Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 167:668 (Oct 2010)
Article: Paradoxes In The Pauline Epistles
Author: Larry J. Waters

BSac 167:668 (October-December 2010) p. 423

Paradoxes In The Pauline Epistles

Larry J. Waters

Larry J. Waters is Associate Professor of Bible Exposition, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

Several times the apostle Paul cited paradoxes to communicate profound biblical truths. He wrote about seeing unseen things, conquering by yielding, finding rest under a yoke, being free yet a slave, reigning by serving, being made great by becoming small, being exalted by being humble, becoming wise by being fools for Christ, triumphing through defeat, and living by dying. This article focuses on three of these: the weak and the strong (2 Cor. 12:7-10), human wisdom and the foolishness of the gospel (1 Cor. 1:17-25), and slaves and freedmen (Rom. 6:15-23).1

Paul’s intention was not to present irreconcilable, antithetical positions, but to use a literary device to accentuate theological truths that could best be expressed through paradoxical statements. When two truths, such as a weak person who is weak and a strong person who is strong, are presented as a paradox (“when I am weak then I am strong”), the result is a third truth that overrides the first and second truths. This third truth is a divine truth that is significant for either doctrine or application or both. However, nonbelievers cannot grasp this third truth. “The unbeliever, being blind to spiritual things because his ways are controlled by

BSac 167:668 (October-December 2010) p. 424

Satan (Eph 2:2), looks on a Scriptural paradox in frustrated or derisive bewilderment.”2 Yet for believers Paul’s paradoxes are life–changing principles to be applied by faith.

Definitions

A paradox is “a set of claims which taken in conjunction appears to be logically inconsistent.”3 It is a “seeming contradiction based on the tension between two apparently opposite facts, tenets, or situations.”4 A paradox is “simply a seeming contradiction”5 that is “(1) an assertion which is self–contradictory, or (2) two or more assertions which are mutually contradictory, or (3) an assertion which contradicts some very commonly held position on the matter in question.”6 Therefore “the term paradox refers to an unusual and apparently s...