Paul's Understanding of the Church's Mission

by Plummer, Robert L.

• ISBN13: 9781597527231
• ISBN10: 1597527238
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-01
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub

Summary

Did Paul expect his churches to engage in evangelistic activity which mirrored his own? Or have modern readers of the Bible wrongly projected Paul's apostolic passion upon the communities that he founded? Such is the charge of several recent authors, and if their thesis is correct nothing could have larger implications for how the modern church engages in mission.In this book, Robert L. Plummer engages in a careful study of Paul's letters to determine if the apostle expected the communities to which he wrote to engage in outward-directed missionary activity. Plummer helpfully summarizes the discussion to date on the debated issue, judiciously handles contested texts, and provides a way forward in addressing this critical question. While admitting that Paul rarely explicitly commands the communities he founded to evangelize, Plummer amasses significant incidental data to provide a convincing case that Paul did indeed expect his churches to engage in outward-directed missionary activity. Throughout the study, Plummer progressively builds a theological basis for the church's mission that is both compelling and distinctively Pauline.

Author Biography

Robert L. Plummer is Assistant Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction and Survey of Approaches	p. 1
Survey of Approaches	p. 2
Pre-1950	p. 5
Apostle-Church Mission Continuity	p. 5
Gustav Warneck	p. 5
Roland Allen	p. 8
Adolf von Harnack	p. 11
Carl von Weizsacker	p. 13
Michael Green	p. 15
Apostle-Church Mission Discontinuity	p. 16
Paul Wernle	p. 16
Ernest Renan and William Wrede	p. 18
1950-Present	p. 22
Apostle-Church Mission Discontinuity	p. 22
Heinrich Greeven et al.	p. 22
W-H. Ollrog	p. 23
W. P. Bowers	p. 24
David Bosch	p. 25
John P. Dickson	p. 26
Stephen Chambers	p. 27
Apostle-Church Mission Continuity	p. 28
Douwe van Swigchem	p. 28
Peter T. O'Brien	p. 31
James Patrick Ware	p. 33
I. Howard Marshall	p. 35
Eckhard J. Schnabel	p. 35
John Piper	p. 37
G. K. Beale	p. 37
Norbert Schmidt	p. 38
Conclusion	p. 41
The Church's Mission in the Pauline Letters: A Theological Basis for Apostolic Continuity	p. 43
Definitions	p. 43
Church	p. 43
Apostle	p. 45
Theological Basis of the Church's Apostolic Mission	p. 48
The Nature of the Gospel	p. 50
The Gospel as "Power"	p. 51
The Dynamic Gospel and Paul's Apostolic Mission	p. 56
The Dynamic Gospel and the Church's Mission	p. 59
Paul's Theology of Mission within the Broader New Testament Understanding of the Church's Mission	p. 64
Conclusion	p. 67
Excursus: Discontinuity of Missionary Activity Between the Old Testament and the New Testament	p. 68
Excursus: Pauline Co-workers	p. 69
Paul's Instructions to Evangelize	p. 71
Paul's Commands to Witness Actively	p. 72
Paul's Instructions to the Philippians to Proclaim the Gospel	p. 72
Paul's Instructions to the Ephesians to Proclaim the Gospel	p. 77
Paul's Instructions to the Corinthians to Evangelize	p. 81
First Corinthians 4:16	p. 83
First Corinthians 11:1	p. 85
First Corinthians 7:12-16	p. 93
First Corinthians 14:23-25	p. 94
The Church's Active Witness: Concluding Thoughts	p. 96
Pauline Commands to Witness Passively	p. 96
Conclusion	p. 105
Incidental Evidence that Paul Expected the Churches to Spread the Gospel in the Apostolic Pattern	p. 107
Miracles, Prayer and Teaching in Paul and in the Church	p. 107
Divine Confirmation of the Gospel through Miracles	p. 107
Praying for Missions and the Church	p. 111
Teaching and Building up the Church	p. 117
Suffering in Paul and in the Church	p. 121
Christian Identity: Why the Apostles and Church Suffered	p. 121
The Social and Historical Context of Christian Suffering	p. 126
Patterns of Christian Suffering in the Pauline Letters	p. 128
Second Corinthians 4:7-15	p. 128
Colossians 1:24-25	p. 131
Philippians	p. 134
First and Second Thessalonians	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 138
Conclusions and Implications	p. 141
Conclusions	p. 141
Implications	p. 144
Bibliography	p. 147
Scripture Index	p. 177
Modern Author Index	p. 187
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