Reflection Paper #5 Paul's Letters

Paul is an interesting addition to the New Testament. His letters were to friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ around 45-50B.C. The purpose of his letters were to educate about Jesus and evangelize different types of people living shortly after Christ's death. Chapter 13 in Ehrman attempts to decode Thessalonians 1 so we can better understand Pauline letters. The letter Thessalonians was written to the peope of Thessalonica, smack in the center of Macedonia.

Paul isn't what we would consider a prophet in modern times; standing in the middle of times square handing out bibles. No, he visited Jews where they worshipped in cities. Out of some sort of goods shop, he sold useful things while preaching good deeds and about the gospels. It was difficult to convert others at those times because Greco-Roman religions didnt' mind if one took part in other religions. However, there were some very strict philisophies in Greco-Roman times as well-stoic and cynic, which preached to rid oneself of dependency on material things. So one would place dependency on things that are unchangeable. Cynics took this ideology to an extreme and regected social concepts as well. It could have been easy to convert a stoic to christianity since one's belief in God can remain constant and inchangeable. However, a cynic might be less inclined to follow Christ because of the belief that religion is a human need.

Those that visited Pauls shop could have been pagans or polytheistic. So his message was not what we would consider a "bible thumper"'s message. We have some ideas of what his message could have been-to give up false idols, and that his God was monothestic. Then he threw a curveball-there is another part of God, Jesus' son. It probably wasnt a foreign concept to have two Gods, but to make the two Gods one was probably confusing to most Greco-Romans who knew polytheism to be true. Paul also stressed in his letters the importance of the crucifixion, that God died to rid us of our sins, and therefore we are forgiven. Paul also made sure that his followers knew of the apocalypse. This was a great way to get people to rethink their lives before they were "doomed to eternal damnation".


Pauls letters are sent to groups of people, rather than individuals. Ehrman points out that this means it's likely that groups of people met together in small gatherings or churches. Since there weren't official christian churches yet, they might have met secretly in someone's home. Ehrman says it could have been like other guilds at the time, such as trade organizations. All associations at these times had certain codes/rules they had to abide by. Most associations were a life-insurance like association where they planned to have members of the association buried according to the association. They also did social things together. These associations normally had fees involved. Christian communities activities might have been leading the groups in discussion. Because the groups met illegally, they were very tight knit.

The secret societies were constantly under pressure, being criticized by many and accused of perverted allegations. The christians were questioned about their sexual desires, therefore Paul wrote to the thessalonian Christians to stay pure.

Paul started to worry that Jesus wasn't coming back. The Thessalonians had little to hope for. However, he had the idea of a 3 story universe. God is in the highest story, we are on the earth (2nd) and those who have died are below us (1st story). He promised, like Jesus, that the dead would be raised and would be with God;

Paul was coined as the apostle of the Gentiles. He stuck to those who knew little abut Judaism and taught them a new world of ideas. He gave them hope in a world of turmoil and confusion.