I have really enjoyed studying 2 Corinthians with this commentary. Since I’ve used a number of volumes from the New Testament Library before, the easiest evaluation of this commentary I can give is that it meets and in some cases exceeds the expectations I have of volumes in the New Testament Library series. If you have used and liked other volumes in either the OTL or the NTL, you won’t be disappointed.
There are several things I look for in a commentary, and of course different commentaries serve different purposes. In a scholarly commentary intended for the preacher or teacher I look for solid coverage of critical issues, reasonable accessibility, good theological applications (or at least hooks on which to build them), and comprehensive coverage without going overboard. On all these points this commentary stands up well.
For my personal use I like good coverage of text-critical issues and language issues. As is usual with NTL or OTL volumes, the language and text issues are a little less prominent, being largely covered in short notes following the translation. Considering the purpose of the commentary, this is actually a feature, since overdoing minor textual issues is simply distracting for someone who need to go out and preach to a congregation that will have limited use for that type of information.
Two things stood out in reading the commentary. First, Matera covers the literary integrity of the book in some detail, including discussion of the various arguments for believing that more than one letter has been combined to make the single book we call 2 Corinthians. Matera supports the literary integrity of the book as we have it. He does not treat the other side unfairly, however.
Second, Matera covers rhetorical issues in some detail, which helps the reader see the book as a whole as well as digging into the details. I had never been able to really “feel” 2 Corinthians, even though I’ve studied it and read it many times. It always seemed like a patchwork of topics. That’s OK for a letter, but with Matera’s comments I see more connection and structure and less of a loose collection of topics.
I find it helpful two compare one commentary to another to give a more precise idea of what it’s like. In this case I’m starting to read 2 Corinthians
Of these two, the Abingdon volumes aim at theology students, but are expected to also be useful to pastors and teachers. NTL volumes aim a bit higher on the scholarly scale. The Abingdon volumes do not use footnotes, while the NTL uses them quite extensively. This might give an impression that the text is more dissimilar than it is. While I haven’t completed my read of the Abingdon volume, I find it about the same reading level, provided one skips the footnotes in NTL, which I don’t.
The NTL volume is 314 pages of content, while the Abingdon is only about 138 pages. That in itself is quite a difference, but the Abingdon pages are about 70% of the length of those in the NTL. That, of course, means that the larger volume can cover a great deal more data.
As for writing style and content, Matera, as I have noted, argues for the literary integrity of 2 Corinthians, while Roetzel goes for a five letter hypothesis. I found Matera’s discussion of the various hypotheses on how to divide the book quite helpful; Roetzel sounds dismissive of those, like Matera, who argue that the book is a single letter largely for rhetorical reasons. I realize that Roetzel has less space to work with, but he found the space to go through the various views in some detail.
The Abingdon volume is printed in the order in which Roetzel has reorganized the text. That has the advantage of clarity for those who want to understand just what the fragments from which he thinks 2 Corinthians was constructed would have looked like.
If I might add my own note in response, I find it quite easy to believe a two letter hypothesis, such as 1-9 being one letter with 10-13 added from a second letter. It’s not hard to imagine a scribe copying two letters into one manuscript and assuming everyone would know there were two letters, though it’s hard to understand in that case why all the elements that one would expect from a letter have been removed from this second one.
What I find hard to believe is that five different letters were pasted together out of order. I just don’t understand the motivation and what the redactor, if one should call him that, was trying to accomplish. Any good redactional theory should be able to explain what the redactor was up to.
I found Matera’s explanation, even where it tends to stretch things a bit, such as in explaining Paul’s change of mood from chapter 9 to chapter 10, to be very carefully thought out and well worth considering. I strongly recommend this commentary (5 of 5 stars).
I’ve just completed reading Frank J. Matera’s II Corinthians: A Commentary
There are many cases in which critical theories about authorship strike me as rather well-taken. First and second Isaiah come to mind with a very striking change in style and theme between chapter 35 (36-39 provide an historical interlude) providing at least a substantial basis to consider multiple authorship. The entire book gives evidence of collection, and so one shouldn’t be too shocked to see evidence of a seam here and there.
But in other cases such suggestions seem a bit less well taken, and epistles are one case. Keep in mind that I’ve done much more study of Isaiah than I have of any New Testament epistle, but still it seems to me that the very nature of an epistle should suggest that it is not necessarily going to be a coherent theological presentation as might be expected of a thesis or dissertation.
But some of the arguments seem to depend on a slightly too sanitary an image of what an epistle should be. Second Corinthians reads to me like a letter written by a volatile, emotional, and very intense man. That he goes from a “that’s OK now” view at the end of chapter 7, invites them to participate in a collection, and then switches back to castigating them about certain other faults in chapter 10 seems out of place if Paul wrote a carefully planned, drafted, and edited letter. On the other hand if Paul was responding to the situation with mixed emotions–you’re getting it! some of it! not all of it! let me tell you what else you need to do!–then the letter actually seems fairly coherent.
Matera deals with the literary integrity of 2 Corinthians on pp. 24-32 and then again briefly on pp. 214-215. I think he makes some excellent arguments. He doesn’t appeal to anything like the idea I’m presenting here. He relates this to Paul’s rhetorical goals. I’m afraid I think that the letter might have been structured better rhetorically (from a certain point of view) if drafted by a committee of bishops, but Paul was hardly to be compared to a committee of bishops!
I recall the recent pastoral letter from the United Methodist bishops on care for God’s creation, titled God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action. I think that letter should be strongly contrasted to 2 Corinthians. While I disagree with very little in the bishops’ letter, though in some cases I think they are not doing well in terms of priorities, I nonetheless find the letter boring and unchallenging. I have heard several of those bishops preach and without exception they produce a better sermon on their own.
What I’m getting at here is that it seems to me that some critics expect Paul to produce something akin to the bishops’ letter. Paul was not too likely to do such a thing, so instead we have 2 Corinthians.
I was reminded of this by two events during the last week. First, the arrival of copies of my new book with co-author Rev. Geoffrey Lentz. One of the things we emphasize in that book is hearing what the text is actually saying before trying to explain it. This is a difficult task, probably impossible to get completely correct, but often discussions of Bible texts are carried on with very little reference to the actual texts. Someone reads it, and then discussion goes on without anyone looking back at the text and asking, “But does it actually say that?”
The second was my Sunday School class. Now please don’t get me wrong here. My current Sunday School class is one of the best I’ve been in, but at the same time, we often attempt to discuss questions that are quite broad. The topic this past Sunday was how a God of love could slaughter millions of people. (Pesky detail: was it actually millions?) I was asked to comment on a number of issues in the Hebrew scriptures, and we were perhaps half way through when someone pointed out to me that I wasn’t answering the question.
Indeed I was not answering the question. I was laying groundwork. But a deadline of 45 minutes worth of discussion time can make one impatient with laying groundwork and getting down to details. Yet if you don’t do the necessary groundwork your answer may have very little to do with the text.
Of course, simply discovering what the text actually says and does not say is just a starting point. Seeing that text in its proper contexts is also important. But even that doesn’t get us where most of us want to go. We want some sort of relevant application. And that takes even more time.
When I teach classes on Bible study I usually start by asking if anyone is looking for a five minute a day study method, and suggesting they’ve come to the wrong class. I firmly believe people without seminary training can and should study the Bible. But there is no shortcut to actually learning and living scripture. It’s hard work.
One of the protections against superficial Bible study is sharing, entering into dialogue about the text as you understand it. Now if you just share with other people who think as you do, or others who are not experts, you can end up pooling your ignorance. Part of this dialogue must be with the experts using commentaries, Bible handbooks, Bible dictionaries, and the notes in quality study Bibles. If you have locally available experts, take advantage of their teaching.
This doesn’t mean you have to slavishly accept what the experts say. But if you read their views, always asking why they have come to the conclusions they have presented, you will find places where your study may have fallen short. You will hear ideas that didn’t occur to you. Listening to experts does not mean giving up your own judgment. It does mean letting your judgment be tested against worthy dialogue partners.
Finally, while it may be painful for some, treating all ideas as equal won’t build understanding. You need to examine not only what people believe but why, using their “why” to challenge your “why.”
… at my Jevlir Caravansary blog. I’m obviously delighted with myself, thus the link!
That’s what Allan Bevere suggests as the ordination process, based on his experience in Cuba.
I find the idea attractive, at least for certain types of ministry. There might be other ways to test various gifts. It does relate to a problem I’ve noted amongst United Methodist ministers, many of whom come out of seminary with a decent theological education, but much less practical knowledge than they need.
Note that I’m not a pastor, so I hardly can speak here as an expert from that perspective. But from the perspective of a theologically educated person in the pews, I think I have some basis for comment. Unfortunately, I think that my main comment goes back to my post from Monday. The first thing we need to do is rethink the pastor’s job description. Right now what we expect of pastors is insane.
Some of you may justifiably ask just what some guy moving on through middle age is doing writing a review of a book whose title starts For Girls Only! And that was indeed my reaction when I first saw the book in an e-mail from Tyndale House. Indeed, I had just about deleted the e-mail before I thought, “You know, this particular middle aged guy has two granddaughters, and it’s just possible this might be interesting to them.
So there are contributions from at least three girls to this review: My wife Jody, my daughter Janet, and my eldest granddaughter Anna.
Two things my wife mentioned after only a few minutes working with the book. It’s a small, ordinary looking book. If you expected a large, glossy, children’s book, then you’ll be disappointed. Second, it was not quite suited to Anna’s age, and in fact she is about a year younger than the lowest age, eight, indicated on the cover. I thought it might be useful to her, however.
And it turned out to be. While Janet had to select some of the readings she used, there were many that were applicable. She sent me this note about the book:
I have found that For Girls Only! Devotions is a really great book if you just want a few moments with your daughter everyday to spend together discussing topics that she may or may not be facing. This book gives a great platform to open talks with her about other things. It’s great for getting the two of you to just sit and talk! Keeping the lines of communication open during this age is crucial!
One thing I don’t like about the book is that there us no way of knowing the subject matter of each devotion before reading the whole thing. If you would like to find one that maybe your child is going through at the moment, you would not be able to find it without reading each one.
I liked the idea of have short devotionals complete with exercises that a parent can do with a child. Janet also mentioned to me that many of the devotionals deal with issues one might encounter at school, so those devotionals were less relevant to Anna, who is being homeschooled. At the same time, however, I believe this would be a feature for parents whose children are in public school.
(I received a free copy of this book as part of the Tyndale Bloggers Network for which I want to thank them.)
Ex-UMC, now megachurch pastor Craig Groeschel offers six suggestions for the United Methodist Church, packaged in six brief blog posts. I think that there is much worth considering in his suggestions, though I don’t think they are generally all that new.
There’s something that bothers me in the whole discussion, however. In practically every debate about reviving the Methodist church with which I’m acquainted, it seems that we assume that we know what the church should be, what “success” would look like, and then we discuss from there. There are two problems with this approach. First, we may be wrong about what success would look like. Second, we may be discussing without agreeing on the success we seek.
It is assumed that the pastor of a megachurch obviously has something of value to tell the rest of us because he is so obviously successful. Now I have nothing whatsoever negative to say about Pastor Groeschel’s church. That’s not my point. My point, rather, is to question whether we can identify what needs to change without understanding precisely what we are trying to accomplish.
On this, I think that Groeschel’s 6th point is actually one we should discuss first, because the message we offer is, I believe, somewhat more important than the structures through which we offer it. But I will nonetheless address that issue last as well, since that is the order in which the suggestions were presented. As I write I will try to lay out the basis on which my own critique is made, wrapping up with the 6th point.
Groeschel’s first point is well-taken. Why is it well-taken? Because an emphasis on branding one’s denomination is much less important than the power of the gospel in one’s churches. We would hardly need to explain on Television just how welcoming we are if we were, in fact, welcoming people all over the place. United Methodist Churches are ubiquitous. Our problem is not a lack of name recognition. Our problem is more based on what happens after people come into church. No matter what you advertise on TV, if the witness of your church interior is negative, the campaign will tend to fail. Spending $20,000,000 on the denomination’s image doesn’t seem right to me.
At the same time, I wonder about the millions spent on some of our larger church structures. If I were to look for a New Testament church, a church following Jesus, I think I’d tend to look more in the direction of the home church or even a very small church that doesn’t spend money on a separate building. There are many ways to spend money poorly!
Groeschel’s second point is a critique of the itinerant system. Here I think we need to think very carefully about what the real problem is and just how to remedy it. I don’t believe that organizational structures are the main problem in our church’s ministry. That may seem astounding to some people, especially those who have heard me criticize those same structures. But that isn’t the root.
I have seen many different structures that have cases in which they work, and others in which they fail. There are elder-led congregations that have dried up and know nothing but tradition (usually defined as something like a generation) and simply drift along as an ark for the comfortable. I have seen United Methodist congregations where the laity had the kind of leadership one would expect in a congregation led by elders chosen by the Holy Spirit. I have seen other United Methodist congregations that, despite all the rules provided authority to lay leadership, were led by a dictator-pastor.
Churches that choose their own pastor often simply perpetuate the errors already existing in the church and have no means of correcting course. There is limited accountability quite often. It’s very hard to keep such a church from drifting off under the right circumstances.
Having itinerant pastors corrects for this sort of inbreeding, but at the same time introduces its own set of problems. I watched one church go from more than 20 prayer groups meeting during the course of any particular week down to single digits because the pastor changed. Both the outgoing and incoming pastors were men of prayer, but their leadership style was different. One would turn up at multiple prayer groups, some as early as 5 AM, while the other thought prayer groups could function without him. I’m not calling either man wrong, but in the change, the church members didn’t know how to keep things going themselves, and that was a tragedy.
I would also say that in my few years in the United Methodist Church (I first joined a United Methodist congregation in 1994), there have been many cases when it’s hard to believe that the bishop and cabinet had a firm grasp of the needs of all the local congregations. But that must be taken not with a grain of salt, but with a whole saltshaker. How much of a grasp did I have of the needs of those congregations? Which leads back to a congregation choosing a pastor for itself. How effective is the search procedure? How good of a fit results? How many pastors miss their calling because they never heard of the church where they could serve? I have known cases where I thought the bishop was crazy when I heard of an appointment, but the result was good.
I say all of that because I don’t think the process is the most important thing. I believe the most important thing for church organization is our theology of the church and of church leadership. We need pastors and laypeople who understand what servant-leadership is. (While I may disagree with some points of church structure, I heartily recommend The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black, which my company publishes. After all, I’ve just said that those structural differences are less important than the theology of leadership.)
If we have the right view of leadership, no matter how a pastor gets in place, and no matter where he or she is recruited from, that leadership will emphasize equipping the saints for ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12), not taking over the organization.
And while we’re at it, let’s ditch the incredibly stupid concept of the pastor’s job. If we wrote down the real job description, what the congregation actually expects the pastor to accomplish, and then tried to recruit someone to fill that position, only fools would apply. Our expectations set up pastors to fail. One equation that I believe is wrong is that pastor equals preacher. My wife and I were discussing last week two ordained ministers we know who really don’t need to be preaching. They are good at teaching in a small group setting. They have good ideas. They are able to equip. Their problem is that their speaking in a sermon setting is, to put it kindly, soporific.
Other pastors are great preachers but wouldn’t get a job managing a hot dog stand. Yet others are good at visitation, ministering to the sick, counseling, or encouraging. Now you can justly question whether all of these people should be titled as pastors, but I think the main problem is that we expect one man to carry too many gifts. Why should the congregation expect the pastor to preach 48 weeks out of the year, as I recall one congregation’s covenant with their pastor? The jobs can be divided up between the lay people with a few better trained people given specialized jobs equipping the others.
The third point is the ordination process. I’d relate this back to my comments on point #2. If we were preparing pastors for a reasonable job description, then we might be able to prepare them more reasonably.
The problem I have here is that I think many of our existing pastors are under, rather than over prepared in their scriptural understanding. I think some of this results from the quantity of different topics we expect a minister to cover in seminary so as to be preacher, teacher, counselor, business manager, conciliator, prayer warrior, comforter, and social mainstay of the community.
In order to solve this, however, I think we need to change the superficial level of study at the local church level. More and more in the world at large, education is coming to where people are as we realize that there is so much to learn and one can’t always dedicate years and years just to learning it. The seminary will need to break free of its walls and start to do more education of people in the churches. It is my personal belief that a young person should be able to prepare for ministry almost entirely in the local church, though I would strongly recommend that part of that preparation happen at churches other than his or her home church, and would suggest some time spend in an academic environment, though much less than we do now.
Again we have to ask ourselves just what the purpose of a pastor is. I would suggest that the primary role of the pastor is to equip the saints for the work of serving, and that this service, as a whole, provides the witness of the church congregation in the community.
Point 4 is about apportionments, a favorite United Methodist target. Can one discuss reforming the church without taking on apportionments? I have even said before that if I ever left the United Methodist Church, you can be certain that the way apportionments are spent would be part of the reason.
Yet here I think we need to refer back to the first point. The main issue is not a sort of profit-loss statement for larger churches. Why become larger when you’re going to be hit with higher apportionments? Is that not appropriate? Is that not, in fact, a mission? I know that there are many smaller churches that are smaller because they are stuck in the mud and doing nothing, and that doesn’t seem like a mission field, but that is only one small part of what the apportionments do. Further, many of these small churches are sparks of light in their communities around the nations. In my view, they often show us precisely what a successful United Methodist Church should look like.
I would suggest that rather than the idea of apportionments as such (and the system could stand reform, I suspect), the real problem is what happens to the money. Is it being used for missions or to promote structures? That, to me, is the real question, and it goes back to my most basic question: What does success look like?
Part 5 I actually like pretty much as is. I think the multi-site church is a good compromise between destroying the small community church and the staffing and expense problems of totally separate congregations. Certain facilities and certain staff positions could be shared, and many activities could be coordinated. Of course, much of this could be done if local churches in a region simply decided to talk to one another and work together. Nonetheless, officially encouraging such activity or creating some sort of structure to make it easier to organize would be helpful. Then more money could be spent on the work of the gospel.
Finally, we get to a key point, Groeschel’s #6. I must make a personal note here. If the United Methodist Church split as Groeschel suggests, I wouldn’t like either portion. That makes it hard for me to comment on the split without personal bias.
At the same time, I think this point goes to the core of the problem. What is it that we are proclaiming in our churches? Whether or not we are preaching a genuine gospel message is, I believe, much more important than any number of structural changes we might make. By “proclaiming a genuine gospel message” I do not mean to separate the explicitly spoken message from the activities that go with it. Proclaiming good news to the poor and outcasts is important.
In the United Methodist Church as a whole I don’t think we know where we are going with the message. We try to be all things to all people, and end up being not much to not many. I suspect that both liberals and evangelicals in the denomination would have a solution–their set of beliefs and emphases. But the problem I see on both sides is the tendency to go from defining nothing, the effect of our current conflicts, to defining everything.
I do not distinguish here between what evangelicals desire to do and what liberals prefer. I don’t have statistics on how welcoming each group is of the other, but I do know of enough cases of both evangelicals made unwelcome by liberals and liberals made unwelcome by evangelicals that I know I would find either group’s exclusive possession of the lines of authority unacceptable.
An organization needs to have some sense of distinctives in order to function as an organization. In this case, I would hope that those distinctives would be the defining elements of the gospel, both in doctrine and in practice. Note that I am not discussing who will be saved or lost, but rather who will be part of a particular organization.
I think we have gone to the point in the United Methodist Church where we no longer have enough essentials to be coherent. While we think this makes us open and accepting, it actually makes us incoherent, confused, and confusing. There are, perhaps, some folks who should belong to a different organization.
I discussed this previously in my post Unity, Diversity, and Confusion. Let me reproduce the illustration I used in that post:
Click the image for a larger view
I think Pastor Groeschel has pointed us in some important directions, but unless we can clarify our message and what makes us a church, a congregation of saints following Jesus, I don’t think the structural changes will help. It’s a cliche, but rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind. What we need to do is identify and plug the whole. Unlike the Titanic, I believe we still have the opportunity to do so.
What would it look like? It would look like disciples of Jesus joining together to accomplish his mission. I have a long way to go in describing that, but I think it would involve less money spent on ourselves and more on others. It would involve fewer facilities and more people going out. It would involve more people equipped for and involved in ministry and fewer stars.
(HT: John Meunier)
I’m going to be hosting the next Christian Carnival at The Jevlir Caravansary, my fiction and poetry blog.
The carnival is posted each Wednesday, and submissions are due by midnight Tuesday, though they are welcomed earlier. You can submit your entry using the submission form at blogcarnival.com.
Check out the requirements for inclusion, and then submit your best work from the week.
