Who were the movers and shakers of Paul's time?
Pharisees
Saducees
Esseneres
Who was Saul? (Paul)
Pharisee
Circumcised
Hebrew
Benjamin
Keeper of the law
Zealous
Faultless. Willing to kill people who disagreed with him and his interpretation of the Bible.
Something happened to him so now he says it is all waste.
Phil 3:2 Beware of dogs -Paul used the Pharisee term for Gentiles in referring to the Pharisees. Mutilators.
The difference between Saul and Paul is how he reads the Bible.
Saul felt entitled to the racial claims of superiority. Paul the Christian has a different view of his connection to Abraham
What began the transformation? He was on his way to Damascus to kill Christians when he encountered Christ. Not Jesus.
Gal 1:11 Jesus walked the shores of Galilee. Christ is the risen anointed one.
Ps 2:1-2 the nations rage against the Lord and his Messiah Christ.
Peter confessed that Jesus is the Messiah of Psalm 2
Paul says his Gospel comes from direct revelation. Not from eyewitnesses of Jesus.
Paul knew the Bible - he had to learn to understand it. For that he needed direct revelation from God.
He made it clear that he encountered the resurrected living Christ. Not through Peter. Peter knew the old way of reading the Bible was wrong. But he sided with the Jewish ethnic church.
To prove that Paul was preaching the pure gospel, separated from the ethic components, he needed to make it clear that their ethnicity and customs are not part of the gospel.
Galatia was a long way from Jerusalem and most people had never heard of circumcision. Some people read the Bible and felt it was required. Paul did not read it that way.
There is a Chistian way of reading the Bible.
Rom 1:16-17 the gospel - the power of God - for all who believe.
Belief is a Cognitative act - with faith.
The just shall live by faith. Quote from Hab 2:4
You become a child of Abraham strictly by faith and trust - not pride or puffed up relying on ethnicity.
The gospel is submission and trusting the Christ the anointed risen one.
Gal 3:6
Do Christians and Muslims worship the some God? God - Identity (God of Abraham) vs. Understanding who God is. I am President of Providence but at home I'm dad. Different understanding of who I am.
Christians Muslims and Jews all worship the God of Abraham but they have different understandings of what God does. Some think God heals them every time they pray.
We all have a partial understanding of God.
Dr. Stephen Hawking was in Sudbury Ontario Researching neutrinos. When asked if he believes in God he said he did not know the meaning of question.
I believe in the God as revealed in Scripture.
Lamin Sanneh, Professor at Yale, a Muslim became a Christian by reading the Koran. He reached the Christian understanding of God. The church took 300 years to reach a clear understanding of God. We need to be patient with each other
Genesis- how did Saul Paul read it?
Ch 12:1-3 All the nations CAN be blessed through Abraham
Ch 11: when Creation was made there was nothing. The flood reversed it back to water. God said-Replenish the earth. Babel said No. We will build our name. The sin that never stops. Racism and nationalism. God intervenes a 2nd time.
Gen 9:1-7 fill the earth. Creation starts over. Human government is established to control violence.
The Tower. Our City our name.
Abraham- God's Nation -God's name. God reverses the ambitions of the Tower builders. All the nations MAY be blessed.
Paul the Christian understands the promise -Abraham is going be the father origin of redemption. All who understand the promise.
Paul's My Gospel is the good news that God is bringing the whole world to himself.
How does Abraham's family come about? not by natural means -not by ethnicity. By God's doing.
Gen 15:1 revelation vision. A vision takes place in your mind. We dream often. Visions happen only periodically. Mysticism is what happens to Muslims who see Jesus.
Wife had a vision of a visit of Jesus calling someone home before her brother died.
Abraham had a vision. Gen 15:5-6 he believed and God counted it as righteousness. Paul quotes this over and over again.
The smoking POT is how God is revealed as in sensory terms.
Sara was 99 - quite a while after the hot flashes. The point is God creates his family. Learn to TRUST is the point of Abraham's life. Trust is faith.
Gen 17:7 is another important part of Paul's understanding of the Bible.
Circumcision becomes a sign- what is sign? What kinds of signs do we have?
Communion Baptism
A sign is a Confession
Can you be a Christian and not be baptized? Not take Communion? Not be a Christian?
Circumcision is a sign that God's family does not need the ability for human reproduction.
God's family is for all the nations.
The promise is for all the world. Isaiah 51:3 all the islands and coastlands.
Paul understood the underlying meanings of the promises by revelation.
The promise goes beyond this world.
The epistles are letters vs. the stories of Jesus in the gospels.
Matt 18:15-18 take i-hedi sprite to the church.
16:18 On Petra cliffs I will build my church.
Paul does not focus on Jesus as much as on the fulfillment of the promises of Abraham.
Gal 3:9 Works of the law vs. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To belong to Jesus is to be a child of Abraham.
Scriptures are not about rules on becoming Christians but a way of helping us understand how to walk.
You can't force someone to love or to have the joy of the Lord.
There is a transforming power that is not a list of rules to make God happy
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