I am happy to announce the publication of my latest book, Meet Paul Again for the First Time: Jewish Apostle of Pagan Redemption (Wipf and Stock, 2021). This book offers a new way to read and understand the self-styled “apostle to the Gentiles,” not as a hopeless sinner, not as an apostate Jew, not as …
Category: Paul
The apostle Paul, his ideas, and mine!
What is the New Covenant and Who is it with?
There is a presumption among many Christians today that the “new covenant,” one that supposedly came with the arrival of Jesus, was established between God and Christians. Is that what history tells us? If it does, then what does the new covenant entail? If it does not, then what is the new covenant and how …
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Jesus and Paul Mention Them – But Who are the “Sinners”?
You might be asking why such an obvious question is being addressed in this post. Aren’t sinners just anybody since everybody sins? Well, not so fast. It turns out the Greek word for “sinner,” hamartōlos, had some specific meanings in the New Testament depending on how it was used. After we look at some examples …
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Did Paul Think Jesus was Pre-existent?
This may seem like a question with an obvious answer to many Christians who have grown up believing in the Trinity. Trinitarian doctrine was developed after decades of debates over the nature of Christ and the Godhead in the early church beginning in the second century. But Paul lived in the first century and wrote …
Baptism: From John to Jesus to Paul
Baptism comes from the Greek word baptizo which means “to immerse” in the sense of making clean with water. Ritual washings were commonplace in the first-century, Greco-Roman world. The purpose was not hygienic but sacred: such washings symbolized purification in anticipation of performing some holy ritual or entering sacred space. From archaeological discoveries, it appears …
Did the Apostle Paul Really Tell Women to “Sit Down and Be Quiet in Church”?
The apostle Paul is blamed for many of the controversies affecting modern Christian belief and practice. Did he, for example, support the institution of slavery as some have insisted? Did he condemn homosexuality? Did he reject Judaism as a failed religion? Was he a misogynist who looked upon women as second-class human beings? Centuries of …
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Did Paul Really Say that Jesus Became “a Curse”?
Many things written by the apostle Paul have been deemed “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). One of the misunderstood passages by Paul is the one referred to in the title of this article. Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been considered one of the most important for understanding Paul’s attitude toward Judaism and the …
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A New Perspective on Paul?
Mention the apostle Paul to most people and they conjure up an image of a first-century traveling missionary bringing his new “gospel” to the masses. His “good news” is a universal message of right-standing with God obtainable by anyone who expresses faith in his son Jesus, the Christ/Messiah. Having been rejected by his own people, …
Paul’s First Preaching Mission?
The first-century travels of Paul as outlined in the New Testament Acts of the Apostles help to shed light on the formation of some of the earliest Christian house churches in the world. Certainly Acts uses some fanciful imagery and supernatural events to combine tradition with evangelization but this need not stop us from gaining …
David Christian Clausen 