Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which some would argue was his second (Wanamaker), or his first and second combined (Murphy-O’Connor), was written to encourage a novice community of mostly Gentile believers to stand firm in the face of persecution until the parousia of the Lord, when the wrath of God would come against the world and they would be delivered from their suffering and united with their Lord. This is the narrative—or eschatological—frame of the letter, and it controls Paul’s argument at every point.

The same can be said of his first letter to the Corinthians. They “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7–8). The rulers of the present age are doomed to pass away (2:6). The quality of the apostles’ work will be revealed when a day of fire comes (3:13). The Lord is coming to “bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and… disclose the purposes of the heart”, when everyone will receive his or her commendation from God (4:5). A “day of the Lord” is coming, when “the saints will judge the world”, and the righteous will inherit the kingdom of God (5:5; 6:2, 9). A time of distress is approaching; the “present form of this world is passing away” (7:26, 31). In the Lord’s supper they proclaim his death “until he comes” (11:26). The world will be condemned (11:32). The dead in Christ will be raised at his coming and will inherit the kingdom (15:23, 50-56). Paul prays that the Lord will come (16:22).

There’s an excellent set of brief, somewhat dense responses, from earlier this year, to a question about developments in Pauline studies on the Enoch Seminar forum:

Pauline studies have undergone major changes in recent times. Which new research topics and methods would you especially highlight? Would you, moreover, agree to speak of a paradigm shift?

Respondents include James H. Charlesworth, Paula Fredriksen, Larry Hurtado and Mark D. Nanos. The opinions offered all fall from the same tree, grown over the last 35 years from the seed of E.P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, but they reflect something of the complexities and controversies internal to the debate.

In What was credited to Abraham by faith? I suggested—perhaps somewhat mischievously, certainly polemically—that ‘The language of “imputation” or “impartation” or “infusion” is overblown.’ Nathan wonders why I am so opposed to the concept. What am I trying to counter? That bears some consideration. At a gut level…

I object to the assumption that we need this sort of esoteric, pseudo-rational, unbiblical metaphysics in order to explain the significance of Jesus’ death for the life of his people.

I object to the obscurantism of so much of the technical theological language.

I object to the finicky, obsessive, blinkered, book-keeping scholasticism that reduces the concrete life of trust to the management of an absolute, overriding, non-negotiable soteriological abstraction.

I made a bit of a mess of this—the system let me down—but I’ve moved this lengthy conversation about the passover and atonement to a separate thread. It arose from this paragraph in response to Peter Wilkinson:

And I still don’t get this argument about the passover. I see no reference to the passover in Romans 3:21-26. I can’t find any connection in the LXX between apolutrōsis (“redemption”) and the passover. The language of justification is nowhere associated with the passover. Ezekiel 43 makes no reference to the passover—sacrifices are made for the consecration of the altar (cf. Ex. 29:37). The nations are “justified” in Isaiah 45:25, but the nations do not take part in the return from exile, whether or not it is thought of as a second exodus. Where else is dikaioō used to describe “God’s bringing his people out of the Babylonian exile in Isaiah”? The passover itself was not in any case an atoning event, the passover sacrifice was not a sacrifice for sin. The “blood of the covenant” in Matthew 26:28 is a reference to Exodus 24:8, which is also not a sacrifice for sin, rather than to the passover lamb. When Paul describes Christ as “our Passover lamb” (1 Cor. 5:7), he is not thinking of the atoning significance of Jesus’ death.

Still on the subject of judgment and works, justification and faith, and the fundamental misalignment of Reformed theology… Darren asks: “What was credited to Abraham by faith?” I’m not entirely sure what he’s getting at—he may just be asking what “it” refers to: “he counted it to him as righteousness”. If so, the answer is simply that God counted or reckoned his act of believing as righteousness. But it gives me an excuse to look a little more closely at Paul’s argument about righteousness and faith. We’ll begin with three other Old Testament passages:

• Moses says that “it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us” (Deut. 6:25).
• Having been delivered by God from his enemies, David declares:

The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. (Psa 18:20–24; cf. 2 Sam. 22:21-25)

• When Phinehas killed the man of Israel and his Midianite wife, it was “counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever” (Ps. 106:31, with reference to Num. 25:7-8). This is the closest parallel to Genesis 15:6. Notice that it is what Phinehas did (he “stood up and intervened, and the plague was stayed”) that is counted to him as righteousness.