How does Paul envisage community, and what can we learn from that today? These lectures will explore his social ethic of love, reciprocity, and shared benefit by examining key texts in Philemon, Philippians, and 2 Corinthians. The aim is to challenge modern notions of altruism and self-sacrifice, while teasing out Paul’s ethic of love as a stance both for and with the other, in shared participation in grace.
Biography:
Professor John M.G. Barclay is a New Testament scholar and Lightfoot Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Durham University. After doctoral training at Cambridge, the first half of his career was spent at Glasgow University, the second half at Durham, in both cases teaching undergraduate students and supervising doctoral students. His research has focused on the social history of the early Christian movement and Jewish communities in the Mediterranean Diaspora (including a commentary on Josephus’ defense of Judaism). In recent years he has focused most on the theology of Paul. In 2015 he published Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans), followed by a shorter, more accessible version, Paul and the Power of Grace (Eerdmans, 2020). He is now writing on Paul’s theology of community, and the Kistemaker Lectures present part of his current thinking on that topic. He is married with three adult children and tries to practice community in his local context in County Durham.