Challenges that Lead to Change 7.10.2025

Johnson, Luke Timothy. Constructing Paul. The Canonical Paul volume 1. Grand Rapids (Mich.): William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020.

    This will not be so much a book report or a review but a reminder of the peril we face when we come to our studies with an open mind, a desire to learn, and a mandate to read the scripture responsibly. The peril of which I speak, far from being negative is overwhelmingly positive. There are too many changes we overlook because our conventional approach does not include the opportunity for discovery. It is far too easy to move forward without allowing the time for us to be truly challenged. Lacking such challenge, it can be difficult to change. 

    I am immersed in the long preliminary research for a series from 1 Timothy which will begin in September. I have lots of books about Paul, his outlook, his letters, his theology, and how to interpret all the data. One of the tasks that is ending is accumulation and sequencing of Bibliography. What books, monographs, studies, and articles do I have, and in what order shall I read them?  I open electronic resources in Logos and Accordance. I open PDF documents in Acrobat Reader. I peruse my analog archives (shelves) for both books well used and loved, and those I may have ignored. 

    Seldom is the process radically blown up. It was this time. Luke Timothy Johnson’s (Hereafter abbreviated as LTJ/LTJ’s) Constructing Paul vol. 1 is that kind of work—challenging some assumptions, confirming others, and questioning everything. His conceptual approach to the Pauline letters, the whole canonical testimony to the work of Paul was refreshing, candid, and ruthless. He took the academy out behind the woodshed and exposed many of the “accepted results” of Pauline studies for the shibboleths and prejudices that they are. He demonstrated not only command of the vast secondary literature but also of the Greek Text of Scripture, the LXX of the OT, and the vast corpus of 1st Century Greco-Roman literature. 

    He didn’t so much as defend Pauline authorship of those epistles attributed to him but eviscerated the banal, traditional, and unquestioned tribal commitments that impugn and defame the Canonical Paul. This is not a defense of anything or anyone. It is an offensive campaign against bad scholarship passed off as the commendable and acceptable. 

    He does comparative analysis. He does exegesis. He looks at Pauline habits and scholarly short-cuts and makes it abundantly evident that many scholars fail at the most elementary tasks. This process of responsible, analytic work is essential not only for those who teach in the academy but for those of us who preach and teach every week. 

    I began the process of examining the Pastorals in general and 1 Timothy in particular, with a rather large reading list. That list has been substantially reduced. I find myself underlining and annotating subsequent reading by drawing my attention back to those fundamental procedural moves of LTJ. He dispensed with notions of “The primary letters of Paul” and “Paul’s central theological concern” by exposing them to be false academic idols. He did not do this by posturing or name-calling. He did the work. He compared, contrasted, questioned, and exegeted. Again, he did what we should do for every sermon series. And my understanding not only of Paul has been changed but also my approach to 1 Timothy. I have greatly reduced the amount of time I will spend attending to the scholarly grinding of axes and increased the amount of time I will have to actually consider what Paul wrote. 

    Challenges should lead to change. If you are the same preacher and scholar, you were 25, 10, 5, even 2 years ago you’re doing something wrong. We don’t accept challenges and attempt new things to show off we do so to get better at what we are called to do. It can be refreshing and invigorating to throw off constricting viewpoints that do not contribute to the ultimate end of understanding and explaining the text. I’m not doing anything different, but I am approaching everything with a new understanding. 

    What of those other books? Some will get read but I will not feel guilty about those I miss. I was already through most of my NT Introductory materials when I came to Johnson, but I still have a large number of commentary introductions I need to look at. 

    Change can be scary. Thankfully it has been a rather long time since I have preached from 1 Timothy, so I don’t have to dive into my own recent sermons to see if I misrepresented or misunderstood anything.  I can move forward knowing that the groundwork is being laid for a productive exegetical experience. Then of course, I hope to write sensible, practicable sermons. One thing I won’t have to do is worry about ol’ Paul. He’s right where he’s always been at the very heart of the NT canon.