Some Personal Thoughts on Paul

 Thoughts on Paul

In my lifelong study of the early Christian Church, I have had a love/hate relationship to the apostle Paul. I am not the only one. In these times I have seen more questioning of the concept of the substitutionary explanation of the death of Jesus than ever before. Did he actually die for our sins, or was he executed by the Romans for fomenting rebellion?

I have one book in my library entitled “Betrayal of Jesus” by Davis D. Danizier, contending that Paul subverted the whole message of Jesus and betrayed the core of Jesus’ teachings.

Another book in my library is “Paul Among the People” by Sarah Ruden. She takes a much more sympathetic view and attempts to explain some of the more controversial writings of Paul.

Let me first mention my own understanding of the Christian religions after Jesus’ death. There was not just one religion. The twelve apostles were still Jewish. Jesus never told them to reject the Jewish religion. Jesus was a Jew, and was referred to as Rabbi, an honored title of Teacher in the Jewish tradition.

He was also called the Messiah, which means Anointed One in the Hebrew language. So was King David. The Messiah was to raise up the nation of Israel, overcome the oppressing occupier Rome, and make Israel great again. The concept of a Son of God was not part of that. The Jewish religion was devoutly monotheistic, and there was only room for one God.

All of the books in the New Testament were written many years after Jesus died. Paul actually wrote the first ones, The Gospels were written after Paul’s death. As time went on, the later books began to subscribe to Paul’s belief in Jesus’ divinity and his sacrificial death on the cross as redemption for our sins. Before Paul, I believe the original twelve apostles saw Jesus’ death as an unfortunate tragedy to a great prophet and leader, not as a redemptive payment for our sins. For that we have nobody but Paul to credit or blame.

If Paul had not come along to proclaim his new religion, the small Jewish group in Jerusalem would have never been heard from again. There would be no Christian religion today, in my view. The Jews would have continued their emphasis on keeping the law more strictly, and striving to be more righteous than the gentiles, since they were God’s chosen people. 

They never showed the slightest inclination to spread their message to any one outside the Jewish faith. In fact, they shunned mixing with or even eating with non Jews, even if converted by Paul to Christianity, as demonstrated in the book of Galatians. Paul says he got up in Peter’s face  for being obnoxiously rude to his converts at Antioch.  

The Jewish/Christian church in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE by the Roman general Titus. James had already been killed by the religious rulers by being thrown off of the temple wall and then stoned to death. No more was heard from that group of believers. I think that may be why almost nothing is written about the twelve apostles except Peter in the rest of the New Testament. I also think that Peter came around to Paul’s message and helped to spread it to the world.

Eventually Paul’s new religion won out, and expanded rapidly, both because his opponents had been annihilated in Jerusalem, and he left a written record to be copied and expounded upon in his churches in the north. I believe Paul died in Rome disappointed that Jesus had not returned (which he believed would happen in his lifetime), and not knowing that his church would be the eventual winner of the argument. He was executed by Nero in about 65 CE.

In the second century (100-200 CE) the animosity between Christians and Jews intensified and became violent. Most of the antisemitism that has plagued Christianity in the centuries to follow had their start here I believe.

Paul himself proclaimed that there is no more Jew and Gentile. He boasted of his own Jewishness and claimed to be a Pharisee. 

My personal problems with Paul have nothing to do with his belief in Jesus’ redeeming death on the cross. For that I just have questions. To whom was the debt owed? Did just parts of three days in the grave cover all the sins ever committed in the world by every human through the ages? Was that really a death? Couldn’t God just forgive all sin without sacrificing his son? Who is bigger than God to make him pay a price that high?

No, my problems with Paul are his advice against marriage and sex. His teachings on celibacy have been the ruination and perversion of what should be a wonderful and loving relationship between people. My leaving Christianity had more to do with this one teaching than anything else.

Ironically, the part of Paul’s message I like the most is his insistence on love fulfilling the old Jewish Law. He writes more on love than any other Bible writer. He has a whole chapter (1 Corinth. 13) on love being more important than anything. He used the word Love so often that King James’ translators couldn’t stand it back in 1611, and changed the word to charity. Love is the correct word!

My take on Paul’s basic message is that strictly keeping the Law is useless, and will not make you a better person or a person more acceptable to God. Only by accepting God’s love into your heart, and becoming a new person, will you become fit for heaven, or even being around other people.

In my former church the leaders were known as the “frozen chosen”, as they preached about love a lot, but didn’t display much love that anyone could see. Legalism ruled their lives. James’ church lives on!

12/8/2022

Don Rogers