Letters of Paul to the Early Church: A Contemporary Translation

By Robert H. Mounce

What you are about to read comes from the heart of the Apostle Paul, that great missionary theologian of the first century AD. It is remarkable that our understanding of the Christian faith rests primarily on thirteen letters written by a convert from rabbinic Judaism. No other set of ancient manuscripts has made such a dramatic impact on civilization over the past two millennia. Written to various churches in what we now call Asia Minor, they reveal the unique way in which God allowed the truth of the cross and the open grave to take root in a hostile environment.
Paul wrote in simple Greek and this new and vibrant translation stresses what the apostle intended to communicate rather than the specific words he used to accomplish the goal. Readable and free from ambiguity, it presents the ancient letters in a new and powerful way. You the reader will become, as it were, one of the original recipients, so prepare to listen to the once zealous adherent of Judaism who, by a dramatic encounter with the Christ he was persecuting, became the major figure in the westward expansion of Christianity.

This title was released in 2016 for a short time under the working title Dear Friends, This is Paul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532634130

Robert H. Mounce

Robert H. Mounce is president emeritus of Whitworth College, Spokane, Washington, and a noted New Testament Greek scholar. The author of many articles and books, including a popular commentary on Revelation titled What Are We Waiting For? and the New International Biblical Commentary volume on Matthew, he also helped produce the NIV, NIrV, NLT, ESV, and HCSB translations.

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Letters of Paul to the
 Early Church

A Contemporary Translation

Robert H. Mounce

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Letters of Paul to the Early Church

A Contemporary Translation

Copyright © 2017 Robert H. Mounce. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Previously released in March 2016 under the title Dear Friends, This Is Paul.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-3412-3

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-3414-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3413-0

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Mounce, Robert H.

Title: Letters of Paul to the early church : a contemporary translation / Robert H. Mounce.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-3412-3 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-5326-3414-7 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-3413-0 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible | New Testament | Epistles of Paul | Title

Classification: bs2095 m928 2017 (print) | bs2095 (ebook)

Manufactured in the U.S.A. July 24, 2017

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia

Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Thessalonica

Paul’s Second Letter to the Church in Thessalonica

Paul’s First Letter to the Church in Corinth

Paul’s Second Letter to the Church in Corinth

Paul’s Letter to the Church in Rome

Paul’s Letter to the Church in Philippi

Paul’s Letter to Philemon

Paul’s Letter to the Church in Colossae

Paul’s Letter to the Church in Ephesus

Paul’s Letter to Titus

Paul’s First Letter to Timothy

Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy

This book is dedicated to

Rachel Johnson Mounce,

who consistently exemplifies Jesus’ fundamental teaching

that one finds life by giving it away.

Introduction

No one in the early church played a more influential role in the spread of Christianity than did the apostle Paul. A zealous adherent of Rabbinic Judaism, he was determined to get rid of that heretical group of Christians who went about proclaiming that the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was put to death by the Roman overlords, had in fact risen from the dead. So Saul, as that was his Jewish name, set out for Damascus to take some of these rebels into custody. But he never finished his mission because suddenly he was struck blind by a light from heaven and this same Jesus who had risen from the dead spoke to him personally. That dramatic encounter changed the life of the Jewish zealot who then played the major role in the rapid western expansion of the Christian faith. It was the apostle Paul who wrote a number of letters to the churches scattered throughout what we now call Asia Minor and these letters have come to form the theological structure of Christian theology.

It has been a great joy to have been deeply involved with the apostle’s thinking for the past several years. My desire now is to place in your hands a readable English duplicate of those thirteen ancient Greek letters. As many know, translation philosophy runs all the way from a strict word-for-word approach to a very contemporary style. Both have their advantages. My intention in this work, however, is to communicate the truths that Paul intended rather than the specific words he used to convey them.

You say, But that involves interpretation, and you are exactly right. All translation is interpretation. The critical question is whether the translator has accurately conveyed what the writer intended to communicate. My intention to translate meaning involved a great deal of time in the best evangelical commentaries. I wanted this work to reflect the historic understanding of the text. You will discover that I rarely solve an ambiguity in a way that is not supported by more than one of these resources. Not only have I tried for, as Calvin called it, lucid brevity but wherever possible I have removed ambiguity. Every first year Greek student learns that there is both an objective and a subjective genitive and context is the ultimate arbiter. E.g., Is agape tou theou our love for God (objective genitive) or his love for us (subjective genitive)?

The great linguist Eugene Nida repeatedly emphasized that words bleed their meaning from context. In the vast majority of cases a given word is not limited to a single idea. For example, fast can be used in a number of ways: the runner ran fast, I believe I will fast this weekend, she is fast asleep, he lives a fast life-style, the color in this garment is fast, hold fast, etc. The word itself takes its meaning from context and that is where interpretation comes in. Good translation understands context, is sensitive to the author’s intention, and is committed to allowing context to determine word meaning rather than a preconceived theological point of view.

The apostle wrote the various letters over a period of some 12–15 years while carrying out his goal of taking the message to the Gentile world. They provide an unusually clear portrait of life of an itinerant evangelist in a hostile society. Any change in literary style reflects the condition of the church being addressed as well as the amanuensis used for that particular letter. The order of the letters reflects the probable dates of composition.

So here is my best understanding of what Paul wrote some two thousand years ago in a language different from ours and in a social setting quite distinct. I want the English equivalent to say exactly what Paul’s Greek conveyed to his first century readers. While that goal will never be accomplished perfectly, I trust that this translation moves in that direction.

Robert H. Mounce

Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia

This is Paul the apostle writing to Christian churches throughout Galatia. I was appointed an apostle, not by some committee but by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised him from the dead. It did not require the imprimatur of some human agency. The believers here in Antioch join me in writing.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the evil world in which we live. That is exactly as the Father planned. To him be glory forever and ever! Amen.

I am astonished at what is happening in your assemblies since I left! It’s been such a short time since God called you by the grace of Christ and already you are deserting him, led astray by what claims to be another gospel. Of course, there is no other true gospel, but some of you have twisted what I taught about Christ and that has created all sorts of confusion. May the curse of God fall on anyone (including us or an angel from heaven) who would preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you! I’ll say it again: If anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to the one you received from us, may the curse of God fall on him!

I ask you, if I were trying to win your favor would I write to you like this? If my goal were to please people rather than God I’d no longer be a servant of Christ.

You need to understand that the gospel I preach is supernatural in origin. I didn’t receive it from some person nor was it taught to me. It came by direct revelation from Jesus Christ himself.

I’m sure you’ve heard how I used to live when I was a member of the Jewish faith, how I persecuted those I now realize to be God’s people. I was dead set on destroying that misguided bunch of heretics. It was widely known that I was far more zealous to preserve the traditions of my ancestors than were my fellow Jews. But when God, who had set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, decided to reveal his Son to me so I could take the message to the Gentiles, I didn’t go to some group of people for advice. I didn’t even go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were already apostles. Instead, I went to Arabia. After preaching there I returned to Damascus.

Actually, three years had gone by before I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter. In the two weeks we were together, the only other apostle I met was James, the brother of Christ.

Then I went north to preach in various parts of Syria and Cilicia. As for the Christian assemblies in Judea, they still didn’t know me on a personal basis. All they heard was that the one who used to persecute the followers of Christ was now preaching the faith he had tried so hard to destroy. So they began to praise God because of me.

Chapter 2

Fourteen years later I returned to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along. I went in response to a revelation and met in private with the leaders to explain in detail the message I’d been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement and that my work had not been in vain. Even though Titus was a Greek, they didn’t require that he be circumcised. The issue had come up because some false believers had slipped into the group to spy out the freedom we were enjoying in Christ Jesus. Their intention was to enslave us once again in the chains of legalism. But we didn’t yield to their pressure, not even for a moment, because we were determined to preserve the truth for you.

Those who apparently were leaders in the Jerusalem church had nothing to add to my message. (Whatever role they played makes little difference to me; God doesn’t separate people into categories.) Quite the contrary, when they realized that God had chosen me to take the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had taken it to the circumcised, they gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship. They understood that God, who had prepared Peter to be an apostle to the Jews, had prepared me to be an apostle to the Gentiles. So when James, Peter, and John, acknowledged leaders in the Jerusalem church, recognized God’s gracious act in choosing me, they agreed that we should go to the Gentiles while they would go to the Jews. They only thing they asked was that we remember the needs of the poor, and that was something we are certainly eager to do.

When Peter first went to Antioch he used to eat with the uncircumcised Gentiles believers. But when some men sent by James arrived from Jerusalem, Peter quit eating with the Gentiles for fear of what the circumcision party might say. Then the other Jewish Christians joined him in this hypocrisy. Even Barnabas played the hypocrite.

When I saw that these believers were acting in a way that violated the truth of the gospel, I opposed Peter face to face. What he was doing was clearly wrong. I said to Peter right there before them all, If you who were born a Jew set aside Jewish law and began to live like a Gentile, on what basis are you now trying to force these Gentiles to fulfill a Jewish practice?

"You and I are not ‘Gentile sinners,’ but Jews, people of the law. Even so, we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Christ Jesus, not by obeying the law. We have come to put our faith in Christ Jesus so we might be made right with God by faith in Christ and not by doing every last thing the law requires. No one will be declared righteous by doing what the law requires.

But if while trying to be set right by faith in Christ alone we add a legal requirement, then when we sin, and we will, it could be said that Christ is promoting sin. What blasphemy! If I were to make circumcision a requirement for righteousness, I would be rebuilding a system that was replaced by faith in Christ. In that case, my actions would show that I was wrong.

It was through the law that I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ so it is no longer I who lives but Christ who is living in me. The life I now live here on earth, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not devalue the covenantal grace of God for if righteousness could have been gained by keeping the law, then Christ would have died for no good reason.

Chapter 3

You thick-skulled Galatians! Someone must have cast an evil spell on you. There was a time when you understood the meaning of Christ’s death as if he’d been crucified right before your eyes. Let me ask you this: On what basis did you receive the Holy Spirit? Was it because you were doing what the law required or because you believed the message of Christ? You can’t be so foolish as to think that while the Christian life begins with the Spirit it can be perfected by human effort? So much has happened; has it all been for nothing? God didn’t give you his Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obeyed some laws but because you accepted by faith the message of Christ.

It was the same with Abraham. Scripture says that Abraham believed God and God credited this to his account as righteousness. So the true sons of Abraham are those who, like the patriarch, put their faith in God. Knowing that God would accept Gentiles as righteous on the basis of faith, scripture announced the good news to Abraham, It is through you that I’m going to bless all the nations. So those who put their faith in Christ receive the same blessing as did Abraham, the man of faith.

But those who seek a right standing with God by trying to keep the law are under a curse; for scripture says, Cursed is everyone who does not continue to live up to everything that is written in the Book of the Law. It is clear that no one is made right with God by trying to keep his commands, because scripture teaches, It is only through faith that the righteous person can experience new life. Law is based on a principle totally different from faith; it holds that a person can find life by doing what the law requires. But Christ rescued us from the curse of the law by accepting that curse on our behalf. Again, as scripture says, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Christ Jesus was cursed so that the blessing promised to Abraham might come to the Gentiles and that we who believe might receive by faith the promised Holy Spirit.

Here’s a parallel that may help you understand: When two people come to agreement and sign their names to a legal document, neither one can change it or pretend it doesn’t exist. Now God made a promise to Abraham and his descendant. Scripture doesn’t say descendants, plural, but descendant, singular, and that one descendant is Christ. God doesn’t break his promise, so it would be contrary to his character for the law he gave to Moses to annul the covenant he had made with Abraham 430 years earlier. If a person must keep the law