I think you have asked some very good questions. I have been "wrestling" with these questions for about two years now.
I am actually looking forward to the discussion this may incite.
Thanx Don
Pastor Steven
· 1 year ago
David,
As an Apostle of Christ to the gentiles the writings of Paul are of utmost importance to the Church as they recount for us the development of early christian thought, doctrine and practice. A better question would be sense they are part of the inspired Word of God, how do we understand them in context of the world we live in today? To ask "what if" Paul's writings were not a part of the Bible is a nonsensical question for those of us who are students of Holy Scripture. It really make no difference because they are and have been, even the Apostle Peter considered Paul's writings to be Scripture 2 Peter 3:16. Sorry David I do not think your question is at all helpful, Paul has a lot of great things to say. Or maybe I just don't understand the premise of your question.
Peace in Christ,
Steven
mrdcbrush
· 1 year ago
Thank you for you response, indeed you may very well be correct. I ask the question not out of impudence, or even disagreement with scripture as we know it today. But in order to get a full picture of Paul's impact I find it intellectually honest and necessary to explore what we would be missing or what would be shaped differently without his insight, leadership, and ministry.
How do we respond honestly to those that would say, 'I love Jesus but can't stand the rest of the NT, especially that misogynistic homophobe Paul?' Again, for me at least this comes back to actually dealing with the perspectives that differ vs. simply saying my way is right, just go along with it.
mrdcbrush
· 1 year ago
I would also add that through appreciating the immensity of the loss of Paul's work we show gratitude to the same.
Jamey
· 1 year ago
For a class, I have been reading from Don Saliers, Worship as Theology, and in the latest reading he brought up the issue of Biblical minimalism, which is reducing the Bible contents to the surface level of propositional truth. I often wonder why the Mennonite or Amish in my area gathered their litany of strict rules to determine their acceptance in their sub-culture, and in light of your question, I think that there pattern of living is drawn more from Paul's works and not the gospels. Issues with women in ministry: would spiritual authority be questioned without the epistles? How about tongues after Pentecost without Paul's discourse on its proper use? What about mandates to tithe? Or, communion liturgy? I do not intend to indicate that Paul's works have no use, for I am sure that a majority of my messages have come from Paul's works. But, maybe that is the problem, we tend to use the latter 2/3 of the New Testament more than the rest of the Bible. Very frequently, we use it as an "answers.com" to pull out proof from the context all the time to support a certain point of view. The context of Paul's letter are a little more obscure than the gospels or OT and their contents can be useful apart from original context too. We could agree that the issue with Paul's writings is in our use and interpretation, not the ancient texts. Maybe our attempt to systematize and break everything down to nice, neat little nuggets gravitated to Paul's dogmatic statements rather than placing ourselves in the narratives of the gospels.
mrdcbrush
· 1 year ago
You are correct, we have a tendency to ignore the narrative flow and context of Paul's writing.
jason
· 1 year ago
new reader to your blog...like these thoughts a lot...
Scott
· 1 year ago
Last year I focused entirely on the gospels. I did this so I could better understand where Paul was coming from. A lot of times I hear the words of Paul used to promote a leagalistic agenda. I think that if Paul were here with us he would be horrified in how people have twisted his words. In order to keep Paul in perspective we need to run everything that he says through the lens of the Gospel. I do not see Paul acting in a different way than Jesus, but I can see how fundamentalist can skew his words.
CynthiaPrentice
· 1 year ago
If the works of Paul had not been canonized we would have quite a challenging task ahead of us. To accurately understand and interpret the teaching of Jesus we would need to completely immerse ourselves in Judaism, theculture, the language, the rabbinical teachings of the 1st century.
Jesus' message was brought in an Eastern style of communication....pictures...concrete images. It was brought to Hebrew people in a rabbinical style. I realize that some discount the validity of interpreting his message within a rabbinical context due to the time frame in which the Talmud was written, however scholars are revealing, through their studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Talmud is a very good reflection of 1st century Judaism. When one does this, Jesus teachings come alive and many misconceptions (one being Jesus doesn't really "answer" questions but leaves them open ended - when he fact he gave very clear answers in an Eastern style) are clarified.
Here is a link to about 7 hours worth of teaching on mp3 files that are a good introduction to this concept. Ray Vander Laan is the speaker. He is the source of a lot of source material for Rob Bell. It's a good listen.
Thank you for your thoughts and for the link, I am listening to the first recording over my lunch break.
CynthiaPrentice
· 1 year ago
Wow, that's great. It's one thing to post a link and another thing for someone to listen to it. Having lived in an eastern culture (Middle East/African country of Egypt) I find RVL's information particularly interesting. It takes him a while to get going but once he does the depth of insight into the Text is really worth it in a thought provoking sort of way.
The first half of the sessions look at the Old Testament/ Tanakh through Eastern eyes. Particularly interesting is RVL's time with a Bedouin family and their wordless covenant cutting ceremony. The second half of the sessions look at the ministry of Jesus through Eastern/rabbinical eyes.
I recently read Tony Jones' blog post, "Who gets Paul?" In it he said, "...how rare it is that a theological figure is embraced by various ecclesiological factions. In the 20th century, I could really only think of two others: C.S. Lewis and Henri Nouwen." I realize that RVL isn't Lewis or Nouwen but he is in a unique position...embraced by Focus on the Family as well as Rob Bell. That gets my attention. I think it describes a lot of Nazarene churches...each falling somewhere on the spectrum between Focus and Bell.
After spending three years immersed in RVL's teaching our small, normal, average, West Texas, "happy in our bubble" Nazarene church has been transformed into a missional, inner city, gang loving, give us your trouble makers, inter-racial, multilingual hub of love. We don't argue over the color of the carpet, which by the way is dirty...we call the dirt "love spots". We don't count people anymore...we count fingerprints left on our glass doors from the apartment children who faces and hands are pressed to the glass...begging to get in...even during Monday night board meetings. Speaking of counting our "numbers" don't reflect what we are doing...half the time we don't even get an accurate count because we have become more disciples than scribes.
We sold our property in the "better" part of town and stayed put where we are needed the most. We have come alive. We haven't gone through a huge theological shift...but what we have always heard has gone from flat words on a page...to brilliant pop up pictures. The Text has come alive for us and transformed us and none of us ever want to return to doing church the "normal" way again. We are becoming a band of brothers and sisters, running through the forest looking for the ones who need to be fed, clothed, healed and loved. We are becoming the body of Christ.
geneT
· 1 year ago
THANKS for this link. Nicely disrupting my thinking :->>
Greg Arthur
· 1 year ago
This is a really intriguing question because of Paul's impact especially on our understanding of the gospel as it pertains to the role of the church. If we just had Acts telling us about Paul's missionary journeys we would suffer from the intimate pastoral letters he sends to churches and addressing their problems.
We would be forced, however, to spend a lot more time in the Gospels and in the other 2/3 of the Bible the OT, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. I gave up preaching the Epistles for about a year, maybe year and a half. It wasn't that I never preached them, but I forced myself to dive into narratives much more and it was a wonderful exercise in preaching.
Our understanding of the implications of the Gospel for breaking through artificial social boundaries would definitely suffer without Paul. I can't imagine understanding the gospel without Galatians which is probably my favorite Pauline Epistle.
geneT
· 1 year ago
Well, we'd lose the last half of Romans 8 :-((
Amy
· 1 year ago
I think there would be less judgementalism on a lot of insignificant issues the church spends so much time one, and more Jesus preaching and Jesus following like never before. But God knew that we obviously would fight and argue about 'church' things and thus gave us those letters. If we look closely all the letters are to church people, and many to the leaders....not just to the christian people. God new church leaders needed help. Just a quick though on the lunch break.
All Comments
I think you have asked some very good questions. I have been "wrestling" with these questions for about two years now.
I am actually looking forward to the discussion this may incite.
Thanx
Don
As an Apostle of Christ to the gentiles the writings of Paul are of utmost importance to the Church as they recount for us the development of early christian thought, doctrine and practice. A better question would be sense they are part of the inspired Word of God, how do we understand them in context of the world we live in today? To ask "what if" Paul's writings were not a part of the Bible is a nonsensical question for those of us who are students of Holy Scripture. It really make no difference because they are and have been, even the Apostle Peter considered Paul's writings to be Scripture 2 Peter 3:16. Sorry David I do not think your question is at all helpful, Paul has a lot of great things to say. Or maybe I just don't understand the premise of your question.
Peace in Christ,
Steven
How do we respond honestly to those that would say, 'I love Jesus but can't stand the rest of the NT, especially that misogynistic homophobe Paul?' Again, for me at least this comes back to actually dealing with the perspectives that differ vs. simply saying my way is right, just go along with it.
I do not intend to indicate that Paul's works have no use, for I am sure that a majority of my messages have come from Paul's works. But, maybe that is the problem, we tend to use the latter 2/3 of the New Testament more than the rest of the Bible. Very frequently, we use it as an "answers.com" to pull out proof from the context all the time to support a certain point of view. The context of Paul's letter are a little more obscure than the gospels or OT and their contents can be useful apart from original context too. We could agree that the issue with Paul's writings is in our use and interpretation, not the ancient texts. Maybe our attempt to systematize and break everything down to nice, neat little nuggets gravitated to Paul's dogmatic statements rather than placing ourselves in the narratives of the gospels.
Jesus' message was brought in an Eastern style of communication....pictures...concrete images. It was brought to Hebrew people in a rabbinical style. I realize that some discount the validity of interpreting his message within a rabbinical context due to the time frame in which the Talmud was written, however scholars are revealing, through their studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Talmud is a very good reflection of 1st century Judaism. When one does this, Jesus teachings come alive and many misconceptions (one being Jesus doesn't really "answer" questions but leaves them open ended - when he fact he gave very clear answers in an Eastern style) are clarified.
Here is a link to about 7 hours worth of teaching on mp3 files that are a good introduction to this concept. Ray Vander Laan is the speaker. He is the source of a lot of source material for Rob Bell. It's a good listen.
http://blog.wakefi.org/downloads/
Paul's message
The first half of the sessions look at the Old Testament/ Tanakh through Eastern eyes. Particularly interesting is RVL's time with a Bedouin family and their wordless covenant cutting ceremony. The second half of the sessions look at the ministry of Jesus through Eastern/rabbinical eyes.
I recently read Tony Jones' blog post, "Who gets Paul?" In it he said, "...how rare it is that a theological figure is embraced by various ecclesiological factions. In the 20th century, I could really only think of two others: C.S. Lewis and Henri Nouwen." I realize that RVL isn't Lewis or Nouwen but he is in a unique position...embraced by Focus on the Family as well as Rob Bell. That gets my attention. I think it describes a lot of Nazarene churches...each falling somewhere on the spectrum between Focus and Bell.
After spending three years immersed in RVL's teaching our small, normal, average, West Texas, "happy in our bubble" Nazarene church has been transformed into a missional, inner city, gang loving, give us your trouble makers, inter-racial, multilingual hub of love. We don't argue over the color of the carpet, which by the way is dirty...we call the dirt "love spots". We don't count people anymore...we count fingerprints left on our glass doors from the apartment children who faces and hands are pressed to the glass...begging to get in...even during Monday night board meetings. Speaking of counting our "numbers" don't reflect what we are doing...half the time we don't even get an accurate count because we have become more disciples than scribes.
We sold our property in the "better" part of town and stayed put where we are needed the most. We have come alive. We haven't gone through a huge theological shift...but what we have always heard has gone from flat words on a page...to brilliant pop up pictures. The Text has come alive for us and transformed us and none of us ever want to return to doing church the "normal" way again. We are becoming a band of brothers and sisters, running through the forest looking for the ones who need to be fed, clothed, healed and loved. We are becoming the body of Christ.
Nicely disrupting my thinking :->>
We would be forced, however, to spend a lot more time in the Gospels and in the other 2/3 of the Bible the OT, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. I gave up preaching the Epistles for about a year, maybe year and a half. It wasn't that I never preached them, but I forced myself to dive into narratives much more and it was a wonderful exercise in preaching.
Our understanding of the implications of the Gospel for breaking through artificial social boundaries would definitely suffer without Paul. I can't imagine understanding the gospel without Galatians which is probably my favorite Pauline Epistle.