Part 2 - Chapter 1: The ground of the imperative

Although in places Paul gives recommendations, or principles, it is clear that “Paul regards certain things as obligatory for the Christian… and others as incompatible with being a Christian… In this chapter we are concerned with the ground of christian obligation and with the manner in which this obligation impinges upon the Christian.”^p.51

Paul uses a wide variety of motivations, but they vary according to the circumstances and dispositions of his readers, often presupposing the ultimate basis for the obligation. This study will limit itself to “…texts in which the christian imperative is expressly related to what we have seen to be—in Paul’s view—constitutive of christian existence: the reality of the New Covenant, as Paul understood it in the light of Old Testament sources and his own faith experience.”^p.52

Updated 2009-10-18 (build:61) by Andrew Fountain