Sublime

“happening” (arriver) without ever quite “arriving” at a final, fixed, and finished destination. We cannot simply “derive” (dériver) direct instruction from it, but we must instead allow it a certain drift or free play (dérive), which allows that tradition to be creative and reinvent itself so that it can be, as Augustine said of God, ever ancient

Instead, we should conclude with Paul that we are justified by faith alone, not through faith formed by love.

Faced with a choice between the [Apostles’] creed (some version of it) and the canon of Scripture, . . . the church has unhesitatingly privileged the creed and let the canon fend for itself—which it hasn’t always managed to do very successfully.

“The first and chief defense of the gospel, the first ‘letter of commendation’ not only for Paul but for Jesus, is not an argument but the life of the church conformed to Christ by the Spirit in service and

Paul’s argument in Romans is that it was God’s will all along to justify all human beings by faith, not by works of the Mosaic Law. This is proven for Paul by the fact that Abraham, the father of the Jews, was himself justified by his faith before he was circumcised and before Moses had given the law.

Johannes Agricola

Four times in 1 Corinthians 9 Paul asserts his rights in the gospel. Three times he claims that he has refrained from exercising these rights in the higher interests of spreading the gospel.