I note that you comment a lot from Apostle Paul’s epistles, but the apostle Paul changes his mind on subjects as he ages.\u00a0 Food for one.\u00a0 I understand that he didn’t want to put a burden on the Gentiles, especially when literacy rates were probably so low in that era.\u00a0 Now, literacy is high and Bibles are ubiquitous. As a young Christian, I would have never questioned the apostle Paul’s writings, but I do now, somewhat.\u00a0 I think sometimes he contradicts God the Father and Jesus, not purposefully I’m sure.\u00a0 That’s why I go back to the law and then to Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 Then, I look at what the other New Testament writers say as “super sermons.”<\/p>\n
My thinking has evolved, as I now think Apostle Paul wrote some things because of his upbringing as a strict Pharisee and because of his day and age.\u00a0\u00a0 He says he doesn’t permit women to speak in church, but he seems to call Phoebe a deaconess.\u00a0 I think deaconesses are a great idea since I don’t think it’s wise for male church leaders to counsel or care for the women.\u00a0 Yet, some wives of church leaders might not be equipped or willing to do that role.<\/p>\n
My point in mentioning this is that I think the Protestant church, in general, has led me astray. They focus so much on a corrupted version of “forgiveness” that they do not focus on obedience like I think they should.<\/p>\n
I understand that all of the Old Testament laws are not practical to follow, such as the ceremonial laws, and that since Jesus is the once-for-all sacrifice we do not need the blood of bulls and goat to present to God for forgiveness. Yet, if I would have understood coveting, as I came to really understand when I read the Bible on my ninth time, I would have saved myself from a lot of heartache in life. Over a decade ago, I had an emotional relationship with a married man that was so damaging.\u00a0 Honestly, I’m so “over” being hit on by married men (even supposed Christian married men) looking for an ego fix.<\/p>\n
As I was just reading the Bible today, Jesus says some hard things and some that don’t come true, if taken literally, such as “this generation will not pass away before all these things have come to pass” (paraphrase).\u00a0 Yes, His sayings were hard.<\/p>\n
I was baptized by immersion by a Messianic Jew, although he was a Protestant military chaplain at the time.\u00a0 He did not form my thinking on the Law, however.\u00a0 I was too new in my Christian walk and he was only there for a couple of years.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I would like pastors to preach on what parts of the law they think we should obey and not.\u00a0 I have my opinions, and I don’t agree with pastors who say that none of the Old Testament applies anymore.\u00a0 That’s not what Jesus said.<\/p>\n\t
You don’t understand inspiration and see the Bible as the product of men. Paul was an inspired apostle of Christ. “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment<\/i>” (I Corinthians 14:37).\u00a0 He was acknowledged as writing Scriptures (the writings of God) by Peter. “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,\u00a0 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,\u00a0 <\/i>as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction<\/i>” (II Peter 3:14-16). As Peter warned, people will distort Paul’s teachings because they refuse to see that his wisdom and teaching came from the Lord.<\/p>\n
That you imagine that Paul changed his mind only tells me that you don’t believe the New Testament, in its entirety, is from God, nor do you understand the Bible as much as you imagine you do, but given that your background is Messianic Judaism explains much. I know you claim the man who baptized you didn’t impact your beliefs much, but it is clear that you are heavily influenced by his system of beliefs. Messianic Jews have to find some way to deny the words written by Paul because they contradict their beliefs. It is no wonder, Paul spent a lot of time battling the Judaizing teachers of his day and Messianic Judaism is just a revival of ancient false teaching.<\/p>\n
God did not give the Bible for people to play editor with its teachings. You don’t get to pick and choose what sections you wish to follow. God stated that the Old Testament came to an end (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8-10; Romans 7:1-14). It had served its purpose. It still has things to teach us (Romans 15:4), but we no longer follow its laws.<\/p>\n
When Jesus stated that “this generation will not pass away,” such as in Mark 9:1, he meant exactly what he said. The kingdom of God, also known as the church, was established with power in that very generation (Acts 2). It isn’t what is said that is difficult. It is because what is being said is going against what you decided had to be. You are avoiding the conflict by saying it is hard instead of examining yourself and realizing you misunderstand much of the Bible, despite your reading it several times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I note that you comment a lot from Apostle Paul’s epistles, but the apostle Paul changes his mind on subjects as he ages.\u00a0 Food for one.\u00a0 I understand that he didn’t want to put a burden on the Gentiles, especially when literacy rates were probably so low in that era.\u00a0 Now, literacy is high…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[225,851,118],"class_list":["post-19596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-inspiration","tag-messianic-judaism","tag-paul"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":35264,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-paul-a-false-apostle\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":0},"title":"Was Paul a false apostle?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have recently stumbled onto some information. Apparently, some Christians think that the apostle Paul was a false apostle and false teacher. They say that he taught Jesus \"faith only\" while Jesus himself clearly taught faith + works. I am deeply troubled by this and feel my world has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12761,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-dont-think-you-proved-paul-to-be-an-apostle\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":1},"title":"I don’t think you proved Paul to be an apostle","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: There are so much strife and debate among the world and believers in Christ that it seems to be a waste of time that we debate among ourselves. So please understand that I do not come in the spirit of debate, but truly searching the Scriptures to see if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":79693,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-paul-imply-that-he-could-only-marry-a-christian\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":2},"title":"Did Paul imply that he could only marry a Christian?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 22, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, What is the meaning of I Corinthians 9:5? Is Paul implicitly stating he can only take a fellow believer as a wife? I know there are other verses for circumstances that touch situations where believers are married to non-believers. Answer: Here is something I wrote about the context\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91000,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-apostle-paul\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":3},"title":"The Apostle Paul","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong Most of those who will read this note would acknowledge the fact that Paul was a chosen apostle, chosen by Jesus (Galatians 1:1), witnessed the resurrected Jesus (I Corinthians 15), was acknowledge and given the right hand of fellowship by the other apostles (Galatians 2:9), and was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35267,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-made-paul-an-apostle\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":4},"title":"What Made Paul an Apostle?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Galatians 1:11-24 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Paul was different from the other apostles \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He wasn\u2019t with Jesus when he was on earth \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He was not among the original twelve apostles - Luke 6:12-16 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He started out as a zealous persecutor of the church \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0D.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How is it that Paul\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83716,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/in-defense-of-the-apostle-paul\/","url_meta":{"origin":19596,"position":5},"title":"In Defense of the Apostle Paul","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Richard Blackford We have heard it said that Paul was not an authentic apostle. They say he injected his prejudices into his writing, that he was a misogynist and a homophobe. Others don't care much for Paul because of his teaching on baptism. They also claim to be Christians,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}