The NT epistles are authoritative by their substance, purpose, and structure. The character of NT letters is personal, not private. They’re not secret and intended to be shared even if directed to a church or individual. The NT letters are also occasional and not theoretical compositions. That is to say, they are situational and not tractates, treatises, or always discourses of abstract and concrete meaning. The letters address known problems, and they’re written in response to the development needs of the church and individuals. The Bible wasn’t written to us. It was written for us. That is, the content and canon of codices were formed historically for us.
The NT letters are unofficial in style. They are not official as correspondence from governments or agencies in an official capacity to inform or direct affairs. NT letters and the apocalyptic account of John in Revelation are sealed to reveal events and judgments that bear a resemblance to official status in an authoritative capacity. Still, the book of Revelation is personally directed to the churches in Asia-minor. By comparison, the epistles themselves are not otherwise sealed for security purposes as authentication intended for official or formal correspondence. Whether circulated widely or not, the authoritative weight of the letters originated from authors who write from the context of personal authority. As witnesses of Christ and apostolic activity or teaching. For example, Apostle Peter himself referred to Paul’s writings as scripture (2 Pet 3:16).
There is evidence that the book of Acts is written largely as a defense of Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles. Luke authors the book of Acts to “most excellent Theophilus.” As Theophilus was a common Gentile name within the Greek world, the Acts text serves as a narrative historical account of what occurred to a non-Jewish reader. To serve as an explanatory instrument of historical bearing, the message of Acts involved a sovereign plan of necessity concerning Gentile peoples around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian world. Western and Eastern nations populated at the edges of Africa, Europe, and Asia were the intended recipients of the gospel as a message of redemption to the Gentiles.
The book of Acts is not merely a history of the early church. The continuity of the early gospel ministry extends from Jesus in the book of Luke to Peter for the Jews in Acts, then finally to Paul in Acts. As Jesus instructed that the gospel was to go out from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and the rest of the world, the Kingdom imperative reached Gentiles through Paul’s ministry. Peter’s presence in the gospels and Acts faded into redemptive history as the development of the Gentile church from Antioch to Asia-minor permeated the Greco-Roman empire. There is a distinct transition of overlapping significance between the Jews and Gentiles within the book of Acts. Moreover, the manner of development among churches and believers as chronologically traced from canonical correspondence gives further evidence of sovereign advancement of the Kingdom through Paul’s ministry as intended. As it is written, Paul introduces himself as an apostle (Rom 1:1, 1 Cor 1:1). Not an apostle of the original twelve, but an apostle of a distinct mission to the Gentiles (Rom 11:13).
Paul was born a Roman citizen (Acts 22:27), but it is not known how his parents had acquired such a status. While citizenship could have been attained by military involvement or by rendering some service to Rome, it is speculated that perhaps a family tent-making business that supported the Roman military could have earned Paul’s family Roman citizenship. It appears divinely providential that Paul was given birth in such a familial state as having Roman citizenship was considered a privilege among the social elite. It was uncommon for a Jew living in the Diaspora to have Roman citizenship, whether by birth, monetary payment, or other means. As the Diaspora was distributed across the Roman empire, there was likely a practical or logistical matter of concern with attaining such a status. Given the epistolary record to the Philippians, Paul was a “Hebrew born of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5), and among the intellectual elite of Jews, Paul’s status as a Roman is remarkable. As indicated in F.F. Bruce’s Apostle of the Free Spirit, Paul must have been registered as a Roman within 30-days of his birth to initiate valid citizenship status (Bruce, 39). His father would have made a declaration (professio) before a provincial governor (praeses prouinciae) at a public record-office (tabularium publicum) to set in effect his status as a Roman citizen. As certified by witnesses, registration within an album professionum would have authenticated Paul as a child by a pronouncement ciuem Romanum esse professus est. That is, the name of the father or agent as a Roman citizen declared Paul to be a Roman citizen by birth.
While an apostle to the Gentiles, Paul concentrated much of his mission work among synagogues throughout Diaspora within the Greco-Roman world. The synagogue as a “gathering” or “assembly” by definition became a place for people groups within the Diaspora to join together in prayer and study. Specifically, towards the early development of the church in Asia-minor and Palestine, synagogue participants included Hebraists, Hellenists, Proselytes, and God Fearers who were both Jew and Gentile. While it isn’t definitively known where or how synagogues originated in support of prayer and study, it is recognized that there were some meeting places where ritual and liturgical traditions arose to involve prayer, study, fellowship, and worship. Whether in residences or other structures, most scholars have concluded that synagogues originated during or just after the Babylonian exile between about 586BC and late 6th century BC as compared to earlier periods (such as the times of the Egyptian and Assyrian captivity). After Solomon’s temple was destroyed, there was no longer a gathering place to support the functions of prayer and study. In the absence of a centralized area of worship, a distributed model of congregating among synagogues took shape as the glory of the LORD was removed from the Jerusalem temple. From the time of Ezekiel, when he witnessed the departure of God’s glory from the Jerusalem temple, the ancient synagogue increasingly became the prototype ecclesia of the new covenant at a time distant from the second temple period and first-century Christianity. Even before the second temple, the synagogues situated throughout the Diaspora served as centers of fellowship around the life of Judaism. Synagogues from their infancy developed into “Beth Midrash” sites of learning. It was also known in Hebrew as “Beth Knesset,” locations or facilities as translated in Greek by the term “synagogue.” The apostle Paul and his disciples began much of his work to build the kingdom of God on Earth from among synagogues until he branched out to other places where people gathered.
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