…to me to you to make the word of
God complete.
Col 1:25
If not apparent, this study has not been a detailed
commentary on the content of Paul’s corpus. Ongoingly, while engaged
in the relational epistemic process with the Spirit, I have focused
on the significance of Paul’s relational discourse and theological
dialogue, in what hopefully presents a clear theological
interpretation of the developing content of Paul’s life, function
and theology as communicated in the biblical text.
It has been important to examine
the relational language and purpose of his texts—which includes both
the content level and the relational level of the communication—not
only in relation to Paul’s communicative action but God’s also as
the implied author of the text. The intention of Paul’s
communication and God’s communicative action are inseparable for
canon Scripture. Paul was contextualized in God’s communicative
action and by God’s thematic relational process, thus he always
spoke from this deeper context while speaking in and to a human
context. His letters are the relational outcome of both his
vulnerable involvement with the whole of God in God’s vulnerable
relational response and his ongoing engagement in the relational
epistemic process with the Spirit.
Sensitivity to the qualitative and
awareness of the relational conjointly characterize the whole of
Paul from inner out and the whole in his letters, which are often
perceived only from outer in focused on the quantitative content
without its relational message. Therefore, Paul’s readers need to
have his qualitative interpretive lens and relational engagement to
“listen” to Paul’s relational message extending from God’s
relational message, which the Father made imperative for Christ’s
followers: “This is my Son, my beloved Son, listen to him” (Mk 9:7).
Just as with listening to Jesus throughout the incarnation,
listening to Paul is an ongoing relational epistemic process
throughout his letters that necessitates a hermeneutical cone. It is
a necessity because Paul was not static in his life and practice but
developed in his ongoing involvement in the relational process of
listening to God. Paul’s relational epistemic engagement explains
his further and deeper understanding of the whole of God beyond
monotheism, God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms beyond
the prevailing perception of the covenant, and the definitive
theology necessary for wholeness beyond the common experience of
shalom. And Paul’s readers need to account for the
qualitative-relational significance of Paul’s communication as well
as their own epistemic engagement.
Paul’s letters are not random statements, notably in
response to various situations affecting the church. He was not
dispensing moral prescriptions to cure a bad situation or ethical
advice to fix a broken situation. In fulfillment of his relational
responsibility for God’s family (oikonomia, Col 1:25; Eph
3:2), Paul’s letters represent the key aspects critical to the whole
of God’s revelation in thematic relational response to the human
condition. His letters included aspects from the relational outcome
of the whole of God’s self-disclosure to Paul, whether by
Christophany or through the Spirit. As noted previously, this clear
relational process implies three vital matters:
1. The development of Paul’s thought and theology signifying
his synesis of God’s whole relational response of grace that
constituted Paul’s experiential truth of the whole gospel.
2. This developmental process is demonstrated and unfolded in
his letters, which necessarily include all thirteen (undisputed and
disputed) attributed to Paul, and thus strongly suggests their
chronological order.
3. That God’s direct relational involvement with Paul
throughout this process not only constituted Paul’s oikonomia
to definitively pleroo the word from God, but also that God
was involved further in the process in order for the complete
Pauline corpus to be included in the biblical canon; therefore, that
it was not arbitrary selection or a mere human construction which
both attributed and included these thirteen letters of the Pauline
corpus into the whole of God’s word.
The additional textual notes below provide added detail
(not exhaustive) in his letters not discussed in the main study,
which may further help Paul’s readers’ synesis (as Paul
encouraged, 2 Tim 2:7) of the whole of God and God’s relational
whole, and for our further relational response and deeper
involvement from inner out in whole ontology and function.
1 Thessalonians
1:1—Paul consistently conjoins Father
and Christ, thus implying their inseparable relationship as the
whole of God, whose relational action and outcome are signified
further in his conjoined greeting “grace and peace.”
1:2-4—Note Paul’s triangulated
involvement, which points to where Paul is speaking from as he
speaks in and to this context.
1:5—Paul’s gospel, indicating its
functional and relational significance in practice (see 2:1-2).
1:6-10—The Thessalonians’ faith was
signified, yet apparently too future-oriented, perhaps in a
truncated soteriology (3:10-12; 4:9-12; 5:10-11).
2:1-12—Paul’s practice of gospel with
v.8 the key, demonstrating the relational involvement of agape
family love.
3:13—“blameless and holy” is an ongoing
theme in Paul, which is about persons being whole in
relationship together with the holy God, thus only on God’s terms.
4:7-10—The relational significance of
being and functioning on God’s terms in whole relationship together
with family love.
5:5—The necessary distinction and
function of light with darkness, thus Paul’s focus of our identity
in the context of the world.
5:10-11—The ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ of
life together and the need to build God’s family in the present.
5:19-24—Paul assumes the Spirit’s presence, involvement and
relational work (“since you entirely,” holotelos, the whole)
with the whole of persons (holokleros, whole, having
all its parts) together in life and practice in the whole of God’s
relational context of family and relational process of family love.
Note:
This letter begins the process of Paul pointing to the experiential
truth of the whole gospel, in which he makes functional what Christ
saved both from and to—life together as the whole of God’s family
‘already’ and to live and make whole until ‘not yet’. This keeps
unfolding throughout his letters to Ephesians, in which he makes
definitive pleroma ecclesiology.
2 Thessalonians
1:3-4—Evidence of their growth since the
first letter, an indicator of this letter as an extension from Paul
of 1 Thes.
2:2—This verse is used by some scholars
to indicate an opposite position of the believers in 1 Thes. But
Paul is clarifying the last days so these same believers don’t
become alarmed or misled by Christ having returned, thus Paul points
to relationship and not event.
Note: The different style and wording of this
letter suggest that Paul likely used a secretary to pen this for
him.
2:13-14—the relational outcome ‘already’
of full soteriology to be made whole through the relational work of
the Spirit and the reciprocal relational response of believers.
2:16-17—Paul’s primary focus on the
‘already’ of the whole of God’s relational process of family love
(cf. 3:5).
3:5—“Lord” may refer to the Spirit, who
works in the hearts of God’s family for the whole relationship
together defined in 2:13.
3:6-9—the nonnegotiable and irreducible
character of Paul’s role-model, which is based on the ontology and
function of Christ embodied.
3:16-18—“peace at all times and in every way,” that is,
wholeness is not only future but ‘already’, and this wholeness
signifies (semeion) Paul’s purpose in his letters. “Lord of
peace” directly interrelates to and is inseparable from “God of
peace” (1 Thes 5:23), and constitutes a theme for Paul, an
integrating theme (cf. 2 Cor 13:11; Rom 15:33; 16:20; Phil 4:9; 2
Thes 3:16). This points to Paul’s authorship of this letter, which
is not only Pauline but at the heart of his theology and the
experiential truth of the whole gospel—which he passionately fights
both for and against reductionism.
1 Corinthians
Paul experienced in Corinth a vision of the Lord’s
vulnerable presence and relational involvement with him in his fight
for the whole gospel and against reductionism (Acts 18:9-10). The
relational outcome of this reciprocal relationship emerged ongoingly
in his letters with the theological development to wholeness,
notably emerging initially with 1 Cor.
1:4-9—The ‘already-not yet’ dynamic of
the identity of God’s people constituted on the basis of God’s grace
relationally extended to them by Christ, by which they have been
defined and determined to be whole (“blameless,” cf. tamiym)
as family together (“fellowship of his Son”). “Spiritual gifts” are
a means only for this relational purpose and not for indicators used
to define them.
1:10-17—What unfolds in Paul’s thought
and theology is not focused on their situation embedded in
“divisions,” which he puts in juxtaposition with ‘being united.”
This points to the whole, God’s whole, where Paul is focused, which
he makes definitive for their relationships to be whole together on
God’s terms (cf. 12:12-13; 14:33). God’s whole is always in contrast
to and in conflict with human shaping on human terms, that is,
reductionism.
1:18-31—“saved” (sozo, made
whole) and the ongoing tension-conflict between human effort (from
below) and God’s relational action (from above). The former
exacerbates the human condition (cf. medicalization of life) and
further fragments human relationships (cf. modern electronic
technology, globalization). The latter redeems human persons and
reconciles relationships together.
2:4-5,13—key verses defining the
functional significance of Paul’s communicative action determining
from top-down causation, not bottom-up (cf. 4:19-20).
2:6—“Wisdom of this age,” a quantitative
rationalism that elevates human thought to preeminence for knowledge
and understanding, notably about the whole of life and function—the
epistemological illusion from reductionism (cf. 3:18-20).
2:7-16—“God’s wisdom, secret and
hidden,” not about mysticism but a wisdom about the whole that had
yet to be revealed but which is now accessible because “God has
revealed to us through the Spirit,” The qualitative agency of the
Spirit and the reciprocal relational involvement of the Spirit to
intimately connect us with the heart of God, “the mind of Christ,”
and thus to “comprehend what is truly God’s”—the basis for Paul’s
theology, for all definitive theology.
“foolishness”—can be understood as the
conclusion of a quantitative perceptual- interpretive
framework of reductionism, precluding the qualitative.
“spiritual”—can be understood as the
qualitative perceptual-interpretive framework of the whole of God.
Note: Paul’s polemic here is between human
contextualization and the Spirit’s relational work to constitute us
further and deeper in the whole of God’s relational context and
process.
3:—God’s whole only on God’s terms
3:10-13—The qualitative and quantitative
processes of building the church.
3:16-17—God’s temple and dwelling
shifted directly to his people, the context of which is holy, thus
distinct from common or ordinary in the surrounding context. The
holy of God’s terms is important to constitute the ontology of his
church/people; the church only in human contextualization reduces it
to human terms and shaping, ontological simulation from
reductionism.
3:18-23—Paul’s polemic for God’s whole:
“wise in this age,” “wisdom of this world,” knowledge and wisdom are
not worthless in themselves but how they are used determines their
significance and value. As a means of self-determination that
constructs distinctions used to define human persons on a
comparative basis and thereby stratify human relationships (cf.
4:7), these are “foolishness with God” and “futile.” There are no
false distinctions in God’s relational whole, whose relational
belonging and ontological identity are definitive in the relational
dynamic: “all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ
belongs to God.”
4:1—“servants of Christ” who are
“stewards of God’s” (oikonomos, manages a house), which
continues Paul’s emphasis of oikos and other cognates to
signify the church as family.
4:6-7—Paul’s perceptual-interpretive
framework and lens
4:8-17—“be imitators of me,” not
specific to these behaviors/practices outlined but for being whole
and making whole.
5:3—Paul uses pneuma to signify
his relational involvement in the qualitative significance of his
heart.
5:9-11—He qualifies involvement with
sinners: on the one hand, God’s family involves relationship
together on God’s terms, thus relationship necessary to be whole and
holy; on the other, involvement with world is a necessary part of
God’s grace and thematic relational response to the human condition.
6:—Paul extends this polemic, which goes
beyond situations,
6:9-11—and applies it to “kingdom of
God,” reminding them that they were sinners reached out to and were
“washed…sanctified…justified” by the whole of God’s family love.
6:12-20—Redemption frees us from legal
consequences of the law, not merely to be free but only for
relationship together (“beneficial,” symphero, to bring
together). Freedom does not define and determine the identity of
God’s people (“not be dominated by anything”) but is just the means
to enact God’s relational purpose (“body is meant not for…but for
the Lord”) in the relationships necessary to be God’s whole (“united
to the Lord becomes one spirit with him”). Counter-relational work
of reductionism fragments these relationships together. “One flesh”
(e.g., with a prostitute) is not merely about sexual union but about
reductionist relationships (possible even in marriage, cf. Eph
5:25-32) which fragment God’s whole. The relational consequences are
significant and critical in Paul’s polemic, which goes well beyond
moral and ethical behavior. Paul’s focus is a wholeness of the
person (“your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”) and the
relationships by nature to be God’s whole “within you which you have
received from God…you are not your own”).
7:1-16—In response to matters this
church wrote to him about, Paul is making functional the
relationships together necessary to be whole. Whatever the specific
matter, “it is to wholeness God has called you.” This
wholeness is what Paul makes operational in their situations for the
church to be and function whole.
7:17-24—Knowing what defines the human
person in the image of God and finding one’s part in God’s whole in
God’s relational likeness. Paul does not advocate passiveness or
resignation to our situations but puts these secondary conditions
into the context of what is primary, though not to be lost or
forgotten. Redemption frees us from the deeper enslavement of
reductionism in order to be whole in relationship together “with
God” as God’s family, thus don’t get distracted from what is
primary.
7:25-40—Points to different scenarios of
life and their realities given the primacy of whole relationship
together, not so much the dos and don’ts of marriage. Paul
contextualizes all these matters in the eschatological trajectory of
the relational progression with Christ and the Spirit (“the
appointed time has grown short”). This is not about life in
chronos but kairos and the qualitative significance of
being the whole of God’s new creation family together and the
relational work involved on God’s terms.
8:—Paul’s illumination in this chapter
has been discussed previously.
9:1—His historical life (bios) in
deeper context becomes about zoe.
9:15-23—He presents a new paradigm for
servants of the gospel:
·
The nature of preaching the gospel: “entrusted
with a commission” (oikonomia, responsibility for the
family); not about role performance but the relational response to
God in relationship together as family.
·
The character of preaching the gospel: “…I may
make the gospel free of charge”; removes conflict of interest and
other reductionist contingencies which Jesus implied in the above
quote (9:14).
·
The inner-out nature of relational involvement for
the gospel: “…I have made myself a slave to all…,’ which
certainly appears to reduce his person and function. Yet, as
discussed previously, his person remained defined and determined by
the primary, not reduced to secondary. Paul made his whole person
vulnerable from inner out to be involved with others for their
wholeness.
9:24-27—This paradigm is ongoingly
subject to the lure and influence of reductionism, waiting to
diminish this wholeness by its counter-relational work, which is not
nullified by self-discipline (notably in outer-in human effort,
ontological simulation) but by only living whole specifically from
inner out in relationship together.
10:1-10—Paul wants them to remember and
learn from the history of God’s people, not to ignore this history
and thus make the same mistakes.
10:11-13—Being presumptuous and sin seem
to go together because the influence of reductionism always
cultivated self-autonomy and –determination with the assumption that
functionally disconnects from God’s grace as the source of life and
covenant relationship together. Yet, God’s involvement in reciprocal
relationship can be counted on for the means to live whole.
10:14-22—In other words, reductionism
and God’s whole are always in conflict, which raises the issue
whether a church functions in relationship together on “our terms”
or God’s terms.
10:23-33—Paul is fighting against “our
terms” and for God’s terms. And the issue is not readily
distinguishable because “all things are lawful” for the redeemed.
Two critical matters to understand in Paul’s theology: (1)
redemption is not merely to be free, and (2) soteriology is not only
saved from but necessarily also saved to—both of which constitutes
persons whole in whole relationship together. Therefore, Paul’s
functional discourse is not about ethics per se or about behavioral
purity but about the primacy of relationships together necessary by
its nature (dei not opheilo0 to be God’s relational
whole on God’s relational terms.
11:—Each matter in these situations and
circumstances must be understood in Paul’s conjoint fight against
reductionism and for wholeness. This chapter has been discussed in
previous parts of the study (notably 11:3-16 in chap. 11, question
11).
12:1—“to be uninformed” (agnoeo,
ignorant, to ignore, fail to comprehend, grasp, to perceive wrongly,
think erroneously, cf. 10:1). Paul ongoingly clarifies, sets the
record straight, and holds accountable in both the epistemic process
and function for persons and church.
12:3—He makes unequivocal that the
Spirit is the definitive key in this whole process.
12:4-31—“same Spirit…Lord…God,” the
whole of God who constitutes God’s whole in the primacy of
relationship together and the interrelated function of its secondary
parts. Key verse defining the Spirit’s function (v.7): “To each if
given the manifestation of the Spirit [phanerosis from
phaneroo, referring to those given revelation] for the common
good” (symphero, to bring together, contribute for the
benefit of the whole). “The same Spirit who allots” (diarea,
divides, part, apportion, assign, v.11), that is, in terms of gifts
and resources the Spirit decides to take one thing from the whole
for each person, not to highlight the individual part but to build
up the whole with a diversity of parts. The relational significance
of the whole is necessary for relationship together to function in
wholeness; and this whole relationship together is based on the
depth of relational involvement with each other, which is
constituted by agape and not by the extent of various gifts
and resources the parts have and do. Faith makes persons vulnerable
to be agape-relationally involved with each other for the
intimated relationships necessary to function as God’s relational
whole.
13:1-3—Paul points to all the gifts and
knowledge persons can exercise and express, which may puff up the
individual but in reality “I gain nothing” unless functioning in the
relational context and process of agape (cf. 8:1). This
popular chapter needs to be read in the context of the entire
letter.
13:8-13—Agape never falls (pipto,
v. 8) to reductionism but remains involved in relationship together,
not just for oneself but mainly for others. Agape is always
relationship-specific to others in the church, God’s family, and
thus is family love. This is Paul’s function in this letter. And
even faith and hope do not constitute the depth of involvement with
others that agape involves, the family nature of which
underlies Paul’s decisiveness with them.
14:1—Paul reiterates that the dynamic of
agape’s relational significance antecedes the functional
significance of gifts.
14:2-5—He is not focused on spiritual
activity but on the purpose of communication.
14:6-12—The quality of our communication
is not defined by verbosity, eloquence or any other indicator
measuring the words of the speaker (cf. vv.18-19). It is defined
only by its relational context and thus is determined just by the
relational function of engaging others in that context. To be “a
foreigner” to each other implies distance in the relationship. What
is definitive of qualitative communication is relational involvement
with others for the relational process of “building up the church,”
which is directly influenced by the integrity of the person
presented in the communication (see vv.13-17). Given Paul’s concern
for God’s whole and against all reductionism, this dynamic of
communication applies to any utterance in the church: tongues,
preaching, teaching, general interaction, etc.
14:13-17—Paul takes the mystery out of
communication and thus eliminates the esoteric character associated
with mysticism. In qualitative communication, he clearly prioritizes
the whole over the individual (v.17).
14:20-25—He further reiterates (cf.
13:11) the self-centered immaturity and limitations of childish
thinking, and such a reductionist perceptual-interpretive framework.
And he points to the relational response (“listen to me”) necessary
by its nature to engage the reciprocal relational process, the
involvement of which will even have an impact on those who observe
their relationships together (“God is really among you”).
14:26-40—Paul has been redirecting them
further and deeper into church life and function together. His
primary concern is not to detail procedures to maintain harmony in
the church. Church function by its nature must go further and deeper
to the whole that Jesus constituted and the Spirit completes: “God
is a God not of fragmentation but of wholeness”
(v.33). God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms is where
all of Paul’s function, thought and theology converges, nothing less
and no substitutes.
15:1-11—Is the gospel just words,
teachings, tradition, doctrine? Paul identified the relational
process which he experienced (“what I received”) to define the truth
of the gospel. The truth of the gospel was not embedded in doctrine
for Paul but was embodied by Jesus for relationship together. Paul’s
gospel must always be seen in this relational context to understand
the full significance of the primacy of the relational process
inherent to the gospel. The historical overview was not of mere
events but of the newly constituted relationships together necessary
to be God’s whole family, which determined the experiential truth of
Paul’s ontological identity and relational belonging (“I am what I
am”) by God’s grace.
15:12-19—Issues about the resurrection
which essentially are about not only the embodiment of Jesus but
also of the embodied Christ who is present and vulnerable for
relationship together. Paul’s theological and philosophical polemics
should not detract from the primary issue, which emerges as the
human relational condition of being apart from the relationship
together of God’s whole.
15:20-28—A theological framework for the
human condition and God’s thematic relational response to our
condition, which Christ embodied for its eschatological conclusion
with the whole of God.
15:35-58—Paul applies his theological
framework to a practical question about the nature of life ahead and
the qualitative transformation necessary which will constitute life
together in God’s whole. Therefore, Paul is able to confidently call
his family to the relational response of “becoming” (ginomai)
who and what they are in relationship together as whose they
are—relational work, not “doing” their Christian duty.
16:13-14—Paul’s imperatives are not about merely having a
certain awareness and posture. He uses relational language to
reinforce agape not as a moral imperative but as the
relational imperative. For Paul, anything less and any substitutes
of the whole of the gospel is reductionism, and thus engaged in
counter-relational work and embedded in ontological simulation and
epistemological illusion.
2 Corinthians
This seems to be Paul’s most heartfelt letter, in which
the whole of Paul is likely the most vulnerable.
1:3-7—Paul points to the reciprocal
relational nature of involvement in the whole of God’s relational
context and the reciprocal relational responsibility of engaging
God’s relational process for relationship together to be God’s
whole—regardless of situations and circumstances. This is what he
makes operational for the church with more development in 2 Cor,
which includes triangulation and reciprocating contextualization.
2:12-3:6—He contrasts the quantitative
focus of reductionism with the qualitative significance of God’s
whole for new covenant relationship together.
3:7-18—He provides the theological
framework of God’s thematic relational action from the old to the
new for covenant relationship together: “being transformed into the
same image” of the whole of God. Makes definitive the qualitative
significance of the whole of the gospel embodied by Christ and
constituted by Spirit for both ‘already’ and ‘not yet’.
4:7-18—Points to human limits (“clay
jars,” “outer nature is wasting away”) and the situations and
circumstances of the human context, which don’t define or determine
Paul. He never ignores the human context but always contextualizes
it from within the relational context of God’s whole and by the
relational process of God’s terms. Thus, he either confronts the
reductionism of human contextualization or recontextualizes it into
God’s whole.
5:1-10—The tension continues between the
human context and its quantitative reductionism and the qualitative
relational context of life together in God’s family. We are
susceptible to be defined and determined by the former, unless we
engage the latter in ongoing relational involvement by the primary
relational work of “faith not by sight.” This already/not-yet
relational process is the very purpose God has made us for (v.5, cf.
Gen 2:19), which continues to be definitive for the new creation.
5:11-21—Paul makes his person
transparent to them from inner out, thus vulnerable for
relationships to be reconciled together in the wholeness of the new
creation.
6:1-2—The relational dynamic of God’s
grace in response to the human condition is not merely to save us
from but also to save us to relationship together in God’s new
creation family, the relational outcome both ‘already’ and ‘not
yet’. For God’s grace not to be received in vain necessitates
relational involvement compatible for relationship together on the
terms initiated by the whole and holy God. What Paul illuminates
here and continues to discuss in his letter is not about morality,
ethics or religious obligation but only about compatible reciprocal
relationship together in God’s family (cf. vv.11-18).
7:—Extends the above discussion.
Sanctification is only about the relational compatibility necessary
for involvement in ongoing relationship with God. “Making holiness
perfect (epiteleo, an intensive of teleo, to complete,
fulfill goal) points not to the individual focused on becoming holy
in oneself but rather signifies the relational purpose of the
relational progression as the new creation family together ‘already’
in process to its completion ‘not yet’.
8:—Paul continues the functional
significance of family love to encompass the whole of the church
(local churches together) by highlighting the Macedonian churches’
involvement with the Jerusalem church in their crisis need. He
encourages, not commands (v.8), the saints in Corinth to function in
the same relational significance also, which he bases on the
function of the relational significance of equality (isotes,
vv.13-14). While family love cannot be legislated, he tests the
depth of their family love, agape relational involvement
(vv.8,24). And he makes definitive: relationships together in God’s
new creation family must by its nature (dei, not opheilo’s
obligation or command) function in the primacy of both intimacy and
equality.
9:—As demonstrated by Jesus in the
incarnation (8:9), anything less for Paul is not whole and the
outcome is not whole relationship together. No substitutes for
agape relational involvement are compatible for reciprocal
relational response to God’s relational grace—“his indescribable
gift” embodied by Jesus, who constituted the whole of God’s
relational context of family and relational process of family love
for the new creation of whole relationship together.
10:1-6—Paul gets into polemics in
defense of his ministry, which needs to be understood in the context
of his fight for wholeness and against reductionism.
10:7-18—He exposes his detractors’
quantitative perceptual-interpretive framework and lens. He refuses
to engage in the reductionist processes of human “classifying” (enkrino,
categorize) essentially to stratify, stereotype in human constructs
of distinction making, which invariably involves a comparative
process (“compare ourselves with some,” synkrino, v.12).
Thus, he exposes this process as the fragmentation of reductionism,
counter-relational work; and those who engage in it fail to
understand the whole because they don’t put the parts together (syniemi,
v.12).
11:—Paul expresses some indulging
thoughts (vv.2a,7-10), images (vv.2b,8,21) and comparisons
(vv.5,16-18,22-29) in order to give situational context to his
fights against reductionism. He hopes that they “would bear with me
in a little foolishness” as he makes definitive a theological
framework for the sin of reductionism and its counter-relational
work—not merely about disobedience but also about reducing the whole
person to outer in, defined by what one has/does, reducing God and
what he said, and reducing relationship with God to one’s own terms,
pointing to similar relational consequences. In the context of this
chapter, and all of 2 Cor, it is conclusive that reductionism is
always positioned against wholeness to generate, shape and construct
alternatives to be whole, namely by the counter-relational work
which often takes on a quantitative appearance of God’s whole (metaschematizo,
vv.14-15) but are inherently only ontological simulation and
epistemological illusion from reductionism.
12:—Critical account of Paul’s
transforming relational involvement with the whole of God. Contrary
to sin of reductionism, Paul resolves to define his person by his
humanity (“the things that show my weakness,” 11:30) because this
gets to his whole person defined from inner out. And Paul’s whole
person defined from inner out can only boast of God’s grace: the
whole of God’s vulnerable relational initiative to him for
relationship together. In making his whole person vulnerable to God
and then to this church, Paul gets down to the heart of the issue
for them: the whole person from inner out signified by the function
of the heart involved in whole relationship together, which are
necessary to be both intimate and equalized for God’s new creation
family on God’s relational terms. Thus, Paul asks the most critical
and urgent question facing them, and all Christians today: “If I
love you more, am I to be loved less?” (v.15). That is, “If I
involve my whole person further and deeper with you in family love,
will you back off, distance or separate yourself in the involvement
of your person in our relationship together?” God in his relational
grace with agape asks us the same question, and in family
love holds us accountable for our relational response of agape
involvement to the whole of God’s vulnerable presence and ongoing
intimate involvement.
13:—Paul
declares the extent of relational action his family love will take
with them (“I will not be lenient,” v.2); and he aligns his family
love to how Christ was (“He is not weak in dealing with you,” v.3).
Paul defines reciprocal relationship in the process of triangulation
(“in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God,”
v.4). In family love, he makes two ongoing imperatives: First, “examine”(peirazo,
with the purpose to show where one has fallen or failed, v.5) two
vital matters—(1) “yourselves,” your person, and (2) “whether you
are living in the faith,” that is, your vulnerable relational trust
in involvement with God, and see if, where and how you have sin of
reductionism. Then secondly, “test yourselves” (dokimazo,
prove one good and acceptable) ongoingly to distinguish your person
as whole and your relationship together as God’s whole family. The
only alternative to God’s whole is reductionism (adokimos,
“fail to meet the test”). These are not mere moral imperatives and
ethics. They go much further and deeper into human ontology made in
the image of God (cf. 3:18), and the relational imperative for
relationship together to be whole as the new creation in relational
likeness of the whole of God—nothing less and no substitutes.
Therefore, Paul’s added closing imperatives to be whole are
relationally conjoined with the intimately involved whole of God
(“the God of agape and wholeness be with you,” v.11) in the
experiential truth of the whole of God’s relational context of
family and relational process of family love: “The vulnerably
embodied grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the agape relational
involvement of the Father, and the reciprocal relational
koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (v.13).
Galatians
In Galatians Paul establishes the functional clarity of
the truth and whole of the gospel from any alternatives of
reductionism, and thus to be distinguished from any alternative
gospels—the ongoing tension and conflict not only in Galatians which
signified his conjoint fight for the whole gospel and against
reductionism. This suggests that Galatians should be the lens by
which to read Paul’s writings.
1:1-5—More than a greeting, his opening words make definitive
the basis for the truth of the gospel and the ongoing base for the
whole of the gospel—“grace and peace from…,” v.3—which are in
conflict with a gospel of human contextualization and shaping from
reductionism.
1:6-9—The difference in gospels is not a
minor adjustment but a fundamental deconstruction of the relational
source of the gospel, which redefines its functional and relational
significance. Paul’s purpose in this letter is to illuminate this
qualitative difference in order to establish the functional clarity
of the truth and whole of the gospel, thus exposing any alternatives
from reductionism.
1:11-12—He makes definitive the source
of his gospel—a pivotal declaration of the relational source who
constituted his gospel as a direct experiential truth, the
construction of which is neither Paul’s nor any other human’s and
thus which is not amenable to deconstruction, reduction and
negotiation.
1:13-24—The old Paul embedded in
reductionism (vv.13-14) and the new Paul called to be whole “through
his grace” (v.15) and thus transformed and made whole (“his Son in
me,” v.16) with the relational outcome (“so that”) of Paul sent to
make whole (“proclaim him”) the human relational condition.
2:1-10—He returned to Jerusalem “in
response to a revelation” (v.2). Some see this trip as his response
to famine in Jerusalem (as Agabus predicted, Acts 11:27-30), yet
this doesn’t seem to fit the context of Paul’s purpose and should
not be seen as a mere parenthetical statement. Adding circumcision
to the gospel was a major issue confronting the church, the
seriousness of which he addressed as the purpose of their trip “so
that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you” (v.5).
For Paul, the issue wasn’t about Christian freedom to shape the
gospel, which contrarian teachers were seeking to make uniform by
conformity to circumcision. “The freedom we have in Christ Jesus”
(v.4), for Paul, involved not having our person reduced by false
distinctions of human constructs, which engage a comparative process
using a deficit model to stratify relationships—“God shows no
partiality” (v.6). This reductionism and its counter-relational work
“enslave us” (v.4). As Paul states later (5:1,13), the critical
issue for the church is about being whole, neither reduced nor
fragmented in relationships apart from God’s whole. Paul’s grasp of
the whole of the gospel had the qualitative significance of
experiential truth, such that even the church leaders at Jerusalem
“contributed nothing to me,” (v.6), implying that Paul and his
gospel were whole to which nothing could be added, nor could
anything be taken away. They recognized God’s direct relational
involvement with Paul, “the grace that had been given to me” (v.9).
3:—The view the Galatians received of
Jesus on the cross was no mere picture of a crucifixion event. More
significantly, it was a qualitative view of Jesus’ whole person
functioning in agape relational involvement with them for the
purpose and outcome only of relationship together with the whole of
God. From the qualitative view of Jesus’ relational involvement,
Paul shifts to the Spirit. While Paul still engages the issue of
“doing the works of the law” or “through faith in Christ,” shifting
from Christ to the Spirit seems like a big jump, somewhat
disjointed. Not for Paul. He extends the discussion of God’s whole
and gives functional clarity to the whole of God’s relational
context and process—the necessary relational context of God’s new
creation family and relational process of family love which
constitutes whole relationship together, both intimate and equalized
from inner out.
4:—the nonnegotiable relational process
and irreducible relational outcome continues in Paul’s relational
discourse and theological dialogue, discussed earlier in this study.
“Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (v.16) is
raised by Paul to put things into deeper perspective (cf. similar
question with deeper relational significance, 2 Cor 12:15). While
the situation involved “false brothers” (2:4) who were teaching “a
different gospel” (1:6) and “confusing you” (1:7) and “bewitched
you” (3:1), the underlying dynamic involved assimilation into human
contextualization, which thus shapes church life and practice in
human terms and redefines covenant relationship together with God on
our terms. This reductionism has relational consequences both with
God and among each other in its counter-relational work (“to exclude
you,” 4:17) because reductionism always seeks to diminish the whole
person (our new identity) and fragment the relationships of the
whole (whose we are together as God’s whole).
4:21-31—Paul further makes definitive
the relational and ontological consequences of any such assimilation
into human contextualization shaping our life and practice in human
terms. Two covenants represented by Hagar and Sarah which
distinguish their relational and ontological difference. A reduced
human ontology embedded in relationships functioning with distance
within the church essentially function in the ontological limits and
relational constraints of slaves, even though our theology may be of
a free child of promise.
5:—Paul asserts the redemption of Christ
in opposition to the above condition of enslavement. Yet, redemption
is only the necessary means for reconciling relationship together
into God’s family as adopted daughters and sons—the redemptive
reconciliation of whole relationship together both intimate and
equalized from inner out (5:6,13).
5:16-26—Paul defined this new identity
“in Christ” as a function not of mere Christian ethics and morals,
which then becomes reductionism, but only as a function of the whole
person in relationship. And the most significant relationship of
which the new identity “in Christ” is a function is with Jesus’
relational replacement, the Spirit. Therefore, it is nonnegotiable
for Paul that we “be guided by the Spirit” (stoicheo, to
follow, walk in, adherer to, v.25), that is, in reciprocal
relational involvement together. This relational involvement frees
us from reductionism of the human person (“become conceited” by what
we do/have) and makes whole reductionism’s counter-relational work
(“competing…envying one another,” v.26).
6:1-10—Above discussed by contrasting,
on the one hand, the relational involvement of family love (“restore
such a one…bear one another’s burdens,” vv.1-2) and its relational
outcome (“reap at harvest time,” v.9), on the other, with the
self-autonomy/interests/determination of reductionism (“think they
are something,” v.3, expands on “conceited” in 5:26, “rather than
their neighbor’s work,” v.4, expands on “competing…envying”) and its
relational consequence (“they deceive themselves,” v.3, “reap
corruption,” v.8) of reduced ontology and function. Paul calls them
to be whole and live God’s whole in relationship together with
“those of the family of faith,” and thus to make whole “all” (v.10).
This inner-out agape relational involvement (extending 5:6)
goes beyond the moral and ethical “work for the good of all.”
6:11-18—Paul closes in summary on the
ontological significance of God’s whole and the ontological
simulation and epistemological illusion of reductionism: “Any
function of reductionism, whether in the practice of either
circumcision or uncircumcision, is without any ontological existence
[eimi]; only the new creation exists in ontological
wholeness” (v.15, my paraphrase). And the wholeness (“peace”) of
God’s relational involvement of grace (“mercy”) will be the
relational outcome for all who are relationally involved compatibly
with God, even those of Israel who are not reduced but function in
the faith of Abraham.
Just as Paul opened this letter by defining his identity
as contextualized in the whole of God’s relational context and
process—not by human contextualization shaping him by human terms—he
now makes unequivocal that any faith and works rooted in human
contextualization, based on human shaping and construction by human
terms, have no ontological reality and thus significance. The only
faith with work with ontological significance is “faith functioning
in its inner-out relational response of entrusting our whole person,
both to be vulnerably involved with the person of Jesus Christ and
to be vulnerable in the relational involvement of family love with
others” (5:6, my paraphrase). This qualitative relational dynamic is
the definitive life and practice which signifies the new creation of
God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms—which, as Paul’s
life and practice demonstrated, is both ‘already’ and more to come.
For Paul, therefore, the gospel was no mere doctrinal
statement and propositional truth, nor was it of his own shaping.
His gospel was the experiential truth of God’s relational response
of grace vulnerably embodied by Jesus only for relationship
together, which he directly experienced with Jesus to transform his
life and practice to the new creation. Thus, Paul’s gospel was
rooted only in a complete Christology and full soteriology; and this
functional significance was first his relational experience and then
his synesis for the truth and whole of the gospel—the
theological basis of which Paul expands on in Romans.
Romans
In Galatians, Paul made unequivocal the functional
clarity necessary for the truth and whole of the gospel that
distinguishes it from any alternative gospel. In Romans, he makes
definitive the theological basis for this gospel, thus providing the
theological clarity necessary to be integrated with the above
function clarity to constitute the experiential truth of the whole
gospel as the whole of God’s relational context and process in
response of grace to the human condition. Nothing less and no
substitutes for Paul, thus his theological dialogue unfolds
ongoingly in contrast and conflict with reductionism.
1:16-17—Paul gets into the heart of the
gospel (“the power of God for salvation”) and its significant roots
both historically (“to the Jew first”) and, most important,
relationally in reciprocal involvement together (“righteousness of
God is revealed through faith for faith…one who is righteous will
live by faith”).
1:18-32—The roots of God’s involvement
with the human context and God’s response to the human condition.
Two responses by God: (1) God’s grace signified by the gospel, (2)
“the wrath of God.” Paul focuses first on God’s latter response to
expose the underlying dynamic of the human condition in which all
sin is rooted. What Paul outlines is less about the various
characteristics of the human condition distinguishing human
contextualization, and more about the relational consequence from
“to be apart” from the whole of God. The outline of sins must be
understood in this deeper relational context with God (“the truth
about God…the Creator,” v.25). Yet, persons “suppress the truth”
(v.18) specifically revealed to them for relationship together
(“known about God…God has shown it to them,” v.19); and “though they
knew God” (v.21, they substituted (“claiming to be wise,” v.22)
human shaping and terms for the whole of God (vv.23,24). That is,
they engaged the sin of reductionism by reducing God and themselves
in ontology and function. It is in this deeper relational context
and process that Paul gives theological basis and clarity to root
the human condition in its proper relational significance.
2:—At
the end of Paul’s overview in chapter 1, he extends God’s justified
anger (1:32) leading to judgment in chapter 2. Here he shifts the
focus of God’s response to the human condition specifically to the
Jews, who are the recipients of God’s further revelation for the
terms of relationship together (the law)—notably to Jews who have
engaged the sin of reductionism. Paul redefines who is a definitive
Jew and what is definitive Judaism by recontextualizing them in
God’s involvement with the human context (“the law…written on their
hearts,” v.15) and God’s response to the human condition (“the
riches of his kindness…to lead you to repentance,” v.4). In the
whole of God’s relational context and process, Paul now begins to
make definitive God’s second response to the human condition, which
is interacting with God’s first response of justified anger and
judgment. In the initial stages of the good news of God’s thematic
action of grace, Jews made whole are persons who have received God’s
relational involvement of family love to redeem them of their sin of
reductionism (“real circumcision…of the heart,” v.29) for covenant
relationship together. Therefore, whole Jews are persons not
defined, determined and constituted from human contextualization
“but from God.” In this chapter, Paul also introduces the
theological anthropology defining all persons in the created
ontology from inner out, not a reduced human ontology from outer in
signifying an anthropology merely of human contextualization. At the
same time, by contextualizing all persons (Jew and Gentile) in the
human condition embedded in the sin of reductionism (“anguish and
distress for everyone,” v.9), Paul equalizes all persons in a common
ontology before God. Yet, in the context and process of God’s
thematic relational response of grace, Paul appears to give priority
to the Jew not over but before the Gentile: “the Jew
first and also the Greek,” 1:16;2:9,10). What is the significance of
this priority and what is the difference between over and before?
Paul goes on to give theological clarity to this.
The reduced Jew in chapter 2 is put into juxtaposition
with a whole Jew in chapter 3 by Paul.
3:1-2—Whereas the ancient person of
creation only possessed an indirect revelation from God, the ancient
Jew in history received direct communication from God revealing
God’s thematic relational response of grace to the human condition.
That is, God entrusted Jews with “the oracles of God” (v.3), which
included the promise of covenant relationship together and the terms
for this relationship. Those words of God were the words from God’s
mouth given in God’s relational context and process; this
necessitated a compatible relational response from the Jew of trust
(faith) in God and God’s words—which Abraham and subsequent whole
Jews engaged with God in reciprocal relational response.
3:3-8—A reduced Jew redefines God’s
terms for relationship to human terms. But they cannot redefine God
and God’s words (“nullify the faithfulness of God,” v.3, “God be
proved true,” v.4). the identity of who, what and how God is is not
determined by human contextualization. A reductionist may argue that
our reductionism helps bring out and define the whole of God
(“through my falsehood God’s truthfulness abounds,” v.7). Some have
accused Paul of this kind of reductionist thinking (v.8).
Reductionist thought is based on the premise: the parts (human
effort) define and determine the whole. The truth is that only the
presence of God’s whole can expose the reductionism in human
contextualization.
3:9-20—To have directly received the
whole of God is the advantage of the Jew signified in circumcision.
Yet this advantage does not place Jews over Gentiles (“not al
all,” v.9); it only puts them before Gentiles in knowing the
whole of God and thus in perceiving the sin of reductionism. And
God’s further salvific action is necessary to redeem and reconcile
them to God’s whole on God’s terms, not by human terms shaped by
human effort (“by deeds prescribed by the law,”
v.20). 3:20 does not
contradict 2:13, because the former is about a reduced Jew and the
latter is a whole Jew who functions according to God’s terms for
relationship together, thus who is engaged in the reciprocal
relational response to God that God expects in relationship
together.
3:21-31—God’s salvific response of grace as the only means for
the human condition. God’s salvific response embodied in Jesus is
accessible to all persons equalized before him, whatever their sin
of reductionism. This is the truth and whole of the gospel; and its
theological anthropology and full soteriology begs the question for
Paul, “what becomes of boasting?” (v.27). The issue is not
necessarily between “works of the law” and “faith” because pride in
faith (i.e., having or doing it) define persons in the same
reductionist way. The issue is between reductionism and wholeness.
Faith does not render the law “useless, ineffective, invalid and
nullified” (katargeo, v.31); but since the law points us to
God’s salvific response “in Christ” (Gal 3:22), faith actually
“confirms” (histemi) the experiential truth of the law as
God’s terms and desires for covenant relationship together.
Therefore, Paul does not diminish the law as God’s relational terms,
nor does he ever have a problem with the law in these terms. He,
however, is in conflict with the reductionism of the law that
renegotiates God’s terms for relationship to human terms.
Paul gives further theological clarity to the matter.
4:—By delineating the relational context
and process of God’s thematic response to the human condition and by
unfolding the relational progression of God’s grace to the gospel
embodied by Christ, Paul is also able to give further and deeper
theological clarity to the roots of the covenant relationship
together promised and consummated with Abraham and constituted by
God. The retrospective Paul gives of Abraham is contextualized in
various human relations interacting with relationship with God, in
which Paul clearly identified Abraham as “our ancestor” (v.1), “the
father of all who believe” (vv.11-12), “the father of all of us”
(v.16). Abraham and his relational response are the roots of
covenant relationship together with God on God’s terms, the same
roots which make definitive the necessary relational response for
all persons who engage God to constitute covenant relationship
together. The truth that God does not engage us in relationship on
human terms is not about a doctrine defined as ‘justification by
faith’. This truth is the experiential truth of receiving God’s
initiative of his relational response of grace to the human
condition only for relationship together. The only solution to our
human condition is to receive God’s relational action by our
reciprocal relational response of trust from inner out (faith). This
relational outcome is what Abraham obtained, gained and experienced,
which defined him and determined his relational involvement with
God—“the father of all of us who believe just as he did.”
5:1-5—The relational outcome of having
been brought into right relationship with God (“justified by
faith,”) is wholeness with God (“peace with God”) through Christ’s
salvific action—the relational outcome both ‘already’ (“in which we
stand”) and ‘not yet (“in our hope”). Moreover, our situations and
circumstances are contextualized in God’s relational context and
process of relationship together to take us further and deeper in
this relational progression and outcome because of God’s vulnerable
presence and intimate involvement with us (“God’s love poured into
our hearts through the Spirit”).
5:6-11—Paul gives the theological
clarity of a full soteriology (saved from and to), not a mere
truncated soteriology (only saved from): “justified by his
blood…saved from God’s wrath” and “reconciled to God…saved by [in]
his life.” For salvation to be full and to be saved (sozo)
made whole, the relational outcome of Jesus’ salvific work of grace
must by its nature engage the functional involvement of being the
whole of God’s family together. This is the only functional and
relational significance of Paul’s definitive assertion: “we have now
received reconciliation”—the experiential truth of the whole gospel
of what we are necessarily ‘already’ also saved to.
5:12-21—He gives theological clarity to
the structural roots of the human condition. Adam is the functional
key to sin and its relational consequence (vv.12,14,16-19), who set
in motion this relational consequence for all human persons, not
because of his sin but “because all have sinned.” Paul is not
stating the root cause for all to be condemned (vv.15,18) but only
clarifying the roots of the process that ends in this relational
consequence. Paul puts Christ in juxtaposition with Adam, the
functional key for the roots of our relational consequence from God.
Adam bears a resemblance to Jesus, who is the functional key to the
relational outcome of the gift of relationship together with God
(vv. 15-19). Paul makes theologically clear the relational roots of
God’s relational response of grace to the human condition which
counterbalanced the structural roots of the human condition and
negated its relational consequence. This relational outcome is the
full soteriology of what Christ saved us conjointly from and to in
order to make us whole in the whole of God’s family—the experiential
truth of the whole gospel.
6:1-14—The above relational roots of
this relational outcome necessarily involve a specific relational
context and process, the whole of God’s relational context and
process. To be involved with God in his relational context and
process necessitates redemption and transformation. Paul brings
theological clarity to this process by constituting it in baptism
into Christ: “into his death…buried with him…raised from the
dead…walk in newness of life,” thus transformed to the relational
outcome of God’s new creation family. Redemption and transformation
necessarily go together in conjoint function and cannot be
separated. The ongoing process of the old dying and the new rising
involves the whole person in whole relationship together. Nothing
less and no substitutes can be whole in the new creation.
6:15-23—He clarifies further the relational process involved,
using an analogy “in human terms.” He uses the analogy of slaves for
relationship with God also, and even though God has ownership by
redemption there is no enslavement as exists in relation to sin.
Most important, slave signifies the depth of the relational bond
(not its character) involved in relationship together with the holy
God on God’s terms—which are nonnegotiable and irreducible to human
terms—thus submitting (“obedience”) one’s whole person in righteous
function (“slaves to righteousness”) in the relational context and
process of the holy God, with the relational conclusion of being set
apart (“sanctification”) in “eternal life” of relationship together
with Christ and the whole of God (cf. Jn 17:3).
Reductionism is always positioned against God’s whole,
and engaging the sin of reductionism is always trying to redefine
God’s terms by human contextualization shaped by human terms. Paul
continues in the next chapter to give theological clarity to this
tension, conflict and struggle.
7:1-6—He uses another analogy from human
relationships (“marriage”) to make definitive the total commitment
by necessity involved in this relational bond together. Analogous to
marriage, as long as a person has not died to one’s involvement in
sin of reductionism, the relational bond with sin is still binding
in function and no release from that bond (enslavement) can be
realized (“work in our members”); and he defines the functional
process of redemptive change necessary to go from one relational
bond to the other (“you have died…so that you may belong to him’).
Paul expands on the dynamic from Gal 6:15 and gives further
theological clarity to it in these sections. And he makes definitive
that the new creation is only a function of relationship with the
Spirit, who constitutes our function in whole relationship together
as God’s new creation family—“the new life of the Spirit.”
7:7-25—Yet, Paul is well aware—both in the human condition and
in the experiences of his own life—that our function does not
readily flow from our theology, even that our function at times is
not congruent with our theology (cf. 2:14). Moreover, our function
can even precede our theology to shape it to conform to our function
in reductionist terms. Paul tries to sort this all out, helping to
distinguish the forest from among the trees, and keeping the cart
from going before the horse. First, he doesn’t allow the law to be
reduced or renegotiated but clearly defines the law and its function
as God’s desires and terms for relationship together: “the law is
holy and the commandment is holy and just and good” (v.12). Next,
Paul addresses the tension, conflict and struggle the new person has
with the reality of reductionism, both theologically and
functionally. His use of “I” is unclear as to its reference but it
appears to refer to a mixture or combination of a collective “I” and
a personal “I.” In 7:15-20, Paul appears to be describing the human
condition. I don’t think he is talking about two natures (+ and -)
both within the same individual. Here he describes the limits,
constraint and enslavement of the human condition. Then he turns to
Christian function from inner out or outer in (vv.21-25). For the
Christian person, a similar conflict and struggle between
reductionism and being God’s whole can exist, not as an issue of
life or death but as an issue of the heart. On the one hand, this
whole person from inner out signified by the heart (“my inmost
self”) is directly involved (Gk. middle voice) to “delight in the
law of God.” On the other hand, reductionism “lies close at hand,”
trying to influence the whole person to engage sin of reductionism:
“reducing my whole person to parts…fragmenting my
perceptual-interpretive framework (nous, mind)…and embedding
me in a reduced ontology (eimi, being) and function from
outer in.” This ongoing conflict and struggle with reductionism is
what the new person in Christ still faces, which nothing less and no
substitutes of God’s whole on God’s terms constituted by Christ and
completed by the Spirit can expose, deal with, redeem, transform and
make whole. Therefore, this is not about dual natures but rather
function as a reduced person from outer in or as the whole person
from inner out of the new creation.
In the relational context and process of the whole of
God’s relational response of grace, Paul focuses now on the Spirit
and the theological clarity necessary to make functional the vital
relational work of the Spirit in the transformation to wholeness.
8:1-8—While redemption is fulfilled,
redemptive change and the process of transformation (sanctification)
have yet to be wholly completed. This process is brought to
completion by the Spirit. Paul is building on the pneumatology
established in Gal 5:16-26 and initially set forth in his Cor
letters, in order and so that the church as God’s family has the
wholeness in theology and function signified in the new creation.
The ongoing issue between reductionism and the whole continues: the
sin of reductionism prevents the whole of God, the whole of God
rejects or redeems the sin of reductionism but cannot coexist with
it. To try to coexist is a reductionist effort, notably in
ontological simulation and epistemological illusion.
8:9-17—Paul makes definitive Christian
identity and what as well as who defines us. No longer
being (eimi) defined by human contextualization (“in the
flesh”), Christians are defined by the whole of God’s relational
context and process “through the Spirit” who is ongoingly present
and intimately involved (“dwells in you”). Christian identity
constituted in this relationship together as family is not a static
condition or character but a dynamic process of relationship
together necessitating by its nature reciprocal relational
involvement with each other. Paul’s relational language is not
hyperbole (e.g., to evoke obligation), rather the theological depth
of the experiential truth of the whole gospel: God’s intimate
relational response of family love adopted us into God’s own family.
The experiential truth of this theological reality is the relational
reality that functionally constitutes the relational belonging and
whole ontological identity of who we are and whose we are. Anything
less and any substitutes in function disengages Christian identity
from the whole of God’s relational context and process and engages
it is human contextualization to redefine Christian identity in the
shape of human terms from reductionism. This has far-reaching
implications, as Paul continues to unfold.
8:18-27—Paul adds theological and
functional clarity by taking all this further and deeper into God’s
big picture eschatological plan framing God’s thematic relational
response to the human condition. He paints a big picture that goes
back to creation. God’s whole also encompasses all of creation, and
God’s response to the human condition is the redemptive key for the
rest of creation to “be set free from its bondage to decay.” The
significance of this already-not-yet eschatological picture is to
deepen theologically the experiential truth of the whole gospel for
the definitive wholeness in theology and practice of the church as
God’s new creation family.
8:28-30—God’s vulnerable presence and
intimate involvement with us are ongoing and irreducible, that is,
cannot be defined or determined by situations and circumstances, nor
by any issues in human contextualization. God’s thematic relational
response of grace is irrevocable in God’s relational context of
family and unremitting in God’s relational process of family love.
Therefore, Paul can be definitive that God is wholly in control and
sovereign, though not by determinism; the Father’s definitive desire
is for the relational involvement of his sons and daughters—by their
reciprocal relational response of trust—“to be conformed to the
image of his Son” for the relational outcome and conclusion to be
the whole of God’s family together (“the firstborn within a large
family”). This necessitates compatible ontology and function from
inner out, thus relationship in intimacy together.
8:31-39—The relational significance that this relational outcome
‘already’ has for the issues faced in human contextualization is
addressed directly. He makes the definitive connections with these
issues in human contextualization by addressing each of them in the
relational context and process directly from the Father and embodied
by his Son and extended by his Spirit—definitive connections made
functional by the process of reciprocating contextualization in
conjoint function with triangulation. Regardless of the situation or
circumstance faced, the outcome is assured—not a situational outcome
but the relational outcome “through him who loved us.” Paul is
convicted (peitho, v.38) by the experiential truth with the
Spirit, not by self-conviction, “that neither…nor anything else in
all creation (human contextualization)…separate us from the whole of
God’s family love constituted by Christ Jesus and his relational
replacement, the Spirit.” The Spirit is absolutely necessary in
order for this relational reality to function in the wholeness
definitive of theology and practice constituting God’s relational
whole on God’s relational terms.
On this relational basis, from this whole phronema
(perceptual-interpretive framework) and with this qualitative
phroneo (lens and mindset), Paul addresses further urgent
issues.
9:—He addresses an issue weighing
personally on him but also urgent for the church: the Jew, Israel
and God’s people. In an overview of God’s thematic relational
response of grace, Paul makes definitive the identity of God’s
people and the place of “my kindred according to the flesh” (v.3).
He clearly identified Israel, as unfolded in OT history, as adopted
children, the divine glory, the covenant and promises, and from them
is the human ancestry of the Messiah (vv.4-5). Yet, he also makes
definitive that Israel’s identity is not about nation-state: “not
all Israelites truly belong to Israel” (v.6); nor because they are
Abraham’s children are they “his true descendents” (v.7). As Paul
expands on 2:28-29, he continues to distinguish that “not the
children of the flesh who are the children of God but the children
of the promise” (v.8), that is, those involved in the primacy of
covenant relationship together. By decontexualizing Israel’s
identity from nation-state, Paul recontextualizes Israel and the
true Jew to their definitive identity only in relational terms. This
vital distinction is the significant difference between the
quantitative reductionism of sin and the qualitative whole of God.
The former is shaped by human terms and determined by human effort,
and in contrast the latter is defined and determined only on God’s
relational terms (v.16). Yet, God’s relational action is not
unilateral and deterministic, though it may appear that way to some
(vv.14-19). In his polemic, Paul anticipates the question “who can
resist his will?” His potter-clay analogy (vv.20-21) appears not to
answer the question but Paul is making definitive that God’s action
is not defined and determined by human contextualization, though
human response to God’s initiative of grace is certainly a
determiner of the resulting negative relational consequence or
positive relational outcome. It is crucial to see the relational
dynamic involved and to see what order things unfold in this
relational process, because Paul highlights involvement in
reciprocal relationship and accountability for it. In the question
above, there is some truth to the inability to resist God’s will,
since when God decides to do something it is done—which Calvinists
signify by ‘irresistible grace’. But this is only true of God’s will
as thelema (cf. Jn 6:38-40), denoting not just a will or an
intention but also the execution of it. Paul frames the question
with boulema, denoting only the thing willed, the intention.
When the question is clarified, what is implied about God’s action
shifts from unilateral to intentional desire for relationship,
reciprocal relationship together. The answer then involves the other
person(s), and certainly includes whoever avoids, denies or rejects
God’s desires for reciprocal relationship together signified in
God’s relational response of grace.
As Paul further unfolds God’s thematic relational
response to the human condition, the interaction between God’s
two-fold response of wrath-judgment and of grace is given
theological clarity to understand the full relational significance
of God’s response, notably for the Jews (vv.22-29). The issues
throughout remains: covenant relationship together based on either
human contextualization defined by human terms and determined by
human effort (vv.31-32), or God’s relational context and process of
grace embodied by Jesus evoking the compatible relational response
of trust (vv.30,32). The choice always remains ours.
10:1-4—Paul heightens his pursuit for the Jews’ salvation, in
full soteriology and not merely delivered from (as much of
their history reflected) but also saved to the whole of God’s
family. He acknowledges their good intentions (“zeal for God”) but
their basis “is not enlightened” (epignosis), that is,
according to specific knowledge. He is not advocating a specialized
knowledge from mysticism. Epignosis is the specific knowledge
of someone which is gained from relational involvement with that
person, and thus what that person has disclosed to them. Engagement
in relationship with God is the functional key Paul makes
definitive, contrary to shaping this relationship by one’s own terms
(v.3).
10:5-13—When the law is understood as
God’s terms for covenant relationship together, Moses can be
followed for righteousness from the law (“does these things”). The
problem is no one can fulfill those terms on the basis of one’s own
effort. That attempt is only a reductionist substitute which reduces
one’s whole person, God, God’s terms and relationship together to
human terms. The only alternative for relationship together emerges
from one’s relational response of trust to God’s grace embodied by
Jesus, who constitutes the whole person in the righteousness God can
count on in relationship together (vv.6-13).
10:14-21—This good news embodied by
Jesus is further embodied by those who share in and thus share this
good news. Not all Jews relationally responded (vv.16,18). “Did
Israel not understand?” Paul asks. Yes and no. No, for the
reductionists who saw Israel as mere nation-state (v.19); and yes,
because the reductionists also failed to perceive, listen and
respond back to God’s ongoing relational response and involvement of
grace (vv.20-21). Those Jews who did not respond to God on God’s
terms redefined the covenant on their terms, thereby reducing human
ontology to outer in (cf. 2:28-29) and only the idea of relationship
without its qualitative relational significance.
11:1-6—Throughout God’s thematic
relational response of grace to Israel, only a minority of Jews
relationally responded in trust—thus making Israel definitive not as
nation-state but as a significant minority designated “a remnant” by
God (vv.4-6). Paul clarifies that God’s “chosen by grace” had
nothing to do with the remnant’s “works” (v.6). Yet, Paul has been
making definitive in Romans that God’s thematic relational action of
grace constitutes the relational context and process necessitating
our reciprocal relational response of trust for compatible
relationship together on God’s terms—irreducible and nonnegotiable
terms, which is how the remnant (minority Israel) received God and
responded back in contrast to other Jews (majority Israel)
functioning in reductionism on human terms.
11:7-10—‘Majority Israel’ determined
their relational position to God—that is, seeking relationship with
God on their terms—and God responded by letting them remain embedded
in it. “Hardened” (poroo) signifies to become callous and
insensitive, without relational awareness and sensitivity to the
qualitative; poroo is from poros, a small piece of
stone broken off from a large one, which implies the fragmentary
process of reductionism ‘majority Israel’ engaged “to be apart” from
God’s whole. God let them be accountable for their relational
position. And Paul addressed further the relational consequence or
outcome of Israel’s relational position.
11:11-24—He discussed Israel’s
relational consequence or outcome by integrating their relational
position with the Gentiles relational position to God’s thematic
response to the human condition. The deeply interrelated relational
position of Jews and Gentiles is in complex interaction to signify
the whole of God’s thematic response of grace. Paul makes definitive
that in terms of both of their relational positions one is not the
cause of the other’s, nor is one at the exclusion of the other and
precludes or is better than the other.
11:25-32—Paul acknowledges the lack of
full knowledge of what is involved in all the details of God’s
thematic action (“this mysterion”). Yet, what is known Paul
details for them. This raises two questions: Is God’s relational
response to Israel’s relational position indeed apart from the
gospel? and who is Israel? Paul already identified definitive Israel
as “the remnant,” ‘minority Israel’. The remnant has always engaged
God’s grace in reciprocal relationship together, thus their trust
will always experience God’s relational response of grace to be made
whole in relationship together. This is not apart from the gospel of
God’s grace embodied by Jesus but congruent with God’s thematic
salvific action for the human condition. In God’s action, he also
holds them accountable for their relational position (v.32). This
action, as the law did, not only illuminated the issue of the human
condition but pointed to its solution in God’s relational response
of grace embodied and fulfilled by Christ. Though Paul said “As
regards the gospel they are enemies” (v.28), two distinctions need
to be understood about the gospel and Israel. First, the gospel
should not be reduced to propositional truths, doctrine and beliefs,
or be disembodied to event or teachings. The truth and whole of the
gospel is only God’s grace relationally embodied and fulfilled by
Christ for relationship together as God’s whole family. Anything
less and any substitutes are a reduced gospel of human
contextualization. The second distinction is about Israel, which
Paul distinguished unequivocally as either ‘majority Israel’ or
‘minority Israel’. ‘Majority Israel’ is indeed an enemy of the whole
gospel, given its relational position to God’s relational response
of grace. ‘Minority Israel’, however, is not an enemy of the whole
gospel because they function in the relational response of trust
necessary in the whole gospel. Therefore, Paul’s statements in
11:28-29 about the gospel and Israel are not contradictory when
these two distinctions are understood.
11:33-36—For the depth and breadth of God’s thematic relational
response of grace to the human condition—which by the nature of the
whole and holy God includes the mysterion of the details of
God’s response in the whole of God’s eschatological big picture—Paul
rightly and humbly concludes his theological overview with this
summary doxology. This doxology is not a mere description of the
attributes of God, nor to merely ascribe them to God in closing.
Paul closes relationally focused and involved with the relational
dynamic inclusive of God’s whole (“from him”), God’s wholeness
(“through him”) and the whole of God (“to him”)—the whole of the
gospel, nothing less and no substitutes (cf. 1 Cor 8:6).
Having provided the theological clarity of the whole of
God’s thematic relational response of grace to the human condition,
Paul now concentrated on the further functional clarity (again
building on Gal) necessary to be whole, live whole and make whole,
God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms.
12:1-2—“Therefore,”
based on the theological clarity unfolded in the previous eleven
chapters, Paul issues to his family (“brothers and sisters”) a
definitive call to effect (parakaleo) the necessary
reciprocal relational response to God’s relational response of
grace. What follows aligns with the vital issues for all practice:
(1) the integrity of the person presented (“present…”), (2) the
quality of what the person communicates (“…your bodies as a living
sacrifice”), and (3) the depth of relationship the person engages
(“holy and acceptable to God”). Paul is expanding on 6:13,16,19,
where he used a slave metaphor. Here he shifts to an offertory
metaphor, yet the significance of human ontology and function from
inner out is the same to involve the whole person, including all the
outer parts of the body. The functional significance here is not to
offer in sacrifice merely a part of one’s person—notably a reduced
person of outer in defined by ‘what to do’—but to relationally
present to God and stand vulnerably before him with one’s whole
person (cf. Abraham’s call, Gen 17:1). Moreover, how to be involved
in relationship with the whole and holy God is not only with one’s
whole person but also to be ongoingly involved in God’s relational
context and process on God’s terms, which are the only terms “holy
and acceptable to God” for whole relationship together. This
practice is not a function of the individual doing a certain thing
or living a certain way acceptable to God; this process is a
function only of reciprocal relationship together compatible to the
wholeness of God’s ontology and function, in whose image and
likeness human ontology and function were created. Yet, reduced
human ontology and function from outer in, signifying conformity to
human contextualization (syschematizo), is fragmentary, which
needs to be redeemed and transformed from inner out (metamorphoo)
in order to be whole in ontology and function and thus to live
whole.
12:3-21—On the basis of God’s relational
response of grace defining Christian identity as who we are and
whose we are and determining Christian function as how to be
involved in whole relationship together, Paul gives further
functional clarity to define the relational responsibility (even
demand) which comes with God’s relational grace. Only the
experiential truth of whole persons in transformed relationships
together both equalized and intimate is the relational outcome of
wholly receiving God’s relational response of grace. God’s grace is
the basis and ongoing base for the church to be the whole of God’s
family—the ecclesiology of the whole which Paul is making
functionally clear in these closing chapters of Rom. While the
church is called to be and live whole and sent to make whole in the
human context, Paul is unequivocal that human contextualization does
not define who they are and whose they are, nor does
human contextualization determine how they are. The church’s
ontology is to be the whole of God’s family in the world and to
function whole in it by extending God’s family love, just as Jesus
vulnerably embodied to them (and prayed in his formative family
prayer, Jn 17:20-26).
13:1-7—Fragmented relationships prevent
wholeness from developing. Some ways the whole is fragmented are by
self-autonomy promoting individualism, self-determination pursuing
self-interests/concerns, and self-justification necessitating
self-centeredness. One means to chasten these is with the presence
of “authority” (exousia, the physical capability to do
something and also the right and authority to carry out the action)
to centralize or bring coherence to a group of persons, so that they
will not be fragmented into merely disconnected individuals.
Throughout the human condition God has chastened the human condition
by appointing (hypotasso) such authorities to serve to bring
persons together, whose function in effect can only point to the
need to be whole without functionally being able to make whole. That
wholeness only God can accomplish by his relational response of
grace. Yet, human authorities serve God’s purpose for the need to be
whole together, if only to highlight the need. Even negative
authorities serve some purpose, despite the severity of their
action—which God and Paul do not dismiss or merely tolerate—since
what they do is not the underlying problem but only symptomatic of
the deeper human condition “to be apart” from God’s whole enslaved
in sin of reductionism. Thus, negative authority still serves God’s
purpose by pointing to the inherent need for the human condition to
be made whole. In this sense, “those authorities that exist have
been instituted by God.” And without condoning negative authority or
blindly submitting to them, Paul states that Christians need to
affirm what God is doing, be involved with God to make whole, and
ensure we are not acting in cross-purposes with the whole of God.
13:8-10—Paul makes clear the need not to
have any secondary debts (opheilo, obligation) which are able
to determine or dilute our primary function: “to share God’s family
love with one another.” Secondary obligations fragment the whole in
reductionism, whereas the qualitative relational involvement of
agape builds God’s relational whole on God’s relational terms,
thus fulfills the law (God’s desires for relationship together).
13:11-14—The ongoing conflict between
reductionism and being whole is framed by Paul in the context of
qualitative kairos time, not quantitative chronos
(v.11). While Paul’s eschatology is both ‘already’ and ‘not yet’, he
is focused on the importance of the already and its opportunity (kairos)
to function clearly in our identity as the light (v.12). To live
whole illuminates the present practices of reductionism, thus giving
Christians further opportunity to make whole. Paul makes it
definitive that this kairos is now.
14:1-18—The issue of dealing with
reductionism is an ongoing necessity in the church if being and
living whole is to be an experiential truth and functional reality.
For example, “those who are weak in faith” signify their relational
response of trust that has been diminished, diluted or redefined by
reductionism—essentially focused on secondary issues from outer in
over the primary from inner out. He goes into other secondary
matters and makes it imperative for church whole ontology and
function not to be defined and determined by them. Rather stay
involved in the primacy of whole relationship together with family
love. In all these secondary issues, Paul is emphatic about the
importance of God’s whole and functioning together in wholeness:
“the kingdom of God is not [those things] but righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
14:19-15:13---Therefore, “pursue what
makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (v.19), that is, be and
live whole by building God’s family with family love, and “do not
[fragment] the work of God” (v.20). The primary work is the
relational work of trust, without which all other activity and
effort are “sin of reductionism” (v.23). Those mature in wholeness
(“strong”) need to help those susceptible to reductionism (“weak”)
and not be focused “to please ourselves” (15:1) for the relational
purpose “of building up the neighbor” (v.2), just as Christ himself
extended God’s family love (vv.3,7-9). All of God’s thematic
relational response of grace unfolded in Scripture only for whole
relationship together, and was written for our “steadfastness and
encouragement” in order to work through these various secondary
issues, situations and circumstances, and thus attend to the primacy
of relationships together necessary to be the whole of God’s family
(vv.4-6,10-13). Paul essentially closes the main body of Rom with
the conclusive benediction (v.13), which is the relational
progression of the definitive benediction in Num 6:22-27 that Jesus
embodied for our experiential truth and relational reality along
with the Spirit.
15:14-16:27—Paul adds some personal notes in closing.
Colossians
Colosse is a specific situation—different from
controversy in Gal in apparent philosophical notions (Col 2:8)—in
which the functional and theological clarity of the truth and whole
of the gospel are needed to expose, challenge and negate
reductionism in order to be and live the whole of God’s family and
to make God’s whole on God’s terms. While Col is somewhat of a
test-case application of the functional and theological clarity from
Gal and Rom, Paul’s theology in Col also reflects further
development from Gal and Rom, likely gained with the Spirit while in
prison.
1:1-2:5—The extended length of these
opening remarks is not characteristic of Paul’s undisputed letters.
Yet the situation and developments in Col required a further and
deeper response from Paul than he had expressed fully before, though
he did partially. The situation necessitated establishing the
further framework and deeper context (than human contextualization)
to address the issues for Col. In doing so, Paul also had
opportunity to make definitive his further theological reflections
and deeper theological development in the relational epistemic
process for synesis of God’s whole, which included
integrating the Jesus tradition for pleroma Christology and
soteriology.
Paul wants them to be made complete (“be filled,”
pleroo) “with the specific knowledge (epignosis) of God’s
will” (desires, thelema, v.9) for whole relationship
together. This relational process involves a qualitative knowledge
and understanding of the whole (“wisdom and synesis), thus
“growth in the epignosis of God” (v.10) is not about gaining
more information about God but only about growing in whole
relationship together as family with “the Father who has enabled you
to share in the inheritance” (v.12) as his adopted children
(vv.13-14). Without apology, Paul declares openly the whole of
Jesus, “the image of the invisible God” (v.15), “the pleroma
of God” (v.19), in order for the relational outcome “in Christ” for
every person to be complete, made whole (“mature,” teleios,
v.28). This is Paul’s passion (“I toil and struggle”) in reciprocal
relationship with the Spirit (v.29) and compassion for the churches
in Colosse and Laodicea (2:1; cf. 4:16). His purpose clearly stated
(2:2-3): that their whole person from inner out to be encouraged
(“hearts to be encouraged”) and thus be deeply involved in
relationship together (symbibazo) in family love; this
necessitates all the wealth (ploutos) of the full assurance
from whole understanding (synesis) without reductionism, in
order for the relational outcome to specifically know (epignosis)
God’s self-disclosure embodied in Christ (“God’s mystery”), in whom
is the source of all life and function (“the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge”). With synesis Paul makes definitive the whole of
God in order to expose the ontological simulation and
epistemological illusion of reductionism, which “may deceive (paralogizomai,
or delude) you with plausible arguments” (v.4). This will help them
not to be fragmented by reductionism and to function in relational
wholeness on God’s terms to have “a context in order” (taxis,
cf. 1 Cor 14:33) and deeply involved together in “your relational
response of trust in Christ” (2:5)—that is, the integral relational
process of family love in which Paul is also involved together with
them (“I am with you in spirit”).
2:6-8—Just as their compatible relational response of trust to
God’s relational response of grace constituted them in relationship
together in God’s relational context and process, these terms for
relationship together cannot be reduced or negotiated by human terms
and still have compatible relationship. Anything less and any
substitutes of the whole relational context and process of God’s
terms are attempts to reduce God’s whole or to renegotiate God’s
terms. This is the reductionist influence Paul urgently addressed.
Exactly where this reductionist influence originated is not clear
from the text. He earlier cautioned against those “with plausible
arguments” (v.4). Now he impresses on the church to be aware “that
no one takes you captive” by the arguments “through philosophy and
empty deceit” (v.8), thus qualifying 2:4. Paul clearly identified
the basis of this thinking, human constructs, shaping and terms as
the notions only “according to human tradition” and the formulations
only “according to the elemental spirits of the kosmos and
not according to Christ.” How much Greek philosophy and its
worldview Paul points to here are unclear but certainly their
influence in the ancient Mediterranean world had its effects. Paul
is emphatic that those who turned to this thinking cannot be whole
and could not expect to live whole or to make whole. The truth and
understanding of the whole can only be illuminated ‘from above’ by
the vulnerable disclosures of the pleroma of God embodied by
Christ.
2:9-10—In contrast and conflict with the
human efforts ‘from below’, he gives further theological clarity of
the pleroma who is ‘from above’ and how he constitutes the
pleroma of those ‘from below’,
2:11-3:17—Paul outlines the relational
process constituting the whole of Christian ontology, in which
Christian identity must by its nature be rooted: the integral
relational process of redemptive change in which the old person dies
so that the new person is raised up for pleroma soteriology
of what Jesus also saved us to in relationship together as the whole
of God’s family—“pleroma in Christ, “the wholeness of Christ”
(3:15, cf. “the pleroma of Christ,” Eph 1:23). Yet the line
between the old and the new gets blurred in practice. Therefore,
given the experiential truth and whole of the gospel, Paul is
decisive: don’t let anyone define and determine your person from the
outer in of reductionism based on what you do/have—norms not only in
Judaism (2:16) but in human contextualization (2:20-21)—which are
only the ontological simulation and epistemological illusion
(“shadow,” 2:17, “an appearance of wisdom,” 2:23) from reductionism,
not “the substance of Christ” who defined the whole person from
inner out; and don’t let anyone prevent you from experiencing this
relational outcome, that is, “disqualify you…by a human way of
thinking,” (v.2:18)—the relational outcome that reductionism
prevents from being the experiential truth. The distinction between
reductionism ‘from below’ and God’s whole ‘from above’ can be
confused when their contexts are not clearly distinguishing or are
put in some combination. For Christian ontology, both individual and
as church, to be whole is not about a static condition. The whole of
Christian ontology is a dynamic function of reciprocal relational
involvement together, signifying the ongoing process of redemptive
change from old to new: “Set your phroneo on…above, not
on…earth…put to death whatever in you is earthly” (3:2,5).
This is the integral relational context and process of
God’s whole into which Paul’s prescriptions for the following
situations need to be contextualized; and this is the whole
phronema and the qualitative phroneo necessary in order
to understand Paul’s position in these matters (and those similar in
Phlm, Eph and Tim).
3:18-4:1—In reductionism, the parts are primary and the whole,
if addressed at all, is subject to these parts—defined by its parts
and explained by the sum of its parts. In the sin of reductionism,
the individuals are primary, even in a collective context, and the
whole is subordinated to their self-concerns/interests, and thus is
subject to and shaped by those human efforts at
self-autonomy/determination/justification. By his lens of whole
phronema and phroneo, he focuses on the sin of
reductionism and addresses individual efforts in each of these
situations, which function in the following way: (1) with the
autonomous thinking in lieu of the priority of God’s whole, (2) by
the self-serving-determination to build-up self at the expense of
serving the growth of God’s family, and (3) for the validation of
the individual value or self-worth over primary involvement in the
relationships together necessary for the experiential truth to be
God’s whole family constituted only by God’s relational terms.
4:2-6—Paul closes with the functional clarity to be whole, live
whole and make whole. Wholeness in God’s relational context of
family by his relational process of family love is by its nature
entirely a relational function. This relational function cannot be
reduced to anything less or any substitute, that is, anything less
than direct relational involvement and any substitute for direct
relational communication. The primary communication we engage for
relational involvement with God is prayer, which Paul therefore
makes the relational imperative (v.2). He also expands their
relational involvement with God beyond themselves to embrace the
global church (vv.3-4). Moreover, he impresses on them the need to
make whole in the world with family love (vv.5-6). This relational
function is not optional or negotiable but what must be (dei,
not opheilo, obligation) by the nature of who we are and
whose we are as the pleroma of God’s new creation family.
Philemon
This personal letter is a specific relational context in
which the ecclesiology of the whole is made functional. Paul takes
Philemon deeper into God’s whole on God’s terms, just as his purpose
for Col. Thus, Phlm needs to be understood by the phroneo and
phronema Paul established in Col for the synesis
necessary for the pleroma of God. Placed prior to Eph, Phlm
becomes a functional bridge to Eph, in which Paul makes definitive
the theological basis for Philemon’s relational function.
Ephesians
This letter closely followed Col and Phlm, and it
represents an even further development of Paul’s thought and
theology than Col. Paul also appears to develop further the
theological clarity of Rom—likely his deeper theological reflection
with the Spirit for synesis, while in prison—by defining the
theological forest and adding aspects he did not include in Rom,
notably pleroma ecclesiology for the theology of God’s whole
family functioning on God’s relational terms. Yet, ecclesiology is
never about doctrine for Paul but only about relationship together
to be God’s whole family on God’s relational terms of wholeness.
1:3-14—Paul’s theological forest within which pleroma
ecclesiology is relationally embodied.
1:15-23—He keeps praying for them for
the purpose that the Father may give their persons an inner-out
quality in reciprocal involvement with the Spirit to specifically
know God further (epignosis,v.17), and that their qualitative
phroneo of their inner-out person (“the eyes of your heart”)
be illuminated to know the hope of God’s calling (‘already’ and ‘not
yet’)—to be in whole relationship together , which involves the
depth of the Father’s inheritance as his very own children (v.18)
and which includes “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us
who relationally respond in trust” (v.19). This power is the same as
the relational function of the whole of God’s power which worked “in
Christ” in the process of redemptive reconciliation for God’s
eschatological plan (vv.20-22). God’s power is not about what God
has but it always involves God’s relational action in how God is to
enact his eschatological plan in thematic relational response of
grace for relationship together. God’s power only functions with
this relational purpose; therefore, it must not be disconnected from
its relational action or it loses its functional significance, both
in its eschatological trajectory and in its present involvement with
the church. The church is both the object of God’s power and its
recipient to be its subject in ontology and function as “the
pleroma of Christ” (v.23).
2:1-22—Paul then penetrates even deeper
into the experiential truth for those “in Christ.” He gets to the
heart of Christian identity, that is, to the inner-out ontology of
the person made whole (and new) and to the whole ontology of the
church with those whole persons in the transformed relationships
together necessary to function whole in God’s new creation family.
3:1-13—“My synesis of the mystery
of Christ” (v.4) was never shaped by his own theological effort but
only “revealed to this holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit”
(v.5), notably to Paul. Paul did not draw only from the Jesus
tradition but his direct relational experience with the whole of
God. The relational epistemic process engaged with the Spirit
precludes the need for human speculation, shaping and doubt.
3:14-21—“Because of this experiential
reality (charin) I engage the Father in relationship
directly” (v.14), in Paul’s identity of ‘whose we are’ (v.15), to
pray in the qualitative depth of God’s relational context of family
with the integral relational process of family love. Paul’s prayer
is only for wholeness, the peace Christ embodied, thus it focuses
only on the whole person with an inner-out ontology and the primacy
of function in whole relationships together in God’s family love
necessary to constitute the church.
4:1-6—This wholeness for Paul was not
about theological discourse and having the correct theology. Rather
than engaging in a theological task, he engaged the experiential
truth constituting the heart of who they were and whose they were
“in Christ.” Thus, he engaged them directly in family love for the
transformed relationships necessary to be God’s whole family, and
not to diminish, minimalize or even lose their ontological identity.
The ontological inner-out depth of church identity is relationally
embodied in the interrelated, interdependent and integrated function
of the whole of who they are together in whose they are.
4:7-13—The ontological whole of church
identity is not a human construction shaped in human
contextualization by human terms. This identity is solely
constituted by God’s relational action of grace ‘from above’, the
dynamic of which Christ relationally embodied to make each person
together to be God’s whole (vv.8-10).
4:14-19—The relational and functional
significance to be whole together is qualitatively distinct from the
reductionism shaping human contextualization by human terms and
effort. Paul describes the latter as those functioning in a
reductionist ontology shaped by prevailing human context (nepios,
immature, v.14), for which he prescribes the vulnerable involvement
of reciprocal relationship together in family love (v.15). The
relational outcome will be “the body’s growth in building itself up
in love” (v.16). The alternative in contrast and conflict is
outer-in ontology and function (vv.17-19).
4:25-32—He makes functional what is the
relational significance of this new creation—various relational
functions congruent with the wholeness of the new creation, which
should not be confused with obligation/duty (opheilo) of mere
Christian ethics and morality. These relational functions need to be
understood in relation to the three issues involved in all practice:
(1) the integrity of the person presented, (2) the quality of
communication from that person, and (3) the depth level of
relationship that person engages. And the Spirit is the primary key
to this whole process (v.30).
5:1-14—“live in love as Christ loved us”
is not about imitating his behaviors or merely following his example
or model. This relational imperative is the accountability of one’s
ontology and function to be (ginomai) in relationship
together with the depth of involvement of love, which signifies
God’s new creation family as constituted by the pleroma of
God’s relational response of grace. But church ontology and function
is diminished without clear distinction from the ordinary, common,
normative practice of the surrounding context—the distinction only
of “children of light” (v.8). The light is both an ontological
condition and a relational function, whose identity and function
must be accounted for in all church life and practice (vv.9-14).
5:15-21—Therefore Paul is emphatic about
the imperative “Be careful how you live [in the surrounding
context]…making the most of the kairos [to live whole]
because the days are [existing in the sin of reductionism]”
(vv.15-16). He never underestimates the influence of reductionism
and the persistence of its author (cf. 6:16). The presence and
function of God’s whole is the only definitive alternative of
qualitative significance to reductionism. And to be whole and live
whole is a functional only of the integral relational process of
agape involvement together in the relationships of God’s family.
The key in this process for Paul is not more human effort (“do not”)
but the necessity to “be complete (pleroo) in reciprocal
relationship with the Spirit” (v.18) in order to be the whole
that counters reductionism. Moreover, this reciprocal relational
involvement includes worshipping God together (vv.19-20). And in
contradistinction to the self-autonomy/determination/justification
of reductionism, Paul makes definitive the critical relational
dynamic for relationship together to function whole: “submit to one
another with family love out of reverence for Christ” (v.21),
who submitted to the Father in order to relationally embody God’s
family love so that we can be made whole in God’s family. This is
the whole Christ saved us to, which constitutes our ontological
identity together of who we are and whose we are. “Submit” (hypotasso)
is a voluntary relational action and should not be confused with a
compulsory act of obedience. Paul’s relational dynamic of submission
is a function only of family love, which gives primacy to whole
relationship together over an individual’s self-interests/concerns
yet without sacrificing the whole person’s significance in God’s new
creation family. Paul’s interpretative lens for “submit” is not from
human contextualization but from the whole relational context and
process embodied by Jesus.
5:22-6:9—It is only in this integral
relational process of family love that “submit” has significance for
Paul, and thus how any submission he advocates must be understood.
The three relationships he highlights here echo Col, with notable
extension of the marriage relationship in analogy with the church.
Each of these relationships is associated with a social role that
forms a secondary identity, which Paul takes beyond to contextualize
all roles and secondary identities into our primary identity of who
we are and whose we are together as the church family. And what Paul
makes definitive is the new relational order of God’s new creation
family—the transformed relationships together of pleroma
ecclesiology.
6:10-20—He contextualizes these persons, relationships, roles
and identities in the whole of God’s relational context and process.
As he does this, the surrounding context of the world also goes
further than the Greco-Roman world within the ancient Mediterranean
context, and deeper than any other human contextual, structural or
systemic factors. Paul penetrated deeply into our human ontology and
the heart of our identity “in Christ”; and he clearly makes
definitive our surrounding context in which we are called to be
whole and sent to make whole. This unavoidable context is not only
the context of reductionism but most importantly the context of its
author (“the devil,” v.11, “the evil one,” v.16). Despite all the
negative human situations, circumstances, conditions and issues,
Paul makes known unequivocally: “our struggle is not against
those quantitative indicators but against their underlying
influence and counter-relational work or reductionism constituted by
evil” (v.12). Paul doesn’t underestimate reductionism or assume
overconfidence toward Satan. To live and make whole in the
surrounding context of reductionism in confrontation with its author
necessitates the whole of God and God’s resources (vv.11-17, not by
our own well-intentioned effort), which Paul bookends (vv.10,18, in
possible chiasm) with the relational process involved that might
otherwise appear as our burden of responsibility: “be made strong
(passive voice) in your relational involvement with the Lord”
by means of ongoing reciprocal relational involvement of “pray in
the Spirit….” This reciprocal relational involvement will engage the
presence, involvement and resources of God “to stand against the
wiles of the devil” (v.11) and thus “to withstand” (v.13)
reductionism and to be whole. Therefore, Paul’s conclusion in this
letter is directed solely to this ongoing conflict for the sake of
the experiential truth and whole of the gospel, the gospel of
wholeness (v.15), for which he had been fighting and continues to
seek boldness without constraint (vv.19-20). The relational outcome
‘already’ for Paul is pleroma ecclesiology, nothing less and
no substitutes.
Philippians
1:1-2—In his address Paul includes the bishops (cf.
presbyteros, Acts 20:28) and deacons, which indicates some
structure or organization to that church. Church leadership,
however, does not suggest a hierarchy of roles, sine Paul identifies
both Timothy and himself as servants. This was still about their
wholeness together (“peace”) based on God’s relational response of
grace (“from God”).
1:3-11—He identifies them as fully
sharing together (koinonia) in the experiential truth of the
whole gospel (v.5); and he affirms his intimate relational
involvement with them in reciprocal relationship (“you hold me in
your heart,” v.7, “I long for all of you,” v.8) constituted by their
involvement together (synkoinonos) in relational response to
God’s grace (v.7). This is God’s family love they share in together,
and Paul prays for their family love to grow in the relational
function of wholeness together until ‘not yet’ (vv.9-11).
1:12-18—Paul puts his own situation into
the relational context and process of God’s big picture (vv.12-14).
Regardless of his situation and how others react to them (vv.15,17),
Paul is confident that God can still use that negativity for the
purpose to fulfill God’s desires and action. So Paul still rejoices,
even at some personal cost to him (v.18).
1:19-30—He qualitatively understands (oida)
that through their relational involvement together in God’s
relational context of family and relational process of family love
(“your prayers and the help of the Spirit”) they will experience
further the relational outcome to be more deeply made whole (soteria,
v.19). Thus he will not allow situations to define him and determine
his practice (v.20) because for Paul living was about zoe
(not bios) in family together with Christ (v.21). And this
creates ambivalence for Paul to be ultimately with Christ in his
relational context (v.23) or to remain (meno) to share in
relationship together (parameno) “with all of you” (v.25).
The former is more important but the latter is also vital “for your
relational progression of your relational response of trust
in relationship together for the joyful relational outcome in Christ
‘already’ to go further and deeper” (perissos, v.26).
Therefore, whatever situations happen ahead, Paul makes it
definitive for them to relationally function in the experiential
truth of the whole gospel (v.27). This will signify the relational
and functional significance of the gospel of wholeness, pleroma
soteriology, to the reductionists for their redemption (v.28). He
makes paradigmatic the theological journey of the whole relational
process Christ embodied, in which they have the relational
opportunity to be involved with Christ in the various situations,
circumstances and struggles in the surrounding context in order to
be whole, live whole and make whole—God’s whole family relationally
embodied by Christ (vv.29-30).
2:1-4—Some critical issues are raised in
four interrelated conditional statements involving their relational
experience. This is neither about implementing doctrine nor about
following disembodied teaching in ethical practice.
2:5-11—That is, have the same
qualitative phroneo as Christ and function relationally just
as Christ also relationally embodied: the theological journey of
Christ begins with a high Christology (“was in the form of God,”
v.6), that is, preexisting in the ontology as God, not as mode but
as person; although completely equal with God, Christ did not regard
it “as something to be exploited” (harpagmos, v.6); unclear
theologically what harpagmos involves, I suggest in terms of
function it involves not being defined by that aspect of his
identity and letting it determine how he would function in the
incarnation—implying that Jesus didn’t impose himself on us and
engage in power relations; on the contrary, he “keno himself”
(from kenos, empty, v.7), which is also unclear
theologically, yet I suggest in terms of relational function keno
involves submission and humility of his God-person in order to take
on aspects of human identity in ontology and function, inexplicably
conjoined with his God-person, and thus to relationally embody God’s
family love for the redemption necessary (“death on the cross,” v.8)
to be reconciled and made whole in God’s family together—fulfilling
God’s relational response of grace to the human condition;
therefore, also, the God-persons were relationally united (never
ontologically separated), and the Son assumed his relational
position and function in the whole of God’s eschatological plan and
is once again exalted as Lord, along with the Father in God’s whole
(vv.9-11).
Paul makes this theological journey of Christ
paradigmatic as the relational model for congruent relational
function in Christian life and practice to be whole with Christ in
his relational context of family by his relational process of family
love: Just as Jesus relationally embodied the ontology from inner
out of one whose identity is special as person in the whole of God,
yet whose unique God-person function is not special in the sense of
giving priority to the individual over the whole. Just as Jesus
submitted in his special identity to relationally function in his
unique God-person function for the sake of the whole of God’s family
love to be relationally embodied to us for the experiential truth of
the whole gospel (as signified in Paul’s four interrelated
statements, vv.1-4). In other words, just as Jesus relationally
embodied in the incarnation, those “in Christ” must by its nature be
congruent with in order to be compatible in relationship together.
2:12-18—Therefore, Paul makes it imperative for their ongoing
involvement in only the relational work to be whole (“work out your
own salvation,” v.12), not in human works but in reciprocal
relationship with the whole of God and God’s relational work “who is
at work in you” for God’s only relational purpose (eudokia)—as
Jesus relationally embodied—of whole relationship together in God’s
family (v.13). Thus, whatever their situation or circumstance
(v.14), they are to function only for the relational purpose to be
and live God’s whole family—“blameless (amemptos) and
innocent (akeraios) children of God” (v.15). Amemptos
and akeraios are not sufficiently understood by ethical and
moral practice; they have the sense of a condition that is not
qualitatively reduced, and thus are better rendered to be “whole.”
This sense is the functional significance Paul further describes
with amomos (not crooked, in sound or unblemished condition,
that is, whole), which is necessary in a reductionist context (“a
crooked and turned-from-the-truth generation”) for their whole
ontology and function to be undiminished light to illuminate the
relationally embodied “word of zoe” (v.16) for the human
condition in the world. Nothing less and no substitutes of their
life and practice could be whole, or could make Paul “glad and
rejoice” in reciprocal relationship together (vv.17-18).
2:19-30—Paul elaborates on his
relational involvement in family love together with Timothy and
Epaphroditus. What is unmistakable about their surrounding context,
which apparently also fragments their church, is the influence of
reductionism signified in the function “All of them are seeking
their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (v.21).
3:1-11—Without apology, Paul further
identifies the reductionists in the church who function from an
outer-in ontology defined by their human effort (vv.2-3), which, in
comparative analysis, Paul highlights his own reductionist identity
previously defined by what he did and had (vv.4-6). What follows
demonstrated Paul’s process of his own growth and development.
3:12-16—Despite his metaphor (cf. 1 Cor
9:24-25), Paul understands that this is not about achievement in
human effort, however rigorous and well-intentioned. This work is
only relational work in the process of reciprocal involvement
together with the whole of God. Those growing (mature, teleios)
in this relational process have the necessary qualitative phroneo
(from the whole phronema); and when their perspective becomes
qualitatively different (heteros) the Spirit will give them
feedback to function based on the relational outcome ‘already’
(vv.15-16).
3:17-21—Paul reminds them that their
ontology and function are defined and determined by either of two
contextualizations: either human and thus reductionism (“their
phroneo is set on outer-in earthly things,” vv.18-19), or God’s
and thus whole (“transformed from inner out,” vv.20-21). The
distinction between these two contextualizations is crucial.
4:1—Therefore for the purpose (hoste)
of family love together to be God’s whole, Paul makes it a
relational imperative for them to relationally function clearly
without ambiguity (steko, “stand firm”) in relational
compatibility (houtos) with the whole of God—and thus nothing
less and no substitutes from reductionism.
4:2-20—Paul adds various ongoing
practices which help to constitute this necessary relational
function:
·
As those ontologically and relationally interconnected
together (syzygos, “yoke fellows,” v.3), be involved among
yourselves (syllambano in middle voice) in the relational
work of reconciliation necessary ongoingly to be whole together
without relational fragmentation or distance (as signified between
Euodia and Syntyche, v.2); a functional key for whole relationship
together as family.
·
Whatever your situation or circumstance, maintain
ongoing relational involvement and open communication with God,
“rejoice in the Lord…who is near…let your requests be made known to
God, and the wholeness of God…will guard your whole person from
inner out in Christ Jesus” (vv.4-7); a functional key for
reciprocal relationship together .
·
Focus on qualitative things and “put them together in
your mindset” (logizomai, v.8), moreover the wholeness “you
learned, received, heard and saw in me,” ongoingly engage in
relational function (prasso) “and the God of wholeness will
be relationally involved with you” (vv.8-9); a hermeneutical
key to be and live whole.
Paul
closes with a secret he has learned (myeo) from his own
circumstances (v.12) and thus has learned (manthano, v.11)
the experiential truth: that situations and circumstances do not
define who and what he is or determine how he functions—which
otherwise reduces the person to outer in—but in all those I can be a
qualitative whole person from inner out and live whole in
relationships together, even make whole, by ongoing reciprocal
relational involvement with the whole of God who constitutes me (endynamoo,
v. 13) not to do something from outer in but to live whole from
inner out, and who continues to make me whole (pleroo)
according to God’s whole, “his riches in glory relationally
embodied in Christ Jesus” (v.19). This is the relational outcome
‘already’ of the experiential truth of the whole gospel—which, if
your experiential truth also, you are then accountable for (2:1-5).
Paul’s Album of Family Love
(Pastorals)
I suggest that the following letters were a compilation
of Paul’s personal thoughts, advice and written notes to Timothy and
Titus, who formed them with the Spirit into personal letters for
some edifying purpose (not for nostalgic reasons) after Paul’s
death—while contextualizing Paul in their later period of the
church, thus accounting for the apparent further development of
church order. The content of these letters is representative wholly
of Paul, not mere Pauline fragments which Timothy and Titus shaped
or constructed of the Pauline corpus. What unfolds is more than
pastoral but reflects the further and deeper involvement of Paul’s
family love to make the whole relationships together of God’s
family.
By working in cooperation with the Spirit, Timothy and
Titus fulfilled God’s complete relational purpose for the canonical
inclusion of Paul’s corpus.
Titus
For the relational purpose of building God’s whole
family on God’s terms, Titus needed only a shorthand summary from
Paul.
1:1-4—Other than Rom, none of Paul’s other letters identified
him in the expanded context of the whole of God’s thematic
relational response of grace for relationship together. The
theological content (“God’s elect,” “the truth,” “eternal life,”
“before the ages began,” “in due time revealed his word”) should not
distract us from the relational process of God’s action. Nor should
this theological content be assumed without the relational
significance of God’s vulnerable involvement. God’s relational
process of vulnerable involvement is the only functional basis to
know God specifically as experiential truth (“the epignosis
of the truth”), the relational outcome of which necessitates the
reciprocal response of trust (“the faith we share”) for whole
relationship together (“grace and peace”). This is the relational
function of God’s family, the church, which Paul makes further
operational for Titus to engage the churches in Crete for their
ecclesiology to be whole.
Evidently, Titus—whom Paul would not allow to be
circumcised (Gal 2:1-3)—faced opposition in Crete from “those of the
circumcision” (1:10), which signified the influence and conflict of
reductionism (notably of the law) and its counter-relational work
(v.11). He encourages Titus to clearly teach the distinction between
reductionist function and wholeness and what they are saved to
(2:1-14), thus for Titus to live whole and make whole among them
(v.15).
Paul reiterates (a reminder to
Titus from his other letters) the basis and ongoing base for
Christian life and practice as only God’s relational response and
involvement of grace (3:4-7). This was already the experiential
truth for the Gentile Titus, and the experiential truth Paul wants
Titus to make relationally functional for “those who have the
relational response of trust in God” (v.8), in order that the
church family “learns to devote themselves in the necessary
relational work so that they may not be relationally
uninvolved, disconnected” (v.14). This is the vulnerable
involvement of family love in whole relationship together that
signifies reciprocal relational involvement to God’s relational
response of grace (v.15).
Thus, Paul reminds Titus what is expected of him and for
what he is accountable as a church leader. This letter then can be
seen for the edifying purpose for all church leaders to engage their
relational responsibility for church ontology and function to be
God’s whole family together, and only on God’s relational terms.
1 Timothy
Timothy necessitates greater input/feedback from Paul in
family love for his accountability as a church leader than was
needed for Titus.
1:1-2—Timothy’s compilation of Paul’s
communication to him appears to be expressed much more in Timothy’s
wording than Paul’s—emphasizing authority over relationship and
shifting subtly from gospel to doctrine, perhaps to help Timothy
deal with the difficult situations he faced.
1:3-11—Paul distinguishes the teaching
of “any different doctrine” and the speculations of human effort in
“myths and endless genealogies” from the relational epistemic
process “by faith.” He clarifies that the telos (purpose,
objective, end) of God’s desires is not doctrinal purity but only
God’s relational process of family love emerging out of (ek)
a heart made whole (“pure”) qualitatively from inner out (“a good
conscience,” not about mere ethics) signifying a genuine relational
response of trust (“sincere faith”). Anything less and any
substitutes reduce God’s whole and reshapes the gospel by human
effort on human terms, which is the ontological simulation and
epistemological illusion of reductionism being practiced by some in
the church (1:6-7). Paul reminds Timothy that focusing on “the law
is good” only “if one uses it legitimately” (v.8), that is, in its
relational context without reductionism and thus not contrary to
whole (hygiaino, healthy) teaching (not merely sound
doctrine) constituted by the experiential truth of the whole gospel
entrusted to Paul (v.11).
It is this tension and conflict
which must be grasped in these three letters for them to clearly
demonstrate being from Paul and of Paul. Only this extends Paul’s
conjoint fight for the gospel of wholeness and against reductionism.
1:18-20—In family love, Paul gives
Timothy definitive instruction, reinforcing Timothy’s call (4:14),
to be rigorous in the qualitative relational context and process
necessary to be whole and not in quantitative secondary matters
which reduce the whole of God’s relational context and process as
some in the church function.
2:—discussed previously in chapter 11,
question 11.
3:—Paul previously indicated the
presence of some church order (Phil 1:1), which is expanded now by
Timothy’s current church context, and the function of church leaders
remains for the church to be God’s relational whole on God’s
relational terms. Paul anticipates the development of church order
for Timothy and Titus in order for them to have his whole
perspective of this relational order. God’s relational context and
process of family clearly distinguish the church from an
organization, institution or mere voluntary association (v.15).
Therefore, given Paul’s whole phronema and qualitative
phroneo, church leadership should be characterized not merely
morally and ethically but also with more significance relationally.
This signified who and what Jesus relationally embodied and how he
functioned in the incarnation, the “mystery” (v.16) of whose
relational context and process Paul made definitive for the church
and its leaders to be whole in likeness.
4:—Paul concentrates Timothy’s focus on
“godliness” (4:7-8), which is only a function of relationship
together and not a function of an individual’s behavior and
character; also, eusebeia is certainly not about asceticism
(vv.3-5) or based on any human construction of religious practice
(v.7, cf. 2 Tim 3:5). While eusebeia may involve virtues,
Paul is not focused on individual virtues. Moreover, godliness is
not about “sound doctrine” or doctrinal purity (v.16). These all
shift the focus and involve reductionism of the relational function
in qualitative involvement together necessary to be God’s whole
family. Paul focuses Timothy only on this relational function, which
was not about strengthening Timothy in self-discipline like an
athlete despite being “of some value,” but for the primary function
“valuable in every way” (v.8). Thus, Paul formulates a “relational
paradigm of godliness” for Timothy’s wholeness in his ongoing life
and practice: “Be involved (eimi) wholly in this primary
relational practice (meletao) so that your progress, that
is, wholeness, may be openly seen (phaneros, cf. phaneroo)
to all” (v.15). It is Timothy’s experiential truth of this
“teaching” in his whole person, not about doctrine, that Paul makes
imperative for Timothy to “continue to live, dwell in” (epimeno)
because this relational involvement is the functional key to “make
whole (sozo) both yourself and your hearers” (v.16). Along
with the Spirit (4:1), Paul makes operational for Timothy the
experiential truth of the whole gospel in the ecclesiology of God’s
whole, for which Timothy is wholly accountable as a church leader.
5:1-6:21—Anything less and any
substitutes in relationship together are reductionism, which Paul
continues to address in church life and practice. What counters and
nullifies reductionism’s counter-relational work of distancing and
fragmenting relationships are the transformed relationships together
both equalized (5:21) and intimate which are necessary by its nature
to be God’s whole family in the relational function of family love
(5:1-2).
Thus Paul’s charge to Timothy (5:21; 6:11-16,20) was not
to bear witness to Christian virtues but to wholly bear witness to
his full identity of who he is and whose he is—in the experiential
truth of whole relationship together as God’s family by family love,
not by doctrine. This is the experiential truth and wholeness of the
gospel which “has been entrusted to your care” (6:20) with nothing
less and no substitutes. Therefore, Timothy necessarily by the
nature of (dei, not obligation) his full identity had to make
his whole person vulnerable and to step out in family love in order
for his relational involvement to be compatible, congruent and thus
definitive in function. Any shyness, timidity, backing away or
wishy-washy action on his part signified his engagement in
reductionism.
Timothy’s susceptibility, or even tendency, to be
influenced by reduced ontology and function was further addressed by
Paul with supportive family love in a more affectionate second
letter.
2 Timothy
1:1-2—Either Paul included “mercy” or perhaps Timothy added this
(in both letters, 1 Tim 1:2) to the significance of Paul’s usual
greeting (“grace and peace”) because Timothy personally has been
experiencing much eleos (mercy, compassion) due to his
shortcomings. Also, the affectionate tone of this letter over the
more business-like first letter is quickly set by Paul’s address of
Timothy as “my dear son.”
1:3-18—Unlike 1 Tim, Paul includes a
reflective section about Timothy, which is characteristic of Paul’s
undisputed letters about his addressees. His reflection is
relational (“I remember you constantly,” v.3) and intimate
(“recalling your tears, I long to see you,” v.4). At the same time,
Paul gets down to the heart of Timothy, a heart that has been
somewhat restrained and not vulnerably in its full involvement, thus
reduced: “I remind you…for God did not give us…but rather a
qualitative resource from inner out (dynamis) of love
to be relationally involved and of the right mindset” (sophronismos
from sophroneo, vv.6-7) so that Timothy would not be reduced
to counter-relational work.
The relational consequence of
Timothy’s functional posture in reductionism may not be apparent
because it may be obscured by the appearance “of your sincere faith”
(v.5). Yet Paul makes clear its relational repercussions with the
penetrating phrase “do not be ashamed” (v.8). Timothy likely was not
knowingly or intentionally ashamed but his reductionist function of
avoiding vulnerability involves keeping relational distance, which
has the essential relational consequence of being “ashamed of our
Lord or of me.” In relational contrast, Paul affirms his relational
function, “I am not ashamed…whom I have put my trust” (v.12), and
testifies of Onesiphorus who “was not ashamed of me even in
my chain” (v.16).
Any relational distance, whether
from implied shame or not, involves a relational dynamic of not
being vulnerable in one’s whole person with other persons or what
identifies them, thus resulting even in a disassociation with one’s
own person and identity. In other words, Paul implies that by
Timothy’s action (or lack of) he diminishes his person and identity,
the gospel and also minimalizes God and God’s relational response of
grace merely to what Jesus saved from without the full
soteriology of what Jesus saved to. This is a subtle process
for those engaged in ministry, notably as church leaders, yet who
avoid making themselves vulnerable to action, relationships,
situations, etc., which may have consequences for their
self-image/worth/concerns/interests or
self-autonomy/determination/justification.
‘Who one is’ and ‘whose one is’ are a function of only
relational involvement together in the relational context and
process embodied by Christ and deepened in reciprocal relationship
by the Spirit (vv.13-14).
2:1-13—“Therefore,” Paul says affectionately in family love,
“you, my child, be strong in the relational response of grace
that is in Christ Jesus.” In contrast to timidity, the common
perception would be of Timothy needing to take on a strong
personality, demonstrating strength and not weakness. Paul is
directing him deeper into his whole person. While there may not be a
necessary difference between the compound endynamoo (to make
strong or vigorous) and its simpler root dynamo (from
dynamis, 1:7), Paul is going deeper with endynamoo to
address Timothy’s person from inner out. He is not trying to change
Timothy’s outward personality but pointing to the experiential truth
of Timothy’s whole identity, which is made definitive by the
relational response of grace embodied by Jesus. That is, Timothy’s
whole person from inner out needs to be determined, and thus made
vigorous, by his vulnerable relational involvement of trust with the
vulnerable relational involvement of grace embodied by Jesus. Only
the experiential truth (not doctrinal) of this relational
involvement together can have the unmistakable relational outcome
both necessary and sufficient for Timothy’s whole person and
identity to relationally function wholly in the relationships
necessary to constitute God’s new creation family.
For this reason, therefore, Paul makes this a relational
imperative for Timothy, and all church leaders (v.2). What Paul
makes definitive, however, is not a system (hypotyposis) of
static doctrine (1:13), nor a rigorous paradigm for ministry
(2:3-6). Moreover, Paul is not suggesting merely optional teaching
shaped by an individual’s terms. This relational imperative is
irreducible and nonnegotiable because it signifies the only
relational response compatible to God’s relational response of grace
for vulnerable reciprocal relationship together. Since this
relational imperative involves the whole person, Paul understands
well that it cannot be engaged by reductionism from outer in—just
vulnerably from inner out. Thus, it cannot be legislated,
self-generated out of obligation or a mere expression of duty from
one’s role. So Paul conjoins this relational imperative with
another: “Think over (noeo, meditate on) what I communicate
(both content and relational messages) for the Lord will give you
synesis in all things” (v.7). This imperative is not about
turning inward in some self-reasoning process because the noetic
process highlighted is the relational epistemic process engaged with
God—Paul assumes Timothy’s reciprocal involvement with the Spirit
(1:14)—who will help us grasp all this by interrelating these
aspects together for integration into its whole (synesis).
This whole is entirely God’s whole, the whole of the gospel that
Jesus relationally embodied for our experiential truth (2:8-13),
without which there is no coherence in theology and peace in
practice.
2:14-26—Paul knows that as Timothy’s experiential truth of God’s
relational response of grace is deeply rooted in relationship
together with his vulnerable reciprocal involvement, that Timothy’s
relational function in the whole of the gospel will emerge also—free
from reductionism. So he encourages Timothy to “be diligent to
present your whole person vulnerably to God in his
grace as one affirmed by him, who does his relational work
unashamed, thus who wholly handles (orthotomeo) the word of
experiential truth entirely for relationship together, not as
static doctrinal truth reduced of its relational significance”
(v.15). Yet, Paul also knows well that unless Timothy relationally
functions whole in his person (vv.21-22), that he will be unable to
wholly address the influence of reductionism surrounding him
(vv.16-20) and also will be inadequate to necessarily deal with
reductionism’s counter-relational work (vv.14,23-26). This points to
the integrating them of Paul’s fight for the whole of the gospel and
his concern in family love for ecclesiology to be whole.
3:1-9—Reductionism not only persists but
will get worse in the church, both in ontological simulation
(“holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power,”
v.5) and epistemological illusion (“always being instructed and can
never arrive at a knowledge of truth,” v.7).
3:10-17—Thus, Paul makes another
relational imperative for Timothy to “dwell (meno)
relationally in what you have learned…” (vv.14-17), that is, to
ongoingly engage the relational epistemic process and be
relationally involved with God’s communicative action (“the holy
Scriptures…breathed out by God,” theopneustos, vv.15-16). It
is this ongoing relational involvement with the communicative words
from God—not the mere rational study of quantitative discourse on
doctrine—which will have the relational outcome “so that persons
relationally belonging to God may be whole (artios,
complete), having been made functionally complete (exartizo,
cf. katartizo, Eph 4:12) for every relational work
necessary to be whole, live whole and make whole” (v.17).
4:1-5—It is with this qualitative
phroneo within the whole phronema of the whole of God’s
relational context of family and relational process of family love
in the eschatological big picture that Paul completes his charge to
Timothy and all church leaders: “relationally communicate the
embodied Word for relationship together, not a disembodied Word for
mere doctrine; be relationally involved (ephistemi, to come
near, stand beside), whether opportune (eukairos) or not (akairos),
whatever the situation or circumstance, in order to make God’s whole
in family love (“expose, rebuke, encourage”) with the utmost
patience in relationally embodied teaching…; keep your perspective (nepho)
with the qualitative phroneo and whole phronema in all
matters, even during hardship, and engage the necessary relational
work of a person functioning not from outer in merely in a role of
church leader but rather from inner out involving your whole person,
who therefore fulfills your ministry in wholeness” (plerophoreo,
cf. v.17).
4:6-22—Paul’s closing notes are an interaction of this
relational process with reductionist situations/circumstances, with
God’s whole of reciprocal relationship together ongoingly prevailing
(vv.8,18)—the experiential truth and whole of the gospel, nothing
less and no substitutes.
This completes Paul’s album of family love for
ecclesiology to be whole, the whole ontology of God’s new creation
family in whole function on God’s relational terms—which Paul holds
church leaders accountable for and challenges their theological
assumptions of anything less and any substitutes.