Why would you trust a man who hated the church to give accurate info on Jesus' message?

Question

Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus (thank you Father K):

"Saul" of Tarsus, before he became St. Paul, persecuted the church by hunting them down and killing them.

Saul of Tarsus hated Christians. He made it his goal to capture, then bring Christians to public trial and execution. Saul was present when the first Christian martyr (named Stephen) was killed by an angry mob.

"... they all rushed at him (Stephen), dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. . . . And Saul was there, giving approval to his death" (Acts 7.57 to 8:1).

After Stephen was martyred, Saul went door to door in Jerusalem finding people who believed that Jesus is the Messiah.

"Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison" (Acts 8:3).

Wouldn't pretending to be a devout Christian and then filling the religion with ideas that Jesus never proposed be the best way to destroy the church from within?

So why trust him for info? Why trust Paul's message, especially is Jesus never addressed the issue (ex. homosexuality)?

Wouldn't pretending to be a devout Christian and then filling the religion with ideas that Jesus never proposed be the best way to destroy the church from within?

So why trust him for info? Why trust Paul's message, especially if Jesus never addressed the issue (ex. homosexuality)?

Oops on the double post there.

Answer 1

There's one thing you forgot: in order for Paul to do what he did, he had to walk away from certain beliefs and practices required or prohibited under the Mosaic Law. Therefore, in order for Paul to obfuscate Christianity, he had to become a transgressor of the worst kind: no longer did he present himself to the Temple to perform atoning sacrifices; no longer did he strictly follow the dietary laws; etc.

The fact that Paul, who was trained as a Pharisee (he was probably what we would call a Rabbinic student today) under the most respected Jewish scholar of his day (Gamaliel) was willing to do this proves his motives were pure.

Comment to "Just Saying:" you forgot that Jesus repeatedly preached about Heaven and Hell. Read the Gospels and you'll see this is true.

To "Second Squirelling," Rome didn't send Saul; he offered to go and was sent by the Pharisees.

Answer 2

Oh my...where to begin.

Let's see. The best way to answer your question is to try and find a more modern equivalent....

Your question is like asking "Why should you trust a man/woman who is a recovering alcoholic to lead an AA group? Or be a mentor for another member?

Or....Can you trust a woman who was brutally treated sexually by someone as a child to grow up, get a PhD and then treat incest offenders?

Or....could you trust ANYONE who at one point called themselves an 'atheist' to deliver any TRULY objective, scientific information on anything....such as Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)??

Yes, he killed Christians, including Stephen. Can you imagine what it must have taken for him to become a disciple, then an apostle? Only God could have done that.

Secondly, okay, let's say that Paul was some kind of mole, or spy.....what he did actually pushed the church forward, not back...how do you account for that? How do you account for the fact that he agreed with the other apostles, wrote of the same things, and lived a Christian life, EVEN TO DEATH. How many 'spies' would die for their job?

Can you please SPECIFICALLY list any and all "ideas" that were Paul's, and not either God's or consistent with what God taught??

God DID address the issue of homosexuality. See Genesis 2:24, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Matthew 19:4-6 , Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10, 1 Timothy 1: 9-10. NOW you are saying "oh yeah, well some of those are in the Old Testament and none of them are direct quotes of Jesus." Well here's a news flash: GOD AND JESUS ARE THE SAME PERSON. If God said it, Jesus said it.

Looking forward to your list of things that Paul said we should/shouldn't do which are inconsistent with Jesus'/God's teachings.

Answer 3

People do have conversions. Saul could not have known about temporal lobe epilepsy, so it was eminently logical of him to conclude that Jesus was speaking to him.

I believe Paul was sincere. His differences of opinion with the Jerusalem church is just another example of the schisms that spontaneously arise in belief systems that have no factual basis. It no more proves that he was anti-Christian than the 95 Theses proves that Luther was anti-Christian.

A more relevant question, i think, is why would one trust a man who never met Jesus, and in fact, was preaching Jesus for 3 years before he even bothered to meet anyone who knew Jesus. I believe the answer to *that* question is that the original Jesus movement was all but wiped out during the First Jewish Revolt.

Another possible answer to my question is that there was no historical Jesus to begin with, and the idea of an earthly Jesus did not take hold until long after Paul, Peter, and James had died. In that case, Paul's message would have been as "accurate" as anyone's.

Answer 4

Well, the thing is, early Christians asked the same question. However, the men that were with him at the time of his conversion said that something strange had happened, though they didn't know what. Not only that, but Paul had been blinded when it happened, and Ananias was given a message from God that Paul (then Saul) was on his way. God went on to tell Ananias how to restore Paul's sight.

If Paul was pretending, he sure did give up a lot. He was coming up in the world. Why would he give that up? SOMETHING must have happened. And one would think, if he was just "faking" being a Christian, that he would have confessed before he was martyred.

Besides, even the disciples approved of what Paul was preaching, though he and Peter had a disagreement about circumcision.

Oh, AND Paul actually performed miracles.

Answer 5

I think its very, very interesting that Paul wrote so many instructions on how christians should conduct themselves and what they should believe. You'll notice that Paul never encourages christians to seek guidance from Peter regarding beliefs or rules - this is despite the fact that Jesus named Peter as the head of the church.

Why were early christians asking Paul for guidance when Peter was still alive?

In fact, in Galatians chapter 2, Paul is portrayed as having a rather nasty disagreement with Peter. If Paul and Peter did not see eye to eye on issues, why is so much of the New Testament made up of Paul's writings?

Peter was the "rock upon which Jesus built the church". Why was the religion of Jesus Christ explained by Paul instead of the man that Jesus had personally named as his successor in leading the church?

Answer 6

Keep in mind that there were competing sects at the time. Also keep in mind that Saul or Paul was employed as an official of Rome and turning in rebellious cults would have been part of his duties. Bar Kochba would still have been fresh in the minds of the Roman Governors.
I imagine that when Saul realized how much wealth one sect of the Christians were accumulating he would have become a good televangelist just like so many today are. If he could persecute the competition atthe same time by turning them in and pocketing the reward money, then so much the better.
The early Christians under Paul did begin a campaign of killing of the competing preachers. Appollonius of Tyana is only one such example.

Answer 7

We don’t trust Paul as much as we trust that the saving power of Jesus Christ is transformative. If Paul wanted to destroy the church the best route would have been to pretend to ascribe to the faith and then secretly work together with the Pharisees to kill and persecute more Christians. But that didn’t happen. And we can trust Paul’s confession for 6 reasons:

1. He was fulfilling the plan and command that Jesus had given the disciples in Acts 1:7-8, which was to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. The 12 apostles accepted Paul as a true believer because he exhibited the fruit of repentance (or a changed mind). He no longer tried to kill the Christians but had a mission of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the gentiles.

2. Signs followed Paul’s ministry. He cast demons out of people (Acts 16:16-18), when he and Silas were in prison they sang hymns to God and prayed and an earthquake came and opened the prison doors, people were baptized with the Holy Spirit, spoke in other tongues, and prophesied when he laid hands on them (Acts 19:1-7). And even the demons testified of Paul’s validation as a true Christian (Acts 19:13-20).

3. The man who wrote of Paul (Saul) being a persecutor of the Church and a witness to Stephen’s death is the same man who testified of Paul’s salvation. Paul’s conversion account is first told in Acts which was written by Luke. Luke tells about other people who not only witnessed Paul’s conversion but he tells of a disciple named Ananias, who was told by God where Paul was so that he could heal Paul’s sight (Acts 9:1-19). As a matter of fact, most of the book of Acts recounts Paul’s ministry. If we can believe that the writer is valid in saying that Paul was a murder, then why would we doubt the writer’s testimony of Paul being changed by the blood of the lamb.

4. If Paul's message and lifestyle was one of pretense he did a great disservice to himself. He was imprisoned, beaten, whipped, persecuted, and ultimately executed for the cause of Christ and for the spreading of the Gospel (Acts 16:19-24; 17:1-9; 18:12-17; 21:27-36; 22:12-22; 23:1-11).

5. What Paul wrote is not contradictory to the scriptures or Jesus’ sayings. If you can find one please email this to me.

6. And lastly Paul’s writings have done more for the growth and expansion of the church. If his goal was corrupt it so that it would fail, then he failed. He opens up the scriptures in a way that scholars are still baffled by.

Also there were manifold of things that Jesus didn't address this is because Jesus was sent to tell the gospel only to the Jews. This is why when he sent out his disciples he told them not to go to the Gentiles or to the Samaritans but to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 10:5-15). The Jews already had the law they already knew of the abomination of homosexuality because it was outlined in Leviticus 18:22-23. Homosexuality wasn't a problem among the Jews because it was unlawful. Why would Jesus have to talk about something that no one was doing? Jesus believed homosexuality to be an abomination because he, by his own admittance, didn't come to change God's laws but to fulfill it. That would mean he wouldn't practice or condone the practice of homosexuality.

Paul however was sent to the Gentiles and they did not have the laws of God. So they may not have known that there are unlawful sexual relations in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the letter Paul wrote concerning homosexuality was to the church in Corinth. The people of Corinth were sexually immoral and the main religion there had temples set up for worshipping Aphrodite. The worshippers practiced temple prostitution and homosexuality. Paul didn't want the Corinthian church to be deceived by the common practices of the people so he addressed sexual immorality.

Answer 8

I understand what you're saying but, let me tell you this. My cousin used to be a big time Christian basher, (I am not Christian, but her side of the family is, their Catholic) so any way she used to bash the born again ones, you know the type. She went through a stage in her life when she was doing drugs heavily and moved to the other side of the country. She was trying to quit her habit and since she didn't have any family in the state she moved to, she ended up going to church. Unfortunately for the rest of us she started going to the very church she used to bash. She became a born again. She has been sober for about 3 1/2 years, and is starting to do missionary work for her church. Even though I dislike strongly the brainwashing methods that were used on my free thinking cousin, and I am tired of her calling me crying because she is the only one going to heaven because she believes in JC. I am happy that she is off drugs, I'd rather her be stuck on Jesus then a needle in her arm. In a way her story is like Saul. (If you see what I mean?)

Answer 9

Let me fill you in on a little secret.

The HOLY BIBLE, is a censored account of Jesus's teachings. Therefore anyone who seeks the TRUTH, will see that the "CHURCH", that created the HOLY BIBLE in 312A.D.
under the rule of Constantine, has given you a misrepresentation of the word of the "LIVING JESUS CHRIST".
If you look at The Gospel Of ST. Thomas, which is a dead sea scroll, dated back to 1A.D. You will see the true words of CHRIST. Not second hand story's (gospels) you find in the new Testament.

So people, even Christians that have figure out the TRUTH, and are no longer Christians. That have seen the TRUTH of the churches heresy, will know more about the "LIVING JESUS CHRIST" than brainwashed preachers, popes, or any censored church of CHRIST. Due to the fact they seeked other knowledge and truths, not hand feed to you, in a censored account of JESUS CHRIST:(

Thus, they will know more about the TRUE Jesus, than any current church of Christ. Thus hate the churches for the false teachings and brainwashing of LIES, they represent!

You might want to pick up The Gnostic Bible, it has alot of the censored gospels in it. Try reading The Gospel of Thomas, you will see hundreds of parities of Jesus's word. But you will find them in their TRUE context, not made up ones!
The book of Enoch is real eye opening as well.

You don't have to be a Christian or a Catholic to believe in True word of The Living Jesus Christ.

Answer 10

We don't trust Paul's message. We trust the message of Christ, given through Paul & the other Apostles. Last I checked, there weren't very many issues that Paul disagreed with Jesus on, or vice versa. Homosexuality certainly wasn't one of them.