保罗传给外邦人的福音及其对基督教来华宣教的引申意义

Paul's Gospel to the Gentiles and its Implications for Christian Mission to Chinese

保罗传给外邦人的福音被称为"不受律法辖制的福音"(law-free gospel)。自宗教改革始,学者对保罗福音的理解便集中于"因信称义"的含义,而忽略了它在社会、民族和文化方面对外邦人的引申意义。作为保罗研究的新发展,"保罗新观"指出,保罗提出的"因信称义"并非如路德所理解的,在于抨击以善行去赚取上帝的赦罪之恩。保罗否定因律法之工而称义,是要指出"律法中一些特殊的规条如割礼和食物条例,被普遍认定为犹太人身份的特点"。保罗传给外邦人的福音,是外邦人无须遵行割礼、食物规条及守安息日等犹太律法的要求,这些都是犹太人身份和界限的标志。犹太人与外邦人同样因信而被称义,并因此成为上帝的子民。本文根据《罗马书》14:1-15:13提供的论点,结合中国信徒祭祖的争议,提出"保罗新观"可以对基督教来华宣教具有重要的引申意义。

The gospel that Paul preached to the gentiles has been generally known as the law-free gospel. Since the Reformation, understanding of Paul's gospel has been focused on 'justification by faith'. However,the significance of social, national and cultural implications of Paul's gospel to the gentiles has not attracted much attention. There is a recent development in Pauline studies —— 'a new perspective on Paul' which points out that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith is not intended to attack the idea of earning God's acquittal by doing meritorious works of the law as understood by Luther. Paul's dismissal of the idea of being justified by works of the law intends to tell his readers to think of ' particular observances of the law like circumcision and the food laws which were widely regarded as characteristically and distinctively Jewish'. Paul's gospel to the gentiles is that the gentiles are free from observing circumcision and food laws (and other requirements of Jewish law, such as Sabbath as well, which function as identity and boundary markers of Jews), but that they are equally justified by faith and thus become members of the people of God. In this essay, by using the evidence mainly provided in Romans 14:1-! 5:13, and the case study of the controversy of ancestral worship among Chinese Christians, I argue that this new perspective on Paul has profound implications for Christian mission to Chinese.