Theology of the New Testament : A Canonical and Synthetic Approach

by Frank Thielman

• ISBN13: 9780310211327
• ISBN10: 0310211328
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780310864332
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-01
• Publisher: Zondervan
• More Book Details

Summary

Studying the theology of the New Testament can be a daunting task, even to the knowledgeable Bible student or pastor. Each of the twenty-seven books, written by various authors, has its own theological emphasis and nuances. How do we elicit a coherent message from such theological diversity, especially given that some of the theological statements in the New Testament seem to be at odds with one another? Is such an endeavor achievable or even valid? Theology of the New Testament takes a balanced approach in response to these challenges. Frank Thielman presents a theology of the New Testament that is careful to take into account the cultural and historical circumstances surrounding each book and the New Testament as a whole. He not only examines each book's theological content individually, but also in relation to the rest of the New Testament, particularly within each of the three theological units that comprise the New Testament: the gospels and Acts, the Pauline epistles, and the general epistles and Revelation. This canonical and synthetic approach honors both the theological diversity of the various books and the theological connections between the books. In the end, Thielman finds a unified theological vision of the New Testament, anchored in the centrality of Jesus Christ. Frank Thielman's Theology of the New Testament is an outstanding achievement. The book is marked by scholarly depth, exegetical rigor, and theological profundity. Both students and professors will profit immensely from this lucid treatment of the theology contained in the New Testament documents. Thomas R. Schreiner Professor of New Testament, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary An accessible presentation of the key theological points of the New Testament books by an accomplished New Testament scholar and teacher. Its clear style, lucid organization, and sound theological insight make it a prime resource for serious students in both the academy and the church. Karen H. Jobes, PhD Associate Professor of New Testament, Westmont College

Author Biography

Frank Thielman is Presbyterian professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama

Table of Contents

Preface	9	(4)
Abbreviations	13	(6)
Introduction
The Theology of the New Testament: The Basic Questions	19	(26)
ONE THE GOSPELS AND ACTS
The Persistence and Importance of a Fourfold Gospel	45	(12)
Mark: The Death of God's Son as Good News	57	(27)
Matthew: New Wine in Old Skins	84	(27)
Luke--Acts: The Place of Christians in the Progress of Salvation History	111	(39)
John: Faith in Jesus as the Means to Eternal Life	150	(31)
Four Diverse Witnesses to the One Gospel of Jesus Christ	181	(38)
TWO THE PAULINE LETTERS
The Coherence and Center of Paul's Theology	219	(15)
First Thessalonians: Maintaining Faith, Love, and Hope in the Midst of Suffering	234	(16)
Second Thessalonians: Perseverance Despite Persecution and False Teaching	250	(12)
Galatians: The Grace of God and the Truth of the Gospel	262	(14)
First Corinthians: A Plea for Peace, Holiness, and Fidelity	276	(31)
Philippians: The Importance of the Gospel's Progress	307	(16)
Second Corinthians: Power Perfected in Weakness	323	(19)
Romans: The Gospel of God's Righteousness	342	(33)
Colossians: Christ Preeminent in Cosmos and History	375	(12)
Philemon: Reconciliation in Practice	387	(6)
Ephesians: The Unity of Church and Cosmos in Christ	393	(15)
First Timothy: The Church as Pillar and Foundation of Truth	408	(15)
Titus: Knowing God, Doing Good, and Making Salvation Attractive	423	(7)
Second Timothy: Faithfulness to the Gospel	430	(8)
The Common Emphases and Central Convictions of Paul's Letters	438	(45)
THREE THE NON-PAULINE LETTERS AND THE REVELATION OF JOHN
Finding Unity in the Non-Pauline Letters and Revelation	483	(13)
James: The Wisdom of the Undivided Life	496	(16)
Jude: Contending for the Faith against a Perversion of God's Grace	512	(10)
Second Peter: Ethics and Eschatology	522	(14)
First John: The Truth about Jesus, His Death, and His Love Command	536	(20)
Second John: Avoiding Those Who Have Abandoned Truth and Love	556	(6)
Third John: Working Together with the Truth	562	(7)
First Peter: On Suffering as a Christian	569	(16)
Hebrews: Jesus as Perfecter of the Faith and Leader of the Faithful	585	(27)
Revelation: Meaning amid Oppression	612	(39)
The Clash of World Views in Hebrews to Revelation	651	(30)
CONCLUSION
The Theological Unity of the New Testament	681	(46)
Works Cited	727	(36)
Scripture and Apocrypha Index	763	(24)
Other Ancient Literature Index	787	(4)
Subject Index	791	(4)
Modern Author Index	795

Excerpts

Theology of the New Testament
Copyright © 2005 by Frank Thielman
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thielman, Frank.
Theology of the New Testament : a canonical and synthetic approach / Frank Thielman.
p. cm.
Summary: “A basic resource for serious teachers, pastors, scholars, or lay people
interested in learning about the theology of the New Testament”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10: 0-310-21132-8 (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0310-21132-7
1. Bible. N.T.—Theology. 2. Bible. N.T.—Canonical criticism. I. Title.
BS2397.T445 2005
230'.0415—dc22 2004030070
CIP
This edition printed on acid-free paper.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used
by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any
other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Sherri Hoffman
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /?DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Introduction
Chapter 1
The Theology of the New
Testament: The Basic Questions
Since the eighteenth century, the discipline of New Testament theology has come
under close scrutiny. Should the discipline be abandoned? Some have said so.
Does it only need to be restructured? Some have offered new models. In the discussion,
two problems with the discipline have repeatedly emerged as most significant.
The first problem, it is said, is an unhealthy blend in the discipline of dogmatics
with historical concerns. On the one hand, theological convictions influence New
Testament theologians both in the conclusions they draw about the meaning of the
New Testament texts and in their insistence on examining only the canonical documents.
On the other hand, since the church values these documents largely for the
historical claims made in them, New Testament theologians find that they must work
as historians in much the same way that any historian would work with ancient texts.
Is it possible to bring together faith and reason in this way, or must New Testament
theologians bracket their own dogmatic presuppositions about the importance of the
New Testament and place the canonical texts on a level with all other ancient texts?
If so, then they should shift their attention away from the theologically biased investigation
of “New Testament theology” to the more objective and universally useful
task of describing the history of early Christian thought.
The second problem arises from the theological diversity of the New Testament
texts. The New Testament documents not only express a variety of theological themes,
but sometimes they speak in different ways on the same theme. Do these differences
sometimes amount to contradiction? If not, why is the theological coherence of the
New Testament sometimes so hard to detect? If so, is it accurate to speak of “New
Testament theology” at all, as if we are speaking of some coherent whole?
Theology or History?
Since the sixteenth century, biblical theologians have struggled with the relationship
between interpreting the Bible to find support for the church’s traditional theological
teachings and interpreting the Bible within its own historical context without
consideration for the theological convictions of the church. Because the church has
traditionally held to the primacy of Scripture over its traditions (even if extrabiblical
tradition is given great weight), ideally no conflict should arise. In fact, the church’s
traditions and the theological emphases of the Bible have often been incompatible,
and so any study of biblical theology has often been characterized by the tension
between theological conviction and historical analysis.
Biblical theology arose early in the Reformation era as a discipline intended to
chasten the church’s unbiblical theological speculations and to hasten its reform. The
emphasis at this time was more on theological reform than on sensitivity to the historical
situations in which the biblical documents were composed. Later, biblical theology
fell under the spell of Enlightenment rationalism, and some of its practitioners
began to define the discipline in terms of a historically motivated and theologically
independent study of the Bible that could use human reason to sit in judgment not
only on the teachings of the church, but on the content of the Bible itself.
Out of this link between biblical theology and the Enlightenment arose a criticism
of the discipline itself. Why speak of “biblical” theology at all? If the student of
the biblical texts is to be truly an historian, then it is necessary to speak only of the
history of Jewish and Christian thought and religion—to speak of the Bible, or of
the New Testament, is already to speak in dogmatic language that the historian interested
in the objective study of the past must find unacceptable.
Over the last three centuries, three criticisms of the discipline as theologically
rather than historically grounded have been particularly influential. J. P. Gabler,
William Wrede, and Heikki Räisänen, writing at the turn of the nineteenth, twentieth,
and twenty-first centuries respectively, called for the liberation of the historical
study of the Bible or early Christianity from the dogmatic concerns of the church.
Gabler’s seminal challenge differs from that of Wrede and Räisänen because it is simply
a call for methodological clarity in the theological enterprise rather than a disparagement
of the theologically motivated study of the Bible. Nevertheless, both
Wrede and Räisänen understand themselves to be standing on the shoulders of
Gabler. It is important, therefore, to consider Gabler’s challenge to the discipline
before evaluating the more direct attacks of Wrede and Räisäinen. In order to understand
all three thinkers and to put our criticisms of their challenges in historical perspective,
it is necessary first to survey briefly the historical roots of biblical, and
specifically New Testament, theology.
The Early History of the Discipline
The development of a “biblical theology” had its roots in the age-old commitment
of the church to govern its theology and practice by the canonical writings of
the Old and New Testaments. One of the most important concerns of the Reformation
was that the church reform its doctrine and worship so that it might be more
faithful to the standards laid down in the Bible. In 1521, Luther’s close friend and
colleague at the University of Wittenburg, Philip Melancthon, published one of the
earliest theological treatises of the Reformation—a brief treatment of important theological
topics based on Luther’s lectures on Paul’s letter to the Romans given in the
summer of 1519 and repeated

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