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I wonder if it isn’t really Paul but theologies that pick and choose bits of his teachings ignored by the rest and what Jesus taught.
Hi Hedrick, I always like your wise and mature insights on CF. I agree that the Gentile world experienced the resurrected Jesus and the story of parts of his life from Paul and his followers. But sooooo much of the focus of Paul, and subsequent Christianity, was/is about the death and resurrection, overlooking the triumphant life that Jesus had already demonstrated.
Of course the Gospels were not written as Jesus spoke. Again, I never meant to imply they were.
Before Paul's missionary journeys, one needed to be circumcised in order to become Jewish and be a member of a Jewish community in order to receive their teachings. Paul worked to admit Gentiles into fellowship with the Jewish apostles without making them swear to observe the entire Torah law and its many rabbinical commentaries. I can not imagine a world without Paul's epistles, or without the writings of his companion Luke the physician.
It depends on how one interprets Scripture. If we understand that the New Covenant is intended to justify us by really changing us, into just beings, and knowing that the standard for that justice is love, the Greatest Commandments, then we find nothing but common ground between Paul and the rest of the NT. Faith is intended to connect us to the God who transforms us into His own image. This is a matter of His putting His Law in our minds and writing it on our hearts as per Jer 31. So from Paul:
But God chose to include those letters in His Word. So I believe God knew that these issues were issues that many others would experience and that Paul’s letters were included for a reason.
The problem with that approach is that there were many things that Jesus only told to His disciples. Jesus taught them things He didn’t teach the masses and they took all of this with them after His death to continue on.
Yes exactly. Like Moses, Paul did not bring his own Word but the Word if God through revelation. That is the same as Christ Speaking and is the very thing Christ paid for on the cross. To purchase our bodies, clean us from our ideas (like Paul had his own ideas before his convertion and persecuted Christ) and then use our mouths to speak His Own Words through. It was not Paul's Gospel but Christ's. It is the very Word of God and the Word is God. John 1:1
Peter wrote how the untrained misunderstood and misapplied Paul back then, to people familiar with that culture, it's use of idioms, and other context effecting influences. We are so far removed now, that we really do misunderstand Paul because we are not only ignorant of the cultural influences but we are ignorant of the exegetical methods Paul used (like the rules of Hillel) that are design to directly effect context.
