Hermetic Homiletics

1 May 2005

This Sunday I will be changing the passages. I am going to tie in last weeks Acts passage (7.54–8.3; yes, it is expanded) with this week’s Acts passage (17.22–31).

Something to keep in mind when reading these passages is that the Saul in the first passage is the Paul in the second. Some people read the book of Acts and say that Christ gave Saul the new name of Paul. However, in the ancient world, it was not uncommon for people to have more than one name. Different languages required different designations. This happens today. I know of several people from Taiwan who choose American names for the time that they stay in the states. This does not “change” their names. It simply gives them a culturally appropriate designation. No, Saul’s name was not “changed” to Paul with his conversion experience.

But did the author of Acts play off of that “renaming” of Abraham in Genesis, thus literarily tying Paul into Abraham? That’s possible. There is a sense that Paul becomes the Apostle of Apostles by the end of the book. Maybe that is one of the literary devices used to promote that. I’m not sure I buy it though.

I will use the name to differentiate two “spiritual states of being” in the world that I want to juxtapose. For the sake of the sermon, I will talk about “Saul” as the pre-conversion Paul, and “Paul” as the post-conversion Saul.

I need to be clear here: I am not going to pit Paul’s “Christian” mission verses Saul’s “Jewish” mission. That would be to grossly pervert the texts. I will talk about the texts and their significance for us as Christians. So, what I really want to focus on is how their state of spiritual being manifests itself in their missionary approach.

posted by irreverance @ 1:27 PM