To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto him, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Hey listeners, this is Nick from Scripture Central, and today's podcast addresses the question,

how does Paul use Chiasmus to teach about Jesus' atonement?

Throughout Paul's ministry, he wrote many epistles to different churches,

clarifying doctrine, answering concerns, and offering support as needed.

Most of his epistles in the New Testament follow fairly standard literary forms of Paul's time,

which has led one New Testament scholar to note that Paul's letters are generally among the clearest

of the New Testament writings to outline. However, Paul's second letter to the

Corinthians is much more difficult to outline, and many scholars point to its unparalleled lack of apparent

structure and unity, especially in the beginning of the letter. Because of this, many scholars

believe that 2 Corinthians is actually a combination of two or more letters

that were put together by a later scribe or editor sometime after Paul had written them.

However, as one evangelical scholar named Craig Blomberg has noted,

many of these apparent discrepancies in the letter can be resolved

when the first seven chapters are read as a large chasm focused on the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Biblical scholars have long recognized the use of chiasmas in the ancient world, especially among ancient Israelites.

Paul, having been taught in the Jewish law and having been raised as a Jew, would have likewise

been familiar with this literary practice.

Indeed, as John W. Welch has observed, Paul used chiasmus to various extents throughout some of his

other epistles, such as Galatians and First Corinthians.

As such, it should be no surprise that Paul could use chiasmus in a profoundly complex and meaningful ways. The chiasm that Blomberg

proposes includes six points, followed by verbal and theological parallels in the opposite order,

...