Clever Biblical scholars have been able to work out that the “second” letter to Timothy is actually the first, and was written by me, whereas the “first” one was not. My missionary companion Timothy was at the time in Troas, in the extreme N.W. of Turkey, a springboard to Europe where I had also wanted to spread the Gospel but had been interrupted by the troubles in Corinth [2 Corinthians 2:12].

They have also suggested that given my very lenient house arrest in Rome in the early 60’s I was actually able to go off on my travels again while giving a safeguard about my behaviour, and that I visited Crete, Ephesus and Macedonia. This must remain my heavenly secret for now.

But from the year 64 onwards the skies darkened. Nero began his persecution of Christians in Rome, I said farewell to Peter, and my first defence of my case went against me. So it was time to send my “last will and testament” to Timothy.

I had done all I could, but now I was handing on the baton to others. They were to remember my example of endurance and patience [2 Timothy 3:10-11], and faithfully proclaim the word [2 Timothy 4:2]. I knew that my days were numbered, but I was not ashamed of myself [2 Timothy 4:7-8]. Now it was up to others – and that includes you.

On my last day I was taken to the beautiful springs at Aquae Silviae outside Rome – funny how tyrants often choose idyllic places to murder their victims. You can visit this oasis of tranquillity today, if you can get across the busy road.

I was tied to a pillar, the executioner swung his axe and ……………

I came to my goal, the heavenly realm, from which I send My Blessing and thank you for following me in this my ‘Year’ which now ends,

PAUL

THE END

You probably realise I didn’t actually write my own letters; a scribe did it for me and I signed them. Sometimes given my hot-headed nature he must have raised his eyes to heaven and thought: “Paul’s going to put his foot in it!”

And this was certainly true for my stormy relations with Corinth, where after my second visit when I was gravely insulted [2 Corinthians 2:5-11] I wrote them a letter “with many tears”, determining not to visit them again [2 Corinthians 2:3-4; 7:8-9] – this letter has disappeared; maybe they tore it up or danced over it.

My friend Titus patched things up and I was finally able to write to them again in a happier frame of mind, from Macedonia.
Rather than further bickering and rowing, I focus purely on Christ whose “love overwhelms us” seeing that we were all as good as dead and did not deserve his love.

I say that I am not interested in making earthly judgments – “who was right?” It is true that I wanted the Corinthians to appreciate my ministry, but that was for the sake of the message, not of myself. And if at times I seemed “out of my mind” [2 Corinthians 5:13] that was because I was simply flooded with love for Christ.

I say I “once knew Christ according to the flesh”, meaning not that I had known Jesus during his public ministry (which I obviously hadn’t) but that I had once not looked on him with the eyes of faith, and so had been a persecutor. And so to you all I say: you are not called to know about Christ, so much as to KNOW CHRIST!

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

No reading from me this week, so your Editor has asked me for Corpus Christi to tell you about what I have written on the Eucharist.

Not much, it seems! My thoughts are confined to 1 Corinthians 10 & 11, and are in response to problems in Corinth.
I remind them that they do indeed participate in the body and blood of Christ [1 Corinthians 10: 16-17]. But they cannot at the same time have a place at the table and the cup of demons [1 Corinthians 10: 21]. In other words, they cannot presume that because they come to the Eucharist they will be immune from sin and judgement, or free to sin with impunity.

Then I remind them about how to behave when they come together for the Eucharist. This was celebrated in private houses, and preceded by a meal. Unfortunately some of the house owners were inviting their posh friends to eat privately with them at a separate table, leaving the poor, the slaves, etc. to one side, in a state of embarrassment [1 Corinthians 11: 33-34]. And I remind them that they are not gathering just for a social function, but to “proclaim the Lord’s death” [1 Corinthians 11: 23-26].

Why don’t I say more about the Eucharist elsewhere? Because for the most part it is not an issue; it is taken for granted among believers – and that does not mean I am trying to downgrade it.

But, just as the complaint is sometimes heard in your time that lots of people have received Sacraments but haven’t found Jesus Christ, one of my main concerns was to show my readers what the effects of finding Christ were, thanks to the Holy Spirit. Once they had found Christ, the Sacraments flowed into them quite logically. Otherwise it was a bit like putting the cart before the horse.

You will notice that I quote the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and say that I “received them from the Lord” [1 Corinthians 11:23]. True, I wasn’t at the Last Supper, but what happened to me on the Damascus Road meant that, to all intents and purposes, I had been. And the same applies to you!

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

“Trinity” Sunday. Well, you won’t find that word in my letters, or in the whole Bible. And in the context of talking about God, I don’t even use the word “three”. That is all a later development, but I sowed some of the seeds.

I wrote to the Roman Christians from Corinth in 57. Eight years before, the Emperor Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome because of endless disturbances “provoked by Chrestus”, as the historian Suetonius spells him. So some Roman Jews had become Christians, and the others didn’t like it.

Unlike Galatia, where I had brought the Gospel and others had tried to come in and change my message, Christianity already existed in Rome before my arrival. It was very much Jewish flavoured, and, treading carefully, I wrote to them much more respectfully about Jewish practices and traditions than I did to the Galatians. It was wise to be diplomatic.

By the time I was ready to visit, the Roman community had recovered from the expulsion and was flourishing, being joined by many people whom I knew from my missionary travels [Romans 16:3-15]. So my letter was to announce my arrival and introduce my thought.

From their Jewish background they would know that in the later scriptures God promises to send “the Spirit”, to “pour it out”, to “put it in” [e.g. Ezekiel 37:14; Isaiah 44:3]. But what was the Spirit actually going to do? In my lifetime, the teaching was that the Spirit would enable Jews to keep the Law fully, perfectly.

But I saw it differently. The Spirit was going to give us Christ – in fact, make us Christ! We believers need to receive the “Spirit of God”, the “Spirit of Christ” [Romans 8:9-11]. And then we are Christ. He called his Father “Abba!”, and so can we. He is the Son of God, so we are the sons and daughters of God.

It is true I don’t define things too much – it is a great mystery. But you can see the link: Spirit, Christ, Father. Those are the building bricks for the thought of the early Church.

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

Back to my Second Readings today, and we have a nice list of 15 ways of behaving badly, framed by sex and drink. Typical!

My letter to the Galatians is famously my ‘letting-off-steam’ letter, and I would not seek to deny it. I went to these people, in the district round Ankara in Turkey, twice, the second time hurrying through en route to Europe. At the time I was having a lot of trouble with my eyesight, and they were very kind to me [Galatians 4:15]. I made converts for Christ, some being Jews, the majority Gentiles.

But then it all went sour: some other preachers arrived on my heels and told them I had got it all wrong. The converts, they said, had to accept the Law of Moses, the Jewish Law. These preachers also pointed to the fact that some of the Galatians were living immorally (as per my list), and said that this would not happen if they were following the Jewish Law.
Now I had to admit that many of them were behaving badly – not helped by other teachers who taught them: “Christ has made you free, so do what you like!” – but the last thing they needed was the Jewish Law. I was not suggesting that the Jewish faith actually made people slaves, but I was saying that these people were not Jews, and did not need to become so.
What they needed was to live by the Spirit, as I had already told them. The Spirit would give them freedom, but freedom with responsibility. In fact, if they properly accepted the Spirit, they would not only be Christians, they would be Christ! [Galatians 5:4].

At the end of this letter I famously took the pen from my secretary and signed my name in huge letters – PAUL – not just because of my eyes, but because I, not the others, had given them the true Gospel!

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

Conversion of St Paul

What did this mean? Did I then become a sort of “fulfilled Jew”, adding my belief in Christ on top of my Judaism, like icing on a cake? No! I believe it made me something new; as I say in Colossians 3:11, Christ caused all old distinctions to dissolve: “Christ is all, and is in all”.

I passionately believe that in accepting Christ, we become Christ. We have the Spirit of Christ, we share his sufferings so as to share his glory [Romans 8: 9,17], we have the mind of Christ [1 Corinthians 2:16]. This is more than just a ‘top-up’; it makes us a “new creation” [2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15].

So does this mean that I think Judaism was actually pointless? Not at all! It was all a wonderful and privileged preparation accompanied by rich gifts from God [Romans 9: 4-5]. I often speak of Christ as being the “fulfilment of the Scriptures” [1 Corinthians 15:3-4]. And the religious law, the law of Moses, I see as a stepping-stone to the law of the Holy Spirit in Christ; I call it a “tutor”, training people for adulthood, when they leave the tutor behind [Galatians 3:24].

Nor has God now rejected his people – absolutely not! They are being held in trust, as it were, until the time they are able to say “Jesus is Lord” [Romans 10:9].

Of course this was not what everybody wanted to hear, and everywhere I went I was pursued by other so-called teachers who tried to put the Jewish genie back into the Christian bottle. In Galatia, they said that I had been in such a hurry that I had only preached part of the Gospel, and they were now supplying it all – including observing the Jewish law [Galatians 1:6].
It would have caused me much less grief to have said something ‘nicer’, but this is not the truth as I see it. At a given moment, chosen by God, Christ entered the world [Galatians 4:4] and when Christ died and rose again – bang! – the light flooded in [2 Corinthians 3:15-18].

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

There are some inspiring words, so they say, in my letters, about the nature of the Church. The Church is the body and Christ is its head [Colossians 1:18], or, [Ephesians 1:23] the Church is the whole body of Christ now on earth. I did not actually write the letter to the Ephesians, though I am happy to endorse it.

My letter to the Colossians speaks of a local church, in the house of one Nymphas, and in Laodicea [Colossians 4: 15,16] whereas the letter to the Ephesians speaks only of “the Church” as a whole. I say [Romans 5: 6,8] that Christ died for the weak and for sinners; but Ephesians 5:25, which develops my thought, says that Christ died “for the Church”.

Do you see where we are heading? In my lifetime, “the Church” was something which meant little outside a particular locality. I founded “churches” and set them on their feet, but the leadership was not at all fixed.

The leaders of these churches are called by me, among other things, episkopoi, which means “overseers”, and, to be honest, I am not too precise. But in 1 Corinthians 12:28 I speak of appointing “governors”, in Romans 12:8 “exhorters” or “encouragers”. Some of your experts have worked out that “overseers” often referred to financial matters – like the chairman of your Finance Committee, “Bishop” Richard Pilley?

It has come to my attention that some Christians of your time do not like the word “overseer” being translated as “bishop”. They see “bishops” as a word carrying too much baggage, to say nothing of mitres and croziers. Well, such was not my intention. We lived in a simple age; we had no church buildings, no “Bishop’s House” and if I was insulted in the streets of Rome it was no good my complaining to the Vatican, for it was not there!

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

Continuing from last week’s blog…

I am passionate about the Holy Spirit because I am passionate about Jesus Christ [my Letter to the Romans, chapter 8].

My most deeply-held belief is that the Holy Spirit continues in us the work which Christ once performed on earth. So, if we follow the promptings of the Spirit, we are “set free from sin and death”, because that is what Christ did. The Holy Spirit raised Christ from death, breathing life into him in the tomb, and likewise it gives us a moral rebirth, a new identity – now!

I believe that all creation is longing for the Spirit – not just human creation, but all creation. This is because Christ’s Resurrection has caused a new creation to come about, and the nature of everything is to want to share in it.

The Holy Spirit guides us especially through our conscience [Romans 9:1]; this is God’s call to us ‘from a distance’, which came to me on the road to Damascus. And if we follow our conscience, the results are obvious, as I told the Galatians [5: 17, 19-22] when I list the fruits of the Spirit which are opposed to the fruits of selfishness.

The Holy Spirit enables us to distinguish between the “Spirit of God” and the “spirit of the world” [1 Corinthians 2:12]. We call this the ‘discernment of spirits’ and centuries after my time, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in that Spain which I always longed to visit, was to make it a pivot of his teaching – challenging us to discern: what is our deepest intention behind any decision?

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

You will obviously realise that as I went on my way teaching the truths of Christ, I could not benefit from the decrees of the Council of Nicaea (325AD), etcetera, about the nature of the Holy Trinity. I would like to think, however, that I might have contribute to these, albeit unwittingly. Nor did I have at my fingertips the allusions to the threefold life of God which you find in St. John’s Gospel, and which was written at least 20 years after I was beheaded!

The Spirit of God is referred to repeatedly in the “Scriptures”, such as they existed in my lifetime – and these you would now call the “Old Testament”. Far be it from me to suggest that the Spirit of God could change, or that God sent a new Spirit; that would be impossible. Rather, through the coming of Christ, we received a new awareness of the Holy Spirit, and that is what I present in my letters, as we will examine again next week.

In my First Letter to the Thessalonians [5:23] I speak of the believers’ “whole spirit, soul and body”, and in my First Letter to the Corinthians [15:44] I speak of the “natural body” and the “spiritual body”. For me, the “body” meant something akin to an anatomy lesson: bones, sinews, muscles. And – for me at least – “the soul” meant the pulsating life of the body, like the blood coursing through the arteries and veins.But “the spirit” meant the inbreathed divine force, which makes a human a human, conscious, reflective, dignified – divine! And we only receive that “spirit” as a gift from …. who else but “The Holy Spirit”!

To this I will return next week.

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.

Dear People of St. Boniface,

Some of the Christians in Corinth did not believe in the bodily Resurrection of Jesus. They thought that, like Elijah, he had been lifted up into heaven, from the Cross, or that the giving of the Holy Spirit was what actually constituted “resurrection” for believers, and nothing more was now to be expected.

To counter this, in the 15th. chapter of my first letter to them, written from Ephesus, I say that Christ did indeed rise bodily from the dead, and “was seen” by Peter, the Twelve, James, 500 others, and lastly myself. Some have said: “Ah, Paul does not mention the empty tomb!” but of course for there to be a bodily resurrection, the tomb had to be emptied!
I also say that there will be a future bodily resurrection for all believers, that those who have fallen asleep are not lost. All will happen in due order, in the culminating point we call the “end of the world”.

Inevitably I was asked: “what sort of body can we have, then, since this present one will have decayed?” My answer is that our “self” will be totally changed. We will have a “transformed body”, which has no more resemblance to an earthly body than the seed has to the final plant.

I do insist that I have “seen” the risen Christ but this manner of seeing is not a simple earthly seeing. If Christ “appeared” to 500 at the same time, it was not a mirage, but equally was not the same thing as 500 people watching a sunrise. Unlike my friend Luke, I see the “risen body” more in spiritual, though still real, terms, whereas Luke speaks of a risen Jesus who was “flesh and blood” and consumed food.

My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.