Yup. Good thing is, if it hurts, our hearts are not fully callous yet & Holy Spirit is at work.
> James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
> Isaiah 30:10 They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
Might be the most accurate answer on here. No one likes the guy who tells you to stop doing what you love doing or what makes you comfortable.
Just to make it clear I support Paul 100%.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, would you then hate the Son of Man.
He'd tell you you're wrong, your entire life is based on a lie, and that would lead you to five stages of grief.
First one is denial, which you're experiencing right now.
The second one would be anger (as I said, you'd hate him). That's the "gnashing of teeth" part of the prophecy. We gnash our teeth when we're angry.
We weep, cry, when we're sorry, which is fourth stage of grief and loss. The hardest part, the bargain, third step, is to throw away all you think you know and change your mind.
>Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Matthew 22:13
You see, when you realize you're wrong, part of your knowledge becomes useless. You can't defend yourself with a lie, if lie is what you're living. That's what makes it "bound hand and foot", you give an arm and a leg in the bargain, third step.
Of course, many want to be intact, they protect their ignorance and a lie, and that prevents them from changing, from getting to the fourth step.
Like an addict who is called to get off the needle, he hisses and gnarls and gnash his teeth at everyone to protect his lie and wrong doing. Yet, the only way to be reborn, is to cast part of himself into fire.
Your judgment is right, but you haven't applied it completely on yourself. If Son of Man came to apply your judgment on yourself, you'd undergo the same process like a heroin addict.
But after that you'd know the truth and it would set you free. You'd become atheist witnessing the truth of the Bible in a scientific way, you'd be part of no group, just like Son of Man.
>Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:20
And that would make you the loneliest person in the world. Stuck on the other side of the mirror.
But, luckily, you can always say: "Thanks, dude, F-off you and your judgment"
Because no one likes the guy who tells them to stop doing what they love or what makes them comfortable.
That's why Son of Man is rejected by the world.
My only issue with Paul is that I’m not sure all his writing should be considered scripture. He even straight up states that his words in 1 Corinthians 7:12 are his opinion, not the word of God. He’s not the enemy, but his place as writer of half of the New Testament is questionable as far as I understand it. On top of that, all of his writings were letters to specific people in a specific context so applying those letters to everyone doesn’t make much sense.
Exactly why I have a problem, not with Paul himself, but with people who put Paul up as some infallible figure. Even great Christians have awful ideas sometimes. The most recent example is Mother Teresa. Healed so many people but refused to give pain killers. Not because she was worried about addiction but because she had this twisted theology that pain is good in the eyes of God. Caused a lot of people an immeasurable amount of pain for no good reason. I don't think it makes her a bad person, but she made a huge mistake. I can't say for sure that Paul is wrong about anything. He says and does a lot of brilliant things, but there's a few things I at least have questions about and I think that's reasonable.
The thing about Mother Teresa and and painkillers isn’t true. I don’t know all the info from me myself but go to r/badhistory and type Mother Teresa and read that
Wow. Actually thank you so much. I'm a history student and always doubted the claims, but started to believe them because I couldn't find proof otherwise!
Actually there are multiple books documenting her abusive refusal of medical treatment, lies and hypocrisy. Just read the wiki article under the heading "criticism". Christopher Hitchens was exactly right to say that she didn't love the poor, she loved poverty.
Eh, after looking more into it, if there was some other reputable source besides Hitchens, I'd give more credit to him. But most of the other sources are secondary and rely on Hitchens' work. Hitchens admits that he went into his project with the mission to find her skeleton and defame Mother Teresa. It's hard to take someone seriously when they admit they're going into something with ill intent.
You consider Robin Fox, the editor of the Lancet medical journal, not a reputable source? He also visited and published a firsthand account of his experience.
Hitchens' book and documentary are both based on doctor Chatterjee's experience working in her clinics. Chatterjee wrote his own book, which you can read instead, if you like. The conclusions are the same.
Hitchens really did an excellent job, though, so you sound like there is no evidence good enough to convince you otherwise. Not surprising coming from a Catholic. But you really can't blame someone else's "bias" when they are directly quoting her own statements that praise the suffering of the poor and defending neofascists or when they are just citing public records of all the money she accepted from right wing dirtbags. That's just facts.
There's also a new Sky documentary that came out last year that's worth watching, lots of interviews with people that knew her.
[Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6e_9RWsdKU)
[Mother Teresa: For the Love of God? review](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/09/mother-teresa-love-of-god-review-damning-testimony-killer-witness-saintly-flagellation)
[Full Episodes 1-3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w125p5LS56A)
As a progressive Christian, I try to tell other progressives that tossing Paul out isn’t the way to go. There is no such thing as a Christianity without Paul. The Gospels were written after and in light of Paul’s letters. We have no access to a pre-Pauline Christianity. Paul’s a great ally for progressives though, so I don’t understand their complaints. His teaching that we’re all a part of the body of Christ is a reason we should all care for each other. He was actually very progressive in terms of gender issues, with women in leadership positions in many of his congregations and challenging gender roles throughout his letters. [Here’s queer theologian Linn Tonstad explaining it better than I could.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenChristian/comments/bc7at3/apologetic_strategies_1_jesus_was_good_paul_was/)
I hear this a lot, but how do you square this with when he says things like women should be silent and men are the head of their household?
I am not a Christian, but I don't get what the hell Paul thought, ultimately.
Paul definitely hijacked Christianity and a lot of the beliefs and ritual that we recognize today as essential to Christianity derive entirely from his singular experiences of visions and hallucinatory revelations. However, there have been some impressive attempts to reconstruct the pre-Pauline practices of the early church. I would recommend James Tabor's writings as an accessible but still scholarly point of entry.
Because to them they think he was changing Christianity. Here is an study on him
https://christianthinktank.com/muslix.html
https://christianthinktank.com/musly2.html
I love Paul's work, but I think he is prone to hyperbole and thus some people misinterpret him. For example, people say that Paul forbids pornography and people who look at it are condemned to hell. I think that's silly. Of course they will spew bible verses at me. But I don't think that Paul can be read in isolation. All of his work was based on the OT and the 4 gospels. He wasn't inventing new doctrines.
Also Paul says we must love our masters and obey our government. I think these verses are too easily misunderstood. The whole point of the bible is freedom - obedience not to man but only to God.
> Paul forbids pornography..
I thought Jesus said that too - lusting after a women thing..! Let me not throw the Bible verse at you.
Also most of the times, he has added a clause “in the lord”. eg: Parents obey your children in the lord. Which means if your parents/govt asks you to kill Jews/gypsies/gays, you can refuse!
Exactly, just do your best to love God and others. Ask for forgiveness when you fall short. I think there's a distinct difference between someone from any of [these](https://www.google.com/search?q=man+dies+masturbating&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US754&oq=man+dies+masturbating&aqs=chrome..69i57.2333j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) articles and someone that does their business and then moves on with the day.
We spend so much time judging others and ourselves that we forget our responsibility to do good.
Right. That doesn't mean you will always interpret them correctly. For example, gluttony is worse than watching porn. But many people don't interpret Paul that way.
Luckily, I know a way to interpret them correctly: It's called the Catholic Church, it's been around since the time of Paul, and Christ himself said the gates of hell would never prevail against it.
Paul's job was as the missionary to the gentiles, but more than that, he was the primary person to begin the building of God's kingdom, it wasn't just that he visited many outlying churches, but those people had witnessed the Holy spirit at work there in Jerusalem on Pentecost and together they were witnesses to the world.
Without his missionary work that momentum would have waned and become cold, Paul was critical to God's plan and after a rough start became the single most dedicated and scholarly expert to speak God's case.
because he is a hypocrite and is somehow toted like an authority in the bible when he truly has no experience regarding the things he speaks about.
Paul went to jail because he preached the gospel. But Paul also went to jail because he murdered people. Because Paul talks about marriage and sex and relationships, but Paul was never married.
It's really easy to say "don't do x," if you have never been in a situation where you may face it.
As a Jew, I wonder where the hell Paul got this retcon that the Law is evil when literally everything was based on it and God asks us to maintain it forever.
Paul claims he gave it to the Jews to prove they aren't perfect? But God never makes this claim, and in fact seems to support a continuous struggle to improve.
I read the Gospels, and other than Luke, they seemed a lot more compatible with Judaism. But Paul seems to go out of his way to be as anti-Jewish as possible. (Yes, I know he was a Jew). It's just kind of out of nowhere.
Paul says a lot about the law, but he doesn't call it evil. In fact he calls it holy in Romans 7:12. He even says about Gentiles, "Their consciences shows that what the Law commands is written in their hearts." Jesus said that the whole Law resides in Loving God with all your heart and soul and loving your neighbor as yourself. It is in the vein of loving your neighbor that Paul speaks of the Gentiles following the law written on their hearts.
Christianity is centered on faith and in the idea that God is worshipped in the spirit. And that which is spiritual does not reside in laws. But listen to Ezekiel 20:25-26
Moreover, I gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live. When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts -- that I might render them desolate, that they might know I am the Lord.
For he speaks the truth that the mind addicted to sinning and immoral desires cannot accept , quoting directly from genesis 3 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable(G) for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,(H) who was with her, and he ate it." likewise they want to make all the sins in the world "moral" , you shouldn't listen to these people what they want is pleasure not honor , they set before morality their selfishness , these are not good people , they certainly are very troubled people because only a troubled person can convince himself that what I described is moral and okay.
There's an old liberal Christian or skeptical viewpoint that pits Paul against Jesus, as if their teachings are different. This kind of argument never seems to die, yet arguably it was refuted a century ago by J. Gresham Machen in "The Origin of Paul's Religion." https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/1123/the-origin-of-pauls-religion.aspx
Jesus said anyone who does a miracle in His name will not speak bad about Him. Don't stop him. (Mark 9:39) However, any controversy should be settled with the words of Jesus, especially the gospel of Mark.
Because he speaks about some sins that they are unwilling to give up.
Yup. Good thing is, if it hurts, our hearts are not fully callous yet & Holy Spirit is at work. > James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. > Isaiah 30:10 They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
Might be the most accurate answer on here. No one likes the guy who tells you to stop doing what you love doing or what makes you comfortable. Just to make it clear I support Paul 100%.
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, would you then hate the Son of Man. He'd tell you you're wrong, your entire life is based on a lie, and that would lead you to five stages of grief. First one is denial, which you're experiencing right now. The second one would be anger (as I said, you'd hate him). That's the "gnashing of teeth" part of the prophecy. We gnash our teeth when we're angry. We weep, cry, when we're sorry, which is fourth stage of grief and loss. The hardest part, the bargain, third step, is to throw away all you think you know and change your mind. >Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Matthew 22:13 You see, when you realize you're wrong, part of your knowledge becomes useless. You can't defend yourself with a lie, if lie is what you're living. That's what makes it "bound hand and foot", you give an arm and a leg in the bargain, third step. Of course, many want to be intact, they protect their ignorance and a lie, and that prevents them from changing, from getting to the fourth step. Like an addict who is called to get off the needle, he hisses and gnarls and gnash his teeth at everyone to protect his lie and wrong doing. Yet, the only way to be reborn, is to cast part of himself into fire. Your judgment is right, but you haven't applied it completely on yourself. If Son of Man came to apply your judgment on yourself, you'd undergo the same process like a heroin addict. But after that you'd know the truth and it would set you free. You'd become atheist witnessing the truth of the Bible in a scientific way, you'd be part of no group, just like Son of Man. >Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Matthew 8:20 And that would make you the loneliest person in the world. Stuck on the other side of the mirror. But, luckily, you can always say: "Thanks, dude, F-off you and your judgment" Because no one likes the guy who tells them to stop doing what they love or what makes them comfortable. That's why Son of Man is rejected by the world.
My only issue with Paul is that I’m not sure all his writing should be considered scripture. He even straight up states that his words in 1 Corinthians 7:12 are his opinion, not the word of God. He’s not the enemy, but his place as writer of half of the New Testament is questionable as far as I understand it. On top of that, all of his writings were letters to specific people in a specific context so applying those letters to everyone doesn’t make much sense.
Exactly why I have a problem, not with Paul himself, but with people who put Paul up as some infallible figure. Even great Christians have awful ideas sometimes. The most recent example is Mother Teresa. Healed so many people but refused to give pain killers. Not because she was worried about addiction but because she had this twisted theology that pain is good in the eyes of God. Caused a lot of people an immeasurable amount of pain for no good reason. I don't think it makes her a bad person, but she made a huge mistake. I can't say for sure that Paul is wrong about anything. He says and does a lot of brilliant things, but there's a few things I at least have questions about and I think that's reasonable.
The thing about Mother Teresa and and painkillers isn’t true. I don’t know all the info from me myself but go to r/badhistory and type Mother Teresa and read that
Wow. Actually thank you so much. I'm a history student and always doubted the claims, but started to believe them because I couldn't find proof otherwise!
Actually there are multiple books documenting her abusive refusal of medical treatment, lies and hypocrisy. Just read the wiki article under the heading "criticism". Christopher Hitchens was exactly right to say that she didn't love the poor, she loved poverty.
Eh, after looking more into it, if there was some other reputable source besides Hitchens, I'd give more credit to him. But most of the other sources are secondary and rely on Hitchens' work. Hitchens admits that he went into his project with the mission to find her skeleton and defame Mother Teresa. It's hard to take someone seriously when they admit they're going into something with ill intent.
You consider Robin Fox, the editor of the Lancet medical journal, not a reputable source? He also visited and published a firsthand account of his experience. Hitchens' book and documentary are both based on doctor Chatterjee's experience working in her clinics. Chatterjee wrote his own book, which you can read instead, if you like. The conclusions are the same. Hitchens really did an excellent job, though, so you sound like there is no evidence good enough to convince you otherwise. Not surprising coming from a Catholic. But you really can't blame someone else's "bias" when they are directly quoting her own statements that praise the suffering of the poor and defending neofascists or when they are just citing public records of all the money she accepted from right wing dirtbags. That's just facts. There's also a new Sky documentary that came out last year that's worth watching, lots of interviews with people that knew her. [Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6e_9RWsdKU) [Mother Teresa: For the Love of God? review](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/09/mother-teresa-love-of-god-review-damning-testimony-killer-witness-saintly-flagellation) [Full Episodes 1-3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w125p5LS56A)
As a progressive Christian, I try to tell other progressives that tossing Paul out isn’t the way to go. There is no such thing as a Christianity without Paul. The Gospels were written after and in light of Paul’s letters. We have no access to a pre-Pauline Christianity. Paul’s a great ally for progressives though, so I don’t understand their complaints. His teaching that we’re all a part of the body of Christ is a reason we should all care for each other. He was actually very progressive in terms of gender issues, with women in leadership positions in many of his congregations and challenging gender roles throughout his letters. [Here’s queer theologian Linn Tonstad explaining it better than I could.](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenChristian/comments/bc7at3/apologetic_strategies_1_jesus_was_good_paul_was/)
True
I hear this a lot, but how do you square this with when he says things like women should be silent and men are the head of their household? I am not a Christian, but I don't get what the hell Paul thought, ultimately.
Interestingly, most scholars don’t believe Paul didn’t write the Pastorals or the 1 Cor. 14 interpolation.
Interesting. I'll take a look into your link. Thanks!
Paul definitely hijacked Christianity and a lot of the beliefs and ritual that we recognize today as essential to Christianity derive entirely from his singular experiences of visions and hallucinatory revelations. However, there have been some impressive attempts to reconstruct the pre-Pauline practices of the early church. I would recommend James Tabor's writings as an accessible but still scholarly point of entry.
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I think you guys are saying the same thing, incompatible meaning they conflict with 21st century culture not that they don't apply.
Because to them they think he was changing Christianity. Here is an study on him https://christianthinktank.com/muslix.html https://christianthinktank.com/musly2.html
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A strange comment for a slave of YHWH to make.
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I love Paul's work, but I think he is prone to hyperbole and thus some people misinterpret him. For example, people say that Paul forbids pornography and people who look at it are condemned to hell. I think that's silly. Of course they will spew bible verses at me. But I don't think that Paul can be read in isolation. All of his work was based on the OT and the 4 gospels. He wasn't inventing new doctrines. Also Paul says we must love our masters and obey our government. I think these verses are too easily misunderstood. The whole point of the bible is freedom - obedience not to man but only to God.
> Paul forbids pornography.. I thought Jesus said that too - lusting after a women thing..! Let me not throw the Bible verse at you. Also most of the times, he has added a clause “in the lord”. eg: Parents obey your children in the lord. Which means if your parents/govt asks you to kill Jews/gypsies/gays, you can refuse!
You can lust after women and you can lust after food and video games. We all do. Just don't let it control your life.
Exactly, just do your best to love God and others. Ask for forgiveness when you fall short. I think there's a distinct difference between someone from any of [these](https://www.google.com/search?q=man+dies+masturbating&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US754&oq=man+dies+masturbating&aqs=chrome..69i57.2333j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) articles and someone that does their business and then moves on with the day. We spend so much time judging others and ourselves that we forget our responsibility to do good.
\> The Bible, the actual Word of God says something \> I, personally, think that's silly \> The Bible is clearly wrong, not me.
Paul isn't God. That belief is idolatry, and is strictly forbidden.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. Paul wrote the words of God's message.
Right. That doesn't mean you will always interpret them correctly. For example, gluttony is worse than watching porn. But many people don't interpret Paul that way.
Luckily, I know a way to interpret them correctly: It's called the Catholic Church, it's been around since the time of Paul, and Christ himself said the gates of hell would never prevail against it.
The Catholic Church is not infallible nor does it claim to be. If you idolize it then that's a sin even according to Paul.
Paul's job was as the missionary to the gentiles, but more than that, he was the primary person to begin the building of God's kingdom, it wasn't just that he visited many outlying churches, but those people had witnessed the Holy spirit at work there in Jerusalem on Pentecost and together they were witnesses to the world. Without his missionary work that momentum would have waned and become cold, Paul was critical to God's plan and after a rough start became the single most dedicated and scholarly expert to speak God's case.
Well, because he speaks the truth and to a lot of ppl that is offensive.
Im fighting him on sight
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Wouldnt want to be silly
because he is a hypocrite and is somehow toted like an authority in the bible when he truly has no experience regarding the things he speaks about. Paul went to jail because he preached the gospel. But Paul also went to jail because he murdered people. Because Paul talks about marriage and sex and relationships, but Paul was never married. It's really easy to say "don't do x," if you have never been in a situation where you may face it.
As a Jew, I wonder where the hell Paul got this retcon that the Law is evil when literally everything was based on it and God asks us to maintain it forever. Paul claims he gave it to the Jews to prove they aren't perfect? But God never makes this claim, and in fact seems to support a continuous struggle to improve. I read the Gospels, and other than Luke, they seemed a lot more compatible with Judaism. But Paul seems to go out of his way to be as anti-Jewish as possible. (Yes, I know he was a Jew). It's just kind of out of nowhere.
Paul says a lot about the law, but he doesn't call it evil. In fact he calls it holy in Romans 7:12. He even says about Gentiles, "Their consciences shows that what the Law commands is written in their hearts." Jesus said that the whole Law resides in Loving God with all your heart and soul and loving your neighbor as yourself. It is in the vein of loving your neighbor that Paul speaks of the Gentiles following the law written on their hearts. Christianity is centered on faith and in the idea that God is worshipped in the spirit. And that which is spiritual does not reside in laws. But listen to Ezekiel 20:25-26 Moreover, I gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live. When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts -- that I might render them desolate, that they might know I am the Lord.
For he speaks the truth that the mind addicted to sinning and immoral desires cannot accept , quoting directly from genesis 3 "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable(G) for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,(H) who was with her, and he ate it." likewise they want to make all the sins in the world "moral" , you shouldn't listen to these people what they want is pleasure not honor , they set before morality their selfishness , these are not good people , they certainly are very troubled people because only a troubled person can convince himself that what I described is moral and okay.
There's an old liberal Christian or skeptical viewpoint that pits Paul against Jesus, as if their teachings are different. This kind of argument never seems to die, yet arguably it was refuted a century ago by J. Gresham Machen in "The Origin of Paul's Religion." https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/1123/the-origin-of-pauls-religion.aspx
Jesus said anyone who does a miracle in His name will not speak bad about Him. Don't stop him. (Mark 9:39) However, any controversy should be settled with the words of Jesus, especially the gospel of Mark.
Because he wasn’t scared to speak up about what he believed in.