Friday, September 30, 2022

Colin Bulley (Protestant) on Romans 15:15-16

  

As the commentators generally agree, Paul is applying cultic and priestly language to his ministry here. What is debatable is whether Paul views his ministry as an apostle as priestly in a way different from Christians who are not apostles and, if he does, whether he views that priestly, apostolic ministry as to be transferred by him to those whom he ordains as leaders of the church. A reference to his special calling to preach the gospel to the Gentiles seems likely since he prefaces this passage with ‘because of the grace given me by God…’ and in 1:5 states that through Christ ‘we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, …’ However, if Paul is alluding to his peculiar apostleship to the Gentiles (cf. Ga. 2:7-9), this would probably not be transferable at all. Even if it were, it would fit itinerant evangelists far better than static church leaders.

 

On the other hand, the content of the sacrifice which Paul offers as a priest in preaching the gospel seems to be ‘Gentile Christians who have been sanctified by the gift of the Holy Spirit’ (Cranfield, Romans, 2:757). An alternative interpretation is therefore that he is describing as a priestly ministry the bringing of non-Christians to faith through the preaching of the gospel, and not just his own, peculiar calling to preach to the Gentiles. But the preaching of the gospel to unbelievers, whilst a major part of what the apostles were called to do, was also a part of what a more static church leader such as Timothy was told to do (2 Tim. 4:5) and was not seen as confined to apostles and church leaders. (Colin Bulley, The Priesthood of Some Believers: Developments from the General to the Special Priesthood in the Christian Literature of the First Three Centuries [Studies in Christian History and Thought; Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2000], 23-24)

 

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