lovelylil, please don't take this the wrong way, but when I see post like this it always makes me chuckle a little bit. It reminds me of when someone posts a scholarly theory and someone comes back with a religious theory as if this is going to put the scholarly theory to rest. Well it never does. As Nark pointed out the debate isn't about Paul denying or not believing in the Christ of the gospels. It's just a scholarly debate that if you really truly believe in the bible shouldn't make one hill of beans.
Paul's belief in Christ - Lets get it STRAIGHT this time!
by lovelylil 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
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tijkmo
yup about as straight as a banana
glad we got that resolved then
tijkmo of the not even slightly interested class lol
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lovelylil
BT,
Point taken, thank you.
Peace, Lilly
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kwintestal
I don't have any doubt that Paul believed in Jesus, however I would say that the Jesus he believed in was a different person then was written about in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And if it wasn't a different person, then the authors of those books exagerated or made up stories of this Jesus person's life.
lovelylil, what is your opinion as to why Paul never mentions any of the acts of kindness, or miracles that the gospel writers mention? Wouldn't their use be a great opportunity to expand the message, that is after all why the other authors used them (years later). Yet Paul only mentions his birth, death on a cross and reserection. This leads me to the question, did Paul know about them? And if he didn't, how could he not know? And if he did know, why didn't he mention such important facts?
Kwin
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Tuesday
Due to the capitalization of "straight" I thought this was an article about Paul's apparent homosexuality. I'm disappointed now. Everytime I read about Paul I keep seeing Herbert from Family Guy and Timothy is Chris Griffin.
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BurnTheShips
lovelylil, what is your opinion as to why Paul never mentions any of the acts of kindness, or miracles that the gospel writers mention? Wouldn't their use be a great opportunity to expand the message, that is after all why the other authors used them (years later). Yet Paul only mentions his birth, death on a cross and reserection. This leads me to the question, did Paul know about them? And if he didn't, how could he not know? And if he did know, why didn't he mention such important facts?
Argument from silence, Kwin? Paul was writing letters to groups of Christians to address specific issues. He was not writing an account of Jesus' life.
Burn
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lovelylil
kwin,
Burn beat me to the punch. He is exactly right.
Paul was not interested in writing an account of Jesus' teachings and ministry. First of all, he was not an eyewitness to those teachings as he became a Christian much later than Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. He was not a follower of the "fleshly" Jesus.
He was chosen to preach about Christ to the Gentiles and before Kings. Which he did just that. Also, like Burn already said, he wrote letters to the early churches addressing specific topics, such as apostacy and false teachers.
We all (in Christ) have different callings and abilities. Holy Spirit will reveal to us our individual calling in Christ. Mine happens to be two fold - teaching the word of God to others, ministering to those spiritually and emotionally hurt by the Watchtower cult. My husband is also a Christian but does not have the desire or zeal to teach God's word to others that I do. But his calling he feels is to support others taking the lead to teach, and helping widows and orphans. God uses our personal gifts for the good of the church and the world.
Remember we although different parts of Christ's body, have different functions in the church. Paul's function was totally different then that of the other Apostles, and this was shown to be right up front by the way Christ called him. "he is my chosen vessell to the nations". Peace, Lilly
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JosephMalik
"he is my chosen vessell to the nations".
Lovelylil,
Even more than that Lily, 1 Cor 14:37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Yes, this so called outsider had an inside track to the Lord that most of the other Apostles did not have. And Paul used it forcefully which is why many do not like him even today. His message puts down the teaching of most known churches that exist even today and exposes their false doctrines.
Joseph
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Narkissos
Lilly
I'll pick on your reference to "Jesus of Nazareth" (which Paul's epistles never mention in this form) because it aptly summarises and illustrates the problem: quite understandably, to you any Pauline reference to "Christ" or "Jesus" implicitly points to the definite "Jesus story" you know -- from the Gospels, i.e., from other (and most probably later) writings. It is just as evident from your perspective as it is debatable from a historical standpoint.
If we reverse the relationship, in a sense, it is apparent that the four Gospels (which btw are all anonymous works) do refer to Paul's "Christ Jesus" -- not another. They are all meant to answer, in different ways, to the question, "who is this crucified and resurrected Son of God"? But whether or how far their answers correspond to what Paul or the Hellenistic churches had in mind at the previous stage is an entirely different and open question.
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lovelylil
Narkissos is correct that Paul never used the term "Jesus of Nazereth". I was saying that it is obvious from his writings he was speaking about the same Jesus as the writers of the gospels believed in.
About the theory that Paul had a totally different idea of Jesus than the Apostles, and the gospels were written to challenge Paul's "Jesus", I totally disagree. That is a modern day "theory" and not believable to anyone that really understands the Bible.
So what if Paul wrote his letters first? As already pointed out, he had a different ministry than the writers of the gospels and the Lord called him for a specific purpose. He was a dynamic preacher and helped set up many "churches". He certainly made more disciples than most of the other Apostles. He felt responsible to these churches to keep them upbuilt and make sure apostacy stayed out of them. Hence the letters to the churches.
The gospels were written to record the life and ministry of Christ for future generations so that people would know he was the promised Messiah of the OT. Again, who said they were written to somehow correct Paul? Also I don't know why you Q the authorship of the gospels. Although they may not be signed, most scholars agree on the authorship because the early church gave testimony of authorship.
Lilly