Question for final exam

[Roni]

Hello all,
I am a newbie in this forum. I was not brought up with any type of religion but fortuantly as I got older, felt called to go to church and learn more about God.

Due to a lay off at work, I am also a returning student (at 33 years old!) I decided to take intro to New Testament as my elective to try to help me understand my Faith better. Unfortunalty, most of the class was spent bashing (rightfully so) Dr. Bart Ehrman, the author of our text book. I was a little disappointed in the class but we did have a few very insightful discussions when we weren't proving why Dr. Ehrman was completely wrong!

So, yesterday afternoon our instructor told us our final (which will be tomorrow morning) will be 20 vocab words and a 2 1/2 page essay question. Vocab words I am fine with but I am struggling to even understand this question and was wondering if anyone could help me out.

His exact question is:

"What do the Pauline justification by Faith and the Johnnine eternal life have in common with the synoptic Kingdom of God?"

I do know that when Jesus is speaking, he talks of the Kingdon of God

When John is speaking, he talks about Eternal Life

and when Paul is speaking, he talks about transformation

I am not really sure what the question means so I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to answer it.

I appreciate any help you might be able to offer.

Have a Blessed Day,
Roni

 

[dchena]

You might want to try just looking at each one by themselves, first of all:

What is 'Pauline',
What is 'Johnine',
and What is 'synoptic'?

Then

What is 'justification by faith,

What is 'eternal life',

and What is the 'Kingdom of God'?

The question just seems to be finding out if you know what each one of these are, so you can talk about their similarities.

 

[rlowe]

Synoptic definition

1: affording a general view of a whole
2: manifesting or characterized by comprehensiveness or breadth of view
3: presenting or taking the same or common view ; specifically often capitalized : of or relating to the first three Gospels of the New Testament
4: relating to or displaying conditions (as of the atmosphere or weather) as they exist simultaneously over a broad area

@ synoptic - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

 

[rlowe]

justification
1: the act, process, or state of being justified by God
2 a: the act or an instance of justifying : vindication b: something that justifies

vindication
an act of vindicating : the state of being vindicated ; specifically : justification against denial or censure : defense

eternal (adjective)
1 a: having infinite duration : everlasting <eternal life or eternal damnation>
b: of or relating to eternity
c: characterized by abiding fellowship with God <good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? — Mark 10:17(Revised Standard Version)>

Kingdom
3: often capitalized a: the eternal kingship of God b: the realm in which God's will is fulfilled

Paul: an early Christian apostle and missionary and author of several New Testament epistles

John
2 : an apostle who according to various Christian traditions wrote the fourth Gospel, the three Johannine Epistles, and the Book of Revelation

Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online