Paul S New Creation

Paul, Politics, and New Creation: Reconsidering Paul and Empire nuances Paul’s relationship with the Roman Empire. Using rhetorical, sociohistorical, and theological methods, Najeeb T. Haddad reevaluates claims of Paul’s anti-imperialism by situating him in his proper Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts.

As a biblical motif, 'new creation' resonates throughout the pages of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and occupies a central place in the apostle Paul's vision of the Christian life. Yet the biblical and extra-biblical occurrences of this theme vary widely in meaning, referring to either a new cosmos, a new community, or a new individual. Beginning with the Old Testament and working through the important texts of Second Temple Judaism, Moyer V. Hubbard focuses on how the motif functions in the argument, strategy, and literary structure of these documents, highlighting its role as the solution to the perceived plight. He then explores in detail which senses of the term Paul intends in Galatians 6.15 and 2 Corinthians 5.17, concluding that 'new creation' in Paul's letters describes the Spirit-wrought newness of the person in Christ, and is fundamentally anthropological in orientation.

This major contribution to Pauline scholarship by a widely-respected New Testament scholar is the culmination of over forty years of teaching on Paul. Brendan Byrne demonstrates that topics often discussed in Pauline studies and Christian theology go astray when the significance of the last judgment falls from view. Offering a fresh Catholic perspective that engages with centuries of Protestant interpretation, this book recaptures the significance of the motif of the last judgment for the interpretation of Paul.

The author focuses on Paul’s new creation’s cosmic and ecclesiastical nature by offering the ekklēsia as a tangible embodiment of God’s eschatological reign. Paul as a middleman fulfills the collective project of the Jerusalem collection to manifest God’s alternative economy against the exploitative system of the Roman Empire.

In this major thematic work, senior scholar Paul Minear examines the Genesis motifs that are echoed in numerous parts of the New Testament. By doing so, Minear links the story of the old creation with the story of the new creation as he examines the language of beginnings--creation, fall, and curse--found in both testaments. Minear concludes that there is a need to reexamine the legacy of the old creation in order to understand and value the gift of the new creation.

T. Ryan Jackson explores the Apostle Paul's conception of new creation. He proposes that Paul's concept of new creation is an expression of his eschatologically infused soteriology which involves the individual, the community, and the cosmos, and which is inaugurated in the death and resurrection of Christ.

In the dominant interpretation of the Antioch incident Paul is viewed as separating from Peter and Jewish Christianity to lead his own independent mission which was eventually to triumph in the creation of a church with a gentile identity. Paul's gentile mission, however, represented only one strand of the Christ movement but has been universalized to signify the whole. The consequence of this view of Paul is that the earliest diversity in which he operated and which he affirmed has been anachronistically diminished almost to the point of obliteration. There is little recognition of the Jewish form of Christianity and that Paul by and large related positively to it as evidenced in Romans 14-15. Here Paul acknowledges Jewish identity as an abiding reality rather than as a temporary and weak form of faith in Christ. This book argues that diversity in Christ was fundamental to Paul and that particularly in his ethical guidance this received recognition. Paul's relation to Judaism is best understood not as a reaction to his former faith but as a transformation resulting from his vision of Christ. In this the past is not obliterated but transformed and thus continuity is maintained so that the identity of Christianity is neither that of a new religion nor of a Jesus cult. In Christ the past is reconfigured and thus the diversity of humanity continues within the church, which can celebrate the richness of differing identities under the Lordship of Christ.

The Living Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person on the inside" This is part of the wonderful saving work of God in the New Testament dispensation. To live in the power of this new life and walk in victory however, we need to clearly know the difference between the truth's of "Us in Christ" and "Christ in Us." These truth's are clearly set out in this book and when they are applied in our life, we gain the vistory over our two enemies, the flesh and the devil. My prayer is that everyone who reads this book may experience the abundant life that Jesus speaks of in John 10:10.