3 - Sayings of Jesus in Paul's Letters

Summary

Introduction

Although he did not know the historical Jesus, there is no doubt that Paul was acquainted with at least some of the teachings attributed to him. Whether he knew those as oral traditions, or perhaps in the form of a written collection of sayings, we do not know. In either case, they were among those valued traditions of the church to which Paul was a grateful heir.

It is striking, however, how little use the apostle actually makes of Jesus' teachings. For example, he invokes none of the parables which later on were given such prominence in the Synoptic Gospels. Moreover, he has very little to say about the Reign of God, even though that is a fundamental theme in both the sayings and parable traditions. True, not all of Paul's letters have survived, and we have no transcripts of his actual preaching. Yet the sources we do have probably give us an accurate picture. As we shall see (chapter 4), Paul focuses his attention neither on the teachings of Jesus nor on Jesus' Palestinian ministry. His attention is focused, rather, on Jesus the crucified Messiah and the risen Lord.

It is important, nonetheless, to take account of the places and ways in which Paul does make use of the sayings tradition. As it happens, there are only three certain points in his letters – 1 Cor 7:10, 9:14, and 11:23–25 – where “the Lord” (meaning Jesus) is specifically identified as the source of words which are also attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.