Apostle of the Crucified Lord Quotes

“The defeat of sin and evil powers on the cross was being translated into the defeat of sin and evil powers in people’s real lives.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“Especially to be noted is the intense social and even political character of many of the experiences of suffering listed in the catalogs. Paul and his communities were sometimes mocked and harassed, and occasionally worse, because their good news was seen as bad news, as threatening all that was peaceful, secure, and abundant about life in the empire under the benevolent eye of Caesar and the gods. To be a member of, or advocate for, an alter- culture grounded in an alter-cult could be dangerous business.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“Nearly one-third of Acts recounts Paul on trial or in prison, and in five of the thirteen letters he is identified as a prisoner of, or in, Christ (never mentioning Roman authorities!):”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“Accompanying Paul’s preaching, though this aspect is not often stressed, were deeds of power, as both Acts (e.g., 15: 12) and the letters (Rom 15: 14–21; 2 Cor 12: 12; Gal 3: 1–5) attest. Paul can even summarize his Spirit-empowered ministry as one that took place “by word and deed”(Rom 15: 18). This ministry of powerful deeds would certainly have included healings and possibly also exorcisms. Although Paul believed such “signs and wonders and mighty works”(2 Cor 12: 12) were of no significance apart from a ministry of Christlike service (2 Cor 12: 13–17), they were part of the evidence, both for Paul and apparently for his audiences and then his communities, of his apostleship: the presence of God’s power in him and his message. No less miraculous for Paul was the regular departure from pagan worship and ways of living that accompanied the response to his message. This too was the work of the Spirit, who, after all, is the Holy Spirit. Ironically, however, it was the message of the cross that brought about the outpouring of the Spirit through Paul and on his hearers (Gal 3: 1–5). The defeat of sin and evil powers on the cross was being translated into the defeat of sin and evil powers in people’s real lives.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“for Paul the essential mark of apostleship is conformity to Christ crucified through sacrifice, weakness, and suffering”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“APOSTLE AMONG THE GENTILES (NATIONS) As we have seen, Paul’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus led him to the deep conviction that he had been called by God to be an apostle among the nations. Having experienced an appearance of the Lord, and having been commissioned, he, no less than Peter and those who had been with the earthly Jesus, was now the authoritative messenger of God (1 Cor 9: 1; 15: 7–11; Gal 1). Such is the basic meaning of ‘apostle’(Gk. apostolos)—one sent with the message and authority of the sender, and in the sender’s stead—an ‘emissary,’‘agent,’or ‘ambassador.’Paul believed himself to be sent because he himself had been ‘apprehended’(Phil 3: 12) by the Messiah Jesus and thus caught up in a divine mission—a mission not everyone appreciated, to put it mildly. This mission was to spread a gracious, powerful word of good news that would establish an ‘international’(empire-wide) network of transformed, multicultural communities obeying, glorifying, and bearing public witness to the one true God of Israel by conformity to God’s Son in the power of the Spirit.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters

“To be Jewish was, and is, to be different. This is the root meaning of purity or, in biblical language, holiness - to be set apart for God's purposes. To be holy is to be distinctive; the term `holy,' when applied to people, is shorthand for `peculiar by virtue of being obedient to God's commandments.' Holiness is the way of life that marks out the covenant people, the expression of the fact that this people is called, or elected, by God.”
― Michael J. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord: A Theological Introduction to Paul and His Letters