The topic of grace came up in my 12-14 year old Sunday school class last week, and I asked the kids if they knew what grace was. Not really, it turns out. It’s little things like this that make me rather sympathetic toward Christians who don’t consider us Christian.

The particular scripture I want to take up comes from Ephesians. The problem is that the scholarly view seems to lean toward rejecting Paul as the author of the letter to Ephesians (here is a link to the New Testament Footnotes online book, edited by Kevin Barney, which has a nice little, concise intro to Ephesians which includes a discussion about authorship). So first, I’ll make a brief case for considering Ephesians “Pauline.” Then I’ll look at a particular verse in Ephesians which states emphatically that we are saved by grace, not works. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re sick of the Gospels and ready to move on to Paul (I’m being facetious of course, in light of Matthew’s post), here’s an update on what I’ve been learning about Paul and Pauline studies. Galatians 3:10 says:

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

The traditional view is that “works of the law” here should be interpreted rather broadly, roughly equivalent to “good works. ” The New Perspective on Paul tends to view this more narrowly, referring only to the Law of Moses. In general, New Perspective advocates tend to view Paul as reinterpreting Judaic law whereas traditionalists tend to view Paul as more condemnatory of Judaic law, establishing Christianity as something less continuous with Judaism. So traditionalists often use this passage in Galatians to criticize the New Perspective because Paul sounds so critical of the law here. Below I will try to briefly, though hopefully not too inaccurately, sketch differing views on this matter by two prominent scholars, James Dunn as an advocate of the New Perspective and Stephen Westerholm as a defender of the traditional view.

Read the rest of this entry »