New Testament Exam 3

What is the central theme of the book of Acts?

That the message of salvation was sent to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it

The summary outline in Acts 1:8 indicates that the three major divisions of Acts are about what three stages of testifying?

• Testifying in Jerusalem

• Testifying in Judea

• Testifying in Samaria

According to Acts 1–5, what were four beliefs or practices of early Judaic Christians in Jerusalem?

• They believed that Jesus would restore an independent  to Israel

• They believed that they had received the spirit of God

• They testified to other Jews  that Jesus was the Messiah

• They met together as a community called the church

Peter’s sermons in the book of Acts are missing any reference to what three main teachings of Pauline Christianity?

• that Jesus was the incarnation of a preexistent divine being

• that the Jewish Law was no longer valid

• that Jesus’s death was an atonement for sins

What are four noteworthy features of the earliest Christian church in Jerusalem?

• First this community is called the “church”

• Second this community instituted a communal system of sharing possessions with one another

• Third this community adopted a leadership consisting of the twelve apostles and a body of elders

• Fourth this community was entirely Jewish

What three events in Acts occur at the beginning of the mission to Gentiles?

• Conversation of Saul of Tarsus, who will be apostles to the Gentiles

• The conversion of Cornelius the centurion and his household, who are the first Gentile converts

• The establishment of a church that includes both Jews and Gentiles in Antioch of Syria

What features of the letter of James show its Judaic-Christian perspective?

• Has a Jewish conception of the community as a synagogue of the twelve tribes of Israel

• It has a Jewish conception of faith in one God

• It has Jewish view of salvation by the Jewish Law

• It gives only a limited role to the death of Jesus

James regarded what commandment as the heart of the Jewish Law?

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

The M material makes what two main claims regarding the Jewish Law?

• That it was necessary to keep even the least commandment of the Law

• That the Law should be interpreted strictly

Men in the M community probably prayed the Lord’s Prayer how often?

2 to 3 times a day

What was the practice of the M community with respect to the Jewish temple?

They continued to offer sacrifices at the Jewish temple and continued to pay the temple tax

What was the practice of the M community with respect to evangelizing Gentiles?

They did not evangelize Gentiles and never expected to do so

The sermon of Paul in Antioch of Pisidia diverges from the sermons of Peter in Jerusalem when Paul says what?

He says that a person is justified by believing in Jesus, not by keeping the Jewish Law

At what is sometimes called “the Jerusalem Conference,” the church in Jerusalem decided what?

Decided that Gentiles converts did not have to be circumcised or keep the Jewish Law

The story of the commotion caused by a silversmith in Ephesus illustrates what accusation that people in the Greco-Roman world directed against Christians?

That they were bad for business

In Acts Paul’s last words to the Jews, which reiterate Luke’s central theme, were what?

“Let it be known to you, them, that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen”

Paul was significant for Christian history for what three reasons?

• He helped spread the Christian message to the limits of the Roamn Empire

• He wrote letters that make up almost a fourth of the New Testament

• He was the founder of Christianity as we know it today

Of the thirteen letters that bear the name of Paul, at least how many were probably written by a Proto-Orthodox author using Paul’s name as a pseudonym?

At least three

The gospel of Paul’s opponents in Galatia taught that in order to be justified Gentile converts to Christianity had to do what?

Had to keep the Jewish Law and be circumcised

In defending his gospel in Galatians, Paul claims that he received it through what?

A revelation of Jesus Christ, not from any human being

At Antioch, Paul rebuked Peter for hypocrisy before the whole church for what reason?

Because he and the other Jews stopped eating with Gentiles

The gospel that Paul preached in Galatians taught what about justification?

Taught that a person was justified not by works but by works of the Law but through faith in Jesus

In Galatians, Paul sets out what three stages of salvation history? What occurs in each stage?

• The stage of promise: God promised to bless Abraham and his offspring

• The stage of childhood: people living “in the faith” are enslaved to the elements of the world

• The stage of adulthood: people who have died with Christ are no longer enslaved to the elements of the world

From a contemporary perspective, Paul’s arguments in Galatians are not persuasive for what two reasons?

• He based his arguments on the Jewish Scriptures, using a contemporizing method of interpretation that ignored their original meaning and applied all of them to his own time and applied all of them to his own time and his own concern

• He based his understanding of salvation on a pre-scientific view of the world, the body-soul dualism made popular by the philosopher Plato

What are three inferences that we can make about the church in Rome to which Paul wrote the letter of Romans?

• Christianity was probably first preached in Rome in the synagogues of the Jews

• The preaching about Jesus apparently produced a tumult among the Jews in Rome

• The church in Rome included both Jesus and Gentiles

In the three main divisions of Romans, respectively, Paul expresses what three ideas about the relation between Jews and Gentiles?

• Paul expresses the idea that both Jews and Gentiles obtain salvation on the same basis: faith in Jesus

• In the second main division, Paul expresses the idea that God had caused most Jews to reject the gospel so that the Gentiles would receive it.

• In the third main division, Paul expresses the idea that the “weak” (Jewish) Christians and the “strong” (Gentile) Christians should accept each other

In discussing justification by faith in Romans, Paul makes what three main points?

• Justification required the death of Jesus, the shedding of his blood

• People can make Jesus’ death count as their own by believing in Jesus

• There is one god, who will justify both the circumcised and the uncircumcised

In discussing the plight of Sin in the flesh in Romans, Paul makes what three points?

• God is full of wrath at human (Gentile) sin

• Jews also commit sins

• The Jewish Scriptures show that no flesh is justified before God by the works of the Law

In discussing deliverance from the power of Sin in Romans, Paul made what four main points?

• The solution to the problem of Sin in the flesh was to put the flesh to death

• Jesus put the flesh to death on the cross and rose in a new body that was free from Sin

• Those who believed in Jesus could obtain the benefit of Jesus’s death and resurrection for themselves through the ritual of baptism

• The Spirit of God had a role to play in this process. If the Spirit of God dwelt in a person, that person’s mind could be set on the things of the Spirit instead of the things of the flesh

Problems that arose in the church relating to what issue are the focus of First and Second Thessalonians?

The day of the Lord

What were Paul’s four reasons for writing First Thessalonians?

• to encourage the Thessalonians in the midst of their persecution and affliction

• to defend himself against certain accusations

• to encourage the Thessalonians to live in a manner worthy of the gospel

• to assure the Thessalonians that those who died before Jesus returned would still get to be with him

 Both First and Second Thessalonians base their teaching about the day of the Lord on the same contemporizing interpretation of which book in the Jewish Scriptures?

Daniel

According to Paul in First Thessalonians, on the day of the Lord what three things would happen?

• Jesus would come down from the sky with a cry of command, the cry of an archangel, and the sounding of a trumpet of God

• the Christians who had died would be raised from the dead

• all the Christians, both those who remained alive and those who had been raised from the dead, would be caught up together in clouds to meet Jesus in the air

In Second Thessalonians, Paul corrected the misunderstanding that the day of the Lord had already arrived by describing what three events that had to occur before the day of the Lord?

• A “man of lawlessness” or “son of destruction” would be revealed, and there would be an “apostasy,” a falling away from the truth, as he led many people astray

• He would oppose, and exalt himself above, every so-called god or object of worship, so that he would sit in the temple of God to show that he was a god

• The arrival of this man would be accompanied by false signs and wonders that were performed by Satan, so that those people destined for destruction would be deluded and believe the lie that this man was a god

In Second Thessalonians, Paul misinterpreted passages about what ancient figure in the past as if they referred to an Antichrist figure who was still to come in the future?

Antiochus Epiphanes

Which four letters have traditionally been called the Prison Epistles?

• Philippians

• Philemon

• Colossians

• Ephesians

What three considerations favor Corinth over Ephesus as the place of Paul’s imprisonment?

• First, the book of Acts gives no indication that Paul was tried at Ephesus, but it does relate that he was tried at Corinth

• A second consideration that favors Corinth is that an imprisonment at Corinth is consistent with Paul’s review of his relations with the Philippian church

• The third consideration is that an imprisonment at Corinth is consistent with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians

What was Paul’s purpose in his letter to Philemon?

to ask Philemon to send back Philemon’s slave Onesimus to serve Paul

The contents and style of Ephesians are consistent with the view that it was written by whom?

A co-worker of Paul

In the creation myth in Colossians, what four characteristics of God’s son are listed by Paul?

• “the firstborn of all creation, who existed “before all other things”

• “the image of the invisible God.”

• All things “through him and into him have been created”

• all things “are united in him”

In Paul’s redeemer myth in Philippians, Christ passed through what four successive stages?

• Christ was “in the form of a god.”

• Christ then took on the form of a human; “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming to be in the likeness of humans

• Christ then went to his death. When Christ was found “like a human in shape,” then “he humbled himself”

• Because Christ humbled himself in these ways, “God super-exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”

Concerning slavery, the household code in Ephesians gave what instruction?

the instruction that slaves should obey their masters “with fear and trembling.”

The primary factions in the church at Corinth were apparently the followers of Paul and the followers of whom?

What three factors probably contributed to Paul’s preference for celibacy in First Corinthians 7?

On the topic of eating sacrificial meat in an idol’s temple, First Corinthians presents what two different perspectives?

Passages in letters attributed to Paul present what three different perspectives on the role of women in the church?

In First Corinthians 14, Paul gave what three instructions to those who were speaking in tongues in the assembly?

In describing the characteristics of the resurrection body in First Corinthians 15, Paul made what five claims?