If not for Paul
Every now and then, some Christian gets upset at me for suggesting that Paul was a big, fat liar. The very idea is unthinkable to them. It is as if they believe that Paul could no more be lying with regard to his religious pronouncements than Jesus. That type of Christian tends to hold to some form of biblical inerrancy. As a result of that belief, they find it unthinkable, if not altogether impossible for any biblical writer to be lying.
That goes double for Paul because he wrote the plurality of the New Testament. Even if we only count the authentic letters that no one questions, Paul still is the most prolific author in the entire bible. He absolutely dominates the New Testament which happens to be the most important part for Christians.
That is not to say that the Old Testament is not important to them. It is, but only in the light of how Paul interpreted the Hebrew scripture. They don't necessarily study the Old Testament as much as they study how Paul understood and explained the Old Testament. We have to consider how Paul understood the passages he cited because he used the Old Testament as a major influence on how he understood Christianity. But if Paul was wrong and a bit deceptive about what the Old Testament said and meant, then it has a baring on how we understand the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christianity itself.
If it turns out that Paul was an unreliable source, where would that leave Christianity? That is why this topic is so important. I have already made the case in earlier shows that Paul was an unreliable source. So what does Christianity look like without Paul?
When we take this exercise seriously, we start to realize just how important a figure Paul was to what we think of as Christianity. I contend that modern Christianity wouldn't exist without Paul. Once you remove Paul and pseudepigrapha from the authentic writings. I don't think there is enough left on which to base a religion, let alone modern Christianity. Let's find out:
The gospel according to Jesus
Would we get Christianity if all we had was the sayings of Jesus? What about the sayings of Jesus and the book of Acts? What about Jesus, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation? What if we threw in James, Peter, John, and Jude for free? I don't think any of those are overly helpful in creating and sustaining an organization like the Christian church. Do you? I'm really interested in what you think about this. Let me know in the comments.
If we just focus on Jesus, we are either left with nothing to work with, or we're left with a religion that is very different than what we know. That religion would not be accepted in the modern world. Indeed, it isn't. The teachings of Jesus have largely been rejected in the West. Here is a very brief and incomplete summary of things Jesus taught that might not be compatible with the teachings of the church as instituted by Paul:
He that believes Both Jesus and Paul put an emphasis on faith. But there are a lot of major differences. They both link believing to salvation. But what are people supposed to believe? Paul seems to require belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. However, Jesus was still alive when he insisted that people love him and believe in him. So what exactly were they supposed to believe?
It makes little since that Jesus would insist on belief in the resurrection as he kept it largely a secret from the masses, only appearing to a handful of close disciples. It is a thing no one could verify. The same applies to Jesus being god. For much of his ministry, there was the messianic secret where Jesus didn't want his true identity revealed. He never went on a revelation tour. So there are many who wouldn't have received the memo about his lordship.
Though Jesus said that those who believe and baptize will be saved while those who don't believe will be condemned, it is not exactly clear what he wanted people to believe. What is it that a person is condemned for if he fails to believe it? Growing up in the church, this was a matter of much debate. It couldn't have been the church because it didn't exist. It couldn't have been specific doctrines and sacraments because they didn't exist. There was no Christian religion in which to believe.
If the church was to be ushered in by Peter, then why did Paul become the point man for the religion? We don't learn about the church primarily from Peter, but from Paul. Jesus never announced the coming of Paul or even hinted at there being another who would come like a voice crying out in the wilderness. No one who listened to the teachings of Jesus could have predicted the coming of Paul. Jesus gave the world his messenger and Paul wasn't it.
Good works Paul did not believe in righteousness by works. The only path to salvation was faith via grace. That is not the story we get from Jesus. His message was that service to others was the path to serving him. Failure to do good works to others was failure to be recognized by him. You could not be a member of his kingdom without doing good works.
Worldly responsibilitiesNot only did you have to have the right deeds, you had to have the right attitudes. There was also a matter of your orientation toward, the world and the world's orientation toward you. Paul wanted church leaders to have a good reputation among outsiders. Jesus found it to be a blessed state when the world hated and reviled you. Paul wanted leaders to be responsible with money and household management. Jesus wanted people to be rid of money and possessions. Paul insisted that believers have strong bonds with family. Jesus insisted that believers hate the very institution of family and even encouraged his followers to abandon family for him.
Getting paid Not only Did Jesus want is followers to be poor, he wanted his workers even poorer. When he sent out his disciples to do ministry, he did not allow them to bring money or receive money from anyone. They got room and board from one household. That was it. They were not allowed money, nor the trappings of money when working in the field. Paul insisted that leaders were to get a salary for their work as ministers. It is funny how they both use the same passage to make their very different points about how leaders were to be supported. The West has clearly chosen Paul's point of view.
Organization and succession Jesus had no clear organization for the kingdom except to imply there would be twelve thrones for his apostles and that Peter somehow had a special place in leadership. There was never any word about a line of succession because Jesus thought the end of all things was very near. His church was more spiritual rather than literal. If there was going to be some sort of physical kingdom, it would be at the resurrection.
This started to change the moment Jesus left the scene. Peter became the leader of a commune where people were bringing their money to him rather than giving it to the poor. He took it upon himself to appoint deacons to deal with some of the day to day issues of running an organization. Paul seems to have expanded that idea and forming a structure more aligned with the Jewish model of leadership in some ways. He also seemed to take succession more seriously since it was clear that the organization was going to be around for a long time.
Whatever Jesus had in mind for the kingdom, it wasn't the church organization we know today. He left absolutely no practical instructions for how such an organization should work. Paul was the church builder, not Jesus.
Lost sheep of Israel While there were some exceptions, Jesus had a limited ministry to the ones he referred to as the lost sheep of Israel. He never expanded the scope of that ministry to include anyone else. He only expanded the geographic scope of the field. There were lost sheep of Israel throughout the world. We find in two places where Jesus was very specific about the target audience.
As it happens, I believe Paul was also targeting the same group, at least at first. But he ran into the same frustrations as Jesus and Peter. As a result, he expanded the mission to include everyone. This is something I spoke of extensively on Red Letters. There, I argued that Paul never clearly expanded his mission to include non-Jews because the lost sheep of Israel was a way of talking about those who were historically Jews, but scattered and assimilated into Gentile culture. That said, the church that Paul built certainly interpreted him as opening the door of the kingdom to every individual in the world rather than every member of the lost sheep of Israel. I couldn't tell you when that transition happened. But it obviously did because here we are.
The Lord's Supper
When Jesus yelled at the crowd and commanded them to eat him, he didn't have any juice and crackers on him at the time. It seems unlikely that is what he meant because at no time did he link his teaching to a ceremonial event such as the one we have today.
The closest thing to that is the extension of the sabbath meal that Jesus performed twice with his inner circle. Even then, he never indicated that this would become an ongoing ritual for all disciples every week. That was Paul's innovation, or at least, and innovation he made into law. Jesus was no stranger to symbolic, one-time rituals.
Foot washing
Jesus washed his disciples feet exactly one time, and late in his ministry. He told them they should continue the tradition, but gave no formal instructions. As near as I can tell, this ritual was never practiced or mentioned again.
That said, it is something Jesus did. Why did that not become an institution of the church? Why do we think of that as a one and done literal event that should be carried out metaphorically, but practice the Lord's Supper as a literal and not metaphorical event that was to be literally and specifically carried out as a church institution? My guess is that foot-washing is uncomfortable and ridiculous for all parties which the Lord's Supper is food. It is easy and everyone likes food.
I contend that under Jesus, we would no more have an ongoing ritual of communion than we would foot-washing. They are not different in institution but they are different in practice and acceptance. Jesus made the Lord's Supper a one-time symbol while Paul and company made it a sacrament.
Where two or three are gathered
There were no regularly scheduled church services mandated by Jesus. He once made a vague statement about being in the midst of his disciples when two or three of them were gathered together. But that is hardly the basis of a weekly service. There is also an off-hand mention of them singing a hymn before leaving. But that also was not any kind of formal event as we know it.
Jesus was always with his disciples except for the times when he would go off and worship alone. Jesus seemed to value solitary worship over group worship. He wanted his followers to only pray when it couldn't be seen by others. Paul was all in on corporate worship rather than individual worship expressions.
Under Jesus and only Jesus, what mandate do we have for a worship assembly? What would happen in that assembly? What day would it be on? What activities would take place? How often does it have to be observed? Jesus doesn't give us any of that.
We don't even get any of that in the early days of the church. Peter offers no details about worship assemblies. The fellowship was organized like a commune with people selling possessions and laying the money at the feet of the apostles. What property they kept was shared equally with everybody in the commune. Naturally, there were plenty of occasions for the apostles to teach and encourage. But that is not the same as organized worship assemblies. The apostles went from house to house. There was no indication that all the houses came together regularly.
What about church buildings? When was the first one built, and under whose instructions? When did the gathering of money for the purpose of church administration begin? When was the first time the church set aside money for buildings and staff at an institutional level? It didn't happen in the time of Jesus. It seems we have Paul to thank for most of this. Jesus never wanted any of this. He didn't think the world would be around long enough anyway. He had no use for such trappings.
Indulgences and forgiveness
Jesus never would have given anyone a pass for sinning. It also seems unlikely that he would have centralized the power to forgive sins. After all, he commanded his followers to forgive one another as often as needed. There was no centralized forgiveness department. God forgave sins. And we could forgive one another our daily trespasses.
So how did it happen that Jesus telling Peter he had the power to bind and loose lead to the idea that the church had the power to define sin, grant exceptions to it, and forgive those sins? That seems to be exactly the opposite of what Jesus had in mind. Jesus didn't give Peter the authority to override or change his laws. Jesus commanded all of us to forgive sins and to live righteously. There were never any exceptions to these rules.
Paul is the one who gave us priests. The general function of a priest is to be the intermediary between humans and their god. But why do Christians need priests? We all have direct access to god. We can go to him and just ask for forgiveness when we sin against him. We can bring our sacrifices directly to him. Though I don't recall Jesus demanding specific sacrifices.
Gateway to salvation
When did the church become the gateway to the kingdom? Jesus never said people had to go through an institution to get to him and the father. He did seem to command baptism, though he never explained it. But there was no indication that a priest-like figure needed to do the baptism. Some people have been known to baptize themselves. This is frowned upon. But why? The symbolism is still in tact. The power to bring people into the presence of god is with god and the individual.
Why shouldn't a person get a nonbeliever to baptize them. The power is not in the baptizer, but in the act of submission. Jesus never gave any instructions on how baptism was to be done. All we have is head canon. If we try to ground our beliefs in Paul, we also have to accept baptism for the dead, which almost no Christians do. I don't believe Jesus left us enough to ground salvation into some kind of formalized ritual performed by priests on an institution.
Conclusion: The invisible church
Sometimes, church is described as the visible church and the invisible church. Jesus did not establish a visible church. But many argued that he established the invisible church and left the details of the visible church to his lieutenants. I don't buy it.
You can't have a visible church that is radically opposed to the invisible church and have them be the same organization. The visible church we have today looks nothing like what we would expect from Jesus. And we cannot square that circle by saying that Jesus gave his disciples permission to change what he taught and wanted out of his kingdom.
The church of Paul is very much the visible church with the hardest things being spiritualized to the point of irrelevancy. For Jesus, the hard things were the point and he gave little attention to physical realities. He wasn't interested in successful institutions that the state would eventually adopt and force onto the world. He was never interested in monuments and temples. He wasn't interested in ongoing rituals. His kingdom was no more visible than his spiritual truths.
To get to the church of today, we absolutely need Paul. We can't get there without him. So how do we know we can trust him? He had a lot to gain by becoming the de facto leader of a church that looked a lot like a cult. He claims to have had some visionary experience where he was ushered into heaven. Do you believe him when he says that? I don't. And I am never provide any reason why I should. He creates a position for himself in the church where he was to be paid a salary. That is incentive enough for him.
We get suspicious of evangelists who collect a lot of money from the faithful. But we tend to give Paul a pass. Paul didn't know Jesus during his ministry. Yet we tend to follow his path and not the path of those who actually knew Jesus. We don't really have their stories and we don't seem too interested in finding them.
At best, Jesus gave us an invisible church. Why do you trust Paul to give us a visible one?
See you in the comments...
David Johnson
