Pedagogial Pattern in Paul’s Epistles
In 1864, Thomas Dehaney Bernard delivered a series of lectures at Oxford titled The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament. It is, in my opinion, one of the most insightful, timeless, and underappreciated contributions to the field of NT Theology. (That’s why I require my students to read through an updated edition of Bernard’s lectures that I prepared specifically for the course I teach on NT Theology.) Among other things, it’s foundational for understanding just how the NT “works” as a body of literature—from both a literary and a pedagogical standpoint.
Bernard explains the successive pedagogical roles played by each section of the NT. The Gospels are the introduction to the Person and Work of Christ. Acts portrays the church’s proclamation of the Person and Work of Christ. But doctrinal detail and theological enlargement in both the Gospels and Acts is minimal; that’s the primary function of the Epistles: explanation of the Person and Work of Christ. Finally, Revelation depicts the consummation of the Person and Work of Christ. There’s an organic development and pedagogical progression to how the NT is providentially structured.
In his two lectures on the NT Epistles, Bernard comments on the unusual method employed by God for communicating to the church much of its most important teaching and theology: personal letters. When you stop and think about it, that is not a medium we would have expected, and probably not a medium we would have chosen. A treatise, yes. A systematic outline of Christian doctrine to be believed and behavior to be observed, perhaps. But personal letters so tied down by time and place, culture and issue? Imagine the challenges inherent in trying to decipher someone else’s mail (which is exactly what the NT epistles are, originally) when you have access to only one side of the correspondence. That’s what we face in trying to interpret the epistles.
Think for a moment about the way truth was communicated to God’s people in the Old Testament. The OT is a book of covenantal law and obligation. The perennial appeal of Moses and all the prophets is “Thus saith the Lord”—over 400x. The last time you ever read that phrase, however, is in Malachi.
But the NT is different. It, too, is absolute, non-negotiable, obligatory truth. And yet it approaches New Covenant believers in a very different spirit. Paul rarely imposes his teaching or counsel by force of rank. As Bernard explains, Paul’s epistolary strategy
is a method of companionship rather than of dictat[ing]. The writer does not announce a succession of revelations, or arrest the enquiries which he encounters in men’s hearts by the unanswerable formula, “Thus saith the Lord.” He rouses, he animates, he goes along with the working of men’s minds, by showing them the workings of his own. He utters his own convictions, he pours forth his own experience, he appeals to others to “judge what he says,” and commends his words “to their conscience in the sight of God.” He confutes by argument rather than by authority, deduces his conclusions by processes of reasoning, and establishes his points by interpretations and applications of the former Scriptures.
Bernard is underscoring the genius of the Apostle’s pedagogical method. In his epistles Paul does not merely impose, he appeals. He not only commands, he discusses and explains. It is instruction instead of bare declaration, reasoning rather than rank-pulling, not merely governance but guidance. Why? Bernard continues:
Why all this labor in proving what might have been decided by a simple announcement from one entrusted with the word of God? Would not the apostolic declaration that such a statement was error, and that such another was truth, have sufficed for the settlement of [any] particular question? Doubtless! but it would not have sufficed to train men’s minds to that thoughtfulness whereby truth becomes their own, or to educate them to the living use of the Scriptures as the constituted guide of enquiry.
I have to conclude that God chose this method of communicating truth to the church—both in terms of doctrine and practice—because he deemed it a superior method of training his people in this NT era. I am also inclined to conclude that this method is, itself, intended to be a model for how we educate God’s people.
The word “educate” comes from a Latin root meaning to lead, to train. This begins with furnishing a base of factual information, but it goes far beyond that. Educators—whether teachers or parents or pastors—are not merely dispensers of knowledge or enforcers of behavior. The measure of our success is not merely when our students (or children, or congregants) can answer test questions correctly. Our goal is for them to be able to answer correctly the questions that aren’t on the test—to be able to think critically and correctly and scripturally for themselves, so they can get it right in other situations where there is no answer key.
One of the most striking examples of this NT pedagogical method is 1 Corinthians 8–10. We’ll explore that in the next post.
