October 13: Contextual Theology

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. (Acts 16:3)

So let me just start off by saying that one of the reasons I really enjoy writing these devotionals/reflections is that it gets me looking at scripture differently. Sifting through the text line after line for small nuggets that might illuminate a conversation on discipleship has helped me to see things I have previously just read over and never noticed. This particular verse just jumped out at me as all kinds of craziness – I swear that somehow I have never read it before… though I’m sure I have several times.

Paul… circumcises????

This is Paul we are talking about… Paul who spends a significant amount of time saying that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised and that circumcision is nothing. Spend some time in Galatians and you will see just how clear he is about his stance on not doing circumcision. You will also see that he promotes another case where such was pointedly not required:

But even Titus, who was with me, was not compelled to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. (Gal 2:3)

Many scholars will tell you that a point is made two verses earlier from where we began in Acts today to note that Timothy is half Jew (through his mother) and half Gentile (through his Greek father) and so he is of Jewish descent but not a Jew because he is uncircumcised. The conjecture on this strange inconsistency from Paul is that he circumcises Timothy to ease tension with Jewish Christians and make Timothy more acceptable to them.

This doesn’t hold water with me at all. (By the way I spent over an hour researching this little inconsistency… I even dragged Tom in on the fun!) Again look to Galatians where Paul not only holds Peter (referred to as Cephas by Paul) to account for hypocrisy but does so in very accusing and public language. His problem with Peter was doing something that was wrong in order (get this), to please the concerns of Jewish Christians.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. (Gal 2:11-12)

Paul has no patience with doing anything for the wrong reasons – and he seems to think placating people and crowds is a wrong reason. Paul’s faith and trust in God and reliance that only the Gospel is important is unyielding in his life. And while I’m quite willing to think that Paul has some serious faults (and perhaps a fair bit of competitive bias against Peter) I just can’t imagine a person this sure of his convictions would waffle in randomness…. something else must be going on, and something important.

And this got me to two things. The first is a potential answer. Scholar Walter Kaiser reminds us that there is a difference between forcing a gentile to adopt Jewish ways and saying she/he needs to be circumcised to be saved, and healing the torn identity of a half-Jew.

Titus (in Galatians) was a Gentile = do not circumcise.
Timothy (in Acts) was a half-Jew living as unaccepted by either tradition of his lineage = circumcise.

To force Titus to be circumsized was to say he and his faith was incomplete without it (which is radically not true for Paul). But to offer the same to Timothy is to offering healing and wholeness to a person who has never full lived his own identity. The circumsicion here is not about Chrsitian faith but Timothy's own particular identity.

This approach to the inconsistency seems like it’s on to something… and what it’s on to makes my day complete! Don’t you just love when God seems to have arranged your day (little known to you) to have the same subject come up over and over again in different guises?

Yesterday’s subject (this is when I was doing all that thinking) the subject was essential tenets; call them fundamentals of faith. What do we name as things everyone has to believe or has to do? And the traditional answer in our reformed/Presbyterian tradition is not to name them. That we just can’t offer unconditional answers to that question. It would be nice… but they just aren’t there.

Jesus doesn’t come close to saying here is what are orthodox beliefs (right beliefs) and you have to believe them or else! The closest you come is probably the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes… and perhaps the one I’m most likely to choose:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength… and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)

Neither of these however makes all our decisions clear. Neither of these are answers, as much as they provoke questions. How do we love? Who is our neighbor? What does all your strength look like in my daily life?

And this is discipleship… living the questions. Paul is certain circumcision is unnecessary for Christian faith – but even he recognizes that context matters. One rule does not rule over all people in all times. And so Paul does something that appears radically inconsistent… and yet for Paul – who has problems with everything – it wasn’t a problem at all. Because in that place and at that time it is what makes senses to the Gospel message Paul carries. And Paul won’t be governed by rules… but by the Gospel that is Jesus Christ and the freedom that faith in Christ offers the world. It offers healing to those whose identity is torn; it offers reconciliation that brings divided groups (Jews and Gentiles, woman and men, poor and rich) together, it tears down dividing walls of hostility.

And how do we do that? …by discipleship that seeks to live in the questions!

Where are you offering healing to the torn?
How do you bring divided groups together?
What walls of hostility have you built in your heart?

Reconciling God,
Give us the power to trust in you enough to forego building walls and setting rules. Help us to live in the here and now – seeing the light of Christ and the good news in our midst and participating in the healing and building up of the body of Christ. Amen.