Fee Gordon D - Jesus the lord according to paul the apostle: a concise introduction

T he idea for this book was born on a sun-dappled day as my father and I sat together on our deck on Galiano Island, British Columbia, reviewing pages for his soon-to-be-published Pauline Christology . The dry day held a gentle breeze. Water lapped on the rocks below us. There were sounds of a boats sail snapping as it passed, the snort of a seal fishing below the deck, and the occasional whoops and laughter of kids jumping from the nearby tree swing. And in the midst of it all, warmth and enthusiasm radiated from my father as we read the page proofs together. They beautifully and rigorously described Pauls understanding of and relation to the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Lord and Christ. As we worked that afternoon, I realized again how deeply and similarly Paul and my father loved Jesus. And once more, as had happened so many times when reading through the lens of Paul alongside my father, something moved from knowledge to understanding, from understanding to wisdom, from knowing about to relational knowing. Paul and my father had again drawn me into deeper knowledge of and more profound love for Jesus.

That summer day I secretly hoped that the summary chapters we were reading from Pauline Christology would one day be accessible to the wider church and that it would offer as much life and joy as my fathers other smaller summary book on Pauls understanding of and relation to the Holy Spirit, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God . And here it is! This book is another gift to thoughtful believers who want to know Jesus and his whole life in relation to their own human lives, meaningfully renewed in his image. Moreover, this is most likely the last book that my father will publish in his long career. This realization, coupled with the deeply transformative impact this material has had on my own life and work and that of my students, has led me to write this personal foreword gratefully and unapologetically.

In the larger Pauline Christology , and now in these pages, we meet the very same, still incarnate Lord who encountered Saul of Tarsus two thousand years ago while Saul was transporting deadly warrants for Damascene Christians. When that brilliant Jewish scholar, Pharisee, and zealot met the Lord, Yahweh himself, in the resurrected flesh of Jesus, accompanied by the blinding, healing power of the Holy Spirit, everything he understood in relation to God and the world was upended and reoriented, undeniably and forever. Gods embodied grace, love, and righteousness were made radically self-evident in the revelation of his Son, and this cruciform love transformed Saul of Tarsus into Paul, apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Gods grace in Christ, which had reordered the worlds telos , or goal, now reordered Pauls world, transforming his identity and calling to a new, predominantly gentile people for Gods name. His devotion to Yahweh and his recognition of Gods purposes from first creation through new creation took on a trinitarian castto the one Holy Spirit, the one Lord Jesus, and the one God and Father of all.

Over the years, Paul became a dear friend of my dad, who had also experienced the love and grace of our risen Lord and a subsequent call to bear witness to him. My father first introduced me to his friend Paul when I was young. As an early teen I found Paul rough, unpredictable in tone, and sometimes a little arrogantfor example, when he appealed to the Thessalonian church to imitate him. One evening while in junior high, I confessed to my father that I wasnt sure I liked Paul. That night he sat with me in his basement study and asked me what I heard in Pauls words and what images and feelings they brought up in me. He also shared with me a bit of Pauls perspective. He told me backstories about these churches and Paul and the relationships between them. As we talked, I realized that my ambivalence revealed my small, rather legalistic gospel and its concomitant nagging shame.