The Social Context Of Paul S Ministry

In this "slim, readable, and provocative volume" (Journal of Biblical Literature), Ronald Hock focuses on the apostle Paul and his work within the social and intellectual context of the Greek East of the early Roman Empire. Hock discusses the New Testament evidence concerning tentmaking in relation to Paul's life as an apostle of Christ. Relevant literary and nonliterary texts from outside the New Testament add detail to a picture of ancient society and open new areas for study. The author describes the typical experiences that arose from such a way of life – traveling, the tentmaking trade, the missionary use of the workshop, attitudes toward work, and Paul's own reflections on the significance of his tentmaking for the apostolic self-understanding.

This volume addresses many of the questions surrounding Paul and his social relations, including how to define and analyze such relations, their relationship to Paul's historical and social context, how Paul related to numerous friends and foes, and the implications for understanding Paul's letters as well as his theology.

This volume consists of fifteen essays by an international group of scholars on a variety of topics in Pauline theology. These include his gentile mission, the concepts of faith, grace, and the law, reconciliation, the temple, eschatology, miracles, gender, and Paul's trinitarian tendencies.

This commentary highlights both the socio-political context of 1 Corinthians and the clash of significantly different religious viewpoints represented by Paul and the congregation he had founded in Corinth. In particular, Richard Horsley shows that this letter provides a window through which one may view the tension between the Corinthians' interest in cultivating individual spirituality and the apostle's concern for building up a social-religious community devoted to the common advantage, for the flourishing both of personal dignity and a humanizing solidarity.

In this original introduction to Paul's life and thought Sanders pays equal attention to Paul's fundamental convictions and the sometimes convoluted ways in which they were worked out.

In this comprehensive introduction to the apostle Paul, Stanley Porter devotes serious consideration both to the background and major contours of Paul’s thought and to the unique contributions of each of his letters. Porter begins by introducing the Pauline tradition and outlining the basics of Paul’s life, the chronology of his ministry, and his several imprisonments. Porter then discusses the background to Paul’s thought, examines some of the major themes of his writings, and treats issues concerning the Pauline epistles, such as pseudonymity and canon. Finally, Porter delves into all thirteen of Paul’s letters individually, placing them within their historical contexts and examining critical issues relating to the content and interpretation of each letter. The result is a thorough, balanced treatment of one of the most important figures in Christianity.

Drawing on recent scholarship on the Pauline tradition within early Christianity, this book examines Paul's theology of baptism and highlights its practical application in ministry today. It considers what the rite represented and effected, in the light of the social and cultural milieu in which his letters were written, and of his strategies for mission and the formation and nurture of new Christian communities. The need to integrate recent scholarship with contemporary pastoral issues, and to do so in a theologically reflective way, is acute. Using a wide range of social scientific approaches to the ancient world and Christian origins, including identity, religious conversion, and ritual, the book explores the implications of this reconstruction for contemporary issues of baptismal practice, pastoral care and mission, aiming to bring the insights of specialists to those working on the frontline of pastoral practice.