Sejong Chun’s new book, Paul’s New Creation: Vision for a New World and Community, tackles one of the most palpable themes in Paul’s vocabulary, “new creation.” Chun elaborates on this theme critically and contextually, placing the new creation in the lives of Korean immigrants in America, elucidating it in a world full of dangers and uncertainties. This topic is timely, and readers may benefit from this book because it takes new creation seriously and connects it to our lives. This book is an essential guide to “new creation theology” by Paul.
— Yung Suk Kim, Virginia Union University
Paul’s New Creation: Vision for a New World and Community by Sejong Chun is a remarkable illustration that any biblical interpretation is necessarily inter(con)textual – i.e., a production of meaning for the readers’ life context – by juxtaposing his striking analysis of the power dynamics in the history of Koreans immigrating to the would-be “paradise” of America (Haiti and Los Angeles) to his scholarly reading of Pauline texts about “migration” into a new creation (Romans 8, 2 Corinthians 5, and Galatians 6) and the power dynamics between Paul and Jerusalem. From this inter(con)textual Korean perspective, the Pauline texts gain a remarkable depth of meaning.
— Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University
This book offers a fresh interpretation of the celebrated Pauline phrase “new creation” by engaging in the two passages that contain it, 2 Cor 5:17 & Gal 6:15, through the so-called inter(con)textual reading strategy. The author specifically means incorporating both the historical and linguistic aspects of the Pauline (con)texts and the concrete socio-political realities of the historical and contemporary Korean immigrants in the US. As an “interested” audience of the bible, these Korean immigrant Christians are being empowered by the author of this book to make their own contribution to the construal of the meaning of the biblical text. This is a successful attempt at practicing the Gadamerian hermeneutics of “merging the two horizons” to produce an existentially meaningful interpretation. It is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the reader-oriented hermeneutics of the Pauline epistles.
— Eugene Eung-Chun Park, San Francisco Theological Seminary