The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon

obedience-and-authority

• It would have been impossible for Paul to call Jesus 'Son of God' without creating a confrontational echo with that title of Rome's inaugural emperor.

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• God's passionate desire to heal a broken world—precisely the subject of Romans, concerning the great big world outside those small assemblies.

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• Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord—a later letter domesticating Paul's radical vision into standard Roman household hierarchy.

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faith-and-doubt

• 'Faith' means a grateful submission to the Spirit transplant of God's own nonviolent distributive justice, empowering us to work toward reclamation of this world.

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• The cross reveals the character of empire, the path of personal transformation, and the nature of at-one-ment—Paul had dozens of ways of speaking about its significance.

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self-and-identity

• For Luke, Paul is emphatically not an apostle sent by personal revelation; Paul, however, believes himself to be an apostle sent by God and Christ.

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