skeptical about Paul

[chomputer]

Thanks Felgar for the encouraging words because I really would like to find the truth. And if God is as real as you guys all say he is then Him putting me straight is no big thing if that is his will for me. Just a matter of it being the correct time I suppose. I will try looking more closely at what Jesus and the other apostles say, that is a good suggestion.

Anyway, I am tired of talking about Paul. Lively discussion though.

[Anonymous]

Here's my take: If you can't believe what is in the Bible then you may as well forget the whole thing. We are told that the Bible is inspired by God; it is to be the foundation of our Faith. God provided us with the Bible so that we could follow it. For that reason I have to believe that God has protected His Word throughout time from being tainted by a fraud. Is God not powerful enough to preserve the sanctity of His Word?
...

Hi Felgar! I'd like to give a response to this. Excuse me for being skeptical at this point in time, I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God... and of course He has the power to preserve it, but I also believe in our time and age God uses other means of getting his word out: for example this forum! In our modern day, every person is able to read, write and think for themselves: and discuss what they think and feel - and draw knowledge and experience from all over the world. We have come a long long way, since our forefathers who were fairly uneducated regarding the bigger picture of the world... dont you think?

[Felgar]

Hi Felgar! I'd like to give a response to this. Excuse me for being skeptical at this point in time, I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God... and of course He has the power to preserve it, but I also believe in our time and age God uses other means of getting his word out: for example this forum! In our modern day, every person is able to read, write and think for themselves: and discuss what they think and feel - and draw knowledge and experience from all over the world. We have come a long long way, since our forefathers who were fairly uneducated regarding the bigger picture of the world... dont you think?

Oh, I completely agree. In fact w're told that knowledge will increase and that the gospel will be spread as if never before in the end times - places like this are certainly means to that end. We're also told to share with one another and reason with each other, so that we may understand Him better through His word - again; exactly what we're doing here.

But the original point still stands - that the fundamental foundation for our Faith is the Word, for the Word is God. In fact this is how we know whether we our discourse is correct; by verifying that the conclusions are in accordance to the Word.

Oh, and welcome to the forum milla! How cool that we have members literally from around the world.

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, cool site and nice formus!!

I have to agree with computor on this one. After the death of Jesus, their were quite a few different christian sects that started apearing all over the place, Jewish Christianity, Pualine Chrisianity and I think 1 more. Jewish Christianity (Jerusalem Church with the 12 Apostles).

It was when Peter visited him in Antioch and became aware of the full extent of Paul's views that a serious rift began between Pauline and Jewish Christianity. At a second conference in Jerusalem (c.55), Paul was accused by James of teaching Jews "to turn their backs on Moses" (Acts 21:21). Again, however, Paul evaded the charge by concealing his views, and he agreed to undergo a test of his own observance of the Torah. His deception, however, was detected by a group of "Asian Jews" (probably Jewish Christians) who were aware of his real teaching. A stormy protest ensued in which Paul feared for his life and was rescued by the Roman police, to whom he declared for his protection that he was a Roman citizen. This surprising announcement was the end of Paul's association with the Jerusalem Church, to whom the Romans were the chief enemy.

The Roman commandant, Claudius Lysias, decided to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin in order to discover the cause of the disturbance. With great presence of mind, Paul appealed to the Pharisee majority to acquit him, claiming to be a Pharisee like James. Paul was rescued by the Pharisees from the high priest, like Peter before him. However, the high priest, resenting this escape, appointed a body of men to assassinate Paul. Learning of the plot, Paul again placed himself under the protection of the Romans, who transported him by armed guard from Jerusalem to Caesarea. The High Priest Ananias was implacable, no doubt because of Paul's defection from his police task in Damascus, and laid a charge of anti-Roman activity against him. Paul appealed for a trial in Rome before Caesar, his right as a Roman citizen. The assertion of Acts that the Jewish "elders" were also implicated in the charges against Paul is unhistorical, since these same elders had just acquitted him in his Sanhedrin trial. Paul was sent to Rome, and here our information ends. Legends speak of his eventual martyrdom in Rome.

The Pauline Epistles (or Corpus Paulinum) constitute those epistles traditionally attributed to Paul. Their names are based on the Christian groups or individuals to whom they are addressed.


Epistle to the Romans -- Paul the Apostle
First Epistle to the Corinthians -- Paul
Second Epistle to the Corinthians -- Paul
Epistle to the Galatians -- Paul
Epistle to the Ephesians -- Paul
Epistle to the Philippians -- Paul
Epistle to the Colossians -- Paul
First Epistle to the Thessalonians -- Paul
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians -- Paul
First Epistle to Timothy -- Paul
Second Epistle to Timothy -- Paul
Epistle to Titus -- Paul
Epistle to Philemon -- Paul
Epistle to the Hebrews -- Anonymous, traditionally attributed to Paul.
The church in order to make it look like Jesus was the founder of Pauline Christianity, rearranged the order in which the New Testament books were written. The original (Jewish Christian) church Jesus founded were those attacked as "Judanizers" and were exterminated for heresy after Nicaea in 325 AD. Putting the New Testament books in the approximate correct order by date written:

James (50 AD?)
Paul's Epistles plus Hebrews (50-60 AD) (secular and Evangelical seem to agree here.)
Matthew, Mark, Luke/Acts (Evangelicals 65-70 AD) or Mark, Matthew, Luke/Acts (Secular Mark, 70 AD; Matthew, Luke/Acts 70-80 AD) Luke and Acts were one work.
I, II Peter (65-80 AD?)
Book of Revelation 81-96 AD during the rule of Domitian.
Gospel of John (96 AD or later)
I, II, III John, 96+ AD "an extension of John." (New American Bible)
Jude (Writer unknown, could proceed John)

Paul was protected by the romans, and they destroyed the Jerusalem Church, and killed anybody who preached a differeant faith then they did after christianity was declared the official religion of Rome. The bottom line for me is their are so many different christian churches today, how can we tell who is right and who is wrong.. their is no UNITY among us!

Cheers and love for Sunny SOUTH AFRICA!!

[Felgar]

Hi joburg, and welcome.

Regardless of the events of Paul's life that you are recounting (and honestly I'm too ignorant in this area to question that information) I still maintain my original line of reasoning. The fundamental reasons why we can still regard Paul's books as the Word of God are:

1) They are uniformally accepted among the Church, and I don't accept that God would permit our Bible to be so utterly corrupted... Were it so corrupted, I would have to believe that at some point God would have revealed this to any number of men of very strong faith.

2) The other apostles accepted Paul as one of their own.

3) The teachings of Paul do not contravene the other books of the Bible, nor the actual teachings of Jesus.

And really #3 is the crux of it. The ultimate test for any truth is whether or not it will be found in acordance with the Word. Jesus' tempatation by Satan is a perfect example of this. And truly, do not the books written by Paul pass this test?

[Kurieuo]

joburg,

You provide a lot of content I am agreeable with. I just don't know how you jumped from the content you provide, to get to what you say in your concluding paragraph. Such kind of seems out of step with everything else (but your first paragraph which also seems of lesser quality). This leads me to conclude you simply cut and paste, in which case I request you read our discussion guidelines under "Plagiarism, References, and Misquoting." I'm not even sure you read the body of your content, which is the least you could have done. I request that you please provide credit where credit is due.

One thing you fail to account for is what was Paul's purpose in apparently causing a schism, and persisting with his mission to the Gentiles? One thing that appears obvious, is that through his stonings, time in jail, times being stranded, and being prejudiced against by his own Jewish people—Paul seemed entirely convicted of the fact he knew what he was doing was right and true. Let's assume for a moment that he just reasoned to his Christian beliefs, and lets say he faced disagreement with the other Apostles (as there does appear to be some conflict going on, although they were agreeable it seems on essential Christian doctrine!). Given that the other Apostles did have direct contact with Christ, Paul would have had to have doubted his own reasoning ability with regards to his Christian beliefs and mission to the Gentiles. But not only did Paul never appear to faulter, but he persisted, and even placed his words on equal grounding to that of the Apostles who had walked with Christ. Why did not Paul doubt he was wrong, but rather convicted he was right? There is only one reason I can put to it, and that was he truely did experience Christ along the road the Damascus. It is only an explanation such as this, which I think can best account for two things:

1) The change in Paul from being the most Jewish of the Jews and persecutor of Christians, to the most Gentile of Jews and one of the greatest evangelists of Christianity.

2) His obvious conviction that what he was doing was right and divinely inspired, despite persecution and perhaps disagreements with the Apostles over it seems traditional Jewish values. One has to wonder why Paul never appeared to question himself during such trialing times?

Paul was protected by the romans, and they destroyed the Jerusalem Church, and killed anybody who preached a differeant faith then they did after christianity was declared the official religion of Rome. The bottom line for me is their are so many different christian churches today, how can we tell who is right and who is wrong.. their is no UNITY among us!

See this is just what gave you away. Paul was a Jew, a Pharisee of Pharisees, although he was also a Roman citizen. Did you not even read what you obviously pasted previously to your concluding paragraph? And Romans acted out, not against the Christian church in Jerusalem, but against the Jews of Jerusalem who revolted against Rome. Surely someone with the amount of knowledge you appear to have would know this?

What of the claim there are so many different denominations? Well far from disunity, you will find a lot of unity amongst them especially on doctrines pertaining to Christ, salvation, forgiveness, and important things such as this. Now there are disagreements on certain things like: Should one be sprinkled or dipped during baptism? Should worship happen on a Sunday or Saturday? Yet, as Greg Koukl points out, "these are more peripheral issues to the fundamental superstructure of what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity" (What is Christianity?—recommend reading as related to what I'm saying). Differences between mere Christianity, that is, the basics and fundamentals of Christianity, are rather few. All Christians agree on the basics and fundamentals, and if they don't, then they are not called Christian.

Kurieuo.

[Anonymous]

@Kurieuo thanks for the reply, your wisdom is well taken and only someone with your kwoledge would have seen the cut and paste The paste I felt I could not have said any better, and I will use my own words for any future postings. I do however have some other writings, I would like your opinion on them, but I am not so sure if I can copy and paste it into my post?

Just a bit of background on myself, I am 24 years of age and live in...joburg I am married with a amazing baby girl and design websites for a living. I was raised a Dutch reformest but at the moment I go with my wife to their church - Apostolic Church, Apostle Unity - (they also have 12 living apostles around the world and 1 in Aus. I think the apostolic church of Quensland.. not 100% sure?) I love music and reading religious history.

Thanks for the reply guy's, and I look forward to chatting with you all!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the guidlines, I will quote the sources of any pastings

[Kurieuo]

@Kurieuo thanks for the reply, your wisdom is well taken and only someone with your kwoledge would have seen the cut and paste The paste I felt I could not have said any better, and I will use my own words for any future postings. I do however have some other writings, I would like your opinion on them, but I am not so sure if I can copy and paste it into my post?

Thanks for at least coming clean on this matter . If you have any questions to do with writings you read elsewhere that you would like responses to, I'd recommend just starting up a new topic, comment about what it is you find problematic or challenging in some detail, and then provide a link to the page. This is entirely acceptable, and someone going to the effort to describe the issue, shows that they are much more sincere in receiving a response.

Just a bit of background on myself, I am 24 years of age and live in...joburg I am married with a amazing baby girl and design websites for a living. I was raised a Dutch reformest but at the moment I go with my wife to their church - Apostolic Church, Apostle Unity - (they also have 12 living apostles around the world and 1 in Aus. I think the apostolic church of Quensland.. not 100% sure?) I love music and reading religious history.

Thanks for the introduction, as it certainly helps to clarify your intentions here.

Kurieuo.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kurieuo! Here is a something I would like your opinion on -

"..What you usually hear about Jesus today in churches and on TV is an interpretation that comes from the writings of a man named Paul who called himself an "apostle" (messenger) but was not among Jesus' "twelve" disciples who are also called "apostles." ..."


http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/theology_paul.htm

Cheers guy's

[Kurieuo]

It's an article. It touches on many things. If you want comments beyond this , then please provides your thoughts on a specific part.

With regards to what you quote, I see nothing wrong with what is said by itself. Yet, the Apostles accepted Paul, and so their own acceptance lends Paul authority as much as Matthias (who replaced Judas). Now there were already 12 Apostles with Matthias, and I believe just as there are 12 tribes of Israel, so there are 12 Apostles. However, Paul was called differently, to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (read Galatians 2:6-10). Therefore there were 13 Apostles in all—12 Apostles for Israel + 1 to the Gentiles = all people covered.

Kurieuo.

[Anonymous]

I think its a very dangerous road to go down if you try to invalidate the scriptures. If you believe that God is God, then how can you question what He says? If He says the Word is divine, then it is. To question that would be to question whether God even exists. I see it as one package deal. Now certain verses we could attempt to examine original texts, etc. and argue to their meaning. But even that is a very slippery slope. Next thing you know we're fighting crusades, aborting children by the millions, and legalizing gay marriage because we've chosen to ignore portions of God's Word.

A bit old, but I had to comment...

You presuppose what you set out to prove. You are presupposing that is true and thus therefore it must be true. This isn't a slippery slope, this is flawed logic. You are stating, "Because A exists, A must exist". The essential point gets back to when or where did God say that it was True? By third parties in the NT? You're back to the same problem as before.

I think his argument is valid. He questions whether or not these portions of the NT are relevant or are God's word. I'd love to find some sort of logical based answer to these questions, but I suspect the only answer is pure faith. Or at least that's the answer you are advocating Just to draw a parallel: the Mormons have faith too, but they believe that you'll get your own planet when you die.

[August]

I would start with this:

God is perfect, His revelation is perfect, the Bible is His revelation, therefore the Bible is perfect.

I'm not sure this addresses your point about Paul, though it is part of the Bible found to be historically consistent with the rest of the content.

[Kurieuo]

God is perfect, His revelation is perfect, the Bible is His revelation, therefore the Bible is perfect.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Bible is God's special revelation; however something more needs to be done to prove this statement. Additionally, what is perfect? Inerrancy? What is inerrancy? Understanding what pertains within inerrancy, one can go to the Bible and evaluate the passages.

Now I accept Biblical inerrancy based on assuming it inerrant until proven guilty. I haven't come across one error yet which outrightly proves the Bible wrong. I have come across passages that disprove certain theological positions, and there are many difficult passages. However, in the end I've been satisfied with the answers that exist. Therefore I continue believing the Bible to be inerrant based on my experience solving "apparent" problems. And so I affirm Biblical inerrancy on positive grounds rather than it simply being a case of sola faith.

Kurieuo.

[August]

And so I affirm Biblical inerrancy on positive grounds rather than it simply being a case of sola faith.

Don't you think it can lead to a possible position of finding something that you accept as errant, which would invalidate your position of positive affirmation. Even if you choose to accept that you have found a 'mistake', it in all likelyhood means you made the mistake, and that the Bible remains inerrant.

The starting position here is that God is infallible, and it follows that His revelation must be infallible, not the other way round.

But I do get what you are saying, and it remains an interesting phylosophical discussion.