Paul’s Authority and Mission

Dave makes some really wonderful points here about how Paul the Apostle is often taken out of context and seems to be at odds with the Apostles and Judaism with what he says.

I heard a sermon on the radio today in which the entire scope of the sermon was on how Paul was the “only” authorized Disciple to the Gentiles….it was presented that Paul was essentially the only one we as Christians needed to listen to and worry about listening to in our Bible.

Whether that was the Preacher’s intent or not…that is the message he was handing out quite passionately.  He completely ignored the fact that the first person to deal with the Gentiles aside from Jesus was Peter the Apostle (Acts 10) who went to see Cornelius the Gentile and his family.  Peter was called upon by the Holy Spirit to go and see Cornelius and his family, and the Holy Spirit told Cornelius to send some men to go and get Peter, whom he had never met before.  Peter witnessed this important thing when he went there, that although Cornelius and his people were all Gentiles (non-Jews) God gave them the Holy Spirit also.  This was an important thing when it came to the decision of the Apostles about how Gentiles could remain as they were (Gentiles) and still be included in the Salvation offered by God.

Many of our Christian Churches over the centuries and still today have doctrine that takes Paul out of context and forgets that Paul as well as the other Disciples and Jesus, himself…were all practicing Jews…they did not forsake the practice of their faith in order to accept Jesus..they still kept Sabbath and Passover, and the other Jewish Holidays….they were still Jewish until their deaths…although they had recognized and accepted the Messiah as the source of their salvation.  Jesus was a devout practicing Jew…he could not have kept the law perfectly if he had not been.

So what does this mean to us?  This means that Paul who was a Pharisee who was the son of a Pharisee, who was trained by a famous Pharisee (Gamaliel) was still a Pharisee even while he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior.  He was still a Jew….he still honored Jewish traditions and laws, but he understood that the law is not the source of salvation. He understood that Repentance and acceptance of the Messiah, pursuing God was the source of salvation….relationship with God.  As Dave says in this Video…Paul was not a rogue who was separate from the Disciples.  He was under the Disciples authority…he was commissioned by them (as well as Jesus – Acts 22:21) to go and preach to the Gentiles. The Disciples understood that Paul had been authorized by Jesus as the Disciple to the Gentiles and they followed the Holy Spirit’s wishes and sent him out to them in obedience to God.

Paul tells us to be who we are…if we are Jews to be Jews who accept the Messiah, and if we are Gentiles to be Gentiles who accept the Messiah.  We are to accept Jesus where ever we are and be the person that God created us to be, as we are all unique individuals and God has a plan for each and every one of us in how we are to serve him.

Dave gets a lot deeper into this idea in his video and makes some very impressive points about Paul and his Mission/Ministry.  I encourage you to give it a watch.

It is interesting to look at the scripture in the context of how the Disciples would have understood things from their position as Jews.

Source: Paul’s Authority and Mission

The Good Shepherd

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Read John 10: 1-21 

John 10:1-21 New King James Version (NKJV) Jesus the True Shepherd 10 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them. Jesus the Good Shepherd 7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.8 All who ever came before Me[a] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd. 17 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” 19 Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. 20 And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?” 21 Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” Footnotes: John 10:8 M-Text omits before Me. New King James Version (NKJV)Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Jesus talks about his qualities as a shepherd, and that his sheep are important enough to him that he would die for them.  We are his sheep, and Jesus is our shepherd, who takes care of us and leads us as Jesus describes in these verses.  However, we are sheep with a choice.  We can chose to follow our shepherd, or not (and in that case be eaten by wolves aka Satan). 

Jesus also talks about having sheep in other pastures.  He is talking about people who are not Jews.  Anyone who is not a Jew is a Gentile.  People in other faiths can come to know Jesus as well as people who are raised in Judaism or Christianity.  God loves all people, no matter what nationality, or race, or location you live in.  If a person is seeking God, God will help that person to be led to Jesus.  No matter which part of the world or what faith or lack of faith a person is raised, or invested in,  if the person earnestly  seeks God, then God will reveal himself to them.  The Bible is all about God’s revealing of himself to mankind.  So if you are seeking,  Jesus will lead you like a shepherd leads his sheep to the good pasture of God’s word.  As Christians we have to be open and not condemning of a person’s faith background.  

John 14:6New King James Version (NKJV)

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

As it says in John 10:16  There will be one flock and one shepherd that Jesus will bring the sheep from the other flocks together.  The other flocks would be the people who are not Jewish, but they will still know who Jesus is and accept him as their shepherd.  The thing that all these “flocks” will have in common is Jesus Christ and it will show in their love for God and their love for one another.

John 13:34-35 ³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This does not mean that all religions will be one…don’t get confused!  It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with people who are seeking to know God.  Jesus was a Jew from birth until the end of his life here on earth…All of Jesus’ original Disciples were Jewish and so was Paul. People of Christ were not called Christians until Antioch in Acts 11:26.  This was when Paul was teaching them. (Though the Bible speaks of a one world religion…Revelation 17:1-18…that is a false religion and that is not what I am talking about here.)

Read Acts 8:26-40 (ESV)

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south^[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. ²⁷ And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship ²⁸ and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹ And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” ³⁰ So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” ³¹ And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. ³² Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
    and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he opens not his mouth.
³³ In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”

³⁴ And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶ And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”^{[b] 38} And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. ³⁹ And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

Now the thing about this story of the Ethiopian Eunuch is that the Eunuch was not Jewish, yet, God knew that his seeking of God, through trying to read scripture was sincere. God chose to honor that sincerity by providing a person who was knowledgeable in the scripture to help the Eunuch understand what he was reading.  Thus the Ethiopian Eunuch was led to Christ, and became a part of the other flock that came under the same shepherd.  Please note that there is nothing in the scripture that says that the Ethiopian Eunuch suddenly became Jewish.  He did not.  If he had we certainly would have been told this.  He met God as he was, and became a sheep who followed the Good Shepherd.  We don’t know what event or series of events inspired the Eunuch to start reading Isaiah, that is only known to the Holy Spirit who is the one who had a hand in it to begin with.

Read Psalm 23  

Psalm 23 New King James Version (NKJV) The Lord the Shepherd of His People A Psalm of David. 23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell[a] in the house of the Lord Forever. Footnotes: Psalm 23:6 Following Septuagint, Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate; Masoretic Text reads return. New King James Version (NKJV)Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Yahweh, Jehovah, I AM

Commandment #3 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Exodus 3:13-15: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.”  God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your fathers- The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”

John 8:58 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born I AM.”

Notes:  In Unger’s Bible dictionary it says that the word Jehovah is a misspelling of the word Yahweh which in Hebrew means “He causes to be or He exists, or He creates.”  This explains why God uses the term I AM to describe himself.  I AM is a short way to say that he exists and has always existed, that God is not a created being.  He is the Creator of Everything.  The tradition of the Hebrews was to not say God’s name out loud in conversation.  This tradition probably has a lot to do with the fact that God’s name is Holy, and that misusing God’s name was punishable by death.   After all, if you don’t say it out loud, then you cannot misuse it accidentally or on purpose.  Historians believe that this is what led to the mispronouncing of God’s name Yahweh (Yahway) as Jehovah.  Since it was never pronounced out loud, some forgot how to pronounce, and spell it.  Also as you can see in John 8:58 Jesus describes himself with the traditional title that God used for himself with Moses.

Exodus 20:7  You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Read Leviticus 24:10-23  The story of the Blasphemer.

¹⁰ Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. ¹¹ The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) ¹² They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.

¹³ Then the Lord said to Moses: ¹⁴ “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him.¹⁵ Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; ¹⁶ anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

¹⁷ “‘Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. ¹⁸ Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution—life for life. ¹⁹ Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: ²⁰ fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. ²¹ Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. ²² You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’”

²³ Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses.

Reading this story of the blasphemer who was put to death and the indictment that God laid on him is very hard.  There are many things that are hard to understand, but if you realize that God is a Holy God, and that he was in the process of making the people of Israel into a group of people who were to be living examples of the character of God to others on earth…then it can be seen that a person who did not respect the God who was providing for them and caring for them could not be tolerated.

I know, you are probably saying that they could have just thrown him out of the camp, but again, if you think about the environment outside the camp…a dry and desert environment…wouldn’t throwing this person out be the same as sentencing them to death?  There was a reason why people traveled in caravans in those days.  There was no city, no civilization…just their camp.

At the same time, it is shown in verse 21 that God was not giving this instruction lightly…the value of human life is of the utmost importance.  God also did not want anyone to believe that there was a separate law for the native Israelite and the one who lived in Israel but had an Egyptian Father, so in verse 22 he reminds them that the law is for both the Israelite and the foreign born.  The same law.

We have a lot of conflicting beliefs over the death penalty as a punishment, but the Bible clearly had laws regarding this, and considered that someone who took God’s name lightly or ran down God’s name should be treated to that punishment.  The punishment of death was not lightly given…but for very grave offenses, such as adultery, murder, and blasphemy.

There should also be an understanding that God was applying these laws to those who lived within the boundaries of Israel and with the Israelite people.  The 10 commandments were given so that people could understand how to live with each other….to have respect for each other, and the land of Israel was a Theocracy, not a Democracy.  We Westerners, as a rule, have a hard time understanding what a Theocracy is, and how people can live in one.  That is because we believe that the individual freedoms of people are more important than our individual beliefs about God….in other words, we are generally more self centered, than God centered.

The peculiar thing here is that the Pharisees used this law to try and trap Jesus.  They found that despite all the scriptures about the Messiah, they were unable to believe that Jesus, who was identifying himself with God…could be that Messiah.  All they saw was blasphemy.

Luke 5:20-21  20When Jesus saw their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” 21But the scribes and Pharisees began to consider this and ask, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemy?  Who can forgive sins but God along?”

If we were a strict Theocracy then we would be having everything in our lives revolve around God, and all of our laws would be looking to make God centered decisions.

Personally, I am grateful that we do not live in such a strict society; because even a strict theocracy is governed by human beings who are incapable of making good judgements about people.  In the days of Moses, God was in direct and certain communication with Moses…there wasn’t any doubt about this within the confines of the Israelite people.  God was their rescuer and Moses was the leader that God had given to them. Moses, himself, was under the punishment of God for misrepresenting God’s character to his people.  He was banned from ever entering the promised land for doing that.

God is a loving God, but we cannot forget that he is a Righteous and Holy God who is not to be taken lightly.  Whether in speech or in action.  The good news is that he is a loving God who is just to forgive us whenever we ask for it sincerely….If you look back at that story we do not hear that the blasphemer of Mose’s time was asking for forgiveness at all…it is not made clear to us…but if we look at the pharisees…even thinking that Jesus was a blasphemer they picked up stones to stone him..John 8:59  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. 

The seriousness with which the Jews took this law of God and the Holiness of God’s name into their hearts was still in effect in Jesus’ time which was thousands of years after Mose’s time. The thing is that Jesus was who he was saying he was, yet the Pharisees could not see it!  They were blinded by their own self-righteousness!

Living Under Grace Daily

 

A child knows how to live under the grace of their parents all the time, they simply accept that what a parent says is true and love simply.

Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ, you have fallen from grace. 

Read Galatians 5:4, Hebrews 12:15,Hebrews 13:9, 1Peter 1:13  You can fall away from God’s grace, if you embrace your culture too much.  We are to live a separate kind of existence than our culture, as a demonstration of God’s grace in our lives.  We are to be in the world, but not be worldly.  Don’t try to earn your way to heaven, if you do, then you are no longer under grace, you are under the law, and you are condemned.

Read Galatians 2: This is about Paul and Barnabas receiving the right hand of fellowship of James, Cephas, and John who were spreading the word of Jesus to the Jews (who were called the Circumcision in the bible), the Gentiles were the uncircumcised.  Paul condemns Peter’s action of preaching grace, but then telling the people that they must under the law be circumcised.  He tells Peter that if he is living under grace, that he cannot then require circumcision of people (the gentiles) before they come to Jesus.  That this would be a legal requirement, and that this requirement is not of grace, that they are accepted to Jesus by grace and faith, not by works.  That sin is justified by grace and not by their own work.  Otherwise if righteousness comes by law, then Christ died in vain.  

It is really funny how an issue can cause people to get into a dither, isn’t it?  I have several brothers, and in my family although we are not Jewish and as far as I know my Mother has not yet found anyone Jewish in our background through all of her mountains of research into our family genealogy, but despite what the Bible says about Gentiles not needing to be circumcised my brothers were, as were most boys born in the time period that I was born in.  I don’t believe that much consideration, if any, was given to the contrary. If any consideration was given it was probably that Christians are circumcised too.  That is a general Judeo-Christian consensus, but as you can find from reading the Bible that is not a requirement of Gentile Christians.  Now, in the generation of my children, I have heard discussion on doing that or not doing that, and some are very defensive about not circumcising if they have boy children.  They are expecting criticism from parents who chose to circumcise.

As Christians we need to know exactly what the Bible is saying about this subject, and other subjects like it, so that we can lovingly discuss it with those who are feeling very uptight about it, or any subject that is a tradition.  The Bible tells us not to trouble our children and the children not to trouble us.  (Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:1-4) If we don’t know what the Bible says about these things, then it does cause trouble between us and our children and between us and others who are in their Christian walk also.