Beeson Podcast, Episode #701 Dr. Osvaldo Padilla 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. The mission of the Beeson Podcast is to shine a light on the wonderful ways in which God is at work at Beeson Divinity School among its faculty, staff, and students and sometimes its distinguished guests. Today it is my pleasure to have a distinguished guest who is also a member of our faculty and a good friend of mine, Dr. Osvaldo Padilla who teaches New Testament here at Beeson and has done so for a very long time. Dr. Padilla is the co-editor of an important new book that’s hot off the press and selling like hot cakes, I should add, Osvaldo! Maybe you’ll take us out for dinner with all that royalty money you’re earning on this book! It’s called “The New Testament in Color.” So, I’ve asked Dr. Padilla to come on the show and tell us all about it. What we should learn about it, how it applies to our lives. So, thank you, Dr. Padilla, for being with us. >>Padilla: Thank you, Dr. Sweeney, for your kind introduction and for the opportunity to talk about a book that is dear to me and also to the many others who participated in bringing it together. >>Doug Sweeney: Let’s start with the most basic question of all: what is this book? How did it come to be? And what do you and your fellow co-editors hope the Lord is going to do as he uses it in the lives of those who read it? >>Padilla: At its most basic level the book is an attempt to bring together voices from different ethnic backgrounds that reside in North America. If you look around the United States, it doesn’t take much to realize that we have people from all over the world here. First generation, second generation, third generation. So, the book tries to bring those voices, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Anglo, African Americans. The list goes on. Where each of these individuals interpret a book of the New Testament, taking into account their ethnic reality. Not just their ethnic reality as it was when they lived in their country of origin but primarily their ethnic reality as it is worked out in the United States. At the same time, the book seeks to describe what, for example, Asian American hermeneutics is. So, many of you listening to this podcast would hear or have heard about Asian American hermeneutics or African American hermeneutics and again, the list goes on. So, the book seeks to describe what that is like. And it has done so in two ways. It is a commentary. Not one of these long commentaries where one verse takes five pages to be explained but short, easily 15-20 page commentary on, say, Colossians or something like that. So, short commentaries. And also essays that get deeper into a particular ethnic background and how what they bring to the table may help to interpret the bible. So, for example, you would think that a book called The New Testament in Color, a commentary, you would think that the first chapter would be on the Gospel of Matthew. Right? Well, it’s not, actually. We begin with essays like African American interpretation, Asian American biblical interpretation, Hispanic biblical interpretation. And then we move to the books of the bible. >>Doug Sweeney: That sounds like a great idea. So, tell our listeners ... sometimes when people talk about, say, African American interpretation, Asian American interpretation, they’re doing it as a kind of ... sometimes we say liberation theology, which more often than not is a kind of theology from below. Whose practitioners, people who write about it, kind of reflect on their lived experience of the Christian faith as an African American or Asian American. Is that the kind of thing that’s going on in this book? When you read those chapters, say for example the chapter on Hispanic American biblical interpretation, what kind of stuff are you reading about there? >>Padilla: Yeah. That’s a good question. We’re talking about not so much a handbook ... if what you’re looking for is a handbook so that in ten minutes you can learn how to do Hispanic biblical interpretation this might not be the right book. I think in my particular case, Hispanic biblical interpretation, I think you ought to think about this more as a grammar. What does grammar do? Well, grammar helps you read. It helps you make sense of the words in front of you. And so these essays in particular are descriptive ... perhaps encyclopedic, although that may give the wrong impression ... they’re not long, they’re short. And they provide a grammar to help you understand what it means for somebody, say from Native American background – how to interpret the bible. I think it’s very important though that I mention a number of things. Number one, the purpose of the book is not to bash or disrespect the majority culture. I think sometimes when people hear “minority biblical interpretation,” they might expect that the goal is to point the finger at, say, Anglos, the major ethnicity in the United States. And talk about all the bad things that they have done. Yes, the book is prophetic so there are going to be times when we say this has been done wrong. But the book is a two way road where we show how our particular ethnic background can enrich the reading of ... we’re talking about Anglo reader ... how my interpretation can enrich their reading of the bible. But at the same time we’re open to the reality that their interpretation can help our reading of the bible – correct it sometimes. We are coming from an evangelical point of view. All the authors in this book are self professed Christians who take the bible as the word of God and who have agreed to submit to the Apostles Creed as a sort of litmus test. Because the fact is that this is not the first book written from a minority perspective about biblical interpretation. >>Doug Sweeney: Many have been written. >>Padilla: Yes. That’s correct. What we wanted to do for this book is to show, “Hey, we can do it, too!” (laughs) We who believe in scripture, who believe in the traditions of the church, the orthodox traditions of the church, we want to show how this can be done as well. >>Sweeney: Yeah. This is an Intervarsity Press book. They’re an evangelical publishing house. So, these are people who have a high view of the bible and a pretty traditional view of the Christian faith, but who also think coming at the bible from a particular kind of minority ethnic point of view does make appreciable differences that people ought to understand and know about and learn some things from. >>Padilla: That’s correct. That’s very well phrased and very well explained. These are people, yes, who have a high view of scripture. At the same time there are some essays in the book that are more descriptive, more encyclopedic. I used that word before. Where the goal is not so much prescriptive as such but is more to explain. Here’s how the New Testament is generally read in, say, Indonesia or Native American interpretations of the bible that we may not be used to. There are some chapters that describe what that looks like without necessarily pushing you and telling you this is what you ought to believe. So, the book needs to be read with care. You can trust that it’s coming from serious Christian people. But understand that a couple of chapters here and there may be more describing rather than proscribing. >>Doug Sweeney: I would guess it would help our listeners just to get an example or two ... Probably it’s White people who need to understand some example of this before they know what they’re going to find in this volume. Because a lot of White people think, “Well, if we’re all reading the same bible and we’re all studying ... if you go to seminary and you study Hebrew and Greek and all the things they make you study in seminary we’re all supposed to come up with more or less the same interpretations of the text and the same applications of the text.” But here we come with some god-fearing bible believing people who are ethnic minority folks, some White people as well, but who all kind of together want us to learn that there are some differences that come from being an ethnic minority and having that kind of approach to the text – that at least ideally majority culture White people would learn from as well. Give an example or two of those sorts of things so the listeners kind of get it. >>Padilla: Yes. My last name gave me away. (laughs) If anything, but just to remind you that I am coming from a Hispanic American background. I did a couple of pieces for the book. One on a Hispanic biblical interpretation. And the other one was a short commentary on the pastoral epistles. Well, one of the things that I noticed is that Hispanic people as a whole are very open to transcendence. Even if they’re not Christian. The heavens are, as it were, always open for the majority of Hispanic people. Either in Latin America or the United States. And so that helps me to be attentive to the reality of the spiritual world as I read the bible. And it makes me pay more attention. So, as I read say Ephesians 6 Paul talks about the armor. As I read different texts I’m reminded that our ultimate enemy is Satan. And if my marriage is going through a very difficult time, for example, and if it is true that there are satanic powers at work that seek to destroy the lives and marriages in this example of Christians, well, what would that mean? Well, it would mean that I would have to pray very much. Because prayer as we read scripture is how we speak to God, how we hear from God, and how God works and defeats the enemy. So, coming from that background really helps me to catch that when I read a particular passage. >>Doug Sweeney: So, it’s not that it would never occur to a White person to think about those things. It’s rather that if you grow up Hispanic American you grow up in a culture that kind of sensitizes you to those things in a keen way, especially keen way – makes you think about them more and shapes your mind in such a way so that when you’re reading the bible this stuff comes up pretty quickly. >>Padilla: Yes. Yes. So, I would say it’s a matter of depth. Right? All Christians who read and take their bibles seriously, they see that there is a spiritual reality, a satanic reality that seeks to destroy. But perhaps my Hispanic background gives me a depth that culture X may not have. And what I want to do is I want to help you. My goal is to make you attentive to that. Now, on the other hand, our openness, speaking of the Hispanic background, our openness to transcendence and to the work of Satan and so on, sometimes can go too far. Sometimes we may have problems where, yes, we should pray about it, but maybe we need to go see a professional person. A therapist to help us. I’ve noticed in my culture that some would say, no, this is all satanic stuff and all we have to do is pray and thereby they forget the wisdom that God has given some people to help live the Christian life to the best of our ability, to the best way possible. And so we have to be careful as Hispanic interpreters that we don’t overdo that. And so that’s why I read the chapter from, say, an Anglo interpreter. He/she is going to help me when I am going too far. So, this is a two way road. And I really want to emphasize that. >>Doug Sweeney: We’re supposed to help each other as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. >>Padilla: That’s correct. >>Doug Sweeney: A pretty biblical principle. >>Padilla: Yes, very basic. >>Doug Sweeney: It makes me think of some of my experiences as a church history teacher. This is going to seem like a strange angle at which to come at this from but a lot of times I’ll be teaching church history and we’ll be in a period that’s long ago and far away. And the students will say, “I can’t believe they didn’t notice that.” (laughs) And it could be either positive or negative. There’s something there that was just an obvious entailment of their situation, trying to be faithful disciples of Jesus and live out the Christian faith, but it seems like the mainstream Christians in the churches didn’t quite see that that was possible. And then on the negative side, of course these are the most famous examples, there’s all kinds of sins that Christians that have engaged in, in the past, that were just more difficult to see somehow if you were just in the mainstream of the churches. But then every once in a while there were people usually who weren’t quite in the mainstream who noticed it. They came from a different perspective, they had a different situation in life, and it just kind of sensitized them to a problem or an opportunity. And I guess that’s just oftentimes how life goes if you’re in a majority situation you don’t often see some things that people on the margins of a culture will see more readily. >>Padilla: That’s correct! If I may add another example – this time from New Testament theology, a class I teach here. We were talking about the gospels and how some of the gospel’s way of narrating the life of Jesus is not necessarily a linear narration. And some of the students, in this case the majority were born and raised in North America, were having some problems with that. Handling that. And there was an African student here in the class. And he raised his hand and he said, “Well, the part of Africa where I come from, sometimes the way we tell a story is we begin in the middle, or we begin at the end.” And sometimes the chronology, the exactness of the chronology doesn’t matter so much as the message that is being portrayed. And I’ll never forget how the rest of the students, there was a sense of “Ahh. This is very helpful.” It was such a blessing in the class. And that’s what we’re trying to do at a sort of meta or mega level with this book. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay. Let’s make this even more concrete. I’m assuming you’d love it if some of our listeners went out and got “The New Testament in Color” and read it. So, let’s try to talk them into it. (laughter) In the beginning of the volume it sounds like it’s a series of chapters written by different ethnic minority scholars that are basically just describing ... if you’re from my cultural background sort of here is some of the differences in the way you tend to approach the text and think about applying it and that kind of thing. But then you move from that section of the volume to actual commentaries on bible books, right? What’s in the rest of the book? >>Padilla: Yes. So, the first part, let’s call it abstract, although that’s not maybe the best word but we have a number of essays. The first essay is on African American biblical interpretation. And the reason for that is because ... I should have said this at the beginning ... the brain behind this book is Dr. Esau McCaulley from Wheaton College. And he’s an African American scholar who wrote a wonderful book called, “Reading While Black.” Which has been well received. And Dr. McCaulley thought, “What if we expand that?” What if it’s not only reading while Black, what about reading while Asian, or reading while Native American? And that’s how it started. And so his chapter is the first, which gives a very helpful introduction and a map. It gives you a map of what the book is about. So, the first part of the book is filled with material that does not interpret particular books of the chapters as such. It sets the stage. It tries to tech you something which we think is pretty basic that no one reads the bible from outside their cultural reality. Everyone reads the bible from where they are. If I live in Arkansas, I’m reading it from a person who is from Arkansas. And that’s going to have an effect on how I read the bible and so on. So, we have a number of essays on African American, Asian American, Hispanic, Turtle Island biblical interpretation, a fascinating chapter – after that, then we have short bites. For example, yesterday my wife brought some desserts, little bites (laughs) – they were very good by the way – and so that it’s going to help you as an interpreter to understand the gist of a particular New Testament book, but from the perspective, the ethnic perspective of that author. And there we cover all the books of the bible. And then towards the end of the book we add a couple of issues that have to do with language. Obviously, language and how we use language is very important to interpret scripture. So, we have books on multi lingualism in the New Testament. We have a chapter on immigration and how to think scripturally about immigration. That’s sort of the way that the volume ends. >>Doug Sweeney: Nice. We should probably say, since we’re on the Beeson Podcast here, that another one of our Beeson colleagues is in this volume as well. I think? Dr. Sydney Park who is Korean American does what? What was her assignment? >>Padilla: Yes. Dr. Park did the letter to the Philippians. And I highly recommend her chapter. It’s from her South Korean background. There’s a lot there that helped me to see things in Philippians that I had never seen before. >>Doug Sweeney: Nice. So, we’ve mentioned you, Osvaldo Padilla, and Esau McCaulley as two co-editors, but there were four co-editors all together? >>Padilla: Yes. There were four co-editors. Well, we should say Dr. McCaulley was the main editor. And then the co-editors were, besides myself, Jeannette Ock from Fuller Theological Seminary, Amy Peeler also from Wheaton College. >>Doug Sweeney: And Jeannette is Asian American? >>Padilla: Yes, Jeannette is Asian American. >>Doug Sweeney: And Amy is Anglo American. >>Padilla: Anglo American. So, you can’t have all the colors and languages of the world writing a book but we tried to be as broad as possible. >>Doug Sweeney: As you and your co-editors kind of prayed about and thought about and imagined how God might use the finished product in the lives of other people, what were some of your main priorities there? How do you want God to use this and how would you like people listening to the podcast to consider using it? >>Padilla: Yes. It is easy to be afraid of that with which you are not familiar. It is easy to be afraid of the stranger. And so we want to bring that down a little bit in the context of biblical interpretation. We want you to know that this book in particular, “The New Testament in Color,” is written by people who love God, love the scriptures, follow the creeds of the church. But at the same time are thinking carefully about where they come from and how that could enrich the church of Jesus Christ as a whole. So, if you are, say, from Asian background and you can pick up this book and learn something from a Hispanic author in the book I would be delighted by that. If the dominant Anglo culture would be open and many of our brothers and sisters have already expressed openness, beautiful welcoming to the book, if they would read this book and see, oh, you know, in some ways we’re not so different. And oh, I’d never seen this passage this way. But yes, it’s good, it makes sense, it helps me. If we can accomplish that the effort will have been worth it. >>Doug Sweeney: And what about preachers and bible teachers? People who are writing sermons regularly or preparing bible studies, regularly? Are there any concrete ways ... here’s a way of posing this question. You’re an expert in the pastoral epistles. Are there any concrete ways in which if I’m going to preach a sermon series or even just one or two sermons on the pastoral epistles of my church, we’re going to do a bible study in my small group on the pastoral epistles, you would hope that I would use this book in preparation for those things? >>Padilla: Yes, absolutely. It is written with that aim in mind. The best way to figure out how it works is to buy it and read it. Of course. But each book is explained in a clear and succinct manner. And there are going to be little ... imagine those boxes that books put on the margin – side bars – they’re are very few of those, but they are there in the text. Where we would point something out, like hey, I come from India and here’s how this particular text that we’re exegeting may help how my background as an Indian person may help you as a reader to understand it better and to preach it better. So, it’s ideal I think for preachers who we all know pastors, priests who we all know are very busy. They don’t have time to take a massive commentary but they want to get a solid biblical clear interpretation of a text. As you are reading for a particular text of the New Testament you might see the grammar, that’s the word that I like to use, the grammar of, say, a South Korean at work interpreting that text. And that may open the way you read the book entirely. For example, my dear colleague Jeannette Ock is an expert on the first letter of Peter. And she wrote the commentary on Peter. And she comes at First Peter from the perspective of alienation and exile. And reading it from that lens really helped me see things in First Peter that I had not seen before. And so someone who is teaching or preaching on First Peter, you may want opt read that and you’re going to get something fresh and exciting and edifying. >>Doug Sweeney: Super. All right, well, Dr. Padilla, we’re almost out of time but I want our listeners to learn one more thing about you and then learn about how to pray for you and your ministry and your family as well. The one more thing is so now that The New Testament in Color is out and it’s off your desk, as we say, what are you working on these days? Do you have a “next thing” as a scholar that you’re working on? >>Padilla: Yeah. I have a few things. And you asked about prayer. Pray for strength. But I have a book that should be coming out I hope, if God gives strength, in the next two or three years. With Intervarsity Press Academic. On the Life of Jesus As Atoning. So, we normally think of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection as atoning for our sins. And yes I want to say, amen to that! But what about the rest of his life? For a lot of people the rest of his life is just a series of examples. And I want to argue that is not the case. Jesus is as he lives that obedient life as the Son of God empowered by the Holy Spirit he’s taking all our filth, all our sins, all our disobedience and he is bending it towards the will of God. So, that in some sense he is already dealing with our sins even before the nails go through his hands. So, that’s a book that I’m working on. That book would be a conversation between the gospels and a number of theologians like Iraneaus, Athanasius, Calvin, Karl Barth, and so on. And then the other big project after that is a commentary on the Book of James that would be coming out with Baker New Testament Series. And that’s a little bit further down the road. But prayers would certainly be appreciated there. >>Doug Sweeney: All right. We’ll be praying with you about both of those projects. Any other ways in which our listeners can be praying for you and your ministry? You personally? You and your family? >>Padilla: Yes. We wrote this book, “The New Testament in Color” and in some ways we have tried it out in our classes. But now that it’s written we no longer want to “try it out” we want to put it to work in a very concrete and specific manner in the courses that we teach. And so I would covet your prayers so that as I teach the material that comes out of this book it would be helpful and a blessing for our students at Beeson. >>Doug Sweeney: All right, listeners. We have our prayer requests before us. Please pray for Dr. Osvaldo Padilla who has for many years been a faithful New Testament professor here at Beeson Divinity School. And who is the co-editor of and a major contributor to a major new book by Intervarsity Press called, “The New Testament in Color.” Which we commend to you. Thank you very much for your faithfulness to the Lord most importantly. And your faithfulness in praying for us. We love you and are praying for you. And we say goodbye for now. >>Rob Willis: 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 Mike Pasquarello. Our engineer is Rob Willis. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes and Spotify.