I know it's a day early but Happy Thanksgiving! At this time tomorrow I will be sitting down to eat with my in-laws and enjoying my wife's turkey. I plan on eating too much because Thanksgiving only comes once a year.
It's funny how with most American holidays, regardless of what the meanings behind them are, the celebration usually just entails eating a lot of food. In many other countries holidays are sometimes quite festive and extravagant. I'm certainly not complaining. I do enjoy eating after all.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Disciples of Paul
I've been thinking a lot lately about the modern church and the issues that divide it. Many of the things that bring division in the church relate to teachings from books of the Bible that Paul wrote. Let me build this up here.
Christ came with a message of love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and go into all the world and preach the Gospel. That's very paraphrased I know but bear with me. Fast forward a bit to the book of Acts where we meet Paul. Paul, then known as Saul, was a Pharisee until he had his miraculous conversion. The Pharisees were people who loved the law and added to it wherever they could with their own rules and regulations of how to live. They created these power structures that placed them over other people.
So now we have Paul who has converted to Christianity, but he is someone who was brought up thinking that people needed to be controlled by the law. And suddenly you see him writing letters to churches creating structure and rules for the early church. Leadership structures, gender roles, how and when to use spiritual gifts, and even trying to put limit on how many could have certain gifts.
Now the modern church has been left with this outline for how to control the church by Paul and I sometimes wonder why Christ didn't talk about any of this stuff. Someone could argue that Christ's ministry had a different focus and He left the details of the establishment of his Church in the hands of the apostles. But there again I think if these heirarchies and gender roles weren't so important to Christ then why are they important in the modern church?
There's a verse in the Bible where Paul is chastising people for claiming to be followers of him or another religious leader. He does this because we are meant to follow Christ. I believe that the modern church has become far to focused on the teachings of Paul.
Are we disciples of Paul or of Christ?
Christ came with a message of love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and go into all the world and preach the Gospel. That's very paraphrased I know but bear with me. Fast forward a bit to the book of Acts where we meet Paul. Paul, then known as Saul, was a Pharisee until he had his miraculous conversion. The Pharisees were people who loved the law and added to it wherever they could with their own rules and regulations of how to live. They created these power structures that placed them over other people.
So now we have Paul who has converted to Christianity, but he is someone who was brought up thinking that people needed to be controlled by the law. And suddenly you see him writing letters to churches creating structure and rules for the early church. Leadership structures, gender roles, how and when to use spiritual gifts, and even trying to put limit on how many could have certain gifts.
Now the modern church has been left with this outline for how to control the church by Paul and I sometimes wonder why Christ didn't talk about any of this stuff. Someone could argue that Christ's ministry had a different focus and He left the details of the establishment of his Church in the hands of the apostles. But there again I think if these heirarchies and gender roles weren't so important to Christ then why are they important in the modern church?
There's a verse in the Bible where Paul is chastising people for claiming to be followers of him or another religious leader. He does this because we are meant to follow Christ. I believe that the modern church has become far to focused on the teachings of Paul.
Are we disciples of Paul or of Christ?
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