Paul and His Opinions
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
To marry another, Paul argued, betrayed the church’s conviction that Jesus was coming imminently. If Jesus was to return in Paul’s lifetime, then members of the body of Christ were not to be distracted from their missional work. Time was too short. Marriage would, by necessity, require the attention of one believer to love and care for another without whom the believer might have been more singularly focus on the work of Christ.
Paul’s rationale for his admonition not to marry misfired in retrospect, but Paul could not have known that Christ would not return in his lifetime.
While as Adventists with our Millerite heritage we can appreciate Paul’s zeal for the coming Advent and his risking everything for it, we also recognize the peril inherent in his advice. Paul was, like all of us who come after him, constrained by a limited and imperfect understanding of when Christ’s arrival ( parousia ) would take place.
Paul’s daring proposal for reform in the Corinthian church would shock many if given today. However, it might also provide an important framework for addressing the church’s current debates on contentious topics like Women’s Ordination. Why? Simply put, had the early Christians followed Paul’s words and abstained from marriage, remaining celibate, there likely would not be a church here to debate any issues at all. In other words, to state what should be obvious by the fact that I am writing this article as a Christian, most of the early Church ignored Paul’s daring advice.
However, the biggest shock is not what Paul said he believed the Corinthians should do, nor that the early Christians ignored what he said, but rather how Paul described his proposal: as his personal opinion… as advice (1 Cor 7:6-7,12).
On several occasions in his letters (cf. 1 Cor. 7:12; 2 Cor. 11:17), Paul admits that what he is writing is by no means something that he has received as a revelation from God and cautions the church at Corinth to, in a paraphrased sense: take it or leave it (7:7). He writes explicitly in 7:25 that “I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion…”
In fact, as some commentators have noted, Paul appears to be emphasizing his opinion precisely because some of the Church in Corinth had previously misunderstood Paul’s wishes to be a command. 1
The word used by Paul, translated as ‘desire’ by the NRSV, is the Greek word βούλομαι , which means a personal desire or wish .
The passage in 1 Timothy is not a command from God for how to structure the church. It is the author’s opinion. He is expressing a “desire,” not an imperative he believed was sent from God or even official church teaching he was passing on from Jerusalem. He was giving personal commentary.
This textual detail seems to have been overlooked by those on both sides of the debate unfortunately. Understanding Paul’s admonitions as his desire provides a potentially helpful framework for debating contentious issues like ordination. Without this framing, the debate has often become muddled and unfocused.
In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, J. Paul Sampley writes, “Paul establishes what he thinks is the ideal, how he thinks things ought to be, and he depicts that as the goal or paradigm toward which people ought to aim and with regard to which people should order their lives.” 3 Continuing, Paul’s desire in 1 Timothy concerning women, “is based solely on Paul’s individual authority… rather than on a principle intrinsic to the good news.” 4
A better question to ask concerning this pericope than “what does Scripture teach?” would be “what did Paul personally desire that is recorded in Scripture?” That small change of focus, I believe, shifts the way many would approach this passage and how they might apply it in the life of the church. It allows us to contextualize his statements. In fact, curiously, scholars have often noted that the beginning of 3:1 could actually be the intended conclusion to the entire discussion of women in 2:8-13. If so, it is of interest that it is possible according to some scholars to translate and understand the verse as reading “This is a reliable opinion.” 5 It proves to be a fitting conclusion to Paul’s expressed “desires.”
Returning to Paul’s opinion on marriage from his letter to Corinth, one notes the development of Paul’s opinions and how they change: In 1 Cor. 7:8 Paul explicitly says that the young women and widows should remain unmarried. He concedes that they should marry only if they are “aflame with passion” (7:9). Yet, in an ironic twist one notes the use of βούλομαι in 1 Timothy once more, this time in 5:14. There Paul writes, “I would have ( βούλομαι ) younger widows marry, bear children and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us.”
Some may object that this view of Paul’s writing does not take sufficiently seriously the Adventist affirmation of Scripture’s inspiration. Not so! This framework treats Paul’s writing seriously enough to take him literally at his word.
It also takes seriously the view that Ellen White spelled out so well, that "The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language… The Bible must be given in the language of men. Everything that is human is imperfect. The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God's mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God's penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers." I have tried to do just that.
Whatever the reality behind Paul’s “desire,” whether meant only for a specific church and occasion (cf. 1 Cor. 7:26), or part of a broader desire for affecting change in the church as a whole, it remains, in Paul’s own words, a personal viewpoint. That point ought to inform contemporary reading of the text. It may have been inspired for a specific circumstance, but like the issue of celibacy in the church of Corinth, following its counsel could have unintended negative consequences for the body of Christ.
If the writer of 1 Corinthians changed or adapted his opinion about whether widows should marry, if he allowed that his words on marriage were his opinion, and if we can see that he expressed his concerns about women’s authority as a personal wish, then what would compel contemporary readers to woodenly read Paul’s statements as binding and definitive?
Reading the Pauline writings as a whole leads to the conclusion that to conclude based solely on the personal wish recorded in Timothy, that women shouldn’t be ordained is as shaky an argument as the claim that because of Paul’s opinion found in 1 Corinthians 7 we should not be marrying. Consideration for the content of the texts points to the conclusion that an opinion is to be evaluated and weighed, not dogmatically adhered to. Paul himself felt the need to change and did. Why should we not do the same as we read his words in the 21 st century?
_______________________
- Charles W. Carter, “The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians,” in The Wesleyan Bible Commentary Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971) 164.
- This is recognized by a number of commentators, notably the Word Biblical Commentary.
- J. Paul Sampley, “The First Letter to the Corinthians” in The New Interpreters Bible Vol. 10 (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2002) 874. Emphasis is my own.
- Luke Timothy Johnson, The Anchor Bible: The First and Second Letters to Timothy (New York, New York: Doubleday, 2001) 203.
- Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, 203. The statement translated in the ESV as “The saying is trustworthy” can also be understood as “this is a reliable opinion.” In fact, it appears that some scribes understood it exactly in this manner, because in a manuscript copy of 1 Timothy, an early Christian scribe changed the word for “trustworthy” to “human” so that the verse read “This is [merely] a human opinion.”
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This is interesting on two levels.
First, it is a good example of the importance of translation. Whether one believes the Bible to be strictly the Word of God, or more mundanely an inspirational text among inspirational texts... it's important to have an English text that is as close to the original as possible.
I'm bilingual, English/French. I know the practical difficulties of "correct" translation. Words have both "definitions" and "nuances". A good translation must get the nuances right, as well as the definition... and nuances often depend on the context...
Here, we have Paul (or maybe one of his assistants) writing to a flock of believers. The context that he gives to his recommendations changes them fundamentally, anywhere from "the Command of God" to "a kinda sorta suggestion". Not at all the same thing!
Second, once it is clear that this is a "kinda sorta suggestion"... we are entirely justified in considering it to be contextual, and that our context is very, very different. Basically... we can ignore it if we wish.
That's my mansplaining for today...
Not a big fan of the first evangelist Saul/Paul. IMO many who claim Christianity are more Paulist than Christian...
I agree entirely.
IMNAAHO, a thoughtful Christian throws out everything but the gospels, retaining only Christ's teachings and His personal history. I realize that no particular sentence is reliable after millenia of recopying and an occasional edit... but I think that the basic message is crystal clear: "Love one another". And then, and John says, anything that distracts from that message... is a lie.
I do not follow the point of offering us this article on 'reconciling' the Epistles, if it is to end up tearing down Paul in commentary. Sorry.
Calbab,
It seems to me that the bedrock of Christian faith is Christ's message, "Love one another." Anyone who sincerely tries to follow that rule may say, "I am a Christian."
Then there are dozens of other characteristics that some Christians consider important. If those things help to "Love one another," then they are good. If, OTOH, they distract from "Love one another," they are evil.
Some people feel a need for community, and so they need a minimum of rules to manage their congregation. Again, if the congregation (with its rules) helps with "Love one another," it is good. If it distracts, it is evil.
And so... different Christians may adhere to different rules. But Christ's One Commandment, "Love God and one another," must be sovereign.
OK?
Okay. I definitely can understand your point, Bob. You can call me, Cal or Babs.
Now then for the sake of discussion, how else was Paul going to establish and organize the first church community without "unchristlike" conduct, if he neglected to supply answers to questions of what is good faith behavior? Remember, there were false prophets and false apostles promulgating their own ideas in the first century. "Nature abhors a vacuum" comes to mind.
If Paul was indeed commissioned to plant churches, then he is duty bound to inform new leadership of what this new organization entails.
I don't think Paul was necessarily torn down here. I, too, have wondered how much of what Paul said was simply his opinion on the matter or, perhaps, how much being a man of his times influenced what he said. That women should keep their head covered in church, for instance. I can't imagine what that has to do with following Christ. I would think that fit better into the category of personal conviction between oneself and God. Nor do I believe Apostles were infallible. Obviously they were.
This was an interesting and well presented article, but it doesn't make me think things I haven't already wondered about. In fact, it helped to solidify the realization that, in spite of the tremendous accomplishments God achieved through Paul, in reality he was a man, a person, just like the rest of us. An example what each of us could be if we submit to God.
Saul/Paul was also a Roman as opposed to the other apostles. In many ways Paul contradicts Christ...
Relevance?
For instance?
Excellent question... for which there is no easy answer.
As you say, if Christianity was to spread, then order and organization were needed. There's a strong argument to be made that if Paul has not done his gig, nascent Christianity would have disappeared within a short time. But that's "alternate history". In our universe, Christianity grew and spread... much too often at the cost of abandoning Christ's message.
Not simple.....
That's why I seeded it.
That's a very strong word.
It's easy to make a case that Paul "shifted emphasis" in "his" church... but I think "contradict" is going too far.
The attached article lists twenty five times Saul/Paul contradicts Christ
I'm not a clobbertexter. I doubt that any particular phrase we find in the Bible is accurate, after thousands of years of re-copy and occasional editing, and translation in every which way...
I think we can safely assume we have Christ's basic message, but that's about it.
And when I read in a text, "My hope is that this list will motivate you to remove the blindfold and see the Good Shepherd as he is. Your eternal salvation depends on it!" ... I run!
Hi Bob! It is early here, but I wanted to kick this off now after reading it before retiring last night. So, I won't "prep' what I am going to write, I'll just launch it! (I need coffee, anyway!)
When Apostle Paul attended the Jerusalem Conference with the original Apostles, he was guided to tell messianic gentile converts:
A very short list of don't. Later on Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, explains liberty in Jesus Christ to the messianic converts:
Now then, in Galatians, we see a litany of new guides to the people living by faith as the people are acting to express their liberty—by returning to or preparing themselves to enter into the bondage of Torah legalism. Note in verses 19 - 26 a list of positives and negative attitudes and conducts.
Lastly, in 1 Corinthians 5:1:
Here Apostle Paul has to flesh out for the messianic converts that liberty does not make incest viable for people of faith. These are demonstrations of how faith in practice builds.
Hi Calbab,
I don't understand. What point are you trying to make?
Hi Bob! You can call me, Cal or Babs.
These are demonstrations of how faith in practice builds organization and structure into itself.
People create the issues of this life, this world.Consequently, people have to formulate solutions. Moreover, the irony is, Paul discovered a need for establishing a messianic faith culture apart from the Jewish law of Moses.
Simply telling people to go forth into liberty (loving one another) did not inform them about how to avoid outside influences which could sneak in and corrupt the people's liberty with opposing ideas! Moreover, the converts coming from diversity were coming into commonality. Of course, they would need to be 'taught' what faith in "the one God" is.
I agree that the newborn church needed direction. And it's tough for the director to distinguish between his own ideas and what he perceives to be instructions from God.
So I don't mean to criticize Paul... too harshly...
But it seems to me that Paul put great emphasis on rules, while not insisting enough that all that rigamarole must remain secondary to "Love one another."
The consequence, all through the history of Christianity, is that ritual has taken precedence over love.
I'm sure Paul did not intend to derail Christianity... but he did...
Two things:
It can be helpful to clear this up.
Do you mean your questions literally? In that case, certainly not Jesus, whom Paul never met. I don't know about the twelve... but I don't have the impression that they were working collegially for very long.
If you mean figuratively... then anything is possible.
Personally, I try to presume the simplest answer,which would be that Paul saw a need and acted.
What is this? JBB are you an adherent of Voices of Jesus and George Edgar Jones? Or, is this some attempt at expediency?
I hope this is not a drive-by.
Is this from the pages of the New Testament Bible? Some other sources? Or, if an extrapolation, what basis can you supply?
It's a presumption. I doubt that Paul acted on the Boss's direct orders, and the Twelve are only slightly more likely. I always prefer the simplest story.
I am not so sure Paul did not intentionally co-opt Christianity turning it into a cult of Paul...
Anti-Pauline schools of thought are not new and I would not dismiss them out of hand either.
The claims of the first evangelist, Saul/Paul, are credible as modern day charismatic leaders.
I'll give him this much. He was a hella good writer. The more people know of Paul the better.
I hold the same opines as Thomas Jefferson. Those being that Paul's letters should be their own seperate book and that they should not be included along with the Old and New Testaments in the recognized Biblical cannon. The Roman aspect of Paul's motivations are what I find most interesting though I refuse to expound greatly on that here. Anyone who wants to learn more about the true and whole history of Christianity should go searching for it. It is not hidden. Too many believe whatever they were told in their own churches but then there are literally thousands of Christian denominations. For the record, Thomas Jefferson took a sharp blade to his own Bible to remove Paul's letters and he also blacked out any references to magic. An interesting thinker Jefferson was, a true renaissance man of The Enlightenment. Not too many of those around anymore, sorry to say. I revere Jefferson only to the extent he deserves it. After all, he believed in slavery butt then so did Saul/Paul. Again, I do not intend to indulge in any protracted Screwtape Letters sort of dialogue here. Not unlike others, I am entitled to my considered opines and besides, I have been there - done that. I will leave you with this tidbit many remain unaware of regarding Jefferson...
If you shear ten percent off all the sheep every week forever you have a monopoly on wool.
10% off the top, you own almost everything over time. That power makes any man A King!
Holy Roman Emperor's tithes and taxes were one and the same. Everyone was a god then...
HA! OSM I had to read all that with these eyes and let it sink into my mind (without a filter). Processing. . . .
Okay, agreed!
As a matter of personal choice, I generally avoid speculation on others; motives, preferring to observe their actions.
If I allow myself to "guess" about motivation, then I react to that, rather than to the other's deeds. That is to say, I react to an idea I have myself constructed, rather than to anything that is truly of the other person. Not fair, to say the least!
So... two thousand years after the fact, I would certainly not presume to know Paul's motives. And I don't think they matter, unless someone wants to write a historical novel (which might be a very good one!).
I'm satisfied to (try to) analyze events.
So, we won't be discussing your '25 list' anytime soon? Got it!
There is solemn beauty in discussing these kinds of views with folks who have a heart for the subject matter. I respect you and Bob, from what I have read of your thoughts and what you bring to the discussion.
Apostle Paul had the unarguable task of going to the Gentiles (nations) and offering, that is, supplying them, with arguments for this emerging worldview of Jesus Christ. Because Paul's task was monumentally interlaced with administration over many groups of believers, problematic health issues, and isolation due to arrest, it is clear he was compelled to speak to a great deal of concerns using his own developed ideas, based on prior knowledge of the scriptures and life experiences. Not certain I spelled this out quite like I wanted to, but for now I'll let it stand. (Smile.)
Well now. This article ended rather abruptly. Curious.
Some authors come back to a seed that is about to disappear, posting a few extra times to keep the seed alive.
I've never done that. I figure that if people have something to add, they'll add it. And if they have nothing to add, then ... 'nuff said!
Good philosophy. There is plenty to discuss, in my opinion. I am fascinated and at the same time stupefied that many, many, people reject Paul. Particularly since, Paul established Christianity outside of Judaism. Thus, leading to its international success in modern times.
I "get" that some people do not like the many political ramifications of Paul's arguments. Those are debatable, nevertheless. Yet, to "do away" with the Epistles altogether, now that is a whole other caliber of chutzpah!
True... but...
When I look back on the two millennia of Christianity, it seems to me that all the (sometimes monstrously bloody) errors have been about questions of dogma that simply do not exist in either Christ's life or His teachings.
What does "transubstantiation" have to do with "love one another"? Or any of the other junk that later "religious leaders" have tacked on?
I've concluded that we should prune away everything that is not directly concerned with Christ. ... including Paul.
Transubstantiation is derived (wrongly in my opinion) from the Gospels—not from Paul. Some of the other so-called, "junk" are interpretational problems with the meaning in the separate books, extending from the Old Testament into, and in, The New Testament. A greater problem is the passage of time. What do I mean by that? The longer it takes for Jesus Christ's return, the more natural the tendency for the Word to expand and have new meanings 'ballooned' into it. This is not Paul's doing, nevertheless. Apostle Paul came, wrote, and passed away. Thus, Paul's words, much like the other Bible writers, had definite purposes for the times they written and for us today.
To be clear, the issue you mention is something which presents itself in modern times in part due to pastors-leaders who take "liberties" with the Word. That is, these individuals and churches "knead" the Word to take advantage of the Word. One must not underestimate the 'problem' of having to revamp an old monotonous sermon each and every Sunday! Countless services, over many, many, years. New generations of listeners. It is hard not to allow "junk" as you call it to creep in!
But again, Paul is not responsible for it. Apostle Paul pointed out that many false prophets and "apostles" were going about in the first century. Thus, if there was going to be any remembrances of Jesus Christ at all, somebody would have to act officially to package the original message's intent and purposes.
(Note: Coffee monster needs coffee!!!)
Transubstantiation is dogma from the Church of Rome, not the teachings of Jesus. It is one of the heresies addressed by the Protestant reformation
So you believe Peter was lying when he said that Paul’s letters are scripture?
Hello Pastor! I have a question for you. I am drawing a mental blank on this reference from Peter of the letters of Paul as scripture - can you provide it for review?
NOTE: Is it the one where Peter says, somethings Paul says are hard to understand or words to that effect?
No.
Yes
“Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him. He spoke about these things the same way in all of his letters. There are some matters that are hard to understand in his letters, which the ignorant and unstable distort, as they also do with the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
2 Peter 3:15-16
WTF? Are you really telling me what I believe? Seriously?
Livefreeordie is replying to my comment, Bob! (Smile.)
Oooops!
Ah! Got it! (Smile.) Paul had many unique considerations and factors in his ministry of church-planting and authority. In furthering of this thought:
References can help if feasible.
No problem. (Smile.) Happens to the best of us from time to time—even yours truly.
I did not say Paul was responsible for all the accrued junk. He certainly was not. Lots of people have contributed, right down to ministers today, as you point out.
I don't want to try to sort through all the junk, accepting this and rejecting that. It's much simpler to reject everything that isn't directly and obviously tied to Christ.
Bed time. Half past midnight.
Locking.
It's 7 AM. Good morning.
Unlocked.
Good morning!