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Christianity without Paul

Righttruth

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The theologian N.T. Wright gave a lecture back in 2014 where he titled his lecture "How Paul invented Theology", which I think sums up the critical role that Paul has played within the Church superbly. If the Father had not instigated the scholar Paul's inclusion as an Apostle-of-Christ, then I wonder where we would be right now as I fully appreciate that the Twelve were not up to the mark when it comes to systematic theology.

Jesus is the way, life and truth, not a bunch of theology that is 'ear tickling'
 
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Righttruth

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To those who say that God could have done everything Paul did without Paul: You're right. Paul wasn't needed to accomplish the things he did- anyone who believed could have done them.

But, and this is crucial here; PAUL was the one who answered the call. He did what God wanted, he BELIEVED in Jesus' resurrection and the redemption of the Cross, and he preached that message of grace to the world.

So yes, God didn't NEED Paul- He CHOSE him. And no matter how much some people might want to minimize or refute Paul's work, the truth is right in The Bible, for anyone to see.

Yes, he took short cuts for convenience to deviate from the sublime truth preached by Jesus
 
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Standing Up

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That is the spirit! It doesn't nullify the Law
So you believe Christians need to follow the Law for salvation? Do you kindle a fire on the Sabbath?

Paul, on the other hand, preached salvation by grace through faith in Christ. It's okay to light a fire on Saturday.
 
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Soyeong

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It replaces it with a higher standard...... do not kill is obsoleted by do not hate and love your neighbor.

The law already commanded us not to hate and love our neighbor, so that was nothing new. Jesus taught a higher standard than what the teachers of the law had been teaching, but not a higher standard than OT law.
 
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Righttruth

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So you believe Christians need to follow the Law for salvation? Do you kindle a fire on the Sabbath?

Paul, on the other hand, preached salvation by grace through faith in Christ. It's okay to light a fire on Saturday.

It is easy to follow the letter of the Law than the spirit of the Law. Sabbath is for men, not men for Sabbath
 
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Soyeong

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That is men's imagination. Please quote the related Luke's verse

If you hold that the NT was written by the Spirit, then the NT referring to Paul's writings as Scripture is not the imagination of men.

1 Timothy 5:18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”

Not muzzling an ox refers to Deuteronomy 25:4, but the laborer deserves his wages comes from Luke 10:7, so his gospel was quickly regarded as Scripture.
 
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Sophrosyne

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The law already commanded us not to hate and love our neighbor, so that was nothing new. Jesus taught a higher standard than what the teachers of the law had been teaching, but not a higher standard than OT law.
Believe what you want to, as I don't believe the OT called hating and lusting equal to murder and adultery anywhere.
 
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Soyeong

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Believe what you want to, as I don't believe the OT called hating and lusting equal to murder and adultery anywhere.

The law is spiritual, which means that it is meant to teach spiritual principles, which include equating those things. For example, the sages understood evil speech as killing the one who speaks it, killing the one who hears it, and killing the one about whom it is spoken, so Jesus was not expressing a new line of thought, but was talking about the spiritual principles that already existed in the law.
 
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RDKirk

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But not as leaders and pastors

The actual roles identified by titles varies a lot across the board of Christianity. I would be more specific: Not as congregational doctrine-makers and not having disciplinary authority over adult males. Our congregation, for instance, has a "Pastor of Children's Ministry" which has no doctrine-making role and no disciplinary authority over adult males.

There are a number of "leadership" positions in our congregation that in the early church vernacular would be called "deacons" (designated servants of the congregation), and many of those are filled by women. For instance, the pastor's executive administrative assistant is a woman, and although her role calls for her to give direction to males in lesser administrative positions, she has no doctrine-making or disciplinary authority of her own.

Let me give you a secular example from the US military. In the US military, every commissioned officer of any rank has (at least legally and theoretically) doctrine-making and disciplinary authority over every enlisted person.

However, every regular officer in the Army must go through marksmanship training, and nearly every marksmanship trainer is an enlisted person. While that officer is under the instruction of that enlisted person, he is required to obey that enlisted person...but that enlisted person still does not have doctrine-making or disciplinary authority of his own over the officer.

The authority of the enlisted marksmanship trainer to direct the officer during marksmanship training is wholly delegated from the commander that is over both of them. If the officer refuses to obey, the enlisted marksmanship trainer reports the situation to the commander, and the commander exercises disciplinary authority.
 
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Biblicist

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Paul was called by Jesus to be the apostle to the Gentiles (non jews). Without Paul, few people would have heard the gospel outside of Israel.
That is certainly true and one of the absolutes of Scripture is that both the Father and the Son confronted Saul where they both commissioned him as an Apostle-of-Christ, which is what numerous others have shown on this thread.

Over the years it is not hard to realise that any assault on the authority of Paul is not so much directed him, as Paul becomes little more than a convenient distraction for those who wish to undermine Christ himself. It is difficult to always know if any criticism of Paul is intended to undermine Christ and the Gospel, where for many I am convinced that some feel that if they can undermine the authority of Paul as an Apostle-of-Christ that they can in fact undermine the New Testament. Some social activists undoubtedly feel that if they can isolate Christ from Paul's writings in particular that they can also turn Christ who is the Son of God to someone who is merely a good man with a handful of good teachings where they can maybe pick and choose a few sayings to support whatever social program that they want to push.

Then there's undoubtedly the rebellion factor, where many individuals have resisted church leaders when they have tried to correct some behavioural issue or even where they have tried to admonish them over a given wicked activity that they may be involved with, where reference is usually made to Pauline writings. So we can understand why some have a strong hatred for Paul as they probably deem him to be the cause of their problems where instead they should realise that their own wicked behaviour is the core of their problem.
 
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