In "The Letters of Paul," students explore selected letters of Paul. Topics include authorship, audience, secular and religious contexts. The study of Paul’s writing style brings additional meaning to the texts. Students are prepared for teaching and preaching in parish and similar settings
The core of Paul’s life is Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen!
This core is both an encounter/experience and a knowledge which live on well after the historical event in Paul’s and the Church’s life.
For Paul, Christ Crucified/Risen is in …
- a theology that is actually a staurology (derived from the Greek word for cross [stauro/ß]), a theology of the Cross;
- Paul receives his encounter and understanding of it by a particular kind of Revelation, namely, a divinely initiated knowledge (epignosis; Gk = e˙pi÷gnwsiß), which brings its own grace to assist humans in receiving it;
- when this Revelation and Divine Knowledge are grapsed, we are in the process of being saved;
- Paul calls this kind of salvation “mystery” (Gk: musth/rion), a divine secret now revealed, with such clarity, beauty and power that it is, itself, a manifestation of salvation. This “mystery” the foundation of our sacraments.
- Instructor: Stephen F. Miletic