Book Review - Paul, A Biography by N. T. Wright

There is so much depth that highlights can only hint at. Paul’s pre-conversion zeal was based on the examples of Phinehas (Numbers 25:7-9) and Elijah (1 Kings 18:40). Psalm 106:30-31 says that Phinehas’ slaying of the brazenly apostate Israelite was reckoned to him as righteousness.  Wright points to the likelihood that young Saul took these to mean that the slaying of unrepentant backsliding Jews was how to deal with early Christians. (Acts 7:58). This was the mindset of Saul when confronted by Christ on the Damascus road.

Considering Paul’s life in chronological order, pulling the Acts and the epistles together, gives us clues to Paul’s interior life, and to events not reported by Luke. The author expends considerable effort on events in Ephesus not recorded by Luke, in which Paul experienced such grievous trials that he despaired of life. The evidence comes from Paul’s own words. The impact on Paul’s outlook on life, ministry, and writing style suggests that this was a significant event. He learned a new aspect of walking with Jesus: His faithfulness in the darkest trials, and being so weak that he had no strength of his own, and was totally dependent on the Lord.

It is hard for us to grasp how hard it was for Jews of Paul’s time to accept the idea of a crucified Messiah. Paul could not, until he met Him. When he preached to Jews, he emphasized continuity with the history, prophecy, and promises of the Jewish scriptures. But it was a hard sell to convince Jews, who expected a conquering hero to set the world right by force, that God had worked more powerfully in Jesus by defeating evil spiritual powers through His crucifixion and resurrection. Paul preached that they needed to experience that power personally, and when writing to churches, reminded them of their own experience with Christ.

The impact of Paul’s life is hard to overestimate. He personally travelled to innumerable cities, preached Christ, established churches, and demonstrated by his own life how a Christian lives. And then he wrote letters that have shown two millennia of believers not only the doctrines of the church, but also how to think about faith, religion, and life in a holistic framework. If nothing else, N. T. Wright’s biography awakens the reader with an appreciation of all that God did through Paul, in fulfillment of Acts 9:16.

Visit Colonial Williamsburg and Appomattox Courthouse

Colonial Williamsburg brings to life the people of Virginia before the American Revolution. The geographic proximity of the Yorktown battlefield and Jamestown settlement provides a sketch of English colonization up to and including the American Revolution. Not too far away, the siege works around Petersburg, and the Appomattox Courthouse speak of a later century and another war. Aside from the lifestyles of the pre-revolutionary colonists, the tension in the revolutionary era begs a fundamental question.

When do values and circumstances drive us to a potentially catastrophic rebellion against an unjust status quo? What injustices justify rejection of existing governance? Were the founding fathers justified in rebellion against Great Britain? Were the Confederate States justified in leaving the Union? On a spiritual plane, was Satan’s rebellion against and rejection of God’s authority justifiable? (I speak as if insane.) Every would-be rebel must address this. 

Justification of rebellion must ultimately rest on moral grounds. When is better the enemy of good enough in a moral dimension? Resistance to Nazi Germany seems a clear example of a government legitimizing its opposition by brazenly embracing and practicing evil. The legitimate functions of government are to protect its citizens and enable them to flourish. A completely illegitimate policy of government is anything that benefits the governing officials and their cronies at the expense of its citizens.

The U.S. Civil War (a.k.a. The War Between The States) was a military stand-off for two years, giving the advantage to the Confederacy. If the Northern states could not defeat them outright, the Southern states expected them to give up the fight, de facto recognition of their departure from the United States. The tide seems to have turned after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Initially, the war was fought to preserve the Union, but after this date, the Union was on record that freedom of enslaved people would be one of the outcomes of the war. After the enormous losses of troops and battles with no gain in two battles at Bull Run, the peninsular campaign, the battle of Fredericksburg and so forth, the battle at Gettysburg in July 1863 seems to have marked the tide turning.

There is probably a gray area in the spectrum of government morality, but somewhere there is a line which, if crossed, removes the legitimacy of that government. Had the British government of the colonies crossed that line in 1776? This is not part of the Williamsburg experience. It is worthwhile to take the 150 mile drive to Appomattox Courthouse, to ponder the contrast between rebellions that succeeded and failed, and their moral underpinning. It may be that the moral do not always succeed in armed conflict, but if there is justice on earth as there is in heaven, this author hopes they would. There will be no moral ambiguity or uncertainty in that final battle, when Jesus will completely eradicate evil on earth.

Celebrate Memorial Day

Celebrate Memorial Day

We seldom hear of the roots of Memorial Day, focusing on the start of summer. We remember those who have fallen also on Veteran’s Day, and of course we celebrate the birth of our nation on Independence Day. One remembrance from each century ... the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I. Each day has a different theme. Independence Day focuses on the fundamental values of our forefathers that led them to rebel against Great Britain, immortalized in the Declaration of Independence. Veterans’ Day honors the sacrifices of those who died fighting for our nation, in World War I initially and now more generally all wars. 

It is surprising that the origins of Memorial Day are not more frequently discussed. It began as Decoration Day; there are many localities that claim they were the first to decorate the graves of fallen Union soldiers. The earliest is claimed by some to have occurred in 1865, when former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina did so. This was to express gratitude for their freedom having been gained as a result of the Civil War. The War between the states was fought to preserve the Union, but the Emancipation Proclamation was integral to that war. The war remedied the moral defect embedded in the constitution and subsequent law that had recognized chattel slavery. Abolitionists may have incited the war, but the American people as a whole carried it to completion, at the cost of hundreds of thousands killed, many more wounded.

As we celebrate our values of freedom, I fear we too often confuse it with license; even Christians are sometimes tempted to conflate liberty growing from grace with anomie (lawlessness). Likely few slaves saw their emancipation as enabling them to not have to work, or obey the laws of the land. It meant they were free to become what God had created them to be, without tyrannical human control. It meant that (at least in theory) their lives had equal value to everyone else’s. Subsequent generations have demonstrated that value, not only in the eyes of God, but also to our society. 

We should also, somewhere in our remembrance, honor the price that Jesus paid to free us from the bondage of  sin. We think about this on Good Friday and Easter in a judicial sense. But Jesus unleashed through His work  the very power of God within us, through the Holy Spirit (manifested first on Pentecost) to overcome sin in a practical sense. As we celebrate Memorial Day, let is seek to honor Christ by receiving His empowerment to become all that God calls us to.