PAUL’S CONTRADICTORY SPEECH!
By
Nandip
As a very young teenager Paul was
extremely zealous for his Jewish faith and strove mightily to keep the Jewish
law. But at one point he succumbed to an irresistible temptation. It involved a
tryst out at the local lake with a dark haired slave girl. This sexual
encounter created an enormous burden of guilt in the young Paul, which he tried
to assuage by becoming even more hyper religious. As a young man, he heard of
the followers of Jesus, who were preaching that salvation can come to people
who do not keep the law. Salvation comes simply through faith in Christ. Paul
became incensed and got official permission to oppose and persecute them. This
was a further way of working out his own personal guilt; by engaging in
religious zeal he assuaged his conscience. But he found that the harder and
harder he pressed for keeping the Jewish law in all its religious details, the
more overwhelmed he was with guilt for having broken it.
Then he had
a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. He realized for the first time both
that he could not really keep the law and that he did not need to. Jesus
brought a release from the deeply hidden guilt within him, and out of profound
gratitude he threw himself with equal zeal into being a missionary for the
church rather than its persecutor.
Paul was
often said to have been commissioned to be an apostle by Christ in the vision he
had on the road to Damascus (see Act 9). Paul was not one of the original
followers of Jesus. On the contrary, he started out as a persecutor of the
Christian church. But then Christ appeared to him and converted him, by telling
him to become his missionary to gentles. Paul himself, the historical Paul,
took this commissioning with the utmost seriousness and claimed books such as
Galatians that, since he received his Gospel message directly from Jesus, he
was beholden to no one. Anyone who preached a message contrary to his message
was advocating falsehood rather than truth (Gal. 1:6-9). He, Paul, had the
truth from Christ himself. And among other things, this truth was that Gentles
were not to adopt the Jewish law in order to find salvation in Christ (thus
Gal. 2:15-16).
Now as he
journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed
about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?” And I
said, “Who are you, lord?” And he said, “ I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting;
but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” THE MEN WHO WERE TRAVELLING WITH ME
STOOD SPEECHLESS, HEARING THE VIOCE BUT SEEING NO ONE. Saul arose
from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing; so they
led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was
without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
He, said,
“Thus I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief
priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than
the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me. AND WHEN WE HAD ALL FALLEN TO THE
GROUND, I HEARD A VOICE SAYING TO ME IN HEBREW LANGUAGE, ‘SAUL, SAUL, WHY DO
YOU PERSECUTE ME? It hurts you
to kick against the goads. And I said, ‘who are you, lord? And the lord said,
‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
And Paul
said; “As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light
from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice
saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And I answered, ‘who are you,
lord?’ and he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting. NOW THOSE WHO WERE WITH ME SAW THE LIGHT
BUT DID NOT HEAR THE VOICE OF ONE WHO WAS SPEAKING TO ME. And I said,
‘what shall I do, lord?’ and the lord said to me, Rise, and go into Damascus,
and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do? I was led by
the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.
One could
also argue that it stand at odds with what Paul himself had say in different
occasioned. As it turns out, there are many other differences between what the
book of Acts says about Paul and what Paul says about himself in his letters.
There are other differences between Acts and Galatians that are even harder to
reconcile.
In fact,
Paul stresses, after the vision of Christ that converted him, he did not even
go to Jerusalem to talk with the apostles.
He went away into Saudi Arabia, then back to Damascus, and did not go to
Jerusalem for another three years (Gal. 1:15-19). This makes the story of
Paul’s conversion very interesting. Here we told that Paul is blinded by his
vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus; he then enters the city and regains
his sight. And what, the first thing he does when he leaves town? He went
straight to Jerusalem to see the apostles (Acts 9:1-26). Well, which is it? Did
he stay away from Jerusalem, as Paul himself says, or did he go there first
thing, as Acts says?
Moreover,
whom does he see there? Paul insists in Galatians 1:18-19 that in his fifteen-day
visit he saw only two people, Peter and James, the brother of Jesus. Paul is
emphatic on his point, which he stresses by swearing an oath: “what I am
writing to you, before God, I am not lying!” (Gal. 1:19-20). It’s not clear why
Paul wants to stress the point so strongly. Is it because he doesn’t want
anyone to think that his message was passed along to him by the original
disciples of Jesus, most of whom he never met? When Paul arrives in Jerusalem
directly after being converted, he meets with the apostles and spends sometime
among-not just with Peter and James, but apparently with all of them.
Source: Forged; by Bart D. Ehrman
Page: 80, 191, 204, 205
Acts of the Apostles
Chapt: 9:3-7, 22:6-10,
26:12-18
Galatians
Chapt; 1:6-9, 1:15-20,
2:15-16
Twitter: @AndrewNandip
www.thetarokthinker.org
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