Book Review: "Reframing Paul" by Mark Strom

Summary

In his book Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace and Community, Mark Strom challenges the traditional interpretive lens of Pauline theology and seeks to “reframe” it in terms of the Greco-Roman ideological, social, and political context in which Paul lived. According to Strom, the end goal of such an endeavor is to “…understand how contemporary ideas and conventions shaped the ways the message of Jesus Christ influenced Paul and his friends… [to] find a vantage point for fresh conversation about its [the gospel] significance to us.”[1] The desired result of such “reframing” is a new understanding of our Christian community. Strom says, “in reframing our conversation with Paul we may reframe what it means to live with one-another in graceful conversation.”[2] The idea behind this is that as we “reframe” Paul’s life and thought in terms of the Greco-Roman world he lived in, we will be able to submit our own evangelical conventions and systems to examination and in turn reframe our church and theology in conformity to Paul’s standards of grace and community.

In attempting to “reframe” our understanding of Paul, Strom utilizes what has been termed the “conversation” or the engagement of philosophical tradition which determines one’s life, values, and worldview to likewise engage contemporary life issues and experiences. Strom accomplishes this in five separate conversations (the five sections of the book) that together comprise the greater conversational flow.

In part one Strom “contextualizes Paul’s mission effort in the Greco Roman world” as he “deftly sketches the leading social realities of Greco-Roman life.”[3] More specifically, Strom briefly outlines the contemporary philosophical movements that were indoctrinating the general populace. He then demonstrates the difference between “primary reality” and “everyday reality” and explores their interaction and overlap, which culminates in his discussion of rank, status, and convention as a resultant of shame and honor as important social values.

Part two deliberates on Paul’s central focus as the person of Jesus Christ. Understanding Christ as such, he then takes the “Story of Jesus Christ” and uses it to interpret the social, historical, and personal “frames” that Paul uses so often in his writings, developing the influence (“perspectives” as termed by Strom) that Paul’s cultural heritage and sequential personal encounter with the person of Christ had on the practical outworking of Paul’s faith.

The third section of the book finds Strom developing Paul’s thought in terms of philosophy, theology, religion, and morality. In this section Strom identifies and approaches some of the main issues that Paul seeks to conquer and surveys them within their socio-cultural context (i.e. the “status game”). He concludes this section with what is perhaps his harshest critique of evangelical leadership and sets the stage for the more pragmatic final two sections of the book.

Part four begins to clarify Strom’s perspective on Pauline theology and how it can be related to life. Here he underscores two main ideas. The first is the intense relational orientation of Paul’s mission, and second is the idea of honor in shame.[4] These two ideas shape the way Strom “frames” his new “conversations” and the way he thinks “church” should be done.

The final section of the book further observes our evangelical system of thought under the lens of this “reframed” perspective of Strom’s. Then working from this critique, Strom tells a moving portion of his own story, focusing on these themes of grace, community, and redemption and shares how these experiences yielded the conversations that changed his life.

Critique

While certainly being an excellent and insightful piece of scholarship, Reframing Paul And while this may be an accurate observation it is not to say that either position is unwarranted. Instead, I point out two opposing extremes to show that perhaps each is lacking a part of what the other possesses.[5] In this case it seems that Strom, while giving an excellent understanding of Paul’s Greco-Roman context, has glossed over his Jewish cultural and religious context. It should be mentioned that Strom states Paul’s indebtedness to his Jewish religious background, however what Strom fails to do is provide the clear and concise proof of such an influence and the following significant implications. seems to stand in direct contradiction to other recent Pauline scholarship conducted in the New Perspective movement.

Stemming from this, Larry Helyer says, “his [Strom’s] claim that Paul's ekklēsiai were essentially non-religious associations, like Greco-Roman ekklēsiai, strikes me as odd. Surely the influence of the synagogue has not been adequately accounted for.”[6] And this is a significant issue to be raised, because while the majority of Paul’s ministry may have been to a gentile audience, we know that Paul conducted a portion of his ministry in the Jewish synagogues. As a result of this information, we can infer that some of the early believers were probably Jews and that even some of the gentile believers would have had a knowledge of the Jewish religious meetings.[7]

That aside, I thought that Strom’s idea of how a “church” meeting should be done was too vague. Perhaps his intention was to be vague so that his principles could be adapted to a variety of situations; however, while he is very critical of church polity he provides no consideration for how church should be conducted as a “house” church outgrows the house where it is meeting. Eventually it seems as though there may be no house which is large enough to host the entire believing body. And perhaps more importantly becomes the issue of how to maintain some means of order in these meetings as they grow bigger and bigger. Because while it is easy for a small group of five to equally share the leadership responsibilities, that task becomes much harder if the group grows to twenty-five or one hundred, especially then considering the potential for a disparity in the maturity level of the believers. These objections in no way discredit Strom’s argument; instead it leaves us to evaluate what are other parts of the frame that Strom could have missed that might be important to consider.

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[1] p.g. 9-10

[2] p.g. 19

[3] Helyer, Larry R. "Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace & Community". Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Dec 2002. FindArticles.com. 03 Nov. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3817/is_200212/ai_n9153779

[4] With the idea of relational orientation standing in contrast to the independent sage of the Greco-Roman traditions and the idea of honor in shame also opposing what was culturally important.

[5] In this case I believe that both perspectives of Paul reflect an attempt at the same thing (understanding Paul contextually) while coming at the problem from differing angles.

[6] Heyler “Reframing Paul”

[7] See Acts 17:17; 18:4; 18:8; 18:19; 19:8.