Losing your Soul

Several years before I retired from Missouri State University in 2005, I was so caught up in an active academic career, involved in campus life, community activities, professional activities, and serving in the Army Reserve that I felt like my very soul was at risk. Somewhere between completing a terminal degree (1977) and retiring from Missouri State University (2005), my soul seemed to have gone missing or was so shriveled I could not find it. Souls need attention, special feeding and watering, to flourish. I suspect that I am not the only person to come to this realization.

            You might not think it possible for people to lose their souls, but Jesus thought so. “What is the profit,” he said, “in gaining the world and losing your soul” (Mark 8:36). Charles Dickens also thought so, and in his novel (A Christmas Carol) portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge as a soulless man, who rediscovers his soul at the end of the novel. “Soul” is the essence of being truly human—a quality always pushing us, come hell or high water, toward moral excellence. A man or a woman with no soul has lost the qualitative edge of being human, of keeping life in balance and everything in perspective—in other words, “losing yourself to gain the world” (Luke 9:25) distorts perspective and throws life into serious imbalance. Clearly Scrooge was disoriented. He had fed his soul so much material “stuff” that he had lost touch with humanity—particularly his humanity. In my case, somewhat like Bob Cratchit, I sat in a tiny windowless office cluttered with neglected professional projects (real soul food by the way), and fed my soul unimaginative papers by incurious students, but in the grand scheme of things virtually irrelevant. Souls cannot survive on such an unbalanced diet.

            Can governments lose their souls? Certainly, they can. Government at every level involves people who set a tone for the administration and carry out its policies. National socialism in Hitler’s Germany, at best, was government without conscience or humanity, and its systematic massacre of Jews and other eastern Europeans clearly qualifies it as soulless. The same is true of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government, for attempting to annihilate its own citizens, the Kurds. In our own country, the suppressive disfranchisement (and worse!) of black citizens in the deep south for over one hundred years can only be explained by the shriveled souls of white citizens. And what should we say about attempts in various states to eliminate budgetary support for our most vulnerable citizens—the mentally ill, disabled, children, and the elderly? At best, it is not an action that anyone would confuse with moral excellence. And Mr. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” by congress? The Congressional Budget Office estimates that its passage may cause some 10 million American citizens to lose their health insurance by 2034, with some $900 billion in cuts to Medicare. Only shriveled souls could be pleased at such an inhumane result.¹

            Can a church lose its soul? You wouldn’t think so, but in my religious tradition it has been happening for some time now. For the sake of what some in the tradition regard as “right” theology, Southern Baptist intolerants dismantled a fellowship of, more or less, independent cooperating churches. They centralized their authority and have been, since 1985, purging the denomination of diversity. Shortening the borders of the tent and shallow thinking make for better control but do not encourage the development of healthy souls.

Without a healthy soul, we will never find our way to the moral high road, or as Paul put it, to the more excellent way (1 Cor 12:3–13:13). Without soul one is condemned to sit among the mattresses of the dead (a line from a poem by Wallace Stevens, The Man on the Dump). Allowing a soul to shrivel away is bad enough. Being unaware of the loss altogether is a crisis of epic proportions!²

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/by-the-numbers-republican-reconciliation-law-will-take-health-coverage-away-from#:~:text=as%20their%20employment.-,Medicaid,had%20an%20illness%20or%20disability

²This essay, reedited and updated in part, was first published in the newspaper, the Springfield News Leader, Springfield, MO, before 2009, and republished in my book, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest? American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Cascade, 2009), 34-35.

Was Paul a follower of Jesus?

My title begs for definitions. By Paul I mean to designate the author of the seven undisputed first-century letters attributed to him: Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. By Jesus I mean to designate the early first-century Judean man who was crucified by Roman authority between AD 26 and 36. By follower I mean to raise the question was Paul an adherent, disciple, or partisan of, and loyal to, the ideas he gleaned from the man from Galilee of Judea, who died when Pontius Pilate was Prefect of Judea.

            Paul knew bits of data about the life of the Judean man that came to him through the tradition: Jesus was born of woman under the Israelite Torah (Gal 4:4); Paul knew that Jesus had a brother (Gal 1:19). Paul also mentions three incidents from the life of Jesus. He ate a meal on the night he was arrested (1 Cor 11:23-25), he was crucified (Gal 3:1) and was buried (1 Cor 15:4).¹ Paul also was aware of certain sayings that perhaps can be traced back to sayings attributable to the man from Galilee (1 Cor 11:23-25, 7:10-11; 2 Cor 12:9; 1 Thess 4:15). But he attributes these sayings to "the Lord."² By the use of this title is he referring to the Judean man or the spirit of the resurrected Lord of faith who, he claimed, dwelled within the believer (Rom 8:9-11)? What is at issue is precisely whom does he follow.

            Paul uses the name of the Judean man, Jesus, only ten times alone in the undisputed letters without the Christological titles awarded to him by the faith of the later religious community. Generally, he uses the name of Jesus in combination with the theological titles. The titles are, Christ and Lord, or some combination thereof, but in these ten instances Paul uses the name of the Judean man alone. Which figure does he seem to be evoking by using the name Jesus alone: the Judean man or the Christ spirit within him?

            Rom 3:26 concludes: "…that he [God] is righteous, justifying a person by the faith of Jesus."³ Here he appears to be speaking about the Judean man, not the Christ spirit that motivates him.

            Rom 10:9: "Jesus is Lord"; Jesus refers to the Judean man and the title Lord refers to the resurrected Lord of faith, whom Jesus became by his resurrection from the dead.

            1 Cor 12:3: in both cases, the name Jesus refers to the Judean man and the title Lord refers to the Christ spirit within Paul.

            2 Cor 4:10-11: "the death of Jesus" evokes the death of the Judean man, while "the life of Jesus" evokes the resurrected Lord of faith.

            2 Cor 11:4: the "Jesus" that Paul proclaimed was Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), an expression evoking the death of the Judean man.

            Gal 6:17: the "marks of Jesus on Paul's body" could only refer to the crucified Judean man.

            1 Thess 1:10: it was the Judean man who was "raised from the dead," albeit spiritually (1 Cor 15:44, 50).

            1 Thess 4:14: The Jesus who died and rose again was the Judean man, albeit spiritually resurrected (1 Cor 15:44, 50).

Phil 2:10: Phil 2:6-11 has long been regarded as an early pre-Pauline hymn that Paul quoted and in doing so added the following words to verse 8, "even death on a cross." In the hymn, Jesus (2:10) is the Judean man whom God exalts. I suggest that Phil 2:11 are Paul's own words added to the hymn to harmonize the Judean man with the spirit of the resurrected Lord of faith. Compare in the first half of Phil 2:11 the words "every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord" to Rom 10:9 and in the second half of the verse the words "by the glory of God, the Father" to Rom 6:4.This latter phrase appears as a standard Pauline element of the epistolary salutation in his letters: "Grace to you and peace from God, our Father…" (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:2; Philemon 3), as well as in Pauline doxologies (2 Cor 1:3; Gal 1:4; Phil 4:20) and thanksgivings (1 Thess 1:3).

            Here is a statement Paul makes in 2 Cor 5:16: "…if also we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer think [of him that way]."⁴ If this statement were applied to the situation in this essay, it would suggest that Paul no longer thinks of Jesus as a Judean man become divine (i.e., a half human⁵), rather he now thinks of Jesus as the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, rather than Mary's son.⁶

This essay is incomplete; it is more suggestive than definitive.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, The Wisdom of Jesus, 1-2.

²In Rom 13:9 Paul does not cite the Lord as source; he likely knew it through reading Hebrew Bible (Lev 19:18).

³The Greek reads: dikaiounta tov ek pisteōs Iēsou. See the translation of Rom 3:26 in A. Dewey, et al., The Authentic Letters of Paul (Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2010), 219. See also the cameo essay on Gal 2:16, pp. 65-66.

⁴The literal expression "according to the flesh" (kata sarka) in the Danker-Bauer Greek-English Lexicon is translated as: "according to human standards."

⁵A term (ēmianthrōpos) used of Dionysus by Lucian in the second century (the Parliament of the Gods, 4). For a list of the Demigods in ancient belief see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demigods.

⁶The statement by Paul has created a great deal of difficulty for commentators on the text of second Corinthians. See Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 32 A; New York: Doubleday: 1984), 312-14, 329-32.

A New Year's Introspection

When I was younger, I perceived my future bright with prospects and promise. On waxing old and being full of days, however, I have discovered my interests now are more about retrospect than prospect. We elderly live in another country, and even though like Moses we may be permitted to view the prospects of the New Year's promised land (Deuteronomy 34:4), we are fated to remain in the land of Moab, in our own country and time (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). In the late autumn of life and with the onrush of winter, our vengeful enemy time has taken a terrible toll: sagging skin, thinning hair, a diminishing of the life force, failing eyesight, lapsing memory, other assorted aches and pains, and physical impairments. Few of us nonagenarians are like Moses, of whom it was fabled: "his eye was not dimmed, nor his natural force abated" (Deuteronomy 34:7). But we elderly have "eternity in our minds" (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and seem to think we should live forever.

I prefer to think of aging and our eventual physical demise as the natural course of things. A prime axiom of the universe is obsolescence—things just wear out, become obsolete, and disappear. Or put another way, they die out and pass out of existence. We instinctively know it is true—whether of nations, neighborhoods, sump pumps, or, alas, of people. Such is the way of all life and things in the universe as we know it.

I could, of course, be wrong. Paul turned what in my view is a natural occurrence into a theological dogma. Based on the Hebrew myth of creation, he argued that because the first human beings sinned (Genesis 2:17) the human potential for death entered the world and passed onto all human beings, in that all have sinned (Rom 5:12, 17; 1 Corinthians 15:21). Apparently, Adam's sin even affected the universe, as it too is under bondage to decay (Romans 8:20-23) and obsolescence (1 Corinthians 7:31). So, in part, Paul and I are of the same mind—except that he thinks theologically, and my statements are made based on simple observation. It must be said that the universe is expanding at a rapid rate, and its acceleration seems to be increasing.

The Psalmist seems to regard a limited life span as a natural phenomenon: The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10 RSV). There is no talk here of our lifespan being reduced by God's judgment because of sin. The situation seems to be that the Psalmist has observed only the natural way of life in the universe. The human lifespan is only so long because of the prime axiom of the universe. It is likewise the view of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes 1:1), who philosophizes about those things he "has seen under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:14; 2:17; 3:16, 22; 4:1, 7; 5:13: 6:1; 7:15; 8:9, 17; 9:11, 13; 10:5). There is no appeal here to divine revelation, rather Koheleth appeals to human experience in a similar way that proverbs appeal to human wisdom.

For those who have lived into their yellow leaf the New Year is not about resolutions but rather reminiscences. We in the twilight of life are poised on the threshold of life's greatest adventure, and what matters now is not the coming year and its prospects, but what lies behind along with our regrets and personal satisfactions. Perhaps that is why I don't have a "bucket list." These days I think about those things I have left undone, the roads never taken, the questions never asked, the books never read, old friends with whom I have lost contact, the essays never finished. Have I left a deep enough footprint in the sand that the first high tide will not erase? I suppose in long term it does not matter. Very few things endure the ravages of time.

Is there a lesson in all this introspection? In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes (12:1-14) a later editor has concluded: "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man" (Ecclesiastes 12:13 RSV). I prefer thinking on the views of the principal author of the text: these I regard as the "intellectually honest ponderings of a man who looked at the world primarily from a rational perspective rather than through the eyes of faith. He struggled with the question: what is the point of life—and found no satisfactory answer."¹ But the point is he continued struggling with the questions, and in the final analysis gave-up neither on life nor God. His struggles with the dichotomy between the answers of traditional religion, and what he sees going on in the world around him have led him to be satisfied with the simple pleasures of life (2:24; 10:19).

So, the New Year arrives! Yet the first day of a New Year, after all the fuss, is just another day around the sun in a succession of many others. Those of us fortunate enough to see its dawning should rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24). Koheleth would appreciate that sentiment; he thought of life as a great gift—hope is only for the living. Or as he put it: "a living dog is better than a dead lion" (Ecclesiastes 9:4).

For my tribe, you elderly: may your New Year's Day be full of happy memories that bring smiles to your face, rather than blushes to your cheeks. For those who are younger: may your new country be full of bright prospects.²

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Quotation from Hedrick, The Wisdom of Jesus. Between the Sages of Israel and the Apostles of the Church (Cascade, 2014), 72.

²I initially published this essay on my blog on Dec 31, 2015.

Human Insight or Divine Revelation

In a recent article, published shortly after his death, Roy Hoover¹ linked (human) insight and (divine) revelation:

What Paul regarded as a revelation we often refer to as an insight…I mean to use insight in this essay in the same sense as the meaning Paul had in mind in using the term revelation—that a new reality had become visible to Paul when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead…”²

An insight is a sudden thought that arises from within. A psychologist might define it as follows: “In psychology, insight occurs when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning,”³ or perhaps better: “The ability to see and understand clearly the inner nature of things, esp. by intuition.”⁴ Psychologists regard insight as a common human ability and have developed therapies relying on human insight in the treatment of patients with mental difficulties.⁵ On the other hand, in Pauline thought a revelation was something initiated from a divine source that came from outside an individual (Gal 1;12; 2:2; 2 Cor 12:1).

            What are we then to make of Hoover’s suggestion that (human) insight and (divine) revelation are the same experience? One seems to cancel-out the other. That is to say: if it is revelation, it is not human insight, and vice versa. Julian Jaynes, late Princton psychologist, however, theorized that ancient humans had a bicameral mind (i.e., two-chambers). One part of the mind issued commands that the other half of the mind perceived as voices of the Gods. Jaynes argued that the ancients did not consider their emotions and desires to be from within themselves, but their inner emotions came from the outside as actions of the Gods.⁶ The human mind began shifting to human consciousness around the 2^nd Millenium BCE, Jaynes argues.⁷

Today, it is generally thought that sudden flashes of insight that suddenly present themselves to us emerge from the subconscious. Yet how are we to explain auditory “hallucinations,” where people hear voices telling them to do certain things, or people of religious faith claiming to have received “answers” from God to their prayers? Might such experiences be from the subconscious, occurring as a historical residue of the bicameral mind that today is referred-to as insight? Reactions to Jaynes’ hypothesis are mixed, some positive and others negative.⁸

            On at least two occasions Paul, in his undisputed letters, claims to have had revelations from the Lord (Gal 1:12; I Cor 11:23) and on one occasion claims that the Lord spoke to him, and Paul quotes the Lord’s very words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). Could these occasions be considered instances of a residual bicameral mind at work in the first century CE? The bicameral mind is a mental state in which an experience of the right hemisphere of the brain is transmitted to the left hemisphere via auditory hallucinations. Or must we think that Paul was only speaking metaphorically. That is, he didn’t mean to say that he heard an actual voice. It was only a sudden flash of insight that came to him.

            Hoover preferred to describe as (human) insight what Paul described as (divine) revelation, and Jaynes’ hypothesis presents a plausible theory for explaining divine revelation as simply human insight. What an awesome and terrifying thought! If true, God-believers are more alone in the universe than ever before.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Late Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature and Religion Emeritus at Whitman College.

²Roy W. Hoover, “The Origin of Paul’s Gospel and the Power of Insight,” The Fourth R 37.5 (November-December 2024), 18.

³https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight

⁴Webster’s New World College Dictionary, under the word “insight.”

⁵Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., Psychology. Core Concepts (6^th ed.; Boston: Pearson, 2009), 576-77.

⁶Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Break-down of the Bicameral Mind (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), see his readings of the Iliad, p. 72 (date of the Iliad is around 8^th/7^th century BCE).

⁷https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Jaynes%20theorized%20that%20a%20shift,complexity%20in%20a%20changing%20world. See his argument for the breakdown of the bicameral mind in Mesopotamia: Jaynes, Origins, 223-246.

⁸https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Psychiatrist%20Iain%20McGilchrist%20proposes%20that,that%20McGilchrist%20mischaracterized%20Jaynes's%20theory.

How to describe a first-century Church?

The earliest references to the ekklēsia, an expression usually translated as "church," are better thought of as "gatherings," as found in the letters of Paul. He never specifically defines the nature of the church, although he uses the word over 40 times throughout his undisputed letters. These predecessors to what we experience today in the modern church were small, largely independent, gatherings of people. These gatherings were likely viewed as simply another private club or association among the many others in the Graeco-Roman world.¹

            The descriptive expression Paul used most often to describe the nature of the gatherings was "the gathering (ekklesia) of God (tou theou)."² That is to say: "God's gathering." Judging from that expression, the "church" appears to be a gathering of people around a particular concept of God. The Pauline gatherings were not conceived as part of a universal gathering. They appear to be a local phenomenon. It was the gathering of God at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2), for example.³ Or, Paul groups the gatherings in a regional configuration: the gatherings of Galatia (Gal 1:2; 1 Cor 16:1), or Asia (1 Cor 16:19), or Judea (Gal 1:22); or Macedonia (2 Cor 8:1); or in an ethnic configuration: all gatherings of the Gentiles (Rom 16:4), or all gatherings of Christ (Rom 16:16). To these latter two configurations, one must add "of which I Paul am aware."

Paul also thinks of these local and regional groups in an aggregate sense: the brother famous in all the gatherings (2 Cor 8:18; 11:28); Paul's rule in all gatherings (1 Cor 7:17).⁴ Both individually (Phil 4:15-16) and collectively (2 Cor 11:8) these gatherings were organized enough to provide financial support to Paul and others (1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 9:1-15).

Their gatherings seem to have been rather spontaneous with no set order to what they did once assembled (1 Cor 14:26-33). Leaders of the gatherings were not democratically elected but emerged in the gathering at God's behest, as Paul describes them as those with "spiritual gifts" (1 Cor 12:4-11, 27-31). Outsiders and unbelievers (1 Cor 14:23-25) were allowed in the gatherings, and sometimes allowed to have leading roles, such as settling a disagreement between members of the gathering (1 Cor 6:2-6). Their "pot-lucks," which passed as a commemoration of the "Lord's Supper," scandalized Paul (1 Cor 11:17-22).

Alas, in the gathering at Corinth women were required to veil themselves when they prophesied or prayed (1 Cor 11:2-16) and only the male members of the gathering were allowed to speak (1 Cor 14:33-35). I doubt, however, such restrictions held true in the gathering of Cenchreae, where sister Phoebe was a deacon (Rom 16:1), or in the gathering at the home of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:3-4; 1 Cor 16:19), since it was their house. Nor do I think that Junia, a lady "outstanding among the apostles" would be prohibited from speaking or required to veil herself in the gathering (Rom 16:7).

            The Pauline home gatherings appear quite different from modern churches with their fine buildings, education and other programs, large budgets, choirs, business meetings, set order for worship, and professional requirements for the ordination of ministers. By comparison, the forerunners of the modern church were simply a home gathering taking place under the radar of state sanction. I am coming to think of the modern church as a clinic for seekers after truth and the world-weary. It is a formal organization that offers religious advice, treatment, and instruction, and an opportunity to shut out the world with all its raucous demands.⁵

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Charles Hedrick, "Pondering the Origins of the Church," Wise Guy Blog," Feb 16, 2017:  http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2017/02/pondering-origins-of-church.html

²I Cor 1:2, 10:32, 11:16, 11:22, 15:9; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:13; 2 Cor 1:1. Thrice he associates these gathering with Christ (Rom 16:16; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:22). Once he refers to it as churches of the holy ones (i.e., saints, I Cor 14:33).

³Other specific gathering locations are Thessalonica (1 Thess 1:1), the gathering in the house of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:4), the gathering at Cenchrea (Rom 16:1); or the gathering in the house of Philemon (Philemon 2), or the gathering at Philippi (Phil 4:15).

⁴Rom 16:23 likely refers only to the gathering at Rome.

⁵Webster's New World College Dictionary (4^th ed., 2002), s.v. "clinic," 5^th definition.

Early “Christian” Prophets in Pauline Gatherings

There is no end of people today willing to tell you God's opinion on whatever issue is on the table. Few, if any, of them would claim to be officially recognized as prophets by a religious organization. In the ancient world, however, there were many who were called prophets and believed to speak God's words. This was also true among the early followers of Jesus.

The early Christian prophet was an immediately-inspired spokesperson for God, the risen Jesus, or the spirit who received intelligible oracles that he or she felt impelled to deliver to the Christian community or, representing the community, to the general public.¹

The earliest reference in Christian literature to early Christian prophets in the assemblies of the Jesus-gatherings is found in 1 Thess 5:19-20. Here Paul speaks approvingly of the utterances of such figures—meaning that he apparently regarded them as divinely inspired by God's spirit; there were many such figures in the religions of the ancient world.² Paul, however, had reservations about such figures even in his own tradition:

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good. (NRSV)

In other words, listen carefully, for not everything the prophet says may be helpful. So, discriminate in and among the prophetic utterances and hold onto what is profitable. I detect a healthy skepticism in Paul's statement about the utterances of early Christian prophets.

Prophets, who were believed to be channels for the words of a God, were endemic to his social and religious worlds (Israelite, and Greco-Roman traditions). The matrix and stimulus for such prophets and prophetic utterances in Jesus-gatherings likely came from both reading the Bible and pagan traditions. Prophetism was in the Greco-Roman air, as it were. In such a social environment, it was simply the way Gods were reckoned verbally to communicate.³

In the gathering at Corinth Paul acknowledged that God had given the gift of prophecy to certain people in the fellowship (1 Cor 12:10; Rom 12:3-8) and appointed them prophets (1 Cor 12:28-29). What the prophets were believed to bring was a direct revelation from God (1 Cor 14:29-32) for the encouragement, consolation, and benefit of the community (1 Cor 14:1-6). He did, however, continue to have reservations.

            The prophets in the community apparently could not control themselves and, like Jeremiah (20:9), the Word of the Lord was a "burning fire shut up in their bones," and they could not restrain it. So, they all prophesied at the same time (1 Cor 14:26-31), creating general confusion. Paul insisted that "the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor 14:32). So, they should all prophecy but only one at a time (1 Cor 14:30-31).

            Nevertheless, he still had reservations about the utterances of the prophets (1 Cor 14:29). Whatever they said must be carefully evaluated or judged (diakrinetōsan). Why is that? Because different spirits inspire prophets (1 Cor 12:3). And that is the reason why some in the assembly had the spiritual gift of discerning between spirits (1 Cor 12:10).

            It is interesting that in the Deutero-Pauline epistles (Colossians, Ephesians) and the Pastorals epistles (1, 2 Timothy, Titus) prophets are no longer a vital force in the Jesus-gatherings.⁴ Itinerant prophets are, however, found to be a problem in the Didache (11:3-12).⁵ Among other things, the writer says "do not test or examine any prophet who is speaking in a spirit" (11:7), but recognizes that not everyone speaking in a spirit is a "true" prophet. The true prophet can be distinguished from the false prophet by his behavior (11:8-12). So, the writer of the Didache also had reservations about the prophets.

            When someone claims to know the mind of God and assumes to tell you what God requires of you—prophet or not, exercise a healthy dose of Pauline skepticism. Be an adult in your thinking (1 Cor 14:20). Evaluate and judge carefully what you are told, for who really knows the mind of God (Rom 11:33)?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹M. Eugene Boring, "Prophecy (Early Christian)" in D. N. Freedman, et al., The Anchor Bible Dictionary New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5. 495-502; the quotation is on 496.

²See Boring, "Prophecy."

³David S. Potter, "Prophecies," and Robert C. T. Parker, "Prophētēs" in Hornblower and Spawforth, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.), 1259.

⁴Boring, "Prophecy," 500.

⁵Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols.; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, 1965), 325-27. The date of the Didache is not settled, but a consensus seems to be gravitating toward the end of the first century or beginning of the second. See Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache. A Commentary (Hermeneia; trans. L. M. Malony; ed., H.W. Attridge; Minneapolis, MN, 1998), 52-53.

Ancient Paganism and Modern Paganism

The words pagan (paganus) and paganism are derived from the Latin and had a number of secular usages in ancient Roman society.¹ In early ecclesiastical Latin, however, the terms are used pejoratively by Christians to designate those who do not share Christian faith; hence they are heathens or pagans. The word pagan is used in much the same way that the Greek word ethnos (the nations; usually translated “gentile”) served those of the Jewish faith (and later Christians) to designate those who did not profess faith in the God of Israel. This same word (ethnos) is also used by Paul to designate the prior polytheistic status of the Corinthian members of the Pauline gathering (1 Cor 5:1; 12:2, see also 10:20) where it is translated by the word pagan.² In the fourth century paganism is broadly conceived as the “religion of the peasantry,” what was practiced in the countryside.³ A pagus was a person who lived in the country out of the city and practiced the old polytheistic ways of the Greco-Roman religions.

            Modern paganism seems to be something different from ancient paganism in the early Christian period. From what little I know about modern paganism it does not worship the ancient Greco-Roman Gods. My limited knowledge comes from a book I ran across in a modern book cemetery (Good Will). I rescued it and brought it home to read.⁴ The book is by two practicing pagans and appears to be a primer for persons considering a pagan faith and lifestyle (pagan wannabes). The sub-title to the book (see notes) characterizes the basic tenet of modern paganism. According to the authors, modern paganism originates in a particular attitude to the universe of which our earth is representative. The author briefly discusses only what he regards as the two major faith groups (Wiccan and Asatru; he alludes to others). I came to think of the groups, simplistically, as “denominations” in Earth-Centered Religions, similar to the various faith groups in Christianity.

            The authors of Paganism find a set of core principles (pp. 39-41) to Earth-Centered Religions, with which they think most pagans would agree. Three of these they emphasize as integrating “a variety of mystical and scientific perspectives” (pp. 133-34).

“Principle #4: Everything contains the spark of intelligence. Many pagans believe that everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the largest planetary system contains a spark of intelligence, or has some type of consciousness” (p.133). Hence, the universe is alive, has an interconnected sentience, is supportive, and is trustworthy. It operates “not only at levels that are physically grounded in time and space, but also at levels outside of time and space (p.199).

“Principle #5: Everything is sacred” (p.133). Hence the universe has a “sacred nature” and pagans “frequently feel a sense of kinship and connection with the universe”; they “may also believe that Deity permeates the universe and therefore see the universe as holy and blessed” (p. 134).

“Principle #6: Each part of the universe can communicate with each other part and these parts often cooperate for specific ends.” “Herin lies the heart of magick.⁵ Magick is a natural, not supernatural process, which in its simplest form, is the communication of many consciousnesses” (p. 134). Hence the pagan can engage the universe by the “process of stepping into the universal flow and choosing to participate with it in a deliberative fashion” (p.163) in much the same way that other religions think of prayer, meditation, inspiration, bliss, visions, revelation, miracles, etc. (p. 163).

            Although it may be dismissed as only figurative, Paul also appears to use sentient language of the creation in Romans 8:19-23: the creation waits with eager longing…subjected to futility not of its own will…creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God…creation has been groaning in labor pains…Eager longing (i.e., desire), having its own will (i.e., intent); sharing liberty (i.e., participating in redemption); groaning in labor pains (i.e. consciousness of pain and discomfort).

            Some interpreters of Romans seem to take Paul’s sentient language seriously: There is “a mysterious sympathy between the world and man…Creation is not inert utterly unspiritual, alien to our life and its hopes. It is the natural ally of our souls…[Creation] is the world and all that it contains, animate and inanimate…”⁶

            Does Paul express an attitude similar to that of modern paganism with his description of a sentient universe (κτσις)? Or, put another way, is Paul only using anthropomorphic language poetically and one should not, therefore, take it literally? So, how do you know?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹P. Rousseau, “pagan, paganism” in S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.; Oxford), 1091.

²C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (London: Oxford, 1922), 1290.

³https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism#:~:text=Paganism%20(from%20classical%20Latin%20p%C4%81g%C4%81nus,ethnic%20religions%20other%20than%20Judaism.

⁴Joyce and River Higginbotham, Paganism. An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2002).

⁵Pagans use this spelling to distinguish magick from magic, slight-of-hand, and parlor tricks (Paganism, 163).

⁶W. R. Nicoll, The Expositor’s Greek Testament (5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), vol. 2. 649.

The Bible's Story: A Brief Summary

My title is a double entendre that you might catch if you think about it for a bit. First there is the story of the Bible. That is to say, the story the Bible tells from Genesis through Revelation. The other possibility is the story about the Bible. That is to say, how the Bible came into being.

          The Bible’s story begins with the first inscription of each of its writings, the Old Testament (OT) first, and finally the inscription of each New Testament (NT) text. At the time of inscription each writing of the Old and NT existed alone in the ancient world as a part of the literary stream of Western civilization. They were not part of a selective group of writings. Only later did people, who valued their messages, gather them into groups with other writings. They were initially understood individually apart from other writings. The OT contains the writings of the ancient Israelites. It is “old” to Christians but today it is the holy Scripture of modern Judaism.

          I must now leave the story of Israel’s ancient collection of sacred scripture for another day, and will turn to the Bible’s “postscript”: The NT. It is a small collection of twenty-seven initially isolated writings, which date from the fifties of the first century AD into the early second century—or from the Pauline letters to the inscription of second Peter, the latest NT writing. The NT is the Christian part of the Bible. The Jewish Scriptures being treated in the NT as a resource book of prophecies and religious ideas by the Christ followers of the fourth century and later.

Paul’s undisputed letters (1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon) are the earliest writings of the collection and date from the 50s and 60s of the first century, some 15-30 years from the crucifixion of Jesus. They are “undisputed” because virtually everyone thinks a particular man by the name of Paul composed them. The other writings bearing his name or the supra script title “according to Paul” in some translations (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews) are not regarded in critical scholarship as being composed by Paul (critical scholarship makes decisions on the basis of historical evidence rather than church tradition). Hence, their authorship is “disputed,” which means: critical scholars regard them as anonymous or pseudonymous writings. These texts were not written by Paul but by an unnamed and unknown disciple of Paul.

The General or Catholic Epistles (James, 1, 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude) was the latest group of writings to be gathered together and used in the early ecclesiastical communities, although 1 Peter and 1 John were popular in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries. We first hear of a group of seven “Catholic Epistles” from Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (4^th century).

Although the book of Acts initially was part of a unitary work of two volumes with the Gospel of Luke, they were early separated and each had its own subsequent literary history. In the 2^nd century Acts gained in popularity in early orthodoxy helping to document the concept of apostolic tradition. The book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) was well accepted in the Western church and widely cited as scripture in the 2^nd century, but Eastern Christians tended to reject Revelation. The full recognition of Revelation did not come about until the late 4^th century.

There are two ways that authorship is determined: following church tradition or by offering a historical rationale for or against authorship. Except for Paul’s undisputed letters, the authors of the rest of the NT texts are anonymous or pseudonymous, meaning their authors are unknown. In antiquity texts were titled by their first lines, not unlike some modern poetry. Their supra script titles were added by the later church.

Who gave the New Testament its present arrangement of grouping texts by literary type (gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypse) is likewise unknown, but it would have been persons concerned with the religious life of the early Christ followers, who found the texts helpful for the religious life of the community. For that reason, other texts, not in your Bible were used in worship in many churches, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, 1 Clement, Barnabas, and others.

Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt in his Easter Letter #39 in 367 gives the earliest complete listing of the NT texts used in Christian worship and education today.

          If we stand in the middle fourth century and look backwards in time to see the state of these NT writings, we are immediately faced with the following situation. There are over 5000 manuscripts of the Greek NT and no two of them agree alike in all particulars. Further, virtually all early manuscripts date from the third century and later are fragmentary, virtually scraps of texts. Not until the fourth century do we find whole manuscripts that survived, collected into a single volume, although not all of our NT is included in the collections, and certain other texts not in our NT are included.

          The latter half of the 18^th century saw the beginnings of a scientific approach to studying the differences between the surviving Greek manuscripts. Ancient scribes who copied the manuscripts would make mistakes in copying and add their own thoughts in the margins. Later scribes would copy the marginalia into the body of the writing. None of the manuscripts that survived is an original author’s copy. To accommodate all this diversity in the texts, Scholars that are referred to as text critics developed the science of textual criticism. The goal of the text critic is to determine the wording of the original author’s copy by comparing the Greek manuscripts and the ancient versions in other ancient languages. It is an ongoing process requiring the seasoned judgement of the text critic, and as each new ancient manuscript is discovered it must be analyzed and compared to the present readings for an improvement of the text. A critical version of the Greek New Testament in koine Greek (the Greek vernacular of the ancient language) is published with an apparatus of approximately half a page listing all the significant variations to the text-half at the top half of the page. Translators are currently working from the 28^th edition of this publication giving the current judgment of text critics as to what the original author’s copy of the NT texts read.

          Non-Greek readers of the New Testament will only encounter these different readings by comparing different translations of the NT, because each translator decides for himself or herself the Greek wording to be translated into English.*

          In the first and second centuries there is evidence of some 34 early Christian Gospels. From this wealth of possibility, the church by the 3^rd century selected a fourfold gospel collection. Given here in their order of dating: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John were valued as deposits of an oral tradition that remained viable into the second century and competed with the written gospels. No Christian artifacts from the first century exist.

Matthew and Luke are thought, with good reason, to have used a common sayings source (called: Q[uelle]) that no longer exists except in the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. Their common use of the sayings source accounts for the verbatim or near verbatim passages shared in Matthew and Luke. And the Gospel of John is thought to have used a lost source called “The Signs Source,” which also no longer exists.

This information is something to consider when you describe the New Testament to others. My take on this information is this: If one describes the “Bible” as “the Word of God,” honesty requires that one also recognize and include the role of human beings in its production as well in the description. My recommendation that does this is: The Bible may be inspired by God but it is clearly designed and produced by human minds and hands.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*For examples of Bible translations differing in the Greek text that each translation uses see Hedrick, “Variations in the Bible,” Wry Guy Blog, May 23, 2023: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=variations+in+the+Bible

Sources Consulted:

Athanasius, Easter Letter, #39: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm

Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History (trans. Kirsopp Lake; 2 vols. LCL: Harvard).

Harry Y. Gamble, “Canon/New Testament,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Doubleday, 1992), Vol. 1. 852-861.

Charles W. Hedrick, “The Four/34 Gospels” Bible Review 17.3 (June 2002),20-31, 46.

Hedrick, When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus (1999; reprint Wipf &Stock 2013).

Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3^rd ed.; Oxford, 1992).

Graydon F. Snyder, ANTE PACEM. Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (Mercer, 1985).

Time at the Far End of Life

This is a very personal note to my brothers and sisters nearing the end of their allotted term. It is time to start thinking in critical time. Life eventually boils down to time, particularly for those of us at the far end of life: how much time do we have left and what shall we do with it? At age 89 I have just begun to ponder both of these questions some three months after the death of my wife of 67 years from Alzheimer’s. From age 20 through her passing she, and later our children, formed the basis of all my decisions about time. The time we spent was always our time together or, when the children came along, family time. When Alzheimer’s manifested itself, I became her caregiver and my time became her time.

How much time is left and what to do with it are not existential questions that necessarily trouble those in youth or middle age.  The very young initially have their time taken-up with schooling mandated by the state, family associated activities, and, later, things concerned with preparation for life’s long haul: occupation, marriage, children, etc. For the middle aged there is daily work for paychecks to pay for the things of life that have claimed one’s time. All things being equal, these two questions about critical time belong particularly to those of us at the far end of life, and those terminally ill. Once life has irrevocably changed (retirement, death of a spouse, advanced old age, terminal illness, etc.) we stand in a critical moment, at a critical juncture, where we are turning into that period of life we begin to recognize as our final days.

            The ancient Greeks recognized the nature of critical time and distinguished generally between two words for time: Chronos (χρονος) and Kairos (καιρος). Chronos designated “a definite time, a period of time, a while, a season,” but Kairos with respect to time designated “the right point of time, the proper time or season for action, the exact or critical time.”¹ The latter moment is where many of us now find ourselves, at a critical juncture facing the end of our days at some unknown point in the not-too-distant future. The question is very personal: what to do with these final days?

Since Peggy died, I have received advice for dealing with loneliness and grief in various forms: pamphlets from funeral homes, personal advice from good friends, calls from social workers, etc. The advice, probably coming from experience (personal and otherwise), is informally the same: seek counseling from a licensed therapist; find a support group; volunteer with some social service agency, hospital, or charity; take a class; perhaps take a trip where one is forced to make new acquaintances; find reasons to visit with old friends; take up a hobby or immerse oneself in hobbies of long standing. All of these are helpful suggestions. But, somehow, they have not resonated with me, being so close to the end of this final term of life (pardon the academic allusion). I have strong family support from my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, most of whom live right near in my neighborhood.

What religious rationalists might do, when confronted with a ponderable crisis, is pick up a Bible. In spite of its many blemishes, mistakes, and other shortcomings it records the ponderings of religious folk of two ancient religions over a 1300- year period, roughly from the Israelite Exodus (around 1250 BCE to the writing of 2 Peter (around 125CE).² Not unreasonably one may expect here and there to find helpful suggestions. I found a convenient “hook” for pondering my last days in Eph 5:15-16 and Col 4:5. Two of Paul’s students, writings under the pseudonym of “Paul, an apostle” (i.e., they are putting words in Paul’s mouth)³ urge their readers to be wise “making the most of crucial time” (εξαγοραζομενοι τον καιρον),⁴ the only two instances in the New Testament that these two words are used together. How does one “make the most of crucial time”? The authors of these two texts do not share the specifics of their thinking about that question. Hence, everyone must decide for themselves what will be their specific response to their latter days. In short, they must decide in what they will invest themselves, considering their abilities, health, and interests.

            I have not yet finished the pondering process, but I have come up with four general suggestions (devoid of specifics because everyone is different) that have been helpful to me for staying engaged: 1. Make an effort to stay involved in living to the best of your abilities, and resist withdrawing into yourself. 2. Aim to make a contribution to the lives of others. 3. Learn something new every day (you just have to be curious). 4. Keep a sense of humor about yourself and your situation in life. There is nothing in these suggestions that is profound, but they are certainly cogent.

One other suggestion comes from the Apostle Paul himself. Writing from prison (Phil 1:7, 12-17) from Rome, Caesarea, or Ephesus (Phil 1:13; 4:22),⁵ Paul harbored hopes that his situation might yet change for the better (Phil 1:19, 26-27; 2:24). But whether it did or not was unimportant and he asserts: “I have learned how to manage in whatever circumstances I find myself” (Phil 4:11).⁶ Good advice for those of us at the far end.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹The abridged version of Liddell and Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon (from the 7^th edition of Liddell and Scott; Oxford: Clarendon, 1975). Here are some examples in the New Testament of time used as “the proper time or season for action”: Mark 1:15; 11:13; Matt 13:30; 21:34; 26:18; Luke 12:56; 21:8; John 7:6, 8; Acts 3:20; 7:20; Rom 9:9; 13:11; 1 Cor 4:5; 7:29; Eph 5:16; Col 4:5.

²See Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019), 2.

³For the pseudonymity of these two letters, see W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (Howard Kee, trans. 17^th ed. rev.; Abingdon, 1975), Colossians, 340-46; Ephesians, 357-163.

⁴This is my translation of the expression in Eph 5:16 and Col 4:5. In some older translations (for example, King James Version) one may find the expression translated as “redeeming the time,” which doesn’t quite communicate the Greek, in my view.

⁵See Kϋmmel, Introduction, 324-32.

⁶A. J. Dewey, et al., The Authentic Letters of Paul (Polebridge, 2010), 181. This is the only occurrence of αυταρκης in the New Testament. The usual translation of the word as “contented,” is inadequate.

Social Spaces, Idols, and Pagan Temples

The earliest followers of Jesus encountered certain social problems that Christians today seldom face. One problem for them was the issue of animals that had been sacrificed in temples to the indigenous deities of the Greco-Roman world. In our world religious sacrifice of animals, construed as cruelty to animals by the courts, is illegal, but not so in the ancient world. Animal sacrifice was ubiquitous. Followers of Jesus were a minority in the ancient world and were engulfed by the customs and practices of these religions. The animal was sacrificed at an altar that was presided over by an image of the God (an idol) whose priest received the offering. Part of the meat was immolated as an offering to the God; the remaining portion was divided among the temple staff and the worshippers (1 Cor 9:13). The priest had the authority to sell part of the temple's share of the sacrifice. In this way meat from the sacrifices made its way to the public sidewalk into the meat markets of ancient cities.¹

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul addresses three social locations where the problem of idol meat surfaces for members of the Jesus community in the ancient city of Corinth (1 Cor 8:1-13; 10:23-11:1): in the local meat market (1 Cor 10:25); in home meals with unbelievers (1 Cor 10:27-30); in eating meals in an idol's temple (1 Cor 8:10-13; 10:19-20).

Apparently, the Jesus gathering (ekklēsia) at Corinth was divided over the issue of sacrificial meat. Bible translators think they have identified statements in Paul's text where he quotes slogans from the debate originating from one side of the disagreement and are confident enough to place this text in quotation marks and/or also add words not in the text ("as you say") following the phrase in quotations (see 1 Cor 8:4; 10:23, 26). The quoted slogans likely belong to a faction Paul called the "liberated" (8:9; 10:29) as opposed to those the "liberated" regarded as weaker members of the Jesus gathering.

Paul's attempt to resolve the situation is based on the principal that with regard to this matter the liberated should always defer to those the liberated regarded as the weak (8:9-12; Rom 15:1-2). Thus, one should not attend feasts in pagan temples (8:9-13).² He tells them to buy whatever they need from the meat market without worrying about idols, since idols have no real significance (10:19-20, 25). If one is invited to the home of a non-believer, one can eat whatever one wants without raising questions of conscience. If others raise objections to the idol meat, then "do not eat it out of consideration for the one who informed you" (10:27-30).³ His rationale is that while the liberated may know that idols are nothing to be feared, others may not have that knowledge (8:7). Paul concludes that if food is a problem for a fellow believer, he would never eat meat again (8:13).

Eating idol meat may not be a modern problem, but the principle of deference to the weaker believer will apply to many modern situations (compare Rom 14:13-15:2). Paul actually alludes to another ancient practice that can also be a modern problem: drinking wine (Rom 14:21). He does not say drinking wine to excess; he only suggests that drinking wine is not right if it causes a fellow believer to stumble. He also seems to extend this principle to the "neighbor" who is not part of the community of believers (1 Cor 10:24, 31-33; Rom 15:1-2).

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹For a brief description of the sacrifices, see the discussion in Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity (3^rd ed.; Eerdmans, 2003), 188-92.

²Note, however, Paul seems to stop short of absolutely forbidding attending feasts in pagan temples, and leaves it to the individual to decide. Nevertheless, Paul's intent seems clear enough. From my reading of the text, it was a difficult situation for Paul. He basically agreed with the liberated faction that idols were nothing (1 Cor 8:1-4; 10:19-20), so to enforce his position that the liberated should not eat in pagan temples, Paul could offer his principle of concern for the weaker members of the Jesus gathering at Corinth (1 Cor 8:9) and his own example of never eating meat if it caused the weaker person to stumble in faith (1 Cor 8:13). His argument about pagan sacrifices being offered to demons (1 Cor10:20-21) seems more like a slur. I doubt that people who offered sacrifices in pagan temples thought they were sacrificing to demons. These two verses (1 Cor10:20-21) constitute the only mention of demons in the Pauline letters.

³1 Cor 10:29b is a problem for the sense of the text. The Revised Standard Version puts verses 10:28-29a in parentheses, which in effect makes verse 10:29b a continuation of 10:27 and makes verses 28-29a a digression. Thinking of the text in this way retains the sense of the passage, for otherwise 10:29b contradicts 10:28-29a. See also Dewey, et al., The Authentic Letters of Paul. A New Reading of Paul's Rhetoric and Meaning (Polebridge, 2010), 94, where verses 28-29a are treated as a digression and placed in parentheses.

What is ‘the Gospel’?

Inadvertently, I stumbled across an interesting question while researching the words "gospel" (or "good news"; in Greek, euaggelion) and "preach the gospel" (or "proclaim good news"; in Greek, euaggelizō). The words do not appear that many times in the New Testament and virtually all the time they are used without any description of the content of the word. There is only one passage I know where the content of the word "gospel" is explained:

Now I would remind you, brethren, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:1-5)

This is the content of the gospel Paul preached and is the only explanation of gospel, of which I am aware, in the earliest texts of the early Christian movement. Nevertheless, it should not be read as the meaning of the word gospel in all early texts. It is specifically Paul's gospel (Rom 16:25; Gal 1:11). It was not the only gospel being preached in the earliest period, as Paul makes quite clear (Gal 1:6-9; 2 Cor 11:4-6, 13-14). What should we think about the content of the gospel being preached in the communities represented by the Deutero-Pauline Epistles (Ephesians, Colossians), the Pastoral Letters (1, 2 Timothy, and Titus), and the rest of the New Testament?

Paul's gospel is mythical in content, meaning at the very least it deals with stories about Gods and supernatural persons.* In Paul's description above the only historical event that can be verified is that Jesus died. Another item (that he was buried) could have been verified had one been present at the time. The rest of the statement evokes a kind of "salvation history" (Heilsgeschichte), which some theologians postulate as "an account of God's saving acts in human history"; these acts of God, however, can only be seen through the eyes of faith; they are not verifiable as historical events.

In the rest of the New Testament and certain later texts one finds hints that others are quite likely preaching a gospel different from what Paul preached. For example, Mark 1:14 has Jesus preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel" (1:15; 1 Clem 14:23). If this latter statement is the content of what Jesus preached, the founder of what later became the Christian movement preached a gospel different from what Paul preached. Luke describes Paul preaching a gospel about the grace of God, something that Paul did not mentioned as part of his gospel (1 Cor 15:1-5). The writer in Colossians preaches a gospel about hope (1:5-6; 1:23), something else that Paul does not mention in 1 Cor 15:1-5. The gospel preached by the author of the Didache contained specific instructions about ethical behavior, prayers, and almsgiving, which Paul does not include in his explanation of the content of the gospel in 1 Cor 5:1-5. One cannot assume that Paul's statement of the content of what was being preached is what all writers of the New Testament would affirm.

What do you consider "good news"? Personally, I like to think of the gospel as the life-changing grace of a benevolent God, who gives freely to all (Matt 5:45). Such a gospel is what brings hope in the face of the absolute certainty of death.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*Myth as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary is "a purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular ideas concerning natural or historical phenomena. It is properly distinguished from allegory and legend, which imply a nucleus of fact."

Paul and the Practice of Laying on of Hands

In the undisputed letters¹ Paul does not use the expression "Laying hands on…" In fact, he does not even use the word "laying on" (epitithēmi). It is doubtful that he even shared Luke's view of the Holy Spirit: that the Holy Spirit was a gift that could be passed on by the laying on of  hands and that resulted in "signs and wonders by the hands of the apostles" (Acts 5:12). I assume that in Acts these signs and wonders would be considered dramatic displays of divine power, such as, for example, the wonder-working hands of spirit filled apostles (Acts 28:8-9), the appearance of tongues as of fire and speaking in other tongues (Acts 2:3-4), sudden death to those who "agree together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord" (Acts 5:9-10), the healing of the sick and demon-possessed people by Peter's shadow (Acts 5:12-16), and the like.

            In the undisputed letters Paul seems to associate the presence of God's spirit/Holy Spirit within one as initiating with faith in Jesus (1 Cor 3:16; Rom 8;9-11). One receives the Spirit by hearing with faith (Gal 3:2-5). In fact, no one can say "Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3). There is no human intermediary through whom God's spirit comes; rather the spirit comes from God (1 Thess 4:8; 2 Cor 1:22). "Things from God are freely given" (1 Cor 2:12; Rom 3:24). Paul does write about "spiritual gifts" but speaks of these gifts as given by God through, and inspired by, the spirit (1 Cor 12:4-26). "You are Christ's body," Paul writes, and God "appoints" functionaries for the gatherings of the body (1 Cor 12:27-31).

God as spirit is described by Paul in various ways: "the spirit" and "his spirit" (Rom 8:11), "the spirit of God" (Rom 8:9), "the spirit of holiness" (Rom 1:4), "the spirit of the living God" (2 Cor 3:3), "his holy spirit" (1 Thess 4:8), the "holy spirit" (Rom 5:5).  Spirit and holy spirit are used interchangeably in 1 Cor 12:3. He even uses the expression "spirit of Christ" interchangeably with the "spirit of God" (Rom 8:9-11; Gal 4:6-7).²

How then should one explain 2 Cor 12:12 and Romans 15:18-19? (which sound very Lucan and in the spirit of Luke/Acts)? Paul writes to the Corinthians: "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works." How might Paul have understood this kind of language (1 Cor 4:20), when he gives the reader no examples of such dramatic displays of divine power as are found in Acts?

            One possibility is that he uses these power expressions to describe his personal interactions with people and to enhance the power of God's spirit in human relationships.

When I came to you brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Cor 2:1-5).

For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor 10:3-5).

In other words, Paul is claiming that whatever successes he may have had in advancing the gospel enterprise is due to the power of God's spirit working in and through him, in spite of his many weaknesses (1 Cor 4:8-21; 2 Cor 13:3-4). He did not correct his critics, the "superlative apostles" (2 Cor 11:5), when they claimed that his "bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account" (2 Cor 10:9-11), and he admitted that he was unskilled in public speaking (2 Cor 11:6). The only thing he could brag about were his many weaknesses (2 Cor 11:16-33; 12:6-10). His claim is that the power of God works through him, so that when he is weak, then he is strong (2 Cor 12:7-10). What he preaches comes not only in word but also "in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction" (1 Thess 1:5; 2 Rom 15:18-21), so that through the power of God's holy Spirit, the Corinthians may abound in hope (Rom 15:13). The signs of a true apostle are the building up of the gathering of saints, the tearing down of every stronghold blocking the Gospel of Christ, and his strong successes among the Gentiles, and the like.

            One overlap with displays of spiritual power as found in Acts is speaking in tongues (1 Cor 14:1-40; Acts 2:1-13), which is described by Paul as "uttering mysteries in the spirit."³ Speaking in tongues is a personal experience. The one who speaks in tongues "edifies himself" (1 Cor 14:4), but prophecy "edifies the church" (1 Cor 14:4). Paul claims that he "speaks in tongues" more than the rest of the Corinthians (1 Cor 14:18), which for Paul seems to be a kind of personal prayer language that only benefits the one praying (1 Cor 14:14). He considers the gift of tongues a lesser gift because it requires an interpreter (1 Cor 14:27-28). In church, Paul would rather speak five words of prophecy than 10,000 words in a tongue (1 Cor 14:19), because of the obvious benefits of prophecy to the church (1 Cor 14:2-254). In this section it appears that Paul is attempting to lessen the high value that the Corinthians presumably place on speaking in tongues and to advance the value of prophecy for the church.

Paul's critics, whom he snidely called "superlative apostles," were in Paul's view false apostles, deceitful workmen (2 Cor 11:13-15), and peddlers of God's word (2:17). They accused him, among other things, of "not being an apostle at all, for his ministry among the Corinthians had not been marked by signs and wonders and mighty works (12:1-12)."⁴ Paul, however, insisted that that he was an apostle and had performed the signs of a true apostle among the Corinthians (2 Cor 12:11-12) in the sense that I have argued above, but specifically not in the sense that Luke portrayed in Acts.

Should it matter to readers of the New Testament that Luke and Paul do not agree on the character of God's holy spirit?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 Thessalonians.

²Hedrick, "Is the Holy Spirit part of a Trinity," pp. 177-179 in Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019), 177.

³Tongues in Acts are different from tongues in 1 Corinthians. In Acts the "gift" of tongues seems to be that the speaker speaks in his native language while others hear in their own native languages. It is not as in Paul a personal prayer language.

⁴S. M. Gilmour, "Corinthians, Second Letter to The," pp. 692-98 in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1962), 696.