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FROM PENTECOST TO PATMOS CRAIG L. BLOMBERG AN INTRODUCTION TO ACTS THROUGH REVELATION NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

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Page 1: FROM PENTECOST TO PATMOS - B&H Publishing...From Pentecost to Patmos the quarter system, Jesus and the Gospels would fit perfectly for the first term and From Pentecost to Patmos for

FROM PENTECOSTTO PATMOS

CRAIG L . BLOMBERG

A n I n t r o d u c t I o n t oA c t s t h r o u g h r e v e l At I o n

NAShvILLE, TENNESSEE

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Contents

ContentsJournal Abbreviations ixAbbreviations of Series and Publishers xiAcknowledgments xiiiIntroduction 1

Part 1

the acts of the aPostles

1. Acts: The Gospel Moves Out 9

Part 2

Paul anD his letters

2. Paul: Life and Ministry 85 3. Galatians: The Charter of Christian Liberty 117 4. The Thessalonian Correspondence: A Balanced View of Christ’s Return 139

1 Thessalonians: Christ Is Coming Soon 1392 Thessalonians: But Not That Soon! 151

5. The Corinthian Correspondence: Countering Misguided Views about Christian Maturity 163

1 Corinthians: Internal Immaturity and External Hellenizing Threats 1632 Corinthians: Increasing Maturity but Infiltrating Judaizing Threats 203

6. Romans: The Most Systematic Exposition of Paul’s Gospel 233 7. The Prison Epistles: General Introduction 271

Philemon: A Christian Response to Slavery 275Colossians: Christ as Lord of the Cosmos and the Church 285Ephesians: Unity in Diversity as a Witness to the “Powers” 303Philippians: Rejoice in All Circumstances 325

8. The Pastoral Epistles: General Introduction 343Titus: A Manual on Church Order 3511 Timothy: How to Pastor a Church and Turn It Away from Heresy 3592 Timothy: Pass It On 375

Part 3

other new testament writings

9. The Epistle of James: “Faith without Works Is Dead” 387 10. The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Superiority of Christ 409 11. 1 Peter: Perseverance Despite Persecution 441 12. The Epistle of Jude: “Contend for the Faith” 461 13. 2 Peter: “Where Is the Promise of His Coming?” 473

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14. The Epistles of John: The Tests of Life 4851 John: Countering the Secessionists 4852 John: The Secessionists Attack from Outside 4993 John: The Secessionists Take Over Inside? 503

15. The Book of Revelation: God’s Plans for Cosmic History 509

Subject Index 561Author Index 565Scripture Index 571

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IntroductionMany film producers create sequels to blockbuster movies. Most of these

follow-up films are not crafted as carefully or artistically as their predecessors. Occasionally, exceptions emerge, in unusual cases generating long series of shows. The six-film Star Wars sequence, spanning three decades and distributed through-out the world, is undoubtedly the most famous contemporary example.

In 1997, I had the privilege of seeing my book, Jesus and the Gospels:AnIntroductionandSurvey, appear in print.1 This volume grew out of years of teach-ing a quarter-long class on this material first at the undergraduate and then at the graduate levels. What began as my own lecture notes had turned into detailed print-ed outlines that I distributed to my students and then into a spiral-bound booklet of prose commentary that added even more information. When Broadman & Holman Publishers were looking for an introductory textbook on precisely this topic, I was delighted to be able to expand the material once more and turn it into a publish-able volume. I was also thrilled that Inter-Varsity Press in the United Kingdom was eager to publish a British edition.

At that time I did not imagine composing a sequel. Broadman & Holman had already contracted with John B. Polhill to produce a comparable introduction to Acts and Paul, and it appeared in 1999 as PaulandHisLetters, an extraordinarily comprehensive, accurate, and user-friendly companion to my book. Nevertheless, I was greatly encouraged by the reception that JesusandtheGospels was receiving. I discovered it was being used as a textbook in college and seminary classrooms around the English-speaking world and soon was translated into German as well.2 Laypeople similarly volunteered the information that they found it helpful for seri-ous, personal study apart from any educational institution or degree program.

Soon various individuals began to ask me what I used for textbooks when I taught Acts through Revelation. I explained that my class notes had begun a similar metamorphosis. In fact, in 1995, I had produced the first edition of a spiral-bound notebook of introduction to and commentary on “The Epistles and Revelation,” for a cassette-tape series of lectures on those books produced for the Institute of Theological Studies’ correspondence curriculum. For Acts, I still used handouts in outline form, but they had grown to a thirty-page stapled set of single-spaced notes. Early in the new millennium, therefore, I began seriously to contemplate a sequel to my first textbook. My two previous publishers expressed interest in the project, so my research moved forward. John Landers suggested the title FromPentecosttoPatmos.

In the autumn semesters of 2004 and 2005, I had my students in “Understanding the Gospels and Acts” read drafts of my material on Acts. In the springs of 2005 and 2006, classes on “Understanding the Epistles and Revelation” worked through my writing on that half of the New Testament. Were our seminary still following

1 Nashville: Broadman & Holman; Leicester: IVP.2 JesusunddieEvangelien:EinführungundÜberblick (Nürnburg: VTR, 2000).

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the quarter system, JesusandtheGospels would fit perfectly for the first term and FromPentecosttoPatmosfor the second and third terms. But Denver Seminary, like many tertiary-level institutions in the U.S. in recent years, has shifted to the semester system, so the division becomes more awkward.

I am heartened by the fact that Ralph Martin’s two-volume introduction to the New Testament has established a precedent for the division of labor represented here and managed to serve a generation of theological students quite well.3 I do not envision authoring anything more that would create a longer series; I do not have the expertise, for example, in the Old Testament to create “prequels” as George Lucas did in the Star Wars series! But if those who have benefited from JesusandtheGospelsfind the new volume a helpful companion, my time will have been well spent.

Like the first book, this one attempts to offer the reader a “one-stop shopping” guide to everything I would most want theological students to know about the biblical books covered. Classically, “introductions” have treated such background information as author, date, audience, provenance, purposes, genre, outline, the-ology, and the like, while “surveys” have sampled the contents of the books of Scripture sequentially, after the fashion of a miniature commentary, with only minimal background information. Increasingly, both kinds of works do some of each task, just in varying proportions. Recent introductions have recognized that a mastery of the contents and implications of biblical texts is often the more cru-cial need that theological students have today and are including more and more of that kind of information.4 Some highlight more specialized forms of analysis that have been growing in popularity, particularly literary and sociological criticism,5 or they may focus on theological issues more than has typically been the case—a task left in the past to “biblical theology” texts.6 All of these approaches generally assume that lecturers will then supplement the textbooks with in-class treatments of the exegesis of important passages and discussions of interpretive controversies in more detail.

My experience has led me to a somewhat opposite procedure. What most inter-ests most twenty-first century students and what they most often need for ministry and life is a detailed mastery of the meanings of the texts of Scripture themselves. All of these other topics are important but not as primary. So I have attempted to deal with the most crucial items of introduction in enough detail to provide the necessary background for correctly interpreting the New Testament books, with footnotes and bibliography indicating where more detailed discussions can be

3 Ralph P. Martin, NewTestamentFoundations, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1975–78).

4 E.g., Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green, and Marianne M. Thompson, Introducing theNewTestament: ItsLiteratureandTheology(Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001); D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, AnIntroductiontotheNewTestament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, rev. 2005).

5 See esp. David A. deSilva, AnIntroductiontotheNewTestament:Contexts,MethodsandMinistryFormation (Downers Grove and Leicester: IVP, 2004).

6 See esp. Carl R. Holladay, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message andMeaningofJesusChrist (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005).

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Introduction �

found. I spend most of my time, however, on surveying the actual structure and contents of each book, the main points in each section, the distinctive exegetical cruxes, and several key items for contemporary application. Thus if students were never to attend class but know and understand, inside and out, what I have written, my conscience would be clear that they would have an excellent foundation in the biblical literature covered.

Of course, this seldom happens as well on its own as when students attend class too! So I use class time for a wide variety of activities: periodic quizzes as an in-centive to learn the textbook material well; abbreviated reviews of the most cru-cial points in each section, supplemental “mini-lectures” to go into key issues in more detail than the book can or to introduce related issues that my text omits altogether; healthy intervals of time for follow-up discussions of reading, including question and answer (generated both by the students for me and by me for them), case studies, and other kinds of application. Slides, videos, and DVD clips can help make portions of the New Testament world come more alive; PowerPoint charts and presentations can clarify, illustrate, and reinforce key principles. International and minority students (and others with significant international or cross-cultural experi-ences) can highlight issues that most students might not consider, and so on.

As in JesusandtheGospels, I adopt a broadly based evangelical perspective. A significant number of the sources in my bibliographies, especially under the commentary sections, come from evangelical authors. But I have read widely, in-teracted with a broad cross-section of scholarship, and tried to offer a representa-tive sampling of approaches across a wide spectrum of theological commitments. When it comes to the more controversial passages and interpretive issues, it is almost impossible to do justice to all points of view, so I have discovered that students seem to learn best and appreciate most reading about my perspectives but hearing me repeatedly say that they are more than free to disagree with me. Class time and exegetical or topical papers can be used for exploring different options. I could hope that a wide variety of lecturers would find enough of value in my book that they would treat it similarly—not thinking that they must agree with an overwhelming majority of my views on specific issues to find the text valuable but rather using it as an opportunity for students to learn and understand one reason-ably widespread, representative evangelical viewpoint on a topic. (I rarely adopt a position that only a small minority of commentators have held.) Then, in the other components of the class, they can supplement my perspectives with any others they would like.

The overall structure of the book is straightforward. Acts comes first because it appears immediately after the Gospels in canonical sequence and because it forms the narrative context into which many of the epistles may be inserted with greater understanding. The section on Paul’s letters surveys his epistles in chronological order as best we can reconstruct it. These chapters are preceded by an introduction to Paul’s life and ministry which includes, among many other things, an explana-tion of why his letters were arranged in our New Testament canon in a different

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sequence (pp. 106). The dating of the remaining epistles—Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, and Jude—is much less certain. But one possible chro-nology, which we have followed for the sequence of our discussions, is James, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Jude, 2 Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John.7 Revelation is almost cer-tainly the last of the New Testament books to be written.

Throughout the history of the church, these letters have come to be called the “general” or “catholic” epistles (catholic originally just meant “universal”), be-cause they were believed not to have been addressed to one specific church or group of churches. Today, this conviction has been almost universally discarded, as we shall explain when we introduce each of them. But this belief explains why they were treated together as one large section of the New Testament, just as Paul’s letters were. After being located in a number of different places, the sequence fol-lowed today seems to have been dictated by two main factors. First, because Paul’s importance and influence was so widespread since the earliest days of Christianity, his letters naturally came to be placed before the other epistles. Second, within the “general” epistles, the works again seem to have been arranged according to the importance of their authors in the first generation of church history. James was the first elder of the church in Jerusalem and the biological half brother of Jesus, Peter became the leader of the Twelve, John remained his close companion, while Jude was the least known of the four.

Hebrews contains no ascription of authorship in any of its oldest manuscripts. Some church fathers thought it came from Paul; many did not (cf. below, p. 411–12). So it eventually settled into the “gap” between the Paulines and the supposedly more general letters. Revelation, of course, is not a letter perse, though it includes seven letters in chapters 2–3 and partakes of certain other features of the episto-lary genre (below, p. 513). But Revelation is more predominantly apocalyptic and prophetic literature. Given that its contents culminate with the events surrounding Christ’s return, the end of human history, and a new heavens and earth, it was natu-ral for it to wind up at the end of the Bible, regardless of its actual dating, though it probably is the last book to have been written chronologically as well.

The comments on each book will begin with introductory considerations. Then will follow abbreviated remarks in commentary form on the most central, interest-ing, relevant and/or controversial details of the book, and at last passage-by-pas-sage (and at times even verse-by-verse) comments with footnotes to where specific concepts or quotations originate or to where fuller discussion of issues may be found. Finally, some brief remarks with respect to the contemporary application of each book and a selective bibliography of works for further study will appear. The bibliographies begin with commentaries arranged under three headings: advanced works, the understanding of which is usually enhanced (though not required) by some knowledge of Greek; intermediate-level items, which include detailed but not

7 The most likely divergence from this chronology would come with the letter of Jude, which may be consider-ably earlier than all the other non-Pauline epistles except perhaps James. But because of the close literary relation-ship between Jude and 2 Peter, it makes sense to treat them together. See further below, pp. 461–62.

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Introduction �

overly technical commentaries on the English text written with full knowledge of the original language and of current scholarship; and introductory volumes, which are briefer or more applicational in focus but still reflect sound, up-to-date scholar-ship evaluated in light of the original languages and texts of Scripture.

The Canon of The new TesTamenTg

ospe

ls

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Acts

Letters of Paul to churches (decreasing length)

Letters of Paul to individuals (decreasing length)

gen

eral

epi

stle

s Hebrews

James

1 and 2 Peter

1, 2, and 3 John

Jude

Revelation

In Jesus and the Gospels, I used the New International Version’s Inclusive Language Edition (NIVI) published in the United Kingdom (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1996) as my basic English-language translation from which I quoted. Since then, a partial equivalent published in the United States, called Today’s New International Version (TNIV), has been completed (Colorado Springs: IBS; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005). Unfortunately, a heated controversy has developed, largely limited to the United States, over these and similar recent translations that use inclusive language for humanity more so than older ones. Much of this de-bate involves misunderstandings and misrepresentations of these translations and the principles they followed, but some genuine theological issues are involved as well.8

Sadly, the debate obscures or ignores the fact that a significant majority of the changes made in the TNIV had nothing to do with gender issues but improved the

8 See esp. D. A. Carson, TheInclusiveLanguageDebate:APleaforRealism(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001).

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NIV text by making it a more literal translation.9 Nevertheless, as of this writing, the older, third edition of the NIV (Colorado Springs: IBS, 1984; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985) continues to be the version of choice within the largest segment of English-speaking evangelicals worldwide. I have reverted, therefore, to citing its text (unless otherwise specified), so that the greatest number of readers possible will be able to follow me readily. At points where some might be misled into think-ing a passage was gender exclusive, because of the NIV’s uses of a masculine form originally intended to be generic, I have simply avoided quoting the Bible verbatim in any translation. If reference to the wording of the text is necessary for the clarity of my meaning, I then paraphrase the Scripture in my own words without using an actual quotation. Other principles regarding “politically correct” or “incorrect” language usage remain unchanged from my earlier volume, and I refer readers to my brief discussion included there.10

While reading widely the scholarship of several languages and cultures, with rare exceptions, I limit my footnotes and bibliography to English-language mate-rials available to the introductory theological student. Italicized material, review questions at the end of each chapter, and maps, charts and diagrams are likewise designed to make the work more user-friendly.

In my previous volume, I concluded my introduction by inviting constructive critique from my readers, particularly regarding the book’s usefulness as a set text for theological education. That invitation still stands. My goal is for readers to come to better understand first-century Christianity, the literature it produced that came to be treated as uniquely sacred, and through it a better appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ, worshipped by this fledgling church, often in hostile circum-stances and facing difficulties remarkably similar to those the church faces today throughout the world, despite the changes in cultural and technological forms in which those challenges may be cloaked.

9 For detailed documentation, see Craig L. Blomberg, “Today’sNewInternationalVersion : The Untold Story of a Good Translation,” in PerspectivesontheTNIVfromLeadingScholarsandPastors (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 85–115; slightly updated for BT 56 (2005): 188–211.

10 Blomberg, JesusandtheGospels, 3.

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