1st Missionary Trip - Lorin

cut off from real life. To understand Paul as a theologian means understanding him first as a missionary. 3 Christian
doctrine is functional, rather than theoretical. This is a major reason why no writing of the apostle looks
anything like a modern textbook on theology. His religious understanding was applied in small bits and pieces to
individual situations being faced by differing churches and individuals. Only those aspects relevant to each particular
situation were articulated by Paul in his letters. Even though Romans comes the closest to a systematic
presentation of the Gospel of any of Paul’s letters, even it is very limited in its coverage because it stands as a
letter of introduction to the church at Rome for Paul and thus was shaped by inclusion only of those elements
deemed important for the Roman Christians to understand about Paul and his missionary ministry.
Third, the way Paul went about doing missions has served as an important model for Christian expansion
for nearly two thousand years. Various aspects of how Paul approached doing missions have importance for
modern understanding: his strategy in choosing the places he went to 4 ; his approach of ‘Jew first, then Gentile’;
3 “Paul’s permanent historical significance is commonly taken to be that he was the first to give theological articulation to the early
Christian proclamation and to work out reflectively the issues which it raised. But the historical significance of Paul’s missionary labors
must not be underestimated. At all points the apostle’s theological articulations were called forth from within the context of his Gentile
mission. By means of that mission Paul also contributed to the remarkably early transposition of the new faith from the limited sphere
of Judaism into the broader frame of the Gentile world, thereby making it possible for Christianity to survive and flourish as a distinct
movement after A.D. 70. And in the process Paul’s mission became for all religious history a preeminent model of organized missionary
outreach.” [Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin and Daniel G. Reid, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1993), 609.]
4 Did Paul and the other apostles work off the “table of nations” (sons of Noah listing) in Genesis 10 with their missionary travels?
Or, did Paul base his decisions on where to travel from the prophecy in Isaiah 66:19 about the nations?
Isaiah 66:18-19. 18 For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they
shall come and shall see my glory, 19 and I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish,
Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my
glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.
Scholars have advocated both of these assumptions over the years as a critical aspect of the Pauline missionary activity, as is noted
by E. J. Schnabel in his article “Mission, Early Non-Pauline”:
The apostles could have thought of the “nations” (ethnē) of the world, including Israel (cf. LXX), in terms of “all the nations” in
distinction from the nation Israel (cf. Pss. Sol. 9:9) or in terms of the individual “Gentiles” or non-Jews (cf. 4 Bar. 6:19). A messianic
mission to “all the nations” would remind the apostles, in terms of geography and ethnography, of the table of nations in Genesis
10 and its continuing significance as the “Jewish” description of the world (cf. Scott 1994, 492–522; Scott 1995, 5–56). That their
geographical horizon was not limited to the Roman Empire is demonstrated by the evidence in Acts that mentions regions independent
of Rome: Parthia (Acts 2:9) in the east and Ethiopia (Acts 8:27) in the south. As regards a feasible policy to fulfill the Great
Commission, the apostles would have thought in terms of specific nations or “tribes” or, from a political perspective, in terms of
Roman provinces (cf. Rom 16:4 with Gal 1:2; 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Cor 8:1; Gal 1:22).
An exclusively biblical-Jewish outlook might interpret the phrase “end of the earth” in terms of the extent of the Jewish
Diaspora (cf. Acts 2:9–11), whereas a wider perspective would extend the geographical horizons to the furthest points on the edge
of the inhabited world: the Indians in the east (or even the Seres, the “silk people” further east, as the Periplous Maris Erythraei
of the first century A.D. reflects existing commercial contacts with China?), the Scythians in the north, the Germani at the Atlantic
in the west (or Britannia, known to the Mediterranean world from at least the third century .B.C.. and annexed by Claudius in
A.D. 43?) and the Ethiopians in the south (Homer Odys. 1.23 calls the “distant Ethiopians” “people at the edge [of the earth]”; cf.
Herodotus 3.25.114). The singular eschatos (tēs gēs) in Acts 1:8 should not be understood in terms of a single goal of the disciples’
mission (pace Ellis, who thinks of Spain); it affirms that there is no spatial limit to their mission.
It appears that the early Christians had the broader perspective: for the Scythians see Colossians 3:11 (Michel, 7:449–50,
seems to assume a converted Scythian in the Colossian church); for Spain see Romans 15:24, 28; for Ethiopia see Acts 8:27–39.
India is not mentioned in the NT (but is referred to in Esther 1:1 [LXX] passim; 1 Macc 6:38). Would such a perspective mean that
the apostles planned to travel to all territories known at that time? Considering the audacious courage of at least some of the
apostles, this possibility should not be discarded. Intriguing are the later traditions that speak of missions to India, Scythia and
Ethiopia (see 2.8 below).
J. M. Scott has advanced the thesis that according to the evidence in Acts and in Paul’s letters the early Christians had a missionary
policy based on the table of nations. The apostles seem to have decided on territorial jurisdictions in their respective
missions drawn along the lines of the sons of Noah (which Luke supposedly adopts in the literary structure of Acts): Peter was
responsible for the mission to “Shem” (Acts 2:1–8:25), Philip is involved in the mission to “Ham” (Acts 8:26–40), Paul is responsible
for the mission to “Japheth” (Acts 9:1–28:31; Scott 1994, 522–44; 1995, 135–80). This proposal seems convincing from a
tradition-historical point of view, and it illuminates various aspects of Paul’s travels, although it is impossible to verify whether
Paul consulted the table of nations tradition when making tactical decisions. His responsiveness to divine guidance seems to point
to a high degree of flexibility, and Scott’s view that an infringement of Peter and the “men of James” on Japhetite territory (Gal
2:11–14) caused Paul’s strong reaction is doubtful. The dispute was not about territorial jurisdiction but about proper relations
between converted pagans and messianic Jews.
R. Riesner suggested a different OT background for Paul’s mission strategy. As Paul regarded himself part of the eschatological
missionary enterprise to the nations portrayed in Isaiah, it is perhaps no coincidence that the movement in Isaiah 66:19, begin-
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