, the senior pastor is basically final sale everything. Right. But if you go to an American Baptist congregation, it's it's congregational, meaning that the church has a say, and it's it's democratic. And there's you know, pros and cons to that, of course. There's always pros and cons to ecclesiology. But um, with that, I basically asked my father-in-law, who's my wife's um, you know, my wife's dad, and when you know, he was the pastor of the church. I'm like, so can I believe in X, you know, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, d. And he's like, yeah, it's not an issue here. You know, basically, you know, believers' baptism and the autonomy of the local church are basically our major, you know, soul liberty and you know, a few other distinctives. But you know, other than that, you know, outside of creedal issues, you know, like the Nicene Creed, you know, Trinity, justification, you know, bodily resurrection. And I'm like, so I have freedom to believe kind of whatever I want under the root, this wide rubric of Christian, what we would call Christian theology. And he's like, yeah, I'm like, so I could believe that the Catholics are right about sanctification, but still be an American Baptist. He said, Yes, I want. I like freedom. I like being a Baptist. And so I stayed with the American Baptist tradition. I'm more I was licensed there, I'm ordained there. And with that, um, the American Baptist tradition theologically is all over the map. And politically, we have our issues, we're all over the map there, too. Um, you know, it depends. Some American Baptist churches, they look like a country club, you know, for the DNC. Like they're that, you know, oh my gosh, we're that kind of thing. Um, so with American Baptists, I I found that outside of those Baptist distinctives of, you know, ecclesiology and baptism, you know, believers baptism, soul liberty, I was like, but soteriologically, Wesley, basically Wesley was right on most things, outside of his view of you know, key distinctives with that, you know, American Baptist. Um, even Wesley's view on women, for example. I was like, oh, Wesley was far more egalitarian than his contemporaries. You know, he wasn't quite where Frederick Douglass was, but you know, he's pretty good. And so just Wesley as an interpreter, I found him in seminary and I thought he was by and large really, really helpful as kind of a pastoral guide through these sorts of theological issues. Um so yeah, I just I just hold them in tension. I don't try to settle them. I'm a New Testament guy, I'm not a systematic theologian, so I don't have to settle that for myself yet. I'll I'll get there one day. But yeah, that's for me, it's outside of certain distinctives, soteriology. That's Wesley was right 95% of what he said.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So man, I love it and I agree with everything you said there. So um I want to ask you what got you interested in studying Paul in particular, because it does seem like if you're interested in New Testament studies, you're either like primarily a gospel person with Paul as your secondary, or primarily a Paul person with the gospels as your secondary. There are some weird people like our mutual friend Cody Cook, who liked the Catholic epistles and stuff like that, but that's that's not the norm. So what was what what was the the the driving force behind your interest in studying the Apostle Paul?

SPEAKER_02 7:35

That's a great question. Um, I think first and foremost was uh it's not that the gospels are uninteresting. It's by by by no means they're they feature our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Like so it's not just in terms of academic, I always found Paul just to be far more um speaking to what I was existentially going through, what I was theologically thinking through. Jesus, I had Jesus kind of figured out in the sense in the sense of believe in him, trust in him, second person that's like those sorts of things. Um and when I studied Paul, I found someone who would speak to issues of sexual ethics, who had kind of this comprehensive apocalyptic worldview that mirrored Jesus, but took, you know, the the issues that Jesus wasn't necessarily dealing with and took those to the pagans, right, to the Gentiles, to the nations. And so in that sense, Jesus felt very focused on key intramural Jewish discussions, which I think are absolutely vital. They're fascinating. And I'm getting kind of into that now. Paul Sloan, uh, Dr. Paul Sloan at HCU's new book. Great book. Uh uh, I should know this. Jesus and the Law of Moses. Jesus and the Law of Moses, where eschatological nomism is his kind of his reconceptualizing of kind of the the new perspective, which is now the old perspective. Um excuse me. Um but yeah, it's just it never quite captured me, um, at least at first. And I think what captured me about Paul was that we live in a pagan culture. So when I when I read Greco-Roman literature, I I don't see Greco-Roman, I see the United States, you know, the book of Revelation. You know, I preached through the book of Revelation in 2004 during the election year, the election cycle, which I was an experience. Um but I think with Paul, you get this unique mind, this mind captured by Jesus, but also um intelligent and able to take the teachings of Jesus and apply them to uh issues of divorce or sexual ethics or or baptism or the spirits. And just kind of he's taking all that Jesus had and having to kind of do Christian theology. Jesus is Christian theology, but Paul was having to do Christian theology on the basis of revelation. And what I found so interesting about that was there's so many little pieces of Paul that you could spend a lifetime discerning. You know, you could spend your entire life looking at justification, and you'll see there's so much to be discussed there. Um, and that's why I think about Paul. I just I picked one piece, the evangelical gender debate and eschatology. And those two things are kind of what I've been focused on. And the more I dove into them, the more I was like, oh my gosh, these intersect. These touch on this, these touch on this, but oh, what about this? And you touch on that, and suddenly you've got this whole matrix of theology that you're like, oh my gosh, Christian Becker was right. He's not a systematic theologian. Paul's not a systematic theologian, but he's remarkably coherent across his, I would say his 13 epistles and stuff like that. So I don't know, that that's what captured me about Paul and his politics as well. Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, yeah. No, I I I love that and resonate with a lot of it too. Uh, I want to ask you about the apocalyptic reading of, well, I guess the New Testament generally, but then Paul in particular. I had John Joseph Collins on my show uh about a month or two ago to talk about his new book on Jewish apocalypticism, but we only kind of dove into some of the specifics for the New Testament. So when when it comes to an apocalyptic reading of the New Testament and then Paul, what do we mean by that?

SPEAKER_02 10:33

So, in a nutshell, we are we're talking about the best analogy is this. Um, if if the world is Nazi Germany in the in 1944, Jesus Christ is uh the one who storms the beachhead at Normandy, right? He's you know, we all remember saving private Ryan. Jesus is the tip of the spear into that. And what that tells us is that you kind of almost capture, you don't almost want to go to Paul for this or even John the Seer. Um you want to go to the Gospel of John, where you have the language of in the beginning was the word and so on and so forth, but the darkness could not overpower. I take that verb to be um far more about not just um overcome, like suppress, you know, in terms of you know, uh an active agent. The darkness is basically raging against the light, you know, in metaphysical terms and also apocalyptic terms. What that means is when in the in all Christian theology revolves around not just the incarnation, but it also revolves around the resurrection. The death of Jesus means virtually nothing without those two poles to set it. You know what I mean? So you can build whatever spider web you want, but unless you have those two anchors, incarnation and and uh and bodily resurrection, you don't the death of Jesus means virtually nothing. He's just a martyr who died, you know what I mean? And so all of Christian theology kind of hinges on those two poles, and both of them have to be true. And the problem is, or not the problem, the solution is um the the the apocalyptic goes, the resurrection confirms literally everything, but it doesn't just confirm his death, because obviously the dead man rises, it confirms everything he ever claimed about himself, as well as what the New Testament claims about him. And so, in that sense, the apocalyptic reading of Paul is a reading of Paul that is fundamentally Christocentric. That basically all of theology is done in the light of Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ. That includes anthropology. We don't work backwards, we don't go, what does it mean to be human? And then look to Jesus, we go, Jesus Christ is the epitome of what it means to be human. Now, what does it mean for us in light of that to be human, to engage in in sexual ethics and economics and so on and so forth? And so in the Wesleyan or I would say the apocalyptic model, it's it's Christological all the way down. And in that sense, what we're talking about is if Christ is the the head of the body of the church, he's the tip of the spear, he's the cosmokratos in Ephesians 6, you know, the cosmic one who basically crushes the cosmological powers, puts them under his feet, then you fundamentally you have within apocalyptic readings of the New Testament a God at war, the triune God at war with the ca uh the powers of evil in the world. And these are not um myth, although they're mythic in the sense of that, you know, as C.S. Lewis said, they're they're as old as time. You know, they may not always look the same, but they're as old as time. Satan, the powers, and all that. So when Jesus is, you know, for example, when Jesus is healing people in the gospels and casting out demons, that's an act of war. That is basically undermining the regime of Satan. And so what we have with the apocalyptic reading, we're talking ultimately about Christological regime change in the world, in the cosmic order. And that means the dethroning of the powers, that means the installation of the church as the means of justice and righteousness in the world, not theocratically, but through making disciples and being righteous and living holy lives and so forth. Um and so, in that sense, you have elements of the motif of warfare, so Christus Fictor and Ransom's theory as well, a little bit of that. But fundamentally, you have in apocalyptic, you have incarnational liberation from the cosmological powers. You don't have the question of an individual and her status before God as a law court. You don't have that image. You also don't really have the sociological image of the new perspective on Paul. We can get into all this, but you don't have those sorts of issues. And um, the apocalyptic reading kind of captures both the poles and sets them where they need to be and then builds upon them. Whereas the death of Christ becomes vital, but it only in light of these two poles of incarnation and resurrection. And the apocalyptic reading kind of puts those two, pins them down and says, From here we do our theology, not anywhere else. We, you know, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, it absolutely does. And the the episode that'll come out just a couple of days after this, I just recorded it a few days ago. I kind of outline the four major schools of Pauline interpretation, but I think it's a good place to ask you about that here. How does the the reading of the apocalyptic Paul line up with some of those other schools of thought? And then do you find any value in those, or how would you critique them from the apocalyptic perspective?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

I I think they have value in the sense of they're they're not wrong in the sense of false, but they they don't pin the polls in the right places for a discussion. Um so the old perspective is individualistic and it's centered on elements of law court or forensic issues of justice. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but that's not how the New Testament appears to depict things. So the example being people will say penal substitutionary atonement is the gospel. And even if you affirm PSA or variants of PSA or what have you, the anti-right version or this version or the William Lee Craig version, regardless of that, um, if penal substitutionary atonement is true, then the resurrection is not relevant to the discussion. You and thus you have a problem. Uh PSA can answer an aspect of questions that we have about, you know, theology and stuff like that. But if it's not um the the problem with the old perspective is that it's centered on an individual status before God, not a corporate uh status, not about um resurrection, not about incarnation. It does address those, but it's not guided by those two poles. The and so in that sense, I think it's deficient and it's overly um I think it's too westernized. It's it's too detached from from the first century of the church. The the new perspective, I think, captured the issue of sociology, but fundamentally it was not the new perspective, technically in my mind, doesn't exist. Because at that point, all it did was basically go get out of the 21st century debates about Catholicism and Protestantism. Paul's not arguing with, you know, Trent Horn. He's not arguing, you know, with Ken Ham. He's not arguing with these people. He he doesn't know these people exist. He's arguing with first century Jews who are um all over the place when it comes to the law and allegiance to the law and how pagans or Gentiles should be involved in this. That's what I think Galatians is about. And so the new perspective, in my mind, doesn't exist because at fundamental heart, if you ask A.P. Sanders and T. Wright Jimmy Dunn about Paul, you're gonna get three completely different pictures of Paul. But when it comes to Judaism, you'll get a fairly unified view of Judaism. So in that sense, the new perspective is not about Paul at all. It's about going back to the first century, reading first century Judaism on its own terms. And so in that sense, it doesn't exist, at least as a heuristic device for a Pauline school of thought. But that's my hot take. Um, the Paulithin Judaism school is what the new perspective is or is claimed to be. And that's where we read Paul within the matrix of first century Jewish thought, which means creedalism kind of goes over here. We kind of avoid Christian terms, we try to avoid Christian theology, and we try to situate Paul in a firmly monotheistic election kind of concept or conceptual world. And there's value to that. Um, but in my mind, that doesn't capture the true radical nature of Paul's uh experience with the apocalyptic Christ. So in that sense, I think the apocalyptic can take the idea of sin and the need in the way the old perspective uh takes sin seriously. So I think we can take that. Uh we need to go back to the first century and read apocalyptic Jewish literature along with Paul and not cast it out and go, no, Paul is debating a Catholic. That's not true at all. Get rid of that. But keep the but keep that image of first century Jewish sociological issues, keep those in tech, you know, food and eating, idolatry, those are huge issues in Paul. So we can take those. And the Paulithin Judaism, I think the same thing. We can go, okay, Paul does need to be read as a Jew and not as a you know a white liberal who teaches at due divinity school. You know, he's not that, right? And so in that sense, I think we can capture that in the apocalyptic matrix or the apocalypse apocalyptic reading of Paul or even the broader New Testament can kind of at least capture, I think, the best that each one has to offer uh and kind of eat the meat, spit out the bones, so to speak, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yes. So which Pauline scholars have had the greatest influence on your reading of Paul? Ooh, ooh, ooh. Um that's a tough one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Uh Aaron Scasemon, I found really helpful when I started in 70. But the one I really was stunned by um was Gordon Fee. He just passed away uh maybe a couple years ago, a Pentecostal scholar. And his commentary on one Corinthians was the first act, like the first thing that got me into theology. Like I read that whole commentary, like a thousand pages or 800 pages, and I was like, this is fascinating. I've I've never read anything like Gordon Fee. So reading Gordon Fee, Douglas Campbell's very interesting. I like reading Campbell, even if I find myself disagreeing a lot with him. Um, but I'd say, I'd say Gordon Fee, um, Richard Bacham I found very helpful. Um there they're N.T. Wright. I I have my, you know, obviously everyone's everyone's got to take shots at the big dog, you know. But I I like N. T. Wright. Uh Richard Hayes actually had a big influence on me growing up. Uh, you know, his moral vision in the New Testament, I still think is fairly sound, even if I disagree with stuff in there. Um, I think the most formidable for me, the one that kind of the lightning rod, the lightning in the bottle, was uh John Barclay, Paul and the Gift. Um, when I read that in seminary, I did a uh a directed study, a seminar on that with Tommy Gimbs at Fuller. And just reading Barclay's book, just cover to cover a few times, and about gift and grace and how that influences everything. I was like, oh, this is so much more interesting than than Protestant debates with Catholics. You know, God bless both, go God bless both of us, but it's so much more. So I think John Barclay and Michael Bird, I think those two together have really um been been major influences. And Michael Bird obviously is my PhD supervisor who I I've known. Great, great human being. So it's his book, um, where is it? Jesus and the powers with NT Right is really, really good. There's, you know, obviously stuff I'd critique in there. But oh yeah, I'd say, I'd say, I'd say Byrd and and and Barclay and and maybe some right, um, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

All right, perfect. I love it. Well, I want to ask you some general questions about Paul now, again, just to kind of help my audience think through this. Because I I've done for really for the first couple of years of my show, a lot of my biblical studies episodes focused on Jesus and the gospels, and I've I've been consciously shifting over the last year or so to do more and more on Paul. But I just I just want to walk through some of these issues because I do think they are very relevant for the way that we understand him. And the first question that I have for you is that, and I think this goes kind of along with that divide between the old, the the supposed divide between the old and the new perspective, where traditionally Paul has been read as a systematic theologian, and there's this kind of assumption that his letters are designed to communicate information that is systematic and theological in nature, but in reality, he's writing in letters, and those letters are highly contextual. So, what does Paul as a letter writer have to do to our interpretation of his letters? Like, how should that influence the way that we read Paul?

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Yeah, that that's the million-dollar question. That's a great question. Um, Becker's book, oh, what was it called? Huge book. Do I have it here? I probably have it at the office. But just look up Jay Christian Becker. I think it's called The Coming of God. He it's three or four books are all very similar, but he was kind of the one of the, he's kind of, along with Case Mom, kind of the one of the granddaddies of the apocalyptic reading. And he actually has a book with NT Wright called Apocalyptic Paul Narrative or Apocalyptic, I think is what it's called. It's it does, it's there's nothing new really in the book. It's just two kind of major essays they distilled into one book. I think it's with Fortress Press. Um, but that's a really interesting book. But um yeah, the the idea that Paul is writing occasional letters or letters generated by conflict needs to be at our our our our our front and center. Paul, when he sat down to write Galatians, and I just preached through Galatians, when he sat down to write Galatians, he's not thinking about um what a Protestant Wayne Grudom reading person in the 21st century is doing or thinking about. He does he doesn't have any of those your questions in mind. And what I think we need to do is recapture the weirdness of Paul. Make Paul as as Matthew Tesson or Tyson said, make Paul weird again. Paul has to be foreign to you. Because he's not, you know, the instant you domesticate him and you kind of put him in a box, he says something that just doesn't work. Even if you only take Paul writing the seven letters attributed to him, uh there's still enough in there to be weird, you know. Um and so what I think we need to do is recapture that that sense of of weirdness, that sense of otherness when reading Paul. Um and in that sense, uh if I understand your question correctly, the The occasional nature means each letter must be taken on its own. So put yourself, you know, you know, Alex, you're in Corinth, I'm in Ephesus. You get the letter to the Corinthians, you know, the first letter, then of course what the second letter, which which what we call 1 Corinthians, and then you have second, technically 3 Corinthians, assuming 2nd Corinthians is unified, you know, all these sorts of things. You get that, you have no idea what is going on in Ephesians. Let's say Ephesians is the in Ephesus, the Ephesians are the receiving Ephesians, right? We we have no idea what Paul wrote to you, and you have no idea what Paul wrote to us. And we won't know that for years, maybe ever. You know, we won't know that until these get canonized and they put together, and that's that's messy in its own sort of thing. And so it's one of those Paul's not sending it, he can't send smoke signals, he can't send an email, he can't send a text. He's writing occasional letters to distinct churches with their distinct issues. And that is why, one, um, you can have such I want to be careful, not divergent, but different streams of thought in his letters that are coherent but are occasionally governed. So, for example, people read First Timothy and say, Paul couldn't have written this because look at the ecclesiology, it's completely different. And it's like, well, that's perhaps true, but in a stable household environment governed by several maybe affluent members of the community, he doesn't have to talk about prophecy, he doesn't have to talk about speaking in tongues because everything is already structured in a certain way. Whereas in Corinthians, he has to have that discussion. And so it doesn't mean these are at odds, but you know, the same way I write or I speak to my six-year-old is not the same way I speak to my nine-month-old. There's different ways, there's different experiences. And so when we keep these in mind, we need to, I think one principle that I found very helpful is read first Corinthians as 1 Corinthians. Don't don't filter it through 1 Timothy, don't filter it through Romans, don't filter it through Galatians, read it on its own terms, understand that on its own, and then go to Galatians, read that on its own, and then where there's convergence, put them together. And where there's divergence, go, oh, that was occasional. Paul's not talking about Jew pagan issues in First Timothy or uh 1 Corinthians. He's talking about prophecy and sexual ethics and their really nasty view of the body and all that sort of stuff. And so I don't know if that makes sense. That's kind of my sense of when I tell my church, what I tell students is just read 1 Corinthians as 1 Corinthians. Don't go to 1 Timothy to understand 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians is meant to be understood on its own. And then you can do the then you have the blessing of doing theology after you've read it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah, that's perfect. Uh, do you think that Paul wrote all 13 letters attributed to him in the New Testament? And why? If you do.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

I I suspect he did. Um I'm I'd say I'm 60-40 on the pastorals in my doctoral work. I had to do, I'm I'm included the pastorals in my discussion on universalism or universal salvation. And I was just like, I need to go back and look at this. And I think one one reason why I think he wrote all them, outside of him bearing his name. So I mean that that is you know something to take seriously. They do bear his name. Uh the writing styles are different across all 13, but that just means if Paul could have written what Timothy, he didn't write Romans, you know, but no one would take that view because that's absurd because Scarlet Guild says so. But then when we applied the logic, Paul wrote Romans, he couldn't have written with Timothy. It's like, well, okay, now now we're just being petty and we're just at that point, we're uncritical debtors to a theological tradition or consensus. Um and so I I think um I think the issue is more along the the lines of which parts of the letters he wrote. Because I do think there are interpolations and glosses in in his letters, later insertions that he didn't write. Um but by and large, I think Paul wrote all 13 letters. I suspect uh the one I the one I actually found harder to believe was um was Titus. That one made that one was that one I was at 50-50 for a long time. Um and I think the issue, and this is the one I I still think through, is it has nothing to do with style, um, supposed province or amenuensis, you know, secretary writing divergences. It's ethics. It's how do these letters work with this? And Bart Ehrman made this great example decades ago where he said the guy the Paul who wrote Galatians 3.28 couldn't have been the same guy who wrote 1 Timothy 2.12, right? Or those sorts of texts. And I was like, well, in terms of ethics, that is really that is that is, I think, the only, I would say, um, difficult thing to kind of square between them. And I've squared them. I don't think one Timothy two internally restricts women uh from ministry. Um, but you can see, like, in terms of ethics, well, that's where the distinctive is. And I think we as New Testament scholars and uh people who try to be, we need to be more honest that no, that we're talking theological ethics, coherence across theological ethics. That's where the issue is. Any appeal to style or or literary to this or literary that it's irrelevant, or lexical this, or he doesn't talk about the spirit. Yeah, but he doesn't talk about the spirit much in Philippians. So did Paul not write it. It's just you can see how it's just ad hoc a lot of this gets. And that's why I think the ad hocness that you brought up or the contingency of the letters is really helpful, just going like, look, he's allowed to be weird in one Timothy doesn't mean he didn't write it. It just means we need to we need to actually do the hard work of putting this all together if we even want to do that. And some people don't want to do that, but I'm I don't know, I I I like putting things together. I'm a I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff. So yeah, I think Paul wrote all 13. I suspect he did.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

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SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah, I love that. Well, I want to ask you about some of the details in Paul's thinking now. So we we've we've already kind of established that apocalyptic is a framework for thinking about Paul in general, and I definitely agree with that. But what are some of the other very specific aspects of Paul and his thought that we need to reckon with in order to understand him and his letters?

SPEAKER_02 27:52

I I think one aspect is, and A. P. Sanders actually put it really well, participation in Christ, kind of the the the unifying nature of Christology across um ecclesiology and anthropology. Um his view of justification, I wouldn't say it's the center. I I that I should say that as a Protestant, but I just I just don't think that's his big I think if you're looking for a true center to Pauline thought, obviously it'd be the bodily resurrection and what flows from that. But let's, you know, again, we'll put that poll there. I think the unifying theme across all of Paul's thought, across all of 13 of his letters, is the spirit. It is and the spirit in relation to the body of Christ. And that gets teased out metaphorically, you know, as head body and stuff like that in certain passages. But if you look at all of Paul's letters, wherever the spirit is, the church is either in need of sanctification or is really being sanctified. And so I think pneumatology and sanctification are major elements of Paul's thought that often get kind of shunned to the side because we'd rather talk about um justification and and or ecclesiology. And those are all well and good to talk about. But unless you're talking about holiness and you're talking about um the spirit, then I'm not sure what kind of conversation you can have, even about politics. Um, because all of all of Paul's political conceptions arise from the people who have the spirit, who are benefited from the spirit, who are participating in the spirit, and clearly those outside who are part of the regime who are not, you know. And same thing with holiness, same thing with sexual ethics. And that's why Paul often ties sexual ethics or just ethics in general to the spirit, you know, treating the body right and so on and so forth. But that all flows from his view of bodily resurrection, that the body's going to be um put back together, so to speak, and it's good. You're not, you know, it's not a rental car, it's actually going with you into new creation. And so I think spirit, I think bodily resurrection, and I think the nature of holiness, the nature of being a Christian in the world is um, I think as central, if not more central, than just kind of blanket appeals to justification by faith. Don't get justification by faith is really important, but it's it's not, I would argue, the center. Um, it it plays an equal role to these sorts of uh issues. And that uh that ties into his Paul's theology of baptism or union with Christ and union with one another. Again, the famous baptismal formulas in Galatians and 1 Corinthians, um, the way Paul kind of I think coherently draws all of these metaphors together into the singular metaphor of body as opposed to polis, as opposed to regime. And he puts all of these things together within the one body, and that results in equality within the body, you know, that you can't say to the foot, you know, the hand can't say to the foot, the foot can't say to the nose, da-da-da. And just that sort of reckoning that baptism in essence washes away all the things the world values and reconstitutes the human person in right relationship with God. So baptism is another key element. And I think, and not to go too long, but just that sense I think of Paul as an ethical theologian, as a minister, as a pastor who cares about the health of the body, cares about the health of his church, um, speaks, I think, just as loudly to our world today as it does to the individual cry of how can I be righteous before a holy God? And that's like, well, believe in Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. It's actually fairly simple. It's holiness and sanctification in the spirit. That's the hard part because that's you can be justified in, oh, boom, you're good. And it's like, yeah, but now you've got to actually live your life. And that's where I think Paul's theology really takes um substantial root.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, and I want to talk about the prevalence of eschatology in Paul's thought too, because you know, apocalypticism is not quite the same thing as eschatology, although it presupposes it. And you can have eschatological systems that are non-apocalyptic. But that was one, when I really started studying this, you know, 20 years ago, that was one really big wake-up call to me, was just seeing how prevalent the concept of eschatology was all throughout the New Testament. So talk about Paul and eschatology and how this relates to some of the other ideas that that you discussed beforehand.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Yeah, and it it's it's actually, I think Paul gets a lot of this from Jesus. It's gonna sound weird to say, but you know, yeah, the gospel of John, you know, eternal life, whoever believes me has eternal life. And I think for Paul, that's in some sense, and this is something I've been I've been marinating on for a bit, is that when in Christ through the cross, God has reconciled the cosmic order to himself, right? Colossians 1. It as deep as sin goes, grace goes, as deep as as death goes, Christ goes. You know, that sort of image. And I think something we need to keep in mind is when Christ was resurrected, um, and if you take my reading, or I would say, I think it's I forget his name off the top of my head, I'm tired. The coffee has not kicked in yet. Um, the Hillosterian reading of Romans 3.25, the famous uh the mercy seat reading. And if that's the case, then Jesus is in essence the place where mercy is found. He's basically the embodiment of the temple of Israel. He's an embodiment of the place where sacrifice and mercy and righteousness are found and uh access by faith, which means basically the doors of the temple are blown wide open for anyone to come in and gather. Um and if reconciliation has occurred in Christ, it is as far as the cosmic order goes, then then the Christian, she has a great advantage going into the world by basically saying, God has declared a great assize. There is uh amnesty to the cosmic order that is hostile. God is not against you, at least in the sense of God, you know, God is against your sin, God's against injustice, he's all against all, but God desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. And that means that reconciliation uh is basically um bathed over the world, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting trespasses against them. You know what I mean? And so in that sense, I think um I I think sorry, I had somewhere I was going, and now I'm just oh man, where was I going with that? What was your question again? Well, uh j just about the the ways in which eschatology influences every aspect of Paul's thought, yeah. And so yeah, Paul's eschatology is not a futurist thing. It's it's it's there's a telos to it, a telic origin to it, or a telic goal, but it it it's very much a now centered. God has reconciled all things, God has done all this, God has done this and that. And now the part of the church and the part of the Christian is to basically incorporate yourself into this, into this body through faith or faithfulness, through the acceptance of the spirit, through um forsaking uh idolatry and immorality and all these sorts of things. And so, in that sense, that does have a big uh stake in the future, but it's an eschatology now. It's an eschatology that takes root now, that is concerned not just with, you know, uh rapturing to heaven and going someplace. It's no, God is basically reclaiming the cosmic order in Christ, and he's invited the church, the body of Christ, to be his hands of justice and my and mercy in the world, making disciples not through war or conquest, but through proclamation and faithfulness. And so, yeah, I think I think when we go, Paul's talk, Paul talks, if we go to Paul going, what does Paul say about hell or Paul say about final judgment, which is often what we think of eschatology, is well, he doesn't say a whole lot. I mean, what he says is, you know, destruction, death, perishing, but not a lot. And he doesn't talk about location a lot. So you're kind of left, you know, kind of unfed. But if you read Paul eschatologically and apocalyptically across it, then you then what happens now will dictate and govern where the future goes. Um, but yeah, like to your point, I think when we make the future only the future without any sense or grounding in the present, then it's like it's all well and good to tell me that God's going to make all things new. That's all well and good for tomorrow, but I don't get a W-2 today or a 1090 today. I'm stuck now. And so in that sense, Paul is a the an eschatological theologian who cares about the now and the not yet. And I think when we separate the two, we get into really nasty ethical and political territory. That's why I think, yeah, it's a great question. It's a great question. I don't need to think more about that.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, well, and and you you made the point too, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot over the last couple of years, that Paul was familiar with the Jesus tradition to a certain extent. And there are plenty of cases in both Paul's letters and the Catholic epistles as well, where the writers appeal back to this tradition that they spoke to whatever audience they're writing to. You know, a good example of this is uh in 1 Corinthians 11. Paul says, remember the traditions and hold firm to them that I taught you. And so, you know, there's been kind of this c this scholarly consensus that uh Paul was not concerned about the historical Jesus at all, knew very little about him. He was essentially some sort of like, you know, cosmic victor or whatever, and Paul just didn't really care about Jesus as a historical figure. But the more I've thought about the character of the oral Jesus tradition and how the first followers of Jesus passed these traditions on, I just I've kind of come to the conclusion that Paul probably was very familiar with the oral Jesus tradition, and that was a part of the basis of what he taught as community, which is why he didn't have to appeal to that tradition directly in his letters. He just assumed they already kind of knew a lot of the stuff that would make its way into the gospels about Jesus. What what are your thoughts on that? What is Paul's relationship to the Jesus tradition and how how much does he know about Jesus and how much did he expect his audience knew about Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Well, if Stan Porter is right at McMaster Definitely College, there's a book called When Paul Met Jesus, and he argues, I think fairly, I'd say I'm not 100% persuaded, but um more so than not, that Paul actually met the history what we call the historical Jesus, Jesus in his ministry. And there's a few texts he appeals to. Um the one is the one famous one is the new if anyone was in Christ's new creation text, but have we not seen Jesus in accordance with the flesh? We know no longer this, and it's like and the way he argues it, and you have to be conversant, like verbal aspect theory and stuff like that. And I'm as conversant as I'd like to be, but the more I was like, this is really interesting. And if that's true, then Paul actually met the historical Jesus. And there is some evidence. I mean, it's scant in the gospels, but there's a few just kind of traces in his in Paul's letters where it's like, boy, that that could be a reference to the the earthly or the historical Jesus, you know what I mean? And so, yes, not only just the the oral tradition that Paul is steeped in this, he met Paul, he met Peter, he met James, he knew them, he fought enough with Peter to know enough about Jesus. Right. Um but I think it's even more likely that Paul physically met Jesus and even talked with him. Um, I I find that hard to believe given how small that area of the world is and how um Paul's a clearly an educated man. Paul's clearly steeped in these tradition in the Jewish traditions, the Jewish law. And so him not knowing who Jesus was before you know the crucifixion, I think is I just don't buy it. Now, now were they getting coffee like Pacino and De Niro and heat? No, probably not. But but he's I think he certainly, I think it's certainly plausible historically and theologically that Paul knew the the historical Jesus and me maybe even met him. Um I can't prove that, but I don't think at this point anyone can actually fundamentally disprove it.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Right. No, I love that. I love that. Uh here's another big one. Um, the the question of um, and this has been a very big scholarly debate for many, many years. Famously, John Piper and N. T. Wright went back and forth on this, uh, issue of justification. But even more fundamental to that is the idea of like faith of or faith in Christ. This has been kind of a really big dividing line in New Testament scholarship. When Paul speaks of, you know, um when Paul speaks of of uh our faith, is it the faithfulness of Christ? Is it um like Christ's own faith or is there a mediating position? What do you make of that debate?

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Uh, it used to be hardcore in the subjective genitive uh position, which is faith of Christ, that is Christ's own faith. And the way I described the genitive grasps something. So it's Christ grasping faith. So that's Christ's own faithfulness or faith. Um, I still think that is the probable reading. Um, but Stan Porter and Andrew Pitts came out with an article just on sheer grammar on that construct on those sorts of constructions. And it's hard to deny the the objective genitive or the in Christ that we place our faith in Christ reading, uh, just on grammatical grounds. I think they make a really good case. I I don't think there is a mediating position. I think that the better answer that I can give is both are true, but not in the sense, but not in the same texts. Certain texts I think do seem to suggest an objective genitive, and some texts do seem to suggest a subjective genitive. And I go back and forth on those. Um, but I think I don't think because clearly Paul will vacillate between you know within the same section, you know, Galatians three and Romans three and Galatians two, even Philippians perhaps. Um, and so you just kind of go, I I think the objective genitive fits better here, but that doesn't mean the subjective genitive doesn't apply in Galatians. And so for me, it really just depends on the text. Um, my general thought is I think if we take, and this is actually something I'm glad you brought up, if we take the historical Jesus and oral tradition into account and Jesus' kind of master narrative as kind of a guiding you know poll for Paul, then why wouldn't his faith, his obedience unto death, his obedience in Romans 5, 18 and 19 is obedience unto the cross in Philippians 2, the Christ, him, so to speak, him. Um why wouldn't theologically, contextually, literat from a literary standpoint, why wouldn't that be true as well? And so I I think both are true, but not in the same text. And um, that's kind of my way of settling it. I think Galatians is probably more uh objective generative, and I think Romans and the other texts are probably more subjective generative. Um, but even then, um you'll have to flip a coin on those because the grammatical arguments are are just I'm like, yeah, they're they're formidable. And the median positions I've not found to be particularly helpful. I mean, they're the arguments of Christ faith and just leaving it like that. I'm like, ah, that come on, guys. That's that that that's that's splitting the baby in a way that no one's gonna be happy. Um so yeah, it really I think it it's it's more a matter of not as a totalizing metaphor, but as which text um are we talking about, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah, would you say the same thing about the righteousness of God? Because that that's something that too, going back to that that pipe the Piper Wright debate on justification, that was a big area of disagreement between the two of them. And I've been reading a lot of Ernst Kaysomon this summer, and I I read his article on the righteousness of God just a couple of weeks ago, and I thought he made some really compelling points for that. So would you make kind of the same claim there that it just depends on context, or what what do you make?

SPEAKER_02 41:12

I think generally so, yeah. I think that's a really good question. I think kazemon, I think kazemon is probably closer to being right than right or piper. Um but I think but I think I I don't find Piper's reading just compelling at all. Um that doesn't mean anti-right is right or Cazemon is right, but I just read Piper's. I was like, I just no, I'm sorry. This this doesn't, this is this is too governed by modern debates. This is too governed by um a certain theological construct or certain theological system. And I just kind of go, yeah, when when when the when the ecclesia is wagging, you know, is wagging your exegetical, you know, the exegetical tale, I'm like, I'm just I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm not, I'm inclined to just not believe what you're saying. And that applies to me too. Um there's been times where I've said something and someone's like, yeah, it sounds like your creeds are kicking in. I'm like, yeah, that's fair. I need to do more work on this. But um I think Wright is probably more correct on that. And I think Cazemon at least kind of the lightning struck him. I think he's I think he's really onto something here. Um I'm not up to date on the grammatical arguments. There's been a few you know articles that have come out on that um that I've generally found interesting, but I think Kazemon at least kind of guided us towards a better conversation about that subject. But I think, yeah, I'm closer to Kazemon than others.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Okay, perfect. I love that. We got about 10 minutes left. I got a couple questions on Romans, real quick, before I let you go. Um, the first one is why is it that Romans is the center of the entire universe in Pauline scholarship? Why that letter, as opposed to the other 12 that are attributed to Paul in the New Testament?

SPEAKER_02 42:34

I I don't know why. The more I think about it, the more I'm like Romans is fascinating. I think it's because it's the longest and it people and you know it's tied to certain like the Romans road, and there's nothing wrong with that. You know, uh it's it's it's useful for missions, um, use useful for evangelism. I think if you want, I think you want to study the the the quintessential epistle on if you want a Pauline theology, Ephesians is the only one for you. Ephesians is Pauline theology. It's close to you get to Apolline theology, but if you want the heart of Paul, if you want Paul distilled down to who he was and how his theology, his ethics, his Christology all work, it's Philemon. It's straight up Philemon. You want to see Christology in practice? What does he do? He sends Philemon back, um, taking and speaks through him. This is no longer a slave, you know, all these sorts of things. This is basically I'm sending you, I'm sending my heart back to you. I he's my embodied affections. He's I don't see him as a slave, you know, these sorts of things. And you sent him to me on your behalf. So you sent him to me to spee your hands. I'm sending him back to you as my heart. And these sorts of elements. So I'm just like, I think if we want to talk about that's not Galatians 3.28, that's taking the form of a slave and using it for liberation and for freedom from and power from from bondage and degradation and dehumanization. And it's also political, politically motivated. You know, Paul's uh seems to be antagonistic, at least a little bit towards the the structure of the systemic uh power of the Roman Empire, at least it comes to slave the slave economy. And there's other instances where he's a little more muted or neutral on it. But I think you want to uh Paul's If Philemon were the um the center of poly thought for Protestantism, uh, I think we'd be in a much more interesting place. And I think it has been, if you look at the history of abolition, the Christian abolition in this country, you know, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, you know, for all his faults, uh, you look at those guys, it's like, oh boy, you know, Philemon played a larger play, uh larger part in this than than Romans did. And that's because Philemon was ethics in practice, that was theology with hands, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah, no, I love that. I did lie. I said I only had two questions about Romans, and I do have to ask you about Paul and Empire studies real quick, too, since you brought it up, uh, and your response with Philemon there. Um, to to what extent, and and this is where I've I've kind of become frustrated with the entire debate because I think that Nji Padad and Clint Burnett have both published books in the last couple of years that have challenged the superficial anti-imperial reading of Paul. And I was kind of brought up on that in Bible college and started seeing some of the flaws and at least like the very hardcore anti-imperial readings, uh pretty early on. Uh, and and I think that there's a lot to be said for kind of nuancing that perspective. But to what extent did Paul think about empire and how should that influence our reading of Paul?

SPEAKER_02 45:03

That's a really good question. Um Barclay's position, I thought was helpful as kind of a bring the temperature down basically. Paul didn't think about the Roman Empire because and any more than you think about the oxygen you breathe. It's just kind of in it's just what it is. On the one hand, I think that's true. Um, on the other hand, there's certain ways Paul conceptualizes things where he talks about, you know, say 1 Corinthians 15, uh, the destruction of the powers being put under their feet, um, Ephesians 1, things being put under the feet, all things being summed up in Christ. Um, even certain texts in Romans that I just kind of go, I I suspect Paul, when he needed to be, was far more politically um uh radical than we might like him to be. But Paul also knew that uh in a city of several hundred thousand, maybe even a couple million in Rome, five Christians ain't gonna they yeah, they you ain't gonna get anywhere. And so in that sense, I think a lot of Paul's ethics are also governed by survivalism. Just like, okay, hold on. This is how we survive this, this is how we get, you know, the the text about slaves submitting to their masters, right? Or these sorts of things. Okay, if you everyone sets if all these 12 families set their slaves free, one, the con your economy's gonna crash, your household's probably gonna crash, you're you're all gonna go destitute, that's just not gonna work. So let's modify this or or or crisp, you know, uh at an let's let's be righteous in how we do this, and that'll lead to this. But in certain instances, you know, Philemon versus, you know, slave submit your masters show that Paul was willing to buck the trend substantially when he needed to. And so I think I think the issue of of Paul being anti-imperial or anti-empire um needs to be recast in terms of ethics, because the way Paul viewed women or viewed slaves or viewed Gentiles or pagans um was far more radical and far more telling of where his true um allegiance and and and and treasonous views lie. That um that a pagan could be fully incorporated into the the Jewish body of Messiah, you know, the circumcised body of Messiah as an uncircumcised pagan tells us a lot about how Paul viewed the body, that the oneness of the body was his central idea, same with baptism, same with other things. Uh, and that and in that sense, anti-empire rhetoric is often overblown, but that doesn't mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And if we recapture Paul's ethics and Paul's way of thinking theologically about how we are to live our lives, the very fact that, you know, they're the churches were not governed by sexual immorality in the same way that the Greco-Roman Empire was, well, that's already socially really, really different. The fact that, you know, he calls people brothers and sisters, the fact that he even addresses slaves as moral agents, the fact that he addresses women as moral agents tells us that he's not thinking the same way that your average Greco-Roman writer is, or or or think like uh, you know, uh juvenile or others, you know. And so in that sense, I think NT Wright has probably gone too far. I think Barclay's helpful at kind of pumping the brakes. But when it comes to ethics, I think Hurtado was right, uh Destroyer of the Gods, really helpful book. Uh, I think it was Baylor, Baylor University Press. Really helpful at just kind of look, when it came to ethics and morality, we we we were just built different. We, we just were different. And that's, I think, in essence, how we outlasted the Roman Empire is because we thought to be holy and we thought to live right, eat right, and be righteous and um forsake power and not use it for the sword. Um I'm not saying Paul's a pacifist by any sense, although I think he's probably very close to that. But every pacifist is who's intelligent goes, well, it's better to survive than lift up arms when it's five against five million. You know, you gotta, you gotta survive. You know, last time we tried that, we got destroyed, you know, and the coming destruction of the temple proved that too. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I I I get your point. I think it's a really, it's a really helpful question, and it's one I'm not fully set on, but I think Paul really if you can't change the world, change the home. Change how the husband relates to his wife, change how uh the master relates to the slave, change how uh husband and wife treat children. Uh don't throw your children around, don't commit infanticide, don't um have sex with people that you're not married to. Um, husbands, you know, love your wives as Christ love the church. You know, neither one has authority or sovereignty over the one over, you know, just kind of breaking that down. And once that happened, then you just lead by ethical example. And we exist now and the Roman Empire does not. And I think maybe that's where the anti-imperial rhetoric should go.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah, I love it. Well, final question I want to put to you today for people that are brand new to Paul, it can be very intimidating trying to get into the research and the study. Um, for those that, and and even, you know, I'm even speaking about people that maybe have not even read his letters before, but are just interested in learning more new Christians and things and that. What what uh how would you recommend somebody getting into studying Paul? Like what like like what's what's the way into the the web that is Pauline theology?

SPEAKER_02 49:44

So if you if someone's got a hundred bucks, give or take a hundred bucks, uh get Paul and the Gift by John Barclay. That I think soft cover is 30. Let's say 30, and maybe it's more, but let's say it's 30. Um get uh his second book, Paul and the Power of Grace, which is about 15. And oh I'll be done in about three minutes. So I can still go with it. Yeah. Um visitors. Uh NT Wright. I'm trying to think of there's a really good book that might be helpful for some folks would be um this is Jane Wesley, by the way. Uh would be nice to be The Four Views on Paul book, uh edited by Michael Burdez. It's not going to be helpful in the sense of you're not going to get the best, but you'll get kind of a taste of the the debates, how people think. How the it's really good on epistemology. It shows you kind of these different things. That's helpful. And that's probably 12. So you're at about what 60 there. Then I think um reading with a grain of scripture by Richard Hayes is really good. Uh that's probably about let's say 25, maybe 30. So 10, 10, 10 bucks left. Um I'll go with NT Wright again, but it's uh Paul a biography. And it's it's really helpful. Uh it's just kind of from A to Z. It's really, really good on that. Um if you got a few extra bucks, uh Michael Bird's tiny little book on Paul is really good too. I think it's called a bird's eye view or Paul, Paul and his mission or something like that. Um but I think a lot, I think for a lot of people, read Paul, read first Corinthians, read it all the way through, then read it again, take notes. I don't know if you outline in your Bibles, I do. Read, read these letters, see what they say on their own terms. Don't systematize them, don't get weird with them, just let them be. And then uh then uh pray about it, marinate on it, talk to friends about it, get in a group, talk with people about it. Just a lot of people need to process in community and reading community too. That's why the church, among many things, the church uh exists at our best. Um, and then you know, go ahead and read some books. But I think those books would be helpful. But there's nothing better than just sitting down and reading Paul with with people you trust that uh think kind of like you. And so you can at least have good conversations where you're not the knives aren't out of people's necks. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 51:56

Yeah, perfect. Well, Nick, thank you so much for your time today. Before I let you go, where can people find your podcast and all of the stuff you have out there? Your Twitter, all of that.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

Oh, yeah, just uh uh X, I think it's just at Nick Quint. I think that's what it is. Um uh you can uh New Testament Theologist on YouTube. I I don't know if it's on any of the other streaming things. It's I only have it on YouTube. Um for people that are in the LA area looking for a church, first Baptist Church of Pallos Verdes, um 11 a.m. every so you get to sleep in and come and then come to church. Uh we do it the old school way. Um yeah, it's it's yeah, thanks for having me. It's it's yeah, I'm I'm not I'm I'm mostly on X. That's kind of or Twitter, whatever we call it now. That's kind of where I am. Um but yeah, Alex, thank you so much for having me and us on. She's destroying my laptop. But yeah, I really appreciate it. Uh anytime in the future, I'd love to. Um sorry for for the short uh short time we gotta take her somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

So it's it's all good. We'll definitely get you back on, man. Again, thank you so much, Nate. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at theprotestant libertarian at gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter. You can follow me at the handle at Pro Liberty Pod. Again, that is at Pro Liberty Pod. And you can also visit me at the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com. At the Protestant Libertarian Podcast.com, you can also support the Christians for Liberty Network and the Libertarian Christian Institute. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and we will see you next Tuesday.