Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
10 years ago
A sub-conversation between Tex and I in the last Back Alley thread has got me thinking...

What do people think of the Pauline letters in the Bible? Of Paul? Where do their teachings enter your consciousness, moral values, and personal decisions?

As a self-proclaimed fundie, I'm sure most can imagine where I come down. I believe the Bible to be the inerrant Word of God, and that includes Paul's epistles and isn't changed by any historical information that describes the worldly realities of the Council of Nicea, the King James Version, or anything else.

But what about you? Where do you stand when it comes to Paul and the books of Romans, Corinthians, etc., and why? What do you say to someone like me who says we should strive to follow his teachings just like we should follow all of the other teachings in the Word?
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
wpr
  • wpr
  • Preferred Member
10 years ago

St Peter said it best.

2 Peter 3:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

St Peter wrote:



If they had a hard time understanding what he meant in the first century how much more trouble do people have today?

UserPostedImage
Cheesey
10 years ago
To me, Gods word trumps everything.
The thing is, we may not comprehend all of it.
So to an unbeliever, the Bible seems like a bunch of "stories", and nothing more.
God says we are to come to Him like a child.
Think of it this way....you can tell a child that the moon is made of cheese, and they will believe you and not question it.
Much of the Bible is hard to imagine.
A world wide flood for example. But I believe that it DID happen.
And the more I see, with the fossil record and all, just gives me physical proof that it DID happen, as God said.
Belief and trust in what God says.
Even if my tiny brain can't understand it all.
UserPostedImage
Wade
  • Wade
  • Veteran Member Topic Starter
10 years ago
Amen to all of that, Alan. I wish I could say what you said as clearly as you said it.

My personal theory is that the "passes all understanding" part of God and His Word is why so many people (e.g. Troy) are susceptible to the "it contradicts itself" and "it's fiction" and "it's just another set of stories and moral teachings" and "it's just a historical artifact of the power structures at the time of the Council of Nicea" arguments.

It's easier to put our faith in our own powers of reason than it is to put faith in someone far, far beyond us. It's easier to see how things violate the logic generated by our puny little minds, the "scientific method," "modern scholarship," and the like, than it is to admit that, well, we ain't ever going to be able to explain it all.

In one way, it may be the hardest thing for a professing Christian (or someone not ready to profess) to do. To say, "I can't figure out why this isn't a contradiction, but because I know that my mind is puny, I'm ready to say He knows, and I'll take Him on faith."

I think this is why it took some weird combination of deep exploration of Benedictine/monkish writings and repeated exposure to Baptists and other fundie types to make me personally really believe. The monks were far better than I was with higher logical abilities, garden variety Baptists turned out to be extremely well-read (way beyond me), and the fundies kept pointing out the difference between a "religion" and the faith that comes from a personal relationship with the Divine.

These incredibly bright and educated people spent more time pointing out what they didn't know (unlike my fellow academics, who profess their superior knowledge and reason at the drop of a hat, even when I knew there was insufficient empirical evidence for thieir claims).

And the fundies? Well, relationships aren't built of "knowledge", scientific, religious, or otherwise. Relationships are built of trust. And trust, as Brendan Manning and a lot of other of those highly educated and well-read types point out, is what faith is all about. I don't trust Jesus because I "know" he is correct according to the theology of Lutheranism. I can't know Him in the way I know demand curves always slope down and that market power is a function of the elasticity of demand. But because He has let me have a personal relationship with Him, I can trust him to know what I cannot. I can trust Him to have done what I could not. I can have faith in Him, even with regard to those things that my human education and my limited mind tells me are contradictory, inconsistent, and, more than anything else, impossible to explain and reason my way to.

Back to Paul in particular:

I used to be among those who was most bothered by Paul's uncompromising approach, for as everyone knows I'm an anarchist ultra-freedom advocate and hate the state. (Try making Romans 13 into something consistent with an anarchic philosophy; while I think it can be, it's not easy or simple. Some would say my explanation is the ultimate of rationalization and avoidance.) I definitely see why many fitting the "liberal" label would want to minimize his teachings for what "people" should do.

But over the years I have less and less that bothers me. Why? Because I've come to understanding that most of Paul's trademark bluntness and unwillingness to compromise is not pointed toward what I should do or think about other people. It's pointed toward me as an individual decision-maker.

It's that "personal relationship" idea again. Paul's letters are not aimed at groups or nations or societies at all. They are aimed at each of us one at a time. One of the things that makes God superior to us, one of things that He can do but we cannot. Even as many of us are reading the same words in the Word at the same time, even as He gave a sermon to hundreds at a time, He is speaking to each of us, using the same words, in a way unique and different for each.

And that is what He is doing, not just through the red letter words of the Sermon on the Mount or the Last Supper, but through the inspired letters of Paul. So when *I* read Paul (or anything else in the Bible, Old Testament or New), I need to remember that it is God instructing and guiding me. I need to approach it that way, not in ways that allow me to speak to what others are doing, shouldn't do, or must do.

Paul, and the other amanueses of God's inspiration, is not trying to tell "Christians" collectively how to behave. He's trying to tell each of us, individually, to work harder at keeping our own houses in order. Because after the encounter on the road to Damascus, everything Paul did was his own attempt to follow Christ's, and because that is what Christ did. It's not about how good Paul was at speaking or writing to groups, it's not about how correct he was in instructing believers in general how to behave. It is about how good he was at following His savior's example of instructing individual believers how to behave while talking to several of them at a time.

And funny thing is, once I started to admit that the only thing I should be reading the Bible for is for instruction in my individual personal relationship with Him, once I started seeing all the logs in my own eyes, it became easier and easier to deal with Paul's bluntness and refusal to compromise. Because *I* as an individual never have an excuse for my individual failures to follow the Great Commandment.

Some times, of course, my failures include sins of self-righteousness and judgment. I truly believe that any time I fail in that way, any time I might use the Bible as a way of telling others how *they* must behave for salvation, any time I might use the Bible as a way of labelling another's behavior sinful, I am using the Bible in a way that He doesn't intend. Because the Bible is there -- for me -- as a mirror showing *my* sins. And my sins are far too many for it to matter whether someone else is sinning in another way.

For each of us, the Bible is intended as a way to put our individual, personal, house in order. And I the individual cannot put my house in order by anything I do, negative or positive, with respect to the sinful houses of other. In fact, every time I attempt to put another's house in order, I take my attention away from my own and my own gets to be a bigger mess than ever. All I can do, as Paul says somewhere, is utterly submit myself, as if I were, because I must be, His slave in all things.

And trust that He will take care of the rest. All that truly important stuff that only He can take care of.

So, Ray, forgive me if this offends, but I shall continue to pray that you will see that important as politics and protection of the American way and American exceptionalism are in this world, they pale in comparison to the concerns that God has for you and me as individuals and that he is writing to you and me about in the books of both Old and New Testament. And, Troy, forgive me if this offends, but I shall continue to pray that you will see that, as important as it is for you to point out the failings of Tex or Gunny or me or conservatives or Republicans or tea partiers, it is far more important for you to realize the dangers of righteous anger, for none of us is righteous enough to have standing to take a position of superiority sufficient to God. None of us.

And, both of you and everyone else here, forgive me if I this offends, but I shall continue to pray that each of you will see that all of the concerns you have about this world (and how the Bible does or not apply to them) pale in comparison to the personal messages about your individual choices and your individual salvation that He is trying to send you as an individual in the Bible.

By orders of magnitude more than any of us can count.

If we are using the Bible for any reason other than getting our individual house in order, if we are using it for any reason other than figuring out how He wants each of us as individuals to follow Him, we are using it incorrectly.

This I believe.


And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)
texaspackerbacker
10 years ago
Well, Wade, that's a lot to digest. I didn't even know what "fundie" meant until I looked it up - only to find out that I'm one too. I guess there are different shades of "fundamentalist", though. I can't say I disagree with any of what you said, and even if I did, I wouldn't feel qualified to argue it - and believe me, there ain't much I don't feel qualified to argue hahahaha.

You are clearly a better man and a deeper thinker than I am, probably better than anybody in here - and I'm absolutely sincere about that.

On the slightly negative side - and I say this not having looked yet in the Back alley for a recent reply from you there, you say the Bible is the inerrant word of God, yet you seem to discount let's say strong indicators based on historical facts and clear prophecies - factual and clear to people who recognize the Bible as God's inerrant word. I have as hard a time understanding that as I do understanding the letters of Paul. Honestly, I don't feel qualified to comment very much because, as I stated in the Back Alley, I kinda tune out to that area of the Bible. I know that is a bad way to be, but what can I say, it's boring to me. You stated that Paul's letters should be viewed as to each of us individually - I honestly don't see evidence of that in a lot of cases. Paul wrote the letters to the people he addressed them to. It is presumptious to to conclude otherwise. There certainly is a lot of valuable advice and counsel that may apply to all of us, but that's not quite the same thing.

My personal weakness is being Christ-like/seeing Christianity as a personal relationship/etc. Perhaps that influences my take on the Bible and our religion in general. I see proscriptions for behavior, attitude, etc. as secondary to the pathway to salvation/eternal life in the Kingdom of God - which, taking the Bible literally, is equally possible/equally necessary for an all out asshole of a person as it is for somebody approaching "Christ-like" as much as is humanly possible. THAT to me, is the "essence" of Christian teachings. I'm pretty sure Paul stated as much at times. It seems to me that a lot of other times, he was just speaking - still the inspired word of God - merely to keep the particular congregation he was addressing on the straight and narrow - good advice for them and us, but falling short of "essence".

America really is literally God's chosen people - the Birthright Nation fulfilling God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and there really IS a conflict of Good - US - versus Evil - whoever places themselves in opposition to US. I hope you believe that, even if you de-emphasize the importance of it. This topic is a LOT more interesting to me than the Pauline letters.
Expressing the Good Normal Views of Good Normal Americans.
If Anything I Say Smacks of Extremism, Please Tell Me EXACTLY What.
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