Gary Burge
David, one of the things that our people in the church struggle with is the idea that there would be development in Paul and hence in his letters. Because we see the scriptures as static and inspired and they’re frozen. We lose touch with the humanity of the scriptures, I think. And this is a part of that humanity. At the very beginning, you read Galatians, and think, wow, is this the same man that wrote Ephesians. It’s the same man writing, but he’s in a different place in his life, and he’s asking different questions. The church he’s working with in Galatians is a church that is just emerging out of Judaism. It is already having a lot of contact with the Hellenistic world. But still, its platform is a Jewish platform, and they’re already debating every. Everything from circumcision to food laws.
But as the church grew over the next two or three decades, it was increasingly embedded inside of the Hellenistic world, the Greek and Roman world. As the church grew up inside of that world, it had different questions. Paul is wise. He’s a wise pastor, a wise theologian who says, I have to make sure I’m answering the questions being asked in my congregations. I don’t want to be answering the questions they had 30 years ago. In Ephesians and Colossians, I think he’s doing that. It is partly that he has developed, but his ministry has developed. His ministry has changed. The church has developed. So I think that’s a part of the changes we find.
David Capes
Yes. I think on page 37, you talk about how each of us is shaped by the stories and the concepts that we have. As you were talking earlier, about Paul, his own shaping, growing. Talk a little about the stories we hear, about the stories that shape us. I’m wondering these days what’s shaping us? What kind of stories are shaping us, non-scriptural stories?
Gary Burge
When you begin to write something like this, and you know you’re going to be responsible for what goes on the page, you think through what filters are at work in your own life and what things have shaped you. I grew up as a Lutheran. Now I think a wonderful foundation of my life was laid down by Luther in California. That foundation established in my mind an understanding of grace that will never go away. That’s childhood for me, that’s teenage years for me. But also, what came with that is an understanding of grace that was juxtaposed to law. So therefore, as Luther put it, and as I grew up hearing it, it was that the Gospel brings grace. Judaism has law. And therefore the Good News of the Gospel is a resolution of the legalism inside of Judaism. And I think those were the presuppositions,
frankly, that shaped me. Judaism is legalistic. Christianity is grace filled.
Judaism, this was new news to them, that they would be presented with the grace of God in Christ. So as I came to writing this, I had to think through whether Jews understood the grace of God? Were they legalistic? And David, as you know, there has been a sea change in how we understand Judaism today. That sea change had its effect on me so that I could read Galatians, not as a 20-year-old young Lutheran, but as a mature adult who understands more about Judaism today and understands what Paul is trying to say. Both Paul and his Jewish audiences understand the grace of God, and therefore, if grace isn’t the grand solution to all things, then what is the question that Paul is putting before them?
That’s really where I was having to wrestle.
And I think most of the study of Galatians today is actually addressing that very thing. Was Judaism actually taking its own legal framework and turning it into something else, as can happen in a Christian church that should know the grace of God, but creates legalism around it? Or was it really the fact that the Messiah has come and that has upended everything for Paul and for his Jewish world. I’m inclined to the latter position, and to say that Paul’s debate with his Jewish legacy is, Messiah has come. And in light of Messiah’s coming, how do we think about God’s project in the world?
David Capes
That’s a great way of framing it. And learning about these things, about grace and law, and rethinking all those things, becomes an important part of the journey for you, but also for your reader. Because I bet you there are a lot of people that’ll pick your book up and have that as a presupposition already. That this is what the gospel is all about.
Gary Burge
It worked a couple of strange ways for me. I could stereotype Judaism, that’s one thing. I could stereotype all of my really conservative Christian friends who didn’t understand the gospel. But it meant really that I inherited cheap grace. I really didn’t understand what grace meant. You’re having John Barclay with you in Houston soon. Barclay opened my eyes to some very important ideas. I thought grace in the New Testament was simply a free pass. In other words, a ticket wiped clean. God loves me, God forgives me and therefore do what you want on the weekend. That was me as a teenager, and I didn’t understand that there was reciprocity built into grace.
Paul says both that Christ has set you free and that you were saved by grace. He can also talk about an expectation that your own life would evolve and begin to bear fruit of the Spirit. Grace is there not to gift us entirely. Grace is there to change us, transform us. And that’s what Barclay brought to me. I think John Barclay gave me a key that opened Galatians in a brand new way for me. And I hope that readers, when they look at this will say, many of us in the church live with cheap grace. We think the sum of my Christian life is, I’m forgiven, done deal.
David Capes
Yes, Bonhoeffer introduces his book, The Cost of Discipleship with this question: are we living by cheap grace? And it’s grace that costs us nothing.
Gary Burge
That book is so important. Bonhoeffer’s a Lutheran who’s growing up with all of this same sort of worldview. He’s writing about the Sermon on the Mount, and he’s saying, given that you’re saved by grace, what do we do with the expectations in the Sermon on the Mount? We live out that grace so that we live into Christ, and we are changed by Christ. David, you and I are both married. I don’t look at my marriage simply saying, I got the wedding ring. I’m done. I’m going to go about my own business. Marriage should transform us so that the gracious love of my wife then evokes out of my own heart, a transforming love that changes me. There’s reciprocity here between these two. And Galatians became a really fun activity when I began to unlock all that stuff.
David Capes
That’s a very different perspective than many have of grace. It’s interesting to me how Paul talks about being set free, and then, in this almost the same breath, he said, I’m a slave of Christ. Both are true.
Gary Burge
Exactly. If I want to be provocative in class I say to my students, “Paul does not believe in freedom.” It makes them crazy. What are you kidding? That’s the sacrament of American culture, democracy, freedom, capitalism. I want to be free. I say, no, no, no. If you were really set free, sin is so pervasive inside of you that you’re going to default to some really bad stuff along the way of life. So, you’re not free. Just go on your own. Wait, he has freed you from a horrible slave owner, and yet he is King Jesus, and he is going to bring you then into his company, and you obey. It’s the obedience of faith that Paul likes to talk about.
David Capes
“Trust and Obey” is a hymn that we used to sing. There’s another line in a song: “prone to wander Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” We do wander. So, the idea of being set free means we’re going to head in the wrong direction at some point.
Gary Burge
I think what Paul is actually up against, is two frameworks, two mentalities. We can see them in the church. I don’t need to do this from the first century. I can simply see it inside of the Church today. There are those who say, I’m going to raise my children in a wonderfully righteous, sanctified, healthy, holy way by giving them lots of rules. And to a certain extent there should be rules about how you ride your bike at 11 years old. I get all of that. The catch is that that rule making, while good and healthy for us in our immaturity, caps out our growth at some point. But grace making instead forces me to invest in the one who loves me and therefore I want to become a different kind of person. I don’t simply want to obey a list of rules. It’s inside of the church.
I have had students at Wheaton College, again and again saying to me, my childhood was like being on a hamster wheel. I simply had to keep running because it was expected of me, and I never seemed to be able to get anywhere. And I’m so tired. I’m so tired. I would say to them first, let’s get off the hamster wheel, and then let’s make sure we know who your owner is and what He has created you to be. And that framework was just shocking to them. My students, again and again from healthy evangelical churches were exhausted. When I taught Galatians in my classes, it was not uncommon to see my students moved emotionally. I began to realize they had never understood the grace of God before.
David Capes
Wow. Well you were and are a good teacher. You’re going to continue to teach us through your book that we’ve been talking about. It’s entitled “Galatians and Ephesians Through Old Testament Eyes.” It’s a great series. Gary Burge is the author and it’s edited by Andy LePeau and Seth Ehorn.
Gary Burge
But I’d have you first go and read “Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes” that David has written, because that’ll really change your life, and then I’ll just come up in second place!
David Capes
No, no, no, no, let’s arrive at the same time. How about that? That’s the way I want it to be. Gary, we have to get you down here to the Lanier Theological Library sometime.
Gary Burge
I would love to come down.
David Capes
We’d love to have you. It’s a great place. Thanks for being with today here on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Gary Burge
It was a delight. Thanks, David.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
