Why do so many people follow the teachings of Paul?

[Jo March]

I am always amazed when people quote Paul and attribute his words to Christ. Paul's teachings do not have the peace, love and understanding that Jesus's words do. In fact, Paul seems like a mean-spirited man who would rather bash you over the head with religious teachings.

Paul kinda seems like the first fundie. :shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Nah, I think you are partly misreading Paul.

Paul is nowhere near the bastard that so many people want to make him out to be. I don't get it.

But you are partly correct, in that there are people - fundies, mostly - who give Jesus' words about the lowest priority, and they elevate Paul, and esp. those parts of Leviticus they like a lot.

Some do indeed have a tendancy to quote Paul as though he were Jesus.

But, also, one must understand that for the Christian, ALL of Scripture is authoritative, and so in that sense Paul's words DO have authority, and they DO speak to us, and we DO need to listen to them.

But, IMO, when he and Jesus disagree, I always go for Jesus.

[Jo March]

3. But Paul and Jesus shouldn't disagree, right?

I'll find the Scriptures that worry me and repost them here.

[Critters2]

2. Read 1st Corinthians 13

And tell me you don't find peace, love, and understanding.

[Jo March]

4. Of course, I have to say that my teachings re: Paul came from

a Southern Baptist upbringing. Many of his texts were cited in support of slavery, having a woman submissive to her husband, etc. I've had many a fundie friend reference Paul's teachings as to why Jesus didn't want women to preach or teach the word.

Edited to add: My teachings about Paul and his teachings are in line with this webpage: http://www.littlegeneva.com/gal328.html x(

I tried to google the verses but there is so much stuff out there, I'm going to have to just type the verses from my Bible.

I remember clearly the words of a fundie friend, "Women cannot be ministers and I believe that. If you read Timothy and the words of Paul, you will see that women are clearly prohibited from being preachers." When I pointed out that Christ had no such prohibition, he explained - with such patience and condesension, lol - that Paul was an apostle and he was chosen to preach. This particular fellow had much more extensive Biblical study than me and I admit that I was taken aback.

Perhaps some of my problems with Paul have to do with how his words were twisted, perhaps? Were his words twisted?

[RevCheesehead]

5. Yes.

As to the "women should not teach"... it was a later addition to the text. Read the entire passage, and omit that verse. You'll see that they flow together nicely.

As to the "women should be silent in worship,"... Paul was writing a letter to a particular church (Corinth), where their entire worship practices were out of whack. People came early and began eating all the food, before everyone else could get there. They didn't understand sharing, loving one another, or listening attentively to the leader.

[Critters2]

7. One of my seminary profs

liked to point out that Paul wrote about women in Corinth because a certain group who needed discipline happened to be women. He liked to say, "If they had all been redheads, and thus Paul had used that trait to identify them, we'd be debating the ordination of redheads today!" And the SBC would be against!

[Jo March]

10. The SBC is an interesting group

Basically, the SBC that we grew up in told my mother that if she would submit to her husband and be a good wife, then he wouldn't drink so much and abuse us. :eyes:

Of course, my mother told them to go to hell so that pretty much ended us going there.

That church taught all Paul, all the time.

[RevCheesehead]

12. Good for your mom!

It's amazing how many people swallow that bullshit, and let their lives be completely ruined by people who *think* they know the bible, and know what's best for others.

Keeping the family together, despite alcoholism and abuse, is something Jesus would NEVER condone. And it's time the church confessed that publically. :grr:

I'm so sorry that they said that to your family. You are fortunate - your mother knew best. :hug:

[Jo March]

15. Yes, but she still won't attend church to this day

She refuses to attend. I've invited her but she always says no. :(

[Critters2]

19. The SBC used to ordain women, ya know

When the fundies took it over in the early 80's, there were several ordained women in the SBC. They all got un-ordained. A colleague/friend of mine, who's Disciple, went to the SBC seminary in Kansas City. There were a good many women students there then, and no one questioned their right to study or be ordained. Now women aren't allowed, but the school still calls and writes my friend, asking for money. She tells 'em she'll send something for the library, and then sends books about women in ministry, women in the church, feminist theology, etc.

[RevCheesehead]

11. "Then they'd still be after me...,"

says the red-headed woman pastor. O8)

[Jo March]

9. I was going to be a Chaplain in the Army

and was about to be sponsored for the Green to Gold program in which I would have gone to college to study religious studies. I hate that I fell out of that helicopter, darn it!!! That tended to end that career path.

I have met people who have studied the Bible far more than me and I always admire them for their knowledge of Biblical times and Biblical context. I've tried to expose myself to those who have a good grasp of those types of things but it's getting rarer and rarer.

And trying to research on the Internets is just ridiculous. I run across a lot of the fundie crap which just frustrates and depresses me.

[RevCheesehead]

13. Hey, arnheim -

Is there a Methodist church in your area? If so, I would suggest you find out if they have a DISCIPLE bible study class starting in the fall.

I can't say enough good things about DISCIPLE. It's a 34-week, intensive, in-depth study of scripture. It's designed to get people to understand that the Bible is a rich collection of many different kinds of texts, and helps set them in their historical context. You begin to understand why each passage is written, and what message is being conveyed under the circumstances.

It takes commitment and determination. There's a lot of reading (daily assignments) and each week, there's a 2-hour session. But of all the people I've known to take the class, NOT ONE PERSON was disappointed. They all came away saying they were better for having taken the class, and wished they had something like that years ago.

[Jo March]

16. My church is Methodist

I haven't had the time to devote to this course - which they offer. Now that I've graduated college, I have the time.

I'd love to attend. Being surrounded by people who want to know the who, what, when, where and why of the Bible instead of folks who only know stock verses - well, it's refreshing and challenging.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Yes, they were, have been, and continue to be twisted -

I wouldn't trust a Southern Baptist or any fundy or pentecostal to interpret Scripture anywhere near accurately or faithfully.

And come on - do you really want to trust someone who writes for the "Society for Biblical and Southern Studies"? What the hell do "Biblical" and "Southern" have in common, that there should be a society dedicated to the study of both?

(In case you didn't see, the article you posted is from the Society for Biblical and Southern Studies, at the bottom of the page)

Clearly, one can tell from the title of the society, that it's basically a "We will re-interpret scripture until it agrees with antebellum southern cultural ideals, all the while decrying how the liberals make scripture fit their cultural biases, and what we come up with will not only be heretical, it will be sufficiently racist, misogynistic, and assholish to get us a lot of money from rich white folk who are afraid of any change that occurred after 1752".

[Jo March]

8. Oh, no! I don't trust them one bit

I was just struck as to how similar that website was to what I was taught. For a moment, I thought I was back in my old hometown church. :scared:

My church now (Methodist) does not teach what I was taught growing up in a Southern Baptist Church. In fact, not too many of Paul's teachings are focused on. Some are but not too many. Mostly it concerns the teachings of Christ and the 4 gospels.

I am leery of groups nowadays who believe what that site has up.

OTOH, my mother was bashed over the head quite nicely with writings that were attributed to good old Paul. Maybe that is why I am suspicious of those who seem to hold him in greater esteem than Christ.

[StoryTeller]

14. Poor Paul

I fully expect that in heaven (whatever it may look like) Paul will end up spending the first few millenia facing down a bunch of angry people and saying, "LOOK, you don't understand! You have it all WRONG! I've been misrepresented!" Poor guy. He's probably banging his head right now on some golden wall in utter frustration at how his writings are being used and interpreted.

I don't think Paul was probably as mean-spirited as people tend to think. I think he was a very intense, passionate, brilliant man with strong beliefs and convictions. But if you look carefully, he directs most of his ire toward religious leaders who were trying to keep their followers from experiencing spiritual freedom. Jesus' strongest language is directed at the same type of people and attitudes, actually.

To understand Paul, you have to understand the culture to which he was writing. It was a Greco-Roman culture that valued strong language, rhetoric, debate, and intellectual arguments. It was very different from the culture Jesus spent most of His time with. And Paul was very concerned about preserving high-quality teaching, both on the Jewish side and the Gentile side of the issue. So he doesn't mince words, and he isn't particularly worried about not offending people. But that was how he HAD to communicate in order to be respected and heard in that culture.

Paul is anything but a fundie. His approach to the Christian life was absolutely radical in his day. Of course he didn't speak out against slavery, and of course he affirmed that women should be submissive. That was the very entrenched legal reality of that society. Imagine what would have happened if you were a first-century church leader in Ephesus, and you were holding a letter from Paul in your hands that advocated abolishing slavery and advocated women's independence...and a unit of Roman soldiers showed up. How long do you think it would be before your pathetic little Greek body was hanging from a cross? Or if you were lucky enough to be a Roman citizen, maybe it would just be your head rolling across the execution floor. Those sort of ideas would not just have been radical--they would have been treason. Death row inmates in the Roman Empire didn't have much in the line of endless legal appeals to keep them from their sentence either. And though Paul wasn't too worried about his own life, I doubt he would want to endanger the lives of the people he ministered to. So he went as far as he could safely go in restructuring people's heart attitudes toward each other, even though he couldn't change their legal status.

A lot of the things that make people so mad about Paul, though, are nothing more than remarks he wrote in letters addressing specific events of a specific group of people. And we only have half the conversation. So it's hard to sometimes piece together what he was actually trying to say. People get into trouble when they assume they know what he meant and then apply it, without doing a lot of study and taking the time to learn what was probably going on in that historical context.

So I think we really should cut Paul some slack and not try to view his writings through our own very Americanized, 21st century eyes. If you want to read some very coherent, logical articles that provide good explanation for many of his specific "controversial statements" --particularly about women--check out http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/index.shtml">Christians For Biblical Equality. and click on Free Articles at the left.

[Jo March]

17. I understand quite a bit about reading Biblical passages with

one brain cell dedicated to the times that the Bible was written. Paul would have been strung up if he had been a more, um, progressive preacher. I've learned a lot about Paul in the last few days. I'm amazed at the controversy that he generates!!!

The fundies, however, use Paul's writings to encourage the submission of women. So, I guess my ire should be with Pualites and not Paul! ;)

I will check the link. Thank you so much!!!

[StoryTeller]

18. You got that right!

The fundies, however, use Paul's writings to encourage the submission of women. So, I guess my ire should be with Paulites and not Paul! ;)

EXACTLY! In fact, I think Paul would share your ire. Even more so today where we don't have the legitimate cultural excuses they did back then.

It is interesting, isn't it, what a lightening rod Paul has always been. I bet he was a pretty lonely guy. Controversial figures usually are.

[Jo March]

24. Well, it's not like he started out with many friends

:P

[Critters2]

20. Not all the literature popularly attributed to Paul was really written

by Paul, probably. The books probably written by Paul are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Galatians, Philippians and 1 Thessalonians, Philemon, and probably though not certainly Colossians.

2 Thessalonians and Ephesians probably weren't.

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus almost certainly weren't.

That these were influenced by Paul is true, but he didn't write them all.

[StoryTeller]

21. There is some debate, true.

I've studied a little about that debate. Not enough to have formed my own arguments either way. But I do think there is some possibility that even if these were letters originally written by Paul, it's quite possible that they underwent a little "editing" or compiling by the time they were included in the canon.

And let me tell you, as one who was raised in a theologically quite evangelical, almost fundamentalist family (not quite that loony, but doctrinally very conservative), it's quite a scary thing for me to contemplate the idea of any scripture being edited or possibly not even being authored by the one we ascribe it to. It took a long time for me to get to the point where I can acknowledge that I have some doubts about how especially the New Testament was canonized. So if you ever get your head bit off by a fundie for suggesting that some parts of Paul's letters may not be authentic, keep in mind that what you are saying is a very scary thing to say. Because if I (as a fundie who basically has created an idol out of the Bible) start questioning the validity of one piece of scripture, then where does it stop? My entire faith could unravel at that point.

That's why there's such conservative anger toward liberal theology. (And if I remember right, mycritters, you're a pastor, right? You probably already know all this. I try to keep in mind all the other people who will read this who might not be aware of all the nuances when I post here, so please don't think I'm talking down to you or anything.)

Where I come down to it is that I'm not going to set myself up as such an expert that I can pick and choose what part of the Bible I consider to be "true" or not. I like to keep up on the current scholarship and the debates regarding things like authenticity, authorship, redaction, and such, but I'm not going to treat the Bible as a buffet line. :) However, when I come across something (like Paul's "difficult" statements--or whoever wrote them) that seems to be out of the flow of the Bible's overall message, I'll hold those things very loosely. Things that seem to go against the nature of God, or seem to contradict an established Biblical principle--those things I study into and try to figure out. And if I can't find a logical explanation, then that's when I say, "Okay, God, I don't understand, but I know You do." And I trust that if God wants me to understand, He will bring someone or something across my path that will make it make sense. But I'm not going to use any of those things to base my faith on, either, because that's just too tenuous a foundation.

I don't know why I shared all that--I guess I'm hoping it will help someone else who has similar questions. Because, darn it, these sort of questions can be awfully painful and scary, especially for people at churches that don't encourage questioning! :)

[Critters2]

22. As someone else here

(I think it was Rabrrrr) has said, when Paul and Jesus seem to conflict, I go with Jesus.

[StoryTeller]

23. Wise idea

My problem with stopping at that point is that I find it hard to accept that someone with Paul's intellect, and analytical, rhetorical strengths as well as a very deep, personal encounter with Jesus, would resort (as some have suggested) to defending "Levitical" laws--especially when he argues so passionately AGAINST "the law" in books like Galatians.

So when he appears to differ with Jesus, either he made an honest mistake--unlikely, considering the incredibly deep structure and logic with which he frames his letters--or he was deceived, which also seems unlikely considering the close relationship he experienced with Christ, or he was being blatantly manipulative and deceptive. Not likely either, considering the amount of abuse, torture, and pain (and ultimately death) he received for his teaching. The other explanation is, as you said, that he never wrote those things to begin with.

But since it's impossible to know with absolute certainty, I prefer to keep wrestling with it and keep studying. And I've found that there are reputable scholars out there who have wrestled, too, and come up with logical explanations and arguments for much of what seems like a Paul-Jesus discrepancy. And the more I study, the more those discrepancies shrink and fade.

I like to hope that it means that I'm coming to understand better not only the teachings of Paul, but also of Jesus. After all, Paul's purpose for writing was to help his readers better understand Jesus. He loved Jesus. He wasn't a competitor or an enemy.

But yes, if it came right down to having to choose, I'd side with Jesus. I think Paul would, too.

[Jo March]

25. I would chose Jesus's teachings over Paul's as well

Again, context is everything.

It definately requires more study!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm series! ;)