Just When You Think You Know Someone

A couple of lines have been running through my head this week…

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? (James 2:14)

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love! Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love (Old Hymn)

I’ve recently had the distinct displeasure (yet again) of watching bitterness and ugly heart and attitude wreak havoc on others. An esteemed colleague – and friend – from where I used to work has behaved less than admirably, and essentially engineered, encouraged, and then gloated over the firing of our mutual boss.

Now, I’m not one to really defend the boss’s management style – it was part of why I left the company – but the behavior of my colleage, who is a deacon at his church and has always been upright, kind, and good-natured, has been shocking. At the earliest opportunity (after I left), he began a series of partial truths and exaggerated opinion to discredit our boss. Once he was fired and given a month’s notice, my friend and colleague was given the senior role and immediately began a campaign to “set things right,” with little to no regard for, no compassion nor kindness towards the man who’s job – and personal confidence – was just ripped away.

So what of it? What makes a man who until now has behaved admirably and, yes, righteously sudden go haywire and become cruel at the first taste of power? What causes any person to become so … mean?

It’s clearly a pervasive problem in our Christian community, where words and sermons and political picket lines have divided, but why? How has this happened? How have we forgotten something so basic as “Love is patient, Love is Kind …”? Seems we need a spiritual boot camp, a global re-reading of our Book (see my previous post). So in a back to basics review, here’s a summary of some recent events, just in case you were curious:

Kicking your boss while he’s down? Not Loving.

Picketing the Southern Baptist Convention for, frankly, reasons unknown? Not Loving.

Vandalizing a neighbor’s property on suspicion of supporting gays? Not loving.

Feeding and Helping the homeless and risking jail because of it? Now that’s loving.

Permanent Link

Filed under Daily-Life
08/02/06 11:39 PM
by The Blogger

John says (Aug 3, 07:35 AM ):
To my mind, there is serious danger in taking the epistles too seriously.

Much of what passes for modern Christianity seems to be based way too much on a black and white interpretation of Paul’s legalism.

This interferes with Jesus message of love and tolerance.

Jesus’ message is hard, real hard. It is far easier to follow rules and regulations than to change one’s heart.

Ask anyone who practices hate and/or intolerance in Jesus’s name to justify their behavior. They will always quote Paul, never Jesus.
This Gay Christian Blogger says (Aug 3, 01:55 PM ):
I think in the next few decades we’re going to see more and more of this debate about Paul. On the one hand, there’s the tenant of the faith (no matter what flavor) that the Bible is inspired by God, including the works of Paul. Many of the writings attributed to Paul do give clarification or insight into the words of teachings of Jesus. They can’t be summarily dismissed.

On the other hand, from a historical criticism view, Paul was a man who never actually met Jesus, was both Roman and trained in the ways (and legalisms) of the Pharisees, and conversion experience consisted of a big bright light and a vision. His letters were written decades, even a century or two, before the Gospels were actually set down on papyrus … so in reality, we have a legalistically-trained guy going on hearsay without (to our knowledge) a whole lot of training or experience writing applications for the words of Jesus he heard through grapevines. Not good, from a historical-reliability point of view.

So how much do we discount the writings of Paul when they do bring us good perspective and beleive they are inspired. There’s no reason to beleive their not inspired – even righteous men make mistakes occasionally and could accidentally write more legalistic instructions. How much do we take as cultural or historical advice rather than modern day rules? Where would “Love is patient, love is kind” fit in in such an equation? And even if inspired, would God intend us to use them as law like so many Christians do?

By no means would I endorse “picking and choosing” but I continually repoint to “applying” and “understanding” from a total perspective. In this instance of “love is patient love is kind,” we have Paul reinforcing the teachings of Jesus, if but a bit more bluntly. I take that as inspired, I take that as canon. And actually, I take all of Paul’s writings, even if dubious, as inspired canon. Perhaps he was mistaken in some cases, perhaps we now completely misunderstand him, perhaps there is more to the story than we know or maybe the application of the words has changed.

In any case, you are right, taking any word from the Christian Testament writers as “law” is wrong and completely counterintuitive to the true meaning of the entire Book.
John says (Aug 3, 03:48 PM ):
I think it is useful to read Paul in light of his mission, which I think is twofold.

First, Jesus preached almost exclusively to Jews, and the Jews had a long and powerful tradition. One of Paul’s dilemmas was how much of the Law should be binding on the Pagan converts. He had to decide which parts of the Law could reasonable be forced on a culture that had no such traditions.

Second, Paul deals a lot with building the congregations of the Church and necessarily had to deal with issues of church discipline, qualifications of officeholders and all the other things that go along with building an organization.

So, when interpreting Paul, I keep these things in mind and I ignore Paul when he disagrees with Jesus. If you can reconcile Paul’s teaching with Jesus’ then you are a better man than I am.

I can’t do it. So I find Paul useful only in the context of how to implement Jesus’ principles into a foreign culture, and how to run an organization.

I have no use for Paul’s concept of morality.
Jerry Maneker says (Aug 3, 05:21 PM ):
Actually, I disagree with the belief that Paul was a legalist. If we think about it, what we really know about the Gospel of grace (God’s unmerited favor to us), we really know from Paul; Jesus talked far more about hell than He did about heaven. Remember, it was Paul who wrote, Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 5:1-2, and 10:13, Galatians 3:3-7 and many other passages that show that we are only saved by God’s grace that we appropriate through our faith (trusting God over and above seen circumstances). From our current point of view, I know that many people view Paul as a legalist, but the Book of Romans, for example, probably the best explication of the Gospel, along with the Book of Galatians clearly shows Paul’s disdain for legalism.
This Gay Christian Blogger says (Aug 3, 05:54 PM ):
@John –
Can you clarify “I have no use for Paul’s concept of morality?” What’s included in that (rather broad, imho) statement? I Cor 13 (which prompted this aside) or the items in Romans where he made up a word that today we (mis)translate as ‘homosexual’ and the issues of women (though Paul, as much as we can know, had women friends in ministry …)?

@Jerry –
Good points.

Perhaps it’s not so much that Paul was a legalist as much as it’s so easy for our fundamentalist-rooted dogma to interpret him legalistically.

We inject ourselves – and what we wish it said – into the reading, resulting in some crazy conclusions that are used to clobber people we don’t like down. Thing is – this is how its been for ages, and the interpretations and translations that many denominations or just people in general assume as theology may have nothing to do with the original intention at all.

But the Book persists, and it’s truths are timeless, such is the meaning of ‘Scripture.’

So maybe people’s problem with Paul (and I’ve not really had much of one, myself, though my best friend from Uni and my father (which … is crazy to me) both do), isn’t so much Paul as it is what we’ve done to Paul.

For the record, I appreciate Paul. I do believe the books attributed to him are inspired and the truths behind the words are infallible. I have less of an issue with the times he’s contradictory or confusing than I do with the Christians who live in Jesus’ name but blatantly go against his teachings. Paul did his best, as any man would do, and I don’t see him once, ever, using Scripture to clobber. Teach, yes; admonish, yes; instruct, yes; give theological opinion, yes; but not clobber, not to the extent people harm others today.
John says (Aug 3, 07:15 PM ):
Firstly, there is Paul’s almost psychopathic lack of moral compass. In Roman’s chapter 7, he admits his moral compass is so lacking that he can’t even tell right from wrong without the Law, but then he insults the intelligence of the entire Jewish Nation when he implies that he couldn’t understand the moral concepts of the Law his spent his life studying and applying, until after his conversion.

Jesus tells us to take care of the weak and sick among us; Paul does not disagree, but admonishes us to check the credentials of those we would aid, lest we give our money to someone who might not deserve it. (1 Timothy 5)

Jesus treated women with respect; Paul treats them as second class. (1 Timothy 2, and many others)

While Jesus tolerated slavery, Paul wholeheartedly endorses it; (1 Timothy 6)

In II Thessalonians, Paul claims Jesus’ authority to claim that Jesus told him to teach us to avoid Christians who are lazy and did not conform to his (Paul’s) work ethic. Jesus gave no such instruction. Jesus would prefer that we always err on the side of compassion.

In Romans, Paul defends the divine right of kings and he gushes that Rome’s rule is endorsed by God

Paul’s contempt for the Jews is not even worthy of a fig leaf. (II Thessalonians 2)

Paul’s views on sex and marriage are based on error. He thinks Jesus is coming back so soon as to make marriage unnecessary.

But the most glaring to me, is Paul seems totally ignorant of everything Jesus taught. Charged with preaching the Gospel, he ignores the Gospel. He quotes maybe three sentences that Jesus spoke and all were minor.
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