New Testament Fairy Tales, page 35

reply to post by Hermit777

It's not a matter of he gets all the credibility, lol.

It's that Christ vouched for what Peter would do, and Peter vouched for Paul.

Christ's telling Peter:

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

And Peter's commentary on Paul:

14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15 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, 16 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.

The only caution given about Paul's writing is that it's difficult to understand, and distortable. Christ's teaching was radical, but it was done fairly simply. Paul can be really complicated. Complicated things can be easily abused.

For instance, Christ kept it simple:

What is the law to be interpreted by?

34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together * *. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

When the Apostles got together to decide what the Greek Christians should be bound to, form the law, one of the issues was "meat sacrificed to Idols". Problem is that a city like Rome, the only way you were getting meat was from a vendor that sold cooked meat from idol sacrifice. So, what is a Christian to do when they go into a home with meat in the middle of Rome? They are to first, love their God, then love their neighbor whom they are eating with. Paul, in 2 separate books dealt with this specific issue. All he had to do was quote Christ, and keep it simple, but no, he went into a good bit of detail and even explained some of the psychological behavior of the 2 having the conflict. Here and Here.

And by psychology:

2 One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. 3 The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. 4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

This is what I'm talking about. It is the habit of the one who sees a freedom to see the other person as a slave to their own mentality. It is easy to be disgusted with the slow-brainer/no-brainer. It is pretty normal for someone who sees something as a "moral imperative" to want to force the other into following the moral code that they don't believe in. And this was an Apolistic COMMAND to not eat the meat.

edit on 23-9-2012 by CynicalDrivel because: (no reason given)