Beeson Podcast, Episode #623 Dr. Oswaldo Padilla Oct. 10, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney. I am here, as usual, with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Today we’re wrapping up a five week series on faculty members who have recently published a book. And are doing so with a faculty member who happens to have a very special relationship with my co-host. Before she tells you all about him, allow me to share a couple of announcements. First, our final Preview Day of the fall semester will take place on Friday, October 21st. For the first time ever we’re offering a Preview Weekend. We’re still calling it Preview Day, but it’s a Preview Weekend for those prospective students who want to stay through the weekend and get to know our city, our churches, and the people of Beeson a little bit better. We have a fun schedule planned for our first Preview Weekend. Learn more and register at www.BeesonDivinity.com/previewday. Second, our conference on The Beauty of God, for pastors, worship leaders, artists, and interested laity is just around the corner, October 24th and 25th. There is still time to buy tickets. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity. Again, learn more at www.BeesonDivinity.com/events. All right, Kristen, who is this mystery man sitting next to you today? >>Kristen Padilla: Thanks, Doug. This mystery man happens to be my husband. We have Dr. Oswaldo Padilla on the show today. He is professor of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity School where he teaches courses on the New Testament, Greek, and Theology. And we have a son, Phillip, together. So, it’s great to have you on the show. >>Dr. Padilla: Thank you. Very glad to be here. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, I wonder if you can tell our listeners what you have been up to recently? You’ve been on the podcast before and been able to share a bit of your story. So, I wonder if you can tell our listeners what you’ve been up to for the last couple of years? And anything that you want to share with them as we get started today? >>Dr. Padilla: Yes. So, the main thing that I’ve been working on for the last two years is a commentary on the pastoral epistles. Nowadays, being October in the life of a divinity school is a very busy time, I think. Everyone is teaching, grading, taking papers, and so on. And one of the things that I’m doing just now, which is very exciting, is teaching a class in a series of events that we call Lay Academy at Beeson Divinity School. We offer it every year. And it’s open to the public. No credits are given. But anybody who is a friend of Beeson or who doesn’t know Beeson can come and take a course with experts on the Old Testament, on Church History, on the New Testament. And I happen to be teaching a class on the Gospel of John. So, right now I’m very busy studying John chapter one. I’m getting prepared for that Lay Academy. The last couple of years or more than that have been focused on a commentary on the pastoral epistles. I was invited by a former colleague, Dr. [Eckerd 00:04:01], who is a professor now at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Out of the blue one day to write about the pastoral epistles. I don’t know why he asked me to do that. Because I had no experience on the pastoral epistles. But he did. And I had been praying for the last three months prior to that, asking the Lord to give me a chance to write a commentary. And then I received that email from Eckerd. And I took that as an answer to that prayer. And so, for the last three, four, five years we’ve been working away on the pastoral epistles. Just returned from a sabbatical that I spent at Emory University and the Candler School of Theology, and excellent theological library. Actually, about two to three months ago I was able to complete the commentary. So, right now it is with the publisher, with Intervarsity Press. The commentary is part of their Tyndale New Testament Commentary Series. It’s a series that is written for pastors and students, folks who want to get serious into the biblical text, but who are not necessarily professors or experts in the field. But they want to learn the Word of God well and they want to teach it, and they want to preach it. So, that is the main thing I’ve been doing for the last few years. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, that sounds like plenty, Dr. Padilla. Thank you for all your hard work. And let’s help our listeners out just a little bit. Some of them are pastors. Some of them are people who know all of this already. But a lot of them need to know from Dr. Padilla more about the pastoral epistles themselves. Can you give us just a brief little primer on the pastoral epistles? What are they? Which books of the New Testament are they? Who wrote them? What’s in them? That kind of thing. >>Dr. Padilla: Yes, I’m glad to help with that. So, the pastoral epistles are named like that not because some archeologists in the 5th or 6th century A.D. found a manuscript that said, “the pastoral epistles.” Rather, the pastoral epistles are three separate letters of our canonical New Testament. First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus. And somewhere around the 18th century, scholars of these letters realized that they were written to individuals who were invested on behalf of Paul in pastoral ministry. And so, they viewed as a unifying theme for these letters, pastoral work. And therefore, they called them the pastoral epistles. And again, they include First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus. Who wrote the pastoral epistles? There is debate today on who wrote these letters. But the text of scripture which we take as the Word of God clearly says that “Paul, Apostle of Jesus Christ, to Timothy,” or “Paul, Apostle of Jesus Christ, to Titus.” And so, we believe that these letters have been written by the Apostle Paul to his co-workers. One of his many co-workers. And once again, they are grouped together as three letters, because their raison d'être, their reason for existence, let’s call it that, is to teach this man, Timothy, and Titus, how to shepherd churches. There’s a lot more to that but those are maybe the main reasons – how to shepherd churches. >>Kristen Padilla: The pastoral epistles, as you have commented to me a few times over the last several years, is a combined 13 chapters, which is the same length as Second Corinthians and almost as long as First Corinthians, for our listeners to have some context. What things have you learned about the pastoral epistles after having written a commentary that you didn’t know before? >>Dr. Padilla: Yeah, a whole lot. So, one of the things I learned, or remembered would be the better word, is something that the famous Scottish New Testament scholar from the 20th century, FS Bruce, who wrote so many commentaries, and he said that the difficult thing about writing a commentary is that you have to comment on every word. (laughs) And so just when you think you’re done, you find that there is another word and yet another word. So, it’s hard work. But it's joyful work because you are studying the Word of God. Among many things that I learned from the pastoral epistles; I think that something that stuck with me was Paul’s conception as far as these letters are concerned. Paul’s conception of how you shepherd, how you’re a pastor, what does it mean to be a pastor? So, there’s a lot on the pastoral epistles on salvation, eschatology, the nature of scripture … But the thing that I came away with was this concept of what does it mean to be a shepherd? What does it mean to be a pastor? >>Doug Sweeney: A lot of our listeners probably think of the term’s “pastor” and “preacher” as synonyms. And of course, there’s nothing that’s more important that pastors do than preach, but it’s not the only thing pastors do. So, Dr. Padilla, as you’ve worked on this commentary on the pastorals, have you learned anything about what the Apostle Paul thought of the relationship between preaching itself and the rest of pastoral ministry? Maybe particularly the shepherding parts of pastoral ministry? >>Dr. Padilla: Yes, you read my mind! (laughs) Because that is actually one of the things that has struck me the most. And that is that while we would agree that preaching the Word of God is one of the main ways that we shepherd the people of God, I’ve come to appreciate that pastoring goes beyond simply preaching. So, as a preacher, we minister to our people the sacraments, the sacraments of the table, the bread, and the wine. And the sacrament of the written Word of God. And so those things are very important for us. But preaching usually, in many churches, comes at the end of the service. And many times, for those of you who have looked carefully at the way that churches are built, many churches have the pulpit at the center. And that is because for them the preaching of the Word of God is central. So, whatever tradition you come from, we would agree that preaching the bible is central to shepherding. But one of the things that struck me as I studied these letters is that when Paul speaks of the offices of the church, and there are two offices, as I understand them, that are mentioned in the pastoral epistles. And those are the offices of overseer or bishop, bishop is an older word, so I’m going to use the word “overseer,” and deacon, or as I also believe, female deacons. We tend in the present, especially with the office of overseer, to translate that to the pastor today. So, what the overseer did in the pastoral epistles is in many ways what the “pastor” does in many churches today. And one of the things that struck me there was that while the pastor, while the overseer, is to be an apt teacher, to quote First Timothy, he has to be a good speaker and be able to defend sound doctrine and preach the Word, actually there are many other virtues that are highlighted for him as an overseer. So, yes, preaching is central to be a pastor. But I do not believe that you have to be an extremely gifted orator in order to be a pastor in the church. And this is something that is dear to my heart, because we are training pastors here at Beeson. And in social media and on television and so on we tend to put on a pedestal those few pastors, because there are not many, who have the capacity to preach in very powerful ways. And so, these pastors that we’re training at Beeson tend to think, or may get the impression at times that if they’re going to be effective pastors, they also have to preach the bible like that. One of the things I’m trying to encourage them, as we talk about the pastorals, is that, yes, be faithful to the scriptures, do hard work as you study it, teach it in the most elegant and best way possible, but remember that that is not what makes a pastor. A pastor is a shepherd. In fact, the word “pastor” comes from the Latin, which means a shepherd. So, when I read the pastoral epistles, especially the virtues or the qualities that the overseer needs to have in First Timothy 3, there are things like husband of one wife, not given to alcohol, managing their household well. And many other passages across the pastoral epistles. So, as you read the pastoral epistles you get the sense many times that pastors are like chaplains. Their job, of course, including preaching, is to care for the people. And that means visiting them when they are sick. Helping other believers when there is a quarrel in the church. Finding out who may not have the money to make ends meet and buying groceries for that person. Going and visiting someone who is lonely. The work of the pastor is not just preaching. It includes preaching. But it has much more than that. It also includes … and again, the best term that I can use is pastoring, shepherding. I think it’s important to hear that because there’s a lot of burn out. As we read in these [inaudible 00:15:21] documents that we often get, we know that about 45% of pastors that every week thought about quitting. So, think about that. One time, at least, during the week a pastor thought, “Should I keep doing this or should I quit?” I think that one of the reasons for that is that pastors have a lot of pressure. And that pressure, in part, comes from the idea that their sermons have to be oratorical pieces of art. I’m sitting in a room here where I’m looking at some beautiful pieces of art. And I think that many pastors think that every Sunday they have to produce that kind of work. Now, put yourself in their shoes and imagine the pressure of having to do Sunday after Sunday. And then imagine if you are this so-called senior pastor in the church and you’re the only one who does that kind of preaching. Imagine the pressure that you’re going to feel. At some point you’re going to break. And I tend to think that some of the scandals that unfortunately we have, come about because these pastors are burning out. And some of that burn out I think comes from not understanding that they don’t have to be Billy Graham as preachers. They don’t have to be … to mention a colleague of mine here at Beeson Divinity School … Dr. Robert Smith, who is gifted in a very specific and an amazing way to be a pastor. You don’t have to be Dr. Robert Smith to be a pastor. As long as you feel that call of God, and you want to serve him, and you want to shepherd the people, this is what God is expecting of you. And you should share that with others. The idea that the senior pastor from Wednesday through Friday their offices are closed, and no one can interrupt them because they’re working on the piece of art, the sermon. Okay, I think that could work. But you have to be careful that that doesn’t become all you do as a pastor. So, that, I think, has been the biggest impact that the pastoral epistles have had on me, on this reading of them. That to be a pastor means to shepherd and to take care of people. And that we should be concentrating on that and that not only one person should be doing that, but several people should be doing that. And that several people should also be doing the preaching in the churches. And I think perhaps things would get better, maybe less burn out if we follow that pattern or a similar pattern. >>Kristen Padilla: So often the pastoral epistles are dominated by questions related to First Timothy 2, which is the passage that seems to silence women. So, everyone wants to know: what do you think about First Timothy 2? How would you recommend we approach the reading of this text in just a couple of minutes? I know you could spend our whole time here, but just in a couple of minutes some thoughts about just how we approach the reading of First Timothy 2:11-15. >>Dr. Padilla: Yes, thank you, Kristen. That was a very easy question you asked me there. (laughter) Yes, again, when you write a commentary you go back and forth with the text. You read it the first time and then you come back to it six months later and then again and again. And your ideas develop as you see the text. I would say that the latest idea that, which means that I can change my mind … But the latest idea that has hit me from that text is that it is a strange text. It is a very strange text. For some of you, you hear that statement, and you say, “How could you say that? I’ve always known since I was little, being raised in the church, that that text is there. I don’t allow women to teach or to have authority. They are to be silent.” And so on. But if you look at the bible as a canon, if you look at the 66 books of the bible, rarely do you find texts where women are called to be quiet like that. Actually, you would find that kind of stuff more in the Greco Roman philosophers of the period of Paul, like Plutarch for example, who said that a woman should do the talking through her husband and not through herself. But when you look at the bible itself, this is a strange text. You actually find that there are a lot of women who speak and who lead the entire people of God. So, you have Miriam in the Old Testament, who is called a Prophetess. So, she speaks the Word of God to the people of God. You have Deborah in the Book of Judges, who is also called a Prophetess. And people come for advice to her and for more than advice. And she leads them. You have Huldah, one of the Prophetesses in the Old Testament. And then in the New Testament you have Paul calling a lot of the women who work with him as co-workers. I get the sense reading the acts of the apostles and the Book of Romans that the couple Priscilla and Aquilla, that Priscilla, that she often took the lead. For example, we hear that she, after hearing the great preacher Apollos speak, that they approached him and that she teaches him on the nuances of Christian doctrine. Let’s put it that way. And then of course in Romans 16 you have Phoebe who was the letter carrier. Is it possible that as the letter carrier she also read the letter? And so then of course you also have First Corinthians 11 where women can prophesy, as long as they do it in a respectful way. So, you have a lot of texts in the New Testament where women are permitted and are described as leading the people of God. And then you have this text in First Timothy 2. And that’s why I say that this is a strange text. Why then does it not seem strange to many people? And I think the reason is because where we read, where we sit, when we hear the Word of God, our context where we hear the Word of God affects how we hear the Word of God, and what we hear from the Word of God. And so, if you have been in a denomination that is more what we call, and I hate to use these labels, but we have to use some labels, that we call complementarian, you may hear that text a lot. Whereas if you go to a church, myself I’m Latino/Hispanic, you may go to a Pentecostal church where many times women are allowed to preach and to teach. You’re not going to hear that text that much. So, that is one of the things that has struck me the most. That passage in First Timothy 2 is a very strange passage, but we think that it’s not strange. We think that it is very common because we read it a lot and because in church history it has been read a lot. But I actually see that text as a strange text where if you want to know what I think about the meaning, by the commentary … I’ll tell you real quick. In my opinion, you have women who have just as it happens with men who took Paul’s statements of Christian liberty, “we are all one in Christ, there is neither Greek or Jew, slave or free, male nor female.” And I think that some of the women took it maybe a little bit too far, and were showing disrespect to some of the men, and so Paul has to intervene and say, “No, don’t do that. Show respect.” And then he’s going to base that on scripture and of course why is he basing it on scriptures? Because well, where else is he going to base it? He’s going to base it on the Word of God. Because that is the Word of God. And that is where authority comes from. So, that’s sort of a broad view of First Timothy 2:11-15. I was a little bit all over the place there, but that’s … Again, maybe you can read the commentary and see a more cogent explanation of it. >>Doug Sweeney Dr. Padilla, I have a final question about your new commentary that’s more general in nature than the one that Kristen just asked. And the listeners need to know something about you and your ministry here at Beeson to understand the fullness of what I have in my head when I pose the question to you in a minute. What I want the listeners to know is that Dr. Padilla is one of the most popular classroom teachers at Beeson Divinity School, because he’s so obviously loves the students. And I’m here to tell you, the students obviously love him. And that makes me wonder, as you get around to sitting down in front of your computer and writing a bible commentary, are there ways in which in your teaching, your relationship with the students, is affecting what you’re doing? And if so, how does your teaching, how do the students contribute to your writing? >>Dr. Padilla: Yeah. Well, thank you for those kind words. When I sit down to write, the relationship that I have to the students has a profound effect on what I end up writing. And there are myriads of ways in which that happens. But let me just say two things. Number one, the questions they ask you when we are studying a book, say, the Gospel of Mark. Right now, I’m teaching a class based on the English bible on the Gospel of Mark. And some of the questions that the students can come up with, I would have never thought of them in a hundred years. And those questions push me to dig deeper into the text and to try to come up with an answer. So, the kinds of questions that they ask are very helpful. And then to flip it around, sometimes when I’m trying to explain a text and I provide and explanation, many times they say, “Hmm, we don’t quite buy that explanation.” (laughs) “It sounds good, but have you thought about this, Dr. Padilla? This explanation?” Yes, and then sometimes it makes more sense. And in fact, I have a book that is going to hopefully be written in a couple of years where it was a comment from a student that was the key really that opened the door to view a text of scripture in a particular way. And so I don’t think I could be the writer that I am without my students. Not just in the questions that they ask, the answers that they provide when they don’t think my answers are good, but the encouragement that I receive from them. So, it’s really a blessing. My students are a blessing here at Beeson. And it’s perhaps the main reason why I’m here. >>Kristen Padilla: We’re almost out of time, but I wonder if you can update our listeners on the project that you’re working on with other New Testament scholars called, New Testament In Color? What’s going on with that project and when should we expect to see it? >>Dr. Padilla: Thank you for mentioning that. This project I am very excited about. Again, it’s called the New Testament in Color. And what this book is, is a book written by four of us. We have one main editor whose name is Dr. [Isa McCauley 00:27:33]. If you know him, he’s a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois. But also Dr. Amy Peeler, who is also a professor at Wheaton. And Dr. Janet Ock, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary. The four of us are writing this book with the addition of other authors. And we are trying to write it from the perspective of where we are, where we live, where we come from. So, it’s called the New Testament in Color, because Isa McCauley is African American, Amy Peeler is Anglo-Saxon, I, Oswaldo, I don’t know what I am, I guess I’m kind of brown (laughs) – something like that, an olive oil color or something, and then our friend, Janet Ock is a different color. So, we’re trying to show in this New Testament that where you come from, racially, ethnically, socioeconomically affects the way that you read scripture. So, we’re not trying to read those ideas into the scriptures and to say that the bible has to be read in light of our experience. No, we’re not saying that. We’re saying that why do we have experience as African Americans, as Latinas and Latinos, as Anglo-Saxons? They have taught us things about scripture, about God, about our relationship with God. And we want to bring those things into the biblical text and ask questions of the biblical text coming from that. So, I’m very excited about this text. Just to be very brief, we have a contributor who is an Asian American contributor, and he was talking about what the parental/child relationship is like in the Asian American context. And it is very different from the Hispanic context where I come from. And he was explaining it to me, and when I go and I read a text of scripture in light of that Asian American parental context, it leads me to read the text of scripture in such a richer manner. And that is just one example of the things that we’re trying to do in this book. It's not a book that has been motivated by politics, by the so-called woke movement or something like that. It’s just a book that, hey, we are Christians from different parts of the world. That is what the Kingdom of God is. And we want to see if that can help other believers from other ethnicities to read the bible perhaps in a richer way. And we can learn from one another. >>Doug Sweeney: Sounds good, Dr. Padilla. Your dear wife also asked you when will the rest of us get to read this book? When do you expect it to be done and out? >>Dr. Padilla: Yeah. I would say look for it in 2023, maybe 2024. I was going to say, as a generous date, but I would say more as a realistic date. (laughs) 2023 but more like 2024. And it’s going to be published by IVP Academic. >>Doug Sweeney: Thanks. Well, Oswaldo, as you know, because you’re married to the co-host of the Beeson Podcast, we always end these interviews by asking our guests what’s going on in their lives right now spiritually? What is the Lord teaching you these days that you might share with the listeners by way of edification? >>Dr. Padilla: Yeah. I’m happy to. Well, besides the things that we talked about … There are many other things that the Lord has been teaching me. I would say that as an Anglican I’m someone who depends a lot on the Book of Common Prayer for my devotions. And very recently I read a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, we call them Collects, there has to be some sort of etymology for that term, but that is the term. We call them Collects. But they just mean prayers. And in this Collect that I was reading … I don’t have the Book of Common Prayer here with me, but I can sort of give you a loose quotation. The statement, the prayer was something like, “God, whose power is shown chiefly in your love for us.” And that statement has been in my heart, it’s been in my mind, and it won’t go away. When we think about God’s power we think of the creation of the universe. And yes, that’s God’s power. We think of the creation of humanity and DNA and cells. We think of the creation of beautiful animals. And all of those things are part of God’s power. But to think, as I read there, that God’s power is demonstrated in his love is something that I think we need to hear again and again. It reminds me of First John 5 where the evangelist tells us that God is love. And we don’t have a lot of time. I wish I had more time to tell you, but I am a Christian because I believe that God is love. Not just any love that people out there think, but scriptural, biblical love. And that concept that the power of God is chiefly shown in his love is what God is using in my life to work. And it’s making me think more and more about how I am caring for those who are less fortunate than me. Preaching the gospel and caring for those who may be poor or who may be sick. How am I showing the love of God to them? So, many other things we can speak about, but that would be the latest. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s a great word on which to end this episode of the Beeson Podcast. God loves us with a love that is stronger than death, as the author of the Song of Solomon tells us and wants us to share that love with others. Somebody who shares that love with lots of us here at Beeson Divinity School is Dr. Oswaldo Padilla. He’s the one you’ve been listening to. He’s professor of Divinity, specializing in the New Testament here at Beeson. Thank you, Dr. Padilla, for all your hard work in the classroom and the study these days. And for being on the show with us today. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. We love you. We’re praying for you. And we say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.