by cameo-d 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
Paul was responsible for setting up what we know as Christianity. But at least he attempted to obey his own rules--which is more than can be said for certain other religious leaders.
I believe Christ would be offended by Christianity. Christ wanted self-leaders, not footstep followers.
Paul was only one of the prominent early Christians. I strongly suspect that he only seems more prominent to us today than he actually was in his own time, because more of his extant writings are considered canonical than any of the other early leaders. Simply put, we've got more stuff of his in writing than anyone else. Likely for this reason, "sola scriptura" Christianity tends to have a more Paulian flavor than other kinds.
BTS
Speaking from a strictly JW background, there is little doubt that JW's are organized the Pauline way. His letters are scrutinized and used a great deal.
Jesus is used mostly around Memorial time, the Sermon on the Mount, and for Mt 24:14, Mt 24:45-47, and Mt 28: 19,20. If it weren't for these main features of Jesus, JW's would have nothing to do with him.
What I have is on pp.4 and 7-10 at the next link. As it bears on this, prayer
and worship were the two main ways 1st century Jewish people indicated belief in
God, and followers were praying to and worshipping Jesus in the mid-30's AD, which
is why Paul went after them at first. He later popularized it among the Gen-
tiles and is the biggest contributer of writing to the NT, but the most signifi-
cant part was underway.
http://gtw6437.tripod.com/
Paul gets a lot of words in, is all, seemingly because he was a prolific writer. Some religions rely more on him for structure than others, but it's also evident that even in the first century there were differences in that way and that it was generally accepted that not all congregations of Christians were exactly the same.
They strove for a certain uniformity in belief in the main concepts of Christian belief, but differed on others that were less vital, from what I can see. Kind of like Christianity is now. The absolute conformity of belief the Witnesses pretend they have never existed and may not have even been intended by Christ or the apostles, from what I can see.
I say "pretend" because if you've just traveled around the country or gone to another country, Witnesses can be quite different in practice and appearance from place to place.
