Pauline Eschatology ...........................................................................

Lecture 3

Paul is a missionary, a founder of churches. He travels around the

Mediterranean world, especially the northeast quadrant of the

Mediterranean from Israel over to Rome, and he founds churches,

he preaches the gospel, and he writes letters to churches that he had

founded before. He wrote most of the letters in the New Testament.

T

he early Christians lived in a kind of expectation that is called
“eschatological.” “Eschatology” means doctrine of the end (Greek
eschaton). New Testament eschatology is about life in the time
between the already and the not yet, between what Christ has already done
(cross and resurrection) and what he is yet to do (parousia and establishing
his kingdom on earth). Eschatology is the fundamental framework of early
Christian theology, as can be seen
in the earliest New Testament
writer, the Apostle Paul. Paul
is the ¿ rst Christian theologian
whose writings we have. He is a
missionary and founder of churches
in the northeastern part of the
Mediterranean. In addition, he is
author of most of the letters in the
New Testament, which were written
earlier than the Gospels. There is
some disagreement among scholars
about whether he wrote all of the
letters ascribed to him by the New
Testament, but all of them can be
taken to illustrate Pauline theology,
in the sense of the theology derived
from Paul.

Pauline eschatology is about life in
Christ between his exaltation and his

St. Paul’s letters—not the Synoptic

Gospels—gave us one of our ¿ rst

glimpses of Christian practices.

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