In Defense of Paul
4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
~Philippians 3:4-8
Rob Skiba’s Page Dealing With Paul
Why Die for a Lie?
We must ask ourselves this question in regards to many of the apostles – and many who have come since, why die for what you know to be a lie? Unless you truly believed it….
This very same Paul suffered for the cause of Jesus, and was later killed for it.
Why would we the truthfulness of the anti-Christian persecutor Paul who:
*Murdered many early Christians, including Stephen as he confessed in Acts,
*Who converted to Christianity after he witnessed the risen Christ. We would have to believe that he was mistaken. But what else could produce such as drastic change in this man who was a staunch anti-Christian Pharisee who wanted nothing more to destroy the early Christian movement? If he was merely lying – why was he tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67?
Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational Doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.
At minimum we must posit that he really did believe he witnessed the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus where he was going to squelch any presence of Christians there. This was not some isolated experience for Paul but was witnessed by others on the road with him who also heard the voice but could not see what Paul saw (Acts 9:4).
“Most striking perhaps is that fact that Jesus appeared to Paul. Paul hated Christians and was hell-bent on destroying the church. What transformed him from a persecutor of Christians to a pastor, who was willing to endure extraordinary hardship to proclaim the Gospel? Paul claimed it was the resurrection.”
-Christ Price
Lawkeeper. Lawteacher.
Many teach that Paul taught AGAINST the law that he taught, and kept (because WORDS WERE ADDED BY ROME!) This is not so – see:
Torah Can Save Your Soul – A Deep Dive Into God’s Eternal Law, Sin, and Grace
Checked out by the Other (still living) Apostles:
A vital meeting between Paul and the Jerusalem church took place in the year 49 by “traditional” (and majority) dating, compared to a “revisionist” (and minority) dating of 47/51.[75] The meeting is described in Acts 15:2 and usually seen as the same event mentioned by Paul in Galatians 2:1. The key question raised was whether Gentile converts needed to be circumcised.[76][77] At this meeting, Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, Peter, James, and John accepted Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.
Not just Apostles, but many, many other witnesses as well – such as Cephas:
Cephas almost certainly existed, as Paul’s genuine epistles make clear enough. Paul knew the guy! So who was Cephas, according to Paul? Paul describes Cephas as: the first to have ‘seen’ the risen-Jesus, seemingly only a small numbers of days after Jesus’ death and burial (1 Cor 15:3-5) [*] a “pillar” of the Church whom Paul once felt obliged to consult with in order to be granted some sort of official approval for his teaching (Gal 2:1-10) a revered apostle / Christian missionary (1 Cor 1:12, 9:5) a Jew who remained kosher and who preferred to separate himself from table fellowship with Gentile converts (Gal 2:11-14) – a point of tension between Paul and Cephas.
Paul isn’t claiming that he met some made up people. He is claiming that he met people who were already recognized as important in the movement. Paul is also responding to claims that he corrupted their message. If he was lying about having met them, that would be easily checked. His confrontation with Peter is due to James sending people to check up on him in Antioch
Why do so many wish to teach against Paul?
“Did God Really Say ….”
~Lucifer
Perhaps, because it allows them to do this:
Throw out the evidence for Christ such as:
The Creed:
We have a creed dated by scholars to within a few months of the death of Jesus – a statement of conviction – that early Christians would rally around, it mentions witnesses and challenges the reader to question those witnesses (who were alive at the time).
The Apostle Paul preserved it in his letter to Corinth about 21-25 years after the death of Jesus. He references this creed and indicates he had already given this creed to the church in Corinth.
This means 1-6 years within the death of Jesus this creed was being handed out by the Apostles.
Superaccurate Historical Documents (Paul’s Epistles, a major part of the “New Testament” Gospels)
Whether a skeptic likes it or not, even if you take away the inspiration of the gospels/Bible they still remain historical documents that require historical analysis. Jesus’ death via crucifixion, his empty tomb, the postmortem appearances to the disciples and skeptics alike, and their willingness to suffer and die for the proclamation of the risen Jesus are absolutely central details that are attested to in all our gospel sources, Pauline epistles, extra-biblical Christian writings, secular sources, and other sources.
Acts 9, 2nd Peter, etc
The Results
“To add to this topic for all of the “anti-Paul” folks out there; please consider a personal experience.
I recently ran across an article put out by 119 Ministries regarding addressing the anti-Paul teachers, in specific Justin Best. He was part of 119 Ministries at one point and now I see why they unassociated with him. In the comments of the blog article a lady commented that Justin Best had stated the he could no longer support a New Testament Messiah…. This is ultimately what you get when you start to question Paul or start plucking books out of the Biblical Cannon. Where does it stop? Paul was a Benjamite BTW. A pure Hebrew, not one of the usurpers.
https://www.119ministries.com/119-blog/david-wilbers-defending-paul-a-response-to-justin-best-of-christian-truthers/
Justin Best also attended a Hebrew Roots congregation I attended and was a major influencer there leadership wise and I met him at a congregation outing over one summer. He was part of the inner circle of the congregations leadership there. We did not know this was his position at the time as we had not been made aware. However, this is when my oldest son had Theistic Evolution seeded out to him by way by the Youth Pastor there (unbeknownst to us), told the Bible is mostly allegory and ultimately deconstructed his faith, went atheist and is now supposedly agnostic (because he can’t defend atheism). This is the result you get when you entertain these kinds of positions and I for one am not happy about it. It has uprooted and disrupted my family life. We are totally devastated. So this is what your “opinions” and “beliefs” are doing out there. Congrats. Feel proud of yourselves.
This is how I found @DustinNemos, a former atheist who found YHWH and was a follower of The Way and was desperate for resources to help my son. I was and am still very desperate, very, very desperate to get my son back. I know in YHWH’s timing he will come back but it still deeply hurts and affects, especially myself as a father.
Picking and choosing YHWH’s word is dangerous and goes against YHWH’s word. That aspect alone is quite sketch because Thomas Jefferson, the alchemist, did the same thing when he decided to exclude certain books of the Bible to suit his liking.
We are told that Paul is hard to understand because he was a very deep thinker and had a Hebraic perspective of the original faith walk of The Way and not the watered down mess we have today. 119 Ministries has an excellent series on Paul called the Pauline Paradox (https://www.119ministries.com/teachings/video-teachings/detail/pauline-paradox-part-1-is-the-majority-ever-wrong/) that I encourage everyone who is anti-Paul to watch and study. If you don’t have a Hebraic mindset of thinking you will not understand Paul and what he’s saying and will take the verses out of context like the majority of Churchianity today does. Once you realize that Paul harmonizes and what he’s saying is not contradictory it all clicks and makes sense because you have to put on the same glasses he was wearing to understand where he’s coming from. It totally helped me when I was struggling to understand Paul throughout a lifetime of belief and reading the Bible.”
Devils Advocate: Understanding Anti Paul
