St. Paul and Consumer Society
by Peter J. Leithart 9 . 25 .
15
According to many contemporary scholars, the apostle Paul didn’t object to
“Judaizers” because they taught that salvation is achieved by works. He
objected because Judaizers tried to reverse history by imposing the
requirements of the old Mosaic covenant on Gentile Christians. Circumcision,
dietary laws, and other Jewish practices functioned as “boundary markers,” and
Paul insisted that such badges of Jewishness were now relativized to a common
identity in Christ. Judaizing disrupted the Church in which there is no “Jew
nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.”
Some traditional Protestants regard this new reading of Paul with
suspicion, partly because it seems to rob Paul’s letters of their timeless
relevance. Luther’s Paul always has something to say, because self-salvation is
a perennial temptation. But if Paul is addressing a problem specific to the
first century, what does he have to say to us now? Can we preach a Paul
who is centrally concerned with Jewish identity?
Read more at http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/09/st-paul-and-consumer-society
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