Beeson Podcast, Episode #718 Name Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney. And I’m joined today by Dr. Frank Thielman, long time Presbyterian Professor of Divinity here at Beeson, noted New Testament scholar, and author of a forth coming biography of the Apostle Paul that we’ll focus on today. Thank you Dr. Thielman for being with us. >>Thielman: It’s good to be here Doug. Thank you so much for having me. >>Doug Sweeney: Sure thing. It’s a delight. And you’ve been on the podcast a number of times before over the years. So, surely, many of our listeners already know about you, but in the hope that we have a few new listeners tuning in today who want to learn about the Apostle Paul and what’s going on at Beeson and about your book, let’s begin by just introducing you to those who might not know about you already. Can you tell us just a little bit about how you were raised, how you came to faith in Christ, and how you first learned the Lord was moving you into teaching ministry? >>Thielman: Sure. I’d be glad too. I was raised in a very faithful Christian home. My father was a Presbyterian minister for 50 years and he and my mother really were the ones who shared the gospel with me, witnessed to me in their words and in their way of life. And I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t know and love Jesus, when I wasn’t aware of what He had done for me. I know there was such a time, and I came into that understanding at some point, but I can’t remember it. I didn’t go forward in a Billy Graham crusade when I was six. But I think I was probably a Christian before that time. And so, I just had absolutely wonderful parents, got two wonderful brothers who follow Jesus, and a wonderful sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews. So, I’m part of a family that gives me a lot of support in my Christian faith, and I really, really appreciate that and it’s a wonderful blessing. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah, it is a blessing. >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: And speaking of Billy Graham, your father had a special relationship with Billy Graham, didn’t he? >>Thielman: He did. He was really Billy Graham’s pastor, I guess you could say. You know, Dr. Graham was a member of the First Baptist Church, Dallas, but he lived in Montreat, North Carolina where my dad was the pastor of the Montreat Presbyterian Church. And so, he and his family came to our church and Mrs. Graham, Ruth Graham, was a member of our church. She taught Sunday school in our church. Her father was an elder in my dad’s church. And so, they were a wonderful family that we had a great appreciation for as sort of a pastor’s family. They were wonderful people in our church. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. So, I wasn’t to ask you a question in two different ways without being too confusing here. I want to know mainly, so how did you know the Lord was moving you into teaching ministry? But somebody with your background, I mean it’ also, at least for someone like me, always fascinating to learn. So, given the sort of family in which you grew up, was your discernment that God was moving you to become a Bible teacher, eventually, complicated by the prominence, the Christian prominence of your family or just facilitated, it was made easier, and it was just a wonderful blessing? How does that go for you when you’re a young guy? >>Thielman: Yeah. Well, thanks for asking that. I think a lot of our students who have come to us have asked that question of themselves, and so it’s a good thing to talk about. I think in my own family, my father paid a lot of attention to his three sons, to his children. He loved us very much, he spent time with us, and he just incorporated us into his pastoral work. So, I can remember when I was a youngster, going to visit sick people in the hospital with my dad, praying, you know, with him at bedside of hurting and ailing parishioners. And he would get me to help him prepare his sermons. I would do research for him on his sermons. >>Doug Sweeney: How about that. >>Thielman: I think that- >>Doug Sweeney: That’ll make a scholar out of you. >>Thielman: Right. It kind of instilled a love for God’s word in me. And he loved the bible. He just loved the Bible. And I think he communicated that love for the Bible to me. And Dad was a very generous person. He, you know, our family didn’t have a lot, but he was always very eager to supply me with books, especially copies of the Bible, study Bibles, commentaries, anything like that. And right up until the time he died, he just loved writing checks to buy books with. >>Doug Sweeney: Wow. >>Thielman: Cause he really wanted to encourage me in the study of God’s word. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. >>Thielman: So, Dad, I think, probably if I had done what he really wanted me to do, if I had been called of my earthly father instead of my Heavenly Father, Dad really wanted me to be a pastor. And I just felt like I probably shouldn’t pastor a particular congregation as my primary calling full time. I felt very called to just teach and disciple people in God’s word. And so- >>Doug Sweeney: And you were discerning that how early? >>Thielman: When I was in college, when I was a freshman in college. You know, I think by the time I was late in my freshman year, I just really felt like the Lord wanted me to somehow carve out a way to teach Hid word, if possible, to others and to make that my main ministry. I had a wonderful Greek teacher at Wheaton College, where I went to college, who was just a wonderful teacher, period. But he taught Greek. I probably would have taken anything he taught, but he instilled in me a real love for the Greek language and love for the Old Testament. >>Doug Sweeney: Gerlad Hawthorne? >>Thielman: Gerald Hawthorne. >>Doug Sweeney: He was my teacher too. >>Thielman: That’s who it was. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay. Good. >>Thielman: He influenced a lot of people, I think, for the good and had a wonderful experience in his classes. And he was really supportive of me in writing recommendations for me to graduate school and to my first employment opportunities. He was just such a supportive person. So, I had all kinds of support and encouragement in this direction. And it really was quite unusual, I think. I’m not sure, you know, that’s everybody’s experience. It was a very unusual blessing from the Lord, and I try to be aware that there’s a real stewardship here. So, I’ve tried to, you know, convey to my students a love for scripture too. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. Well, you’ve done it well. Of all the testimony I’ve heard. >>Thielman: I don’t know if I do, but I want to. >>Doug Sweeney: You do it in me when I hear you teach and preach. >>Thielman: Thanks so much. >>Doug Sweeney: Alright. So, you went to Wheaton College. When you were done in college, what did you do? >>Thielman: After college, I went to Cambridge University to do a second undergraduate degree in theology and religious studies. So, this is something that Gerald Hawthorne helped me to do. He let me know about this program at Cambridge University where you could do their undergraduate degree in one of their disciplines, you know, only two years instead of the normal three years if you had a BA degree from an accredited college or university in the U.S. and you were doing your degree in the discipline that had been you major. So, I was a biblical studies and English double major. And I went into that program, and it was a very rigorous, demanding program. Really, you know, it was, I probably spent too much time in the library, and I didn’t enjoy Cambridge itself enough. But I learned a lot and had some wonderful teachers there and really met some wonderful Christians there. So. >>Doug Sweeney: And I imagine that prepared you well for doctoral work. >>Thielman: Yes. Then I did doctoral. I went to Gordon- Conwell Theological Seminary for a year. I basically did ordination requirements in the Presbyterian church there. I didn’t take an MDiv there, but I did a year of just coarse work. And then I went on to Duke and did a PhD in the New Testament. And from there, went to King College is Bristol, Tennessee where I taught for two year. Then heard about this place in Alabama that was just getting going in 1988 and 89 and they needed a New Testament professor. Abby and I, Abby is my wife, she and I came down here and interviewed. We didn’t have any children, but we just loved Timoty George and his vision for what he was going to do here in interdenominational evangelical divinity school in the south, not unlike Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, but here in the south. It was just such an appealing vision to us. And so, we came and have been here ever since. >>Doug Sweeney: Marvelous. So, we founded Beeson in 1988. You started teaching in 1989. >>Thielman: That’s right. >>Doug Sweeney: Is that right? >>Thielman: Yeah, 36 years ago. >>Doug Sweeney: So, you and Dr. Ken Mathews, who’s been on the program before, were the two who taught the longest, had the steadiest ministry at Beeson aside from Dr. George, of course. >>Thielman: That’s right. Yeah. So, Ken and I are good friends, and we started here together, he teaching Old Testament and I teach New Testament. >>Doug Sweeney: So, before the two of you came, was it just, in 1988, who were the teachers at Beeson? >>Thielman: The teachers were Timothy George. He taught church history and did lots of administrative work as well getting the school up and running. He was a very busy person. And then Bill Stancil taught systematic theology. He was with us for a couple of years. And I think Bill had been a missionary somewhere, maybe before he had taught somewhere, he’d been a missionary. And then Richard Wells was our homiletics professor, and he had also taught some Greek and maybe some New Testament before I came on board. So, it was really those three people that got us started. There was also a Presbyterian minister in the Birmingham area named Fred Whitmer who was part of Independent Presbyterian Church downtown at that time back in 1988, and that was Mr. Beeson’s home church. And Fred taught a lot of sort of pastoral ministry kinds of classes for us. He was an older, wonderful, retired minister with just years and years of pastoral experience, and he did a good job. >>Doug Sweeney: So, it’s about 36 years for you- >>Thielman: That’s right, 36 years. >>Doug Sweeney: Here at Beeson. >>Thielman: It is really hard to believe. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but it has. >>Doug Sweeney: Alright. And you’ve been teaching New Testament and Greek for 36 years for us at Beeson. Any favorite classes that you’ve taught over the time here? >>Thielman: Yeah. I love teaching Greek exegesis practicum and probably the reasons for that are twofold. One is I just love to watch students learn how to put their Greek that they’ve invested so much time into learning, how to put that into practice developing sermons. So, it’s a class where we teach people to move from the Greek text to a sermon on that text and we teach them how to, basically, the steps in doing that. So, that’s one reason I really enjoy doing that. It just seems to be at the heart of what we’re doing here. And then the second reason I really love that class is because the text I use for that class is Ephesians, and that is just such an edifying, rich, wonderful letter of Paul. It’s really a little catechism in itself with a miniature systematic theology in chapters one to three, and miniature Christian ethics in chapters four through six. So, it teaches people a lot of theology as they sharpen their Greek skills and learn how to preach, and I just love teaching that class. Taught it many, many times. >>Doug Sweeney: Well, that’s a good segway to the main topic we have on the program today, and that is your new book on the Apostle Paul. You have been living the Apostle Paul for the whole time you’ve been a teacher here at Beeson. Historians like me sound funny when we talk about this, living with people who are now with the Lord. But I think you know what I mean. >>Thielman: I do. >>Doug Sweeney: You’ve experienced living with Paul for decades. >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: He’s been a central part of your teaching ministry. You’ve been commentarial writing on letters of Paul. But now you’re doing a biography of the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Tell us just a little bit about how this came to be and what you’re trying to do in this biography that’s different from what you’ve done in commentaries and other writing. >>Thielman: I’d be glad to. The idea for this book didn’t originate with me. It came from an editor at Eerdmans Publishing who asked me if I would do something sort of like F.F. Bruce’s Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free- >>Doug Sweeney: Oh, that’s a wonderful book. >>Thielman: Which is a wonderful book. And I had learned so much from that book. I had not only learned a lot from it as a student, but then I had used it as a textbook in classes and I just love that book. But it is a book that had become a little bit dated. And so, even though it’s still valuable and I would still encourage people to get it and read it, it’s wonderful, the publishers felt like a book like that but that took into account some of the more recent research on Paul and some of the more recent, even archeological evidence and historical discussion about Paul might be helpful. So, when they asked me to do this, I made it just real clear, I am no F.F. Bruce. I could never, you know, reach his stature, but I loved the idea and told them I would love to try and write a book like that. And so, I kind of took his book as a very rough model. I liked the way that it was structured. It’s structured in a number of chapters that seem to fit pretty well in a one semester class. So, you can take a chapter per class and get through it in about a semester’s worth of teaching. I thought pedagogically balanced, a really great way to set up a book. He probably did it originally to meet the requirements of a lectureship in Manchester where he taught. But somehow, it fits pretty well semester long classes. So, I set up my gook in a similar way. But then apart from that, it doesn’t really track too closely with Bruce’s book. At different points I do try to enter into some conversation with him. But I start with Paul’s birth, and I end with what we know, and it isn’t much, but what we know of how Paul probably died and where he’s buried. And so, I just try to move through his whole life. And my hope for the book and what I really prayed often as I worked on the book was that it might really advance the gospel by helping people to understand Paul better, understand what made him tick, you know. What was it that prompted Paul to travel hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles in an era when traveling was quite difficult compared to what it is today? What kept him in really difficult places ministering the gospel in places like Corinth and Ephesus and Thessalonica and kept him at it even when he went to prison for it and when he was sick? You know, it was very clear he struggles with illness. And what kept him going? What made him tick? And you know, in 1 Corinthians 9:23, he describes something of his gospel ministry to Jewish people and to Gentile people and he’s kind of talking the rigors of ministry, and at the end of that little paragraph he says, “I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I might share in its blessings.” And I think that’s really what made Paul tick. He just was a truly converted individual who never lost his wonderful gratitude to God for his conversion and that transformation that God had worked in his life. And so, my hope is that some of that comes through in this book and that it helps people understand what made Paul tick. >>Doug Sweeney: It does. As someone who’s read several chapters in [crosstalk 0:18:23]- >>Thielman: And thank you for reading those chapters. The faculty dialogue group here at Beeson read through one or two chapters of it and I appreciated that so much. >>Doug Sweeney: Are you happy with people referring to this as a biography of Paul? >>Thielman: Yes, yeah. I set it up that way. That was my hope for it, that it would be a biography of Paul so that it’s not exactly just a book on Paul’s letters. It does discuss his letters and as the letters come up in his life, I treat the letters. But it really tries to et at who Payl was and to treat him biographically. >>Doug Sweeney: Yeah. So, the flow is chronological. >>Thielman: That’s correct. >>Doug Sweeney: Sort of following his life but whereas some modern biographers use all kinds of different sources to piece together someone’s life, most of the sources you’re using are biblical sources. >>Thielman: That’s right. Our most reliable sources, the earliest sources are found in the New Testament itself. So, I used Paul’s letters and the Book of Acts. And one of the things that I really hope readers will go away from this book with is an understanding of just the carefulness with which Luke did his research in the Book of Acts. You know, one of the fun things about writing this book was just doing the geographical work necessary to plot Paul’s travels. And there’s lots of tools now that F.F. Bruce, for example, didn’t have when he wrote his book. We have Google Earth. There are websites like Windfinder.com that will tell you the windspeeds in particular parts- >>Doug Sweeney: Is that right? >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: I didn’t know about Windfinder. >>Thielman: Windfinder.com. I learned about Windfinder.com from a monograph on ancient Roman archaeology, ancient maritime archaeology, Roman maritime archaeology. And the archaeologists who wrote this monograph kept citing Windfinder.com to indicate why these shipwrecks that were discovered on the bottom of the Mediterranean, why they were positioned the way they were. And I thought, I’ve got to go to this website. And the thing of it is, when you check Luke out geographically, and even things like when you’re looking at chapter 27 and that shipwreck and you check out the wind directions and the wind speeds at the time of year that Luke indicates this was going on, it checks out. It’s just amazing. And so, it was really fun to do that kind of work, and you know, I tried to do it carefully. People may come along and correct me at different points, but I tried to do it carefully. And what it showed me was just how careful Luke had been in his work as a historian. And I also came away very convinced that Luke was a companion of Paul who was with Paul in those sections where he uses the first person plural and indicates that whoever is indicated in that pronoun was with Paul, and that seems to be Luke. >>Doug Sweeney: Alright. So, I have a question for you. I didn’t tell you I was going to ask you this. It might seem like it’s coming out of the blue. I don’t mean it as a curveball. I’m interested as your friend in knowing this. I bet listeners are interested in knowing. Alright, so Dr. Frank Thielman has been working on Paul in the New Testament for a very long time. I don’t want to make you sound older than you are, but half a century or so you’ve been working on Paul. That’s a long time. >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: After all these years, is it still spiritually edifying for you in ways that you could talk about to work on Paul. >>Thielman: Oh yes. >>Doug Sweeney: Clearly, it’s shaped your theology, it’s shaped your approach to the Bible, it’s shaped all kinds of things in you. But is the Lord still using it in very kind of personal, practical, spiritual ways in your life? >>Thielman: Oh yeah. Most definitely. I mean, Paul’s letters are just so rich, and it doesn’t matter how many times you read them, you can’t really plumb their depths. And you know, the thing about Paul is he’s constantly pointing us to Jesus, which I think just tells a lot of about Paul is that, you know, the more you get to know Paul, the more you want to know Jesus. And now I think Paul would be very pleased with that, you know. And oh yes, Paul is wonderful. And he’s wonderful because he points us to Jesus and the gospel and its goodness and grace and just all it shows us about God and His mercy. >>Doug Sweeney: Marvelous. Thanks be to God. >>Thielman: Yeah. Amen. >>Doug Sweeney: Alright. So, do you have another book in you? I mean, maybe it’s too early to ask this. The Paul book is not quite out. It’s going to be out March 27th, by the way and the title is Paul, Apostle of Grace. And we’ll make sure our listeners know how to get a copy. >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: Now that you’re pretty well done with that book, what are you thinking about? >>Thielman: Right now, I’m working on an article, actually, that arose out of my research for this book. And it’s an article on Titus. I just became fascinated with the whole question of where to place the pastoral epistles in the ministry of Paul. And in my book, this is one of the things in the book that sets it apart from a lot of other books, and I argue that you can place Paul’s pastoral letters within the narrative of the Book of Acts. One of the arguments I make about the book is that Titus was probably written somewhere after Paul had been shipwrecked and Paul was either on the Island of Malta or maybe it was early in his time in Italy, he was a prisoner when he wrote it, and that Titus was with him on that ship. He had a little entourage of people with him and that’s when he left Titus on Crede, according to Titus 1:5. So, I read a paper on this at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting that we just had in November, and it generated a good bit of interest and some really good questions, a little bit of push back, which is great and fine. And so, I thought this probably is something I need to explore a bit more in an article. So, I’ve been working on an article that tries to argue this in more detail and kind of probe whether or not it’s a good idea or, you know, whether it should just be set aside. So, that’s what I’m working on right now. I don’t have another book contract at the moment, another book in the works. But there may be something else coming, so. >>Doug Sweeney: Sounds great. >>Thielman: Yeah. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay, one last question. Every once in a while, we like to ask our guests how to pray for them. Lots of people who listen to the Beeson podcast know and love Dr. Thielman. Even the ones who don’t are often times people who like to Beeson and its people in their prayers. How can they be praying for you these days Frank? >>Thielman: Well, thank you very much for thinking of that. And I think that the prayer request that I would really be encouraged by and appreciate for people is just the prayer that I would teach the scriptures faithfully and well here, that my students would be people who come to know Jesus better through being in my classes, and that they would forget about me, but that kind of like I just described Paul, that they would be led to Jesus and that what I do here would lead them there and would advance the gospel by helping people come to know Jesus better. That would be a wonderful prayer for people. If people would join me in prayer that that’s what would happen, I try to pray that everyday myself, but if people would join me in prayer for that, I would appreciate it very much. >>Doug Sweeney: We will. Listeners, please pray for Dr. Frank Thielman, Presbyterian Chair of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity school since 1989, and the author of a new biography of the Apostle Paul entitled Paul, Apostle of Grace, which will be released next month by the Eerdmans Publishing Company. We’re praying for you listeners. We love you and we thank you for praying for the Beeson family. Thank you Dr. Thielman for being with us today. >>Thielman: Thank you very much Doug. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. >>Doug Sweeney: Goodbye for now. >>Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.