To Paul Or Not To Paul

1Co 14 36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?

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.

38 But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.

Paul is the most maligned apostle of all the apostles. If it were only by the Jews of his day, that would be understandable. The problem is that he received more friendly fire than enemy fire. He had to defend himself to the church in Jerusalem and against those who came to undermine his ministry at Corinth. Worst of all, he had to defend himself to the very people he won to Christ.

It was not easy being Paul then and it is just as hard today. The various groups today pick and choose his writings and some even question his apostleship today stating that much of his writings are not inspired, but just his opinions. Misguided opinions at that. Where they agree with him like in salvation by faith and faith alone they will sing his praises, but where they disagree they will say that it was cultural and not for today or the rants of a misogynist or some other derogatory name. Sometimes they try to play one verse over another though there is no contradiction in the verses, but rather contradiction in our biased interpretation.

We have a problem here. Either he is an apostle or not and if not we have even more problems. If he is, then we have no right to question his teachings because we or our culture does not like them. Paul had to deal with a culture that was not much unlike our own so it is really pretty easy to understand and apply his teachings if we are honest with the Word.

Indeed, I am a simple man and listening to some of the complicated and sometimes convoluted things people use to toss out some of his teachings or in some way to exalt one teaching over the others gives me a headache. Paul spoke of the simplicity of the Gospel and we have done everything we can but keep the Gospel and Church doctrine simple. That is why we have so many different groups, denominations and non-denominations, despite Christ’s goal that we be one and the Holy Spirit being sent to lead us into ALL truth, not essential and non-essential ones or gray areas when in Him there is no variableness or shadow of turning.

I get that our Messianic Jewish brothers have some trouble dealing with Paul because even Peter said Paul taught some things hard to be understood, yet he acknowledged Paul’s apostleship and doctrine. Paul was and is the Apostle to the nations or Gentiles,us. Like it or not, we are to build our doctrines and practices off of his teachings, not our desires or disagreements. We really have no excuse because we do not have the cultural issues that often hinder our brethren of Jewish descent from fully embracing Paul or doing what we do and try to work around the parts they do not like or find hard to understand.

Paul was not what we would call politically correct. He was not called to be that. He was an extremely zealous and studious Jew that defended the faith to the hilt. We cannot expect him to be any less so as a Christian. We also have to give him some closer attention because he received one on one training from Christ in the wilderness for three years. That is more intense than the other Apostles received. They were prepared to minister to the Jews, whose language and customs they knew and it was a twelve member class with one who flunked.

Paul was amazingly intelligent and well learned, but he had to have a complete retraining so he could answer both Jew and Greek (Gentiles). He was going to have an intense ministry as we see in his resume (2 Cor 11) and in the book of Acts so he received special intense training from the Lord. It is very hard to question a man who has that kind of certification.

Jesus taught Paul and the others in just three years. We now want a man to study anywhere from 8 to 15 years before we deem him a real expert in the faith so obviously our training is a bit inferior to Christ’s. Who are we to argue with Paul? I would have to say we are very arrogant or maybe not true Christians, but rather having a form of godliness denying the power thereof. None of our writings are inspired like his, if you believe the Bible to be inspired. Just saying.