Despite the widespread, uncritical adulation of Paul by the Christain church and its followers, independent-minded analysts of Jesus' teachings have often found great cause to find fault with Paul. One of the most famous critcisms comes from Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a letter to James Smith, that "Paul was ... the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." (Works, 1829 edition, vol. 4, p. 327.) George Bernard Shaw, the English playwright, is widely quoted as having said that: "... it would have been a better world if Paul had never been born." Strong words! So on what basis do they make such statements? Take an unbiased, open-minded look at the basic teachings of Paul and Jesus, comparing the two, and it doesn't take long to see that they are poles apart.
In the area of how our salvation is obtained, Paul and Jesus seem to differ greatly in their teaching. Jesus' teaching of universal, compassionate, selfless action as being the grounds of acceptance into the Kingdom of God is missing from Paul's teaching. Instead, Paul promotes a belief that as salvation is a free gift received only by faith, there is no behavioural requirement or obedience to law, because the law has now been done away with and its former requirements, which were impossible to keep anyway, no longer apply. Before we compare the words of Jesus and Paul verse for verse as recorded in the Bible, it must be noted that Jesus never wrote anything, and his reported teachings are based on accounts whose authorship cannot be verified with certainty, but we can still cite the body of teachings attributed to Jesus as the Jesus doctrine since that is what has been handed down to us as being his teachings.
A key word in understanding in determining whether or not there is a difference in the teazhing of Jesus and Paul, is "works". We need to understand the meaning of this word in the context of its use in the New Testament, to ascertain whether or not the views of Jesus towards "works" differs to that of Paul. The words used is "ergon", from the primary but now obsolete word, "ergo" (to work); by implication, an act: deed, doing, labour, work. Paul teaches that salvation is obtained "not by works" (deed, doing, labour, work), yet Jesus reportedly teaches that behavioral requirements (works/deeds), rooted in an internal change of spiritual growth within the person, are integral to salvation. Never once did Jesus teach or even hint at salvation being external or apart from the person, received by the act of simply believing and receiving by faith something He did on our behalf, as Paul did. In every instance where Jesus taught a spiritual truth about salvation, he always stated a physical action (deed), usually a different action from that presently being performed, as a requirement for that salvation to be effective.
Paul is indeed correct and he concurs with Jesus in saying it is not possible for us to "earn" the free gift that Jesus provides. He agrees with Jesus in teaching of a universal compassionate love by which the evil within us can be transformed into a more holy kindness of love, however when it comes to including a behavioral component in the requirement for salvation, Jesus and Paul are at variance. While Jesus does not say that this behavioral component satisfies any "debt," he still requires it. In fact, James, by his comments in James 2:26, suggests that our faith - if it is genuine - will be demonstrated by our works or deeds, which is another way of saying what Jesus said, that a tree is known by its fruit.
Some, like Paul, will say that puny mortals can never perform enough good behavior to "earn" or "merit" salvation based on the value of their deeds - that the attempts at human righteousness is as "filthy rags." Aside from the fact that this simply contradicts Jesus, the point is not whether or not our puny mortal attempts at righteousness have sufficient intrinsic value. Jesus never says that compassionate deeds "earn" salvation, or that any of us could ever "merit" the very gift of our existence. He merely sets that as the standard for compliance. Just as a child may offer its parents or grandparents an awkwardly-drawn piece of art, which likely holds little real artistic merit (perhaps in terms of art critics it might be as "filthy rags"), still the parents sincerely and genuinely cherish such efforts. It may not "merit" winning an art contest and have little or no commercial value, but loving parents find it good enough to represent the qualities they deem to be of real and lasting value. Why would a loving god, as spiritual father on a more perfect scale, not be able to give even greater acceptance, even of "filthy rags," if sincerely offered as the best effort by those attempting to please him, especially if he has said that he would do so, which He did? To argue against that is to join Paul in contradicting the teachings of Jesus.
The point is that Paul sets the standard for salvation as faith or belief in accepting Jesus while Jesus explicitly rejects this standard (see Matt 7:21-27) and sets the standard at universal compassionate love expressed in actions. In the Sermon on the Mount, near the beginning of his ministry, Jesus is shown as introducing a bold new concept, not only that we should love friends and neighbours, but our enemies as well. When asked by a lawyer what the most important commandment in the law was, Jesus answered (Matt 22:36-40 and Luke 10:25-37) with references from the Old Testament, that the greatest law was to love God (see Deut 6:5) and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself (see Lev 19:18). In the Luke text, the lawyer specifically asks what actions or works are necessary for eternal life (verse 25) and after Jesus references the two great commandments, he says "This do and you will live" (verse 28). He says nothing about believing, or receiving it by faith or that some act that Jesus was about to do on the cross would be the clincher. No! Jesus simply said, "Do this (obey the greatest law, which is to love God (see Deut 6:5) and the second, to love your neighbor as yourself) and you will live" - Perform these two deeds, or acts of love, and you will have eternal life. Would he really say something so clearly and simply, yet mean something else? He said it in a way that is not open for interpretation. It shows clearly that salvation is related to works/deeds/actions, however important faith might be to motivating such behavior; but you will never find that in Paul's teaching.
Note further, that in the Luke version, this was illustrated by an example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, which was used to define "neighbour" very broadly, to include enemies. It also defines clearly that it is works (actions/deeds) and not one's faith, or by following a particular religious belief or doctine that determines one's salvation. Jesus identifies the Samaritan (the lowest of the outcasts) as the one of the travellers who is saved, and that, because of his compassionate action toward his enemy who he rescues. Yet the Samaritan is not even a believer, not one having "faith" and not one who has accepted Jesus as saviour, or who even qualifies for any of the things God promised His people, as he was not a Jew. Yet this is who Jesus identifies as the one who gains eternal life, as opposed to the teacher of the Law, which is what the lawyer specifically asked.
In his last teaching before going to the upper room for the Last Supper, Jesus described in Matt. 25:31-45 the final judgment as being based solely and entirely on behavioural responses to internalised compassion. And Jesus makes it very clear that those who do express universal compassion in behavioural action will be saved, and those who do not will not be saved. Period. There is no other qualification; faith doesn't get a mention. Mother Teresa juxtaposed these two messages (the "great commandments" and that what we do to "the least of these" is done to God) to postulate that our actions toward "the least of these" are actually done unto god, which she took very literally, and asserted that we fulfill the first commandment by obedience to the second - which motivated her to give up a well-to-do life in Albania, and search to find whoever was the ultimate "least of these" in the world, which she found first on the streets of Calcutta, India, and later in missions throughout the world.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, a German Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, wrote in his book Man's Search for Meaning of rare but remarkable examples of men who were dying of hunger, yet still gave comfort, along with their last crusts of bread, to their fellow sufferers to alleviate their suffering. Even torture and extreme deprivation could not cause them to abandon their deeply-felt compassion. Those prisoners described by Frankl were Jewish. They hadn't confessed Jesus as their saviour. Paul would consign them to hell, while Jesus would embrace them and count them among His sheep, if He applies the same yardstick he did in Matt 22 and Luke 10.
Another issue must be considered when contemplating a theology of salvation based solely on belief and nothing else. Belief requires exposure. One cannot have belief in something that one has never been exposed to. So what about those who were supposedly created by a God who is both just and merciful, but lived in a time or place when there would be absolutely no possible chance of ever being exposed to Jesus? Imagine an innocent child born in India, China or Africa 800 years before Jesus was born (or even 800 years afterward, for that matter). There would be absolutely no chance this child could ever be exposed to the opportunity of believing in Jesus or accepting him as personal saviour. Again, Paul's theology consigns such innocent children to hell, while Jesus taught that of such is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 18:4-5; 19:14; Mark 9:36-37; 10:14-15; Luke 18:15-17). Some argue that, as God is just and loving, and not willing that any should perish, they will probably be given the opportunity to hear the gospel whilst awaiting their fate after they die. That is not part of the gospel Jesus taught, and that is all we really should be following.
Even in John 3, in the discourse to Nicodemus on salvation as a gift of grace, Jesus includes specific behavioural requirements (John 3:19-21). In any case, while some writings (other than Paul) may occasionally discuss faith as a separate topic (as with honesty, courage, etc.), no one (except Paul) ever states that salvation can occur with any of these virtues apart from works/deeds actions. This does not mean that God did not give us a free gift far beyond what we could ever earn, a gift of grace, or that it is within our reach to pay the penalty by our acts and deeds for our transgression of God's law. It is beyond our reach, which is why He gave us a pardon. Now pardon does not require that a debt be paid in full; on the contrary, when a transgression is pardoned, the debt is wiped totally. The person may still be deemed by the law as being guilty, but payment of a penalty is no longer required. Thus, in the case of our forgiveness, there would be no need for Jesus to pay one on our behalf.
According to Jesus, however, the pardon is conditional upon a change in our behaviour. This was the message Jesus gave to the Lawyer in Matt 22 and Luke 10, and to Nicodemus, and to the woman caught in adultery. It was the truth being taught in the parable of the prodigal son; salvation comes with a change of behaviour (which must first be motivated by a change of heart). There is not even the slightest hint or suggestion that salvation is granted entirely apart from specified behavioural conditions, as Paul says. There are certainly passages in the gospels that cite the importance, even the need, for faith or belief, and in some of these the idea of actions or "works" might go unmentioned. But even in such passages, no one other than Paul ever comes out and specifically states that works or good behavior are not essential to salvation or justification. Paul is the only one to do this.
There is some disagreement among Christian denominations on the extent to which one's actions or deeds are important to the process of being "saved." Conservative (Evangelical, Fundamentalist or Calvinistic) Protestants take a hard-line view based on Paul's teaching, and teach that salvation is only by faith and not by works or deeds. Catholics, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses acknowledge the importance of faith, but follow the teachings of Jesus that one's actions or deeds also play an important role. In what might be seen as the ultimate religious irony, the conservative Protestants, who follow Paul in his contradictions against Jesus and are the ones who are undermining "Christian" teachings as taught by Jesus himself, often accuse the Catholics, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses (whose position is based on what Jesus said, not Paul) of not being legitimate "Christians".
We've looked specifically at what Jesus taught, now let us examine what Paul taught. Paul teaches that the gift of salvation through grace occurs apart from any behavioral requirement: Romans 3:28 : "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." Paul reiterates this position in Romans 4:6; Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; II Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5 - yet no other Bible writer ever makes this point or reiterates so emphatically as Paul does. Paul is in fact specifically rebutted by James who offers one of the most striking and dramatic direct contradictions tp Paul's teachings in James 2:24. Many scholars believe the book of James was written specifically for the purpose of discrediting Paul's teaching as time and time again he quotes sections of Paul's teachings almost word for word from his letters. Using the same Old Testament scriptures that Paul used to support his argument, James shows how Paul has misread, misquoted or taken out of context the ancient texts, and thereby shows Paul to be in error (though Paul's name is never used).
Here James chooses language and syntactical structures which specifically contradicts Paul's wording in Romans 3:28 in both content and construction. Here are the two passages, shown in various translations:
Romans 3:28 (Paul)
KJV: a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
RSV: a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Today's English Version: a person is put right with God only through faith, and not by doing what the Law commands.
NIV: a man is justified by faith apart from observing the Law.
James 2:24 (James' rebuttal)
KJV: by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
RSV: a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
Today's English Version: it is by his actions that a person is put right with God, and not by his faith alone.
NIV: a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
We could put these statements into a simple formula:
J = Justification.
F = Faith (whatever it is; however you define it)
W = Works
Paul's formula: J = F - W
James' formula: J = F + W
No matter which translation you use, James is saying exactly the opposite to what Paul says. "J" cannot equal both "F - W" and "F + W" thus we have a clear and direct contradiction. James and Jesus both taught J = F + W; Paul taught the opposite. Can this be so? Let's take a closer look at it. The key words here, in both passages, are justified (or, in Today's English, "put right with God"), works (deeds, actions, or, as the NIV puts it, "observing the law"), and faith (same in all versions of both passages). Not only does James echo the same words, in the same parallel structure, but he even cites exactly the same example! The passage from Paul comes near the end of the third chapter of Romans; immediately after that, opening up the fourth chapter, Paul cites the example of Abraham and says it was his faith, not his works, that justified him (Romans 4:1-3). In James 2:21-24 (the same passage noted above), Paul's very example is used against him, but with the opposite (and contradictory) conclusion, that Abraham was justified by the combination of faith with works. Not only does James use exactly the same example, but to remove any doubt that they are referring to Abraham in exactly the same context, James (James 2:23) refers to exactly the same scriptural reference to Abraham as Paul - Genesis 15:6.
James' use of the same examples (right down to the identical scriptural reference), same words, and parallel structure clearly suggest that this was an intentional reply/rebuttal to Paul. If anyone wants to suggest that, perhaps, the two passages have different root words in the original texts that just happened to pick up similar English equivalents by all these translators, then they should look at the Greek source texts. The same Greek word "dikaioo" is used by both Paul and James for the term justification (or "put right with God") in these two passages. The same Greek word "ergon" is used by both Paul and James for the term variously translated as works, deeds, actions, doing, or observing. While the English translators couldn't agree on the best term, both Paul and James were talking about the same thing as they uswed the same word. And, with the exception of the NIV, the translators of each version at least are consistent in their own usages between Paul and James.
The same Greek word "pistis" is used by both Paul and James for the word that all versions of both passages translated as "faith." Some have tried to explain these differences by saying that Paul and James had different meanings for their words "justification," "faith" and "works/deeds." Yet the simple fact remains they used the same words, in the same order and same context, and illustrate their point with the same example of Abraham and Isaac. To argue that Paul and James had different meanings of these words is to clutch at staws. But on several occasions, attention has been called to one difference in the wording of Paul and James. While they use the same words when talking about the "works/deeds" Paul adds the phrase "of the law" while James does not. Some have argued that this means Paul is talking about something different. Not so. Paul's use of that phrase is a restrictive modifying clause, limiting the scope of what he is talking about. By leaving it out, James is at the very least accepting everything in Paul's more restrictive context and broadening to include additional contexts. But more to the point is that earlier in the same chapter (James 2: 8-13), just before the verse in question and his reference to Paul's example of Abraham and Isaac, James discusses behavior very specific in terms of the Law, and the deeds of the Law. Aside from the possibility of simply broadening the more narrow focus of Paul, what seems more likely in context is that James does not need to say "of the law" since he has already made it clear a few verses before that that is what he is talking about.
The only credible scenario is that James is clearly rebutting what he sees as Paul's scandalous undermining of Jesus' teachings. Paul is not only rebutted by James in the examples above, but also admits to having some problems getting along with Peter, saying in Galatians 2:11: "But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed." And what was Peter to be blamed for? Read the surrounding verses and you'll see it is over whether the Law must be observed. This was always Paul's argument with the twelve apostles, who had all taught the importance of the observation of the law by Jesus himself.
Jesus is described in the gospels as one who always upheld the Law of Moses. In his first public teaching, the Sermon on the Mount, he made it very clear in Matt. 5:18-19: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." ("jot or tittle" in modern translations is "not one iota nor one dot".) Have heaven and earth passed away? Have all the prophecies, including those of the last days, been fulfilled? No, therefore the Law as given to Moses still stands, and according to Jesus in Matt 22 and Luke 10, it is the keeping of the first two of these Laws that brings salvation.
While Jesus adds to the Law of Moses, he never detracts from it or undermines it. Even some of the occasions when Jesus seems to add to the Law he goes to great lengths to show that his new revelation is simply expounding the intent behind the law. For example, when this rabbi asked by a lawyer (one versed in the Law of Moses) what was the greatest commandment in the Law, Jesus turns the question back to him and asks what is in the Law, and from that extrapolates his great commandments to Love God (from Deut 6:5) and Love Neighbor as Self (from Lev. 19:18) which was clearly the centerpiece of his ministry. Paul, on the other hand, throws out the Law of Moses totally! Romans 10:4: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for every one who believes." Many try to reconcile this direct contradiction by saying that Jesus' death, atonement and resurrection "fulfilled" and thus "completed" the Law of Moses, bringing it to an end. But to fulfill a law or command is to comply with it fully. Jesus specifically stated in Matt 5:17 that he came to fulfill the Law of Moses, not destroy it. He came to ensure full compliance. And then he sets the time frame for that compliance, in the next verse (Matt 5:18 cited above): until all (this means everything!) has been fulfilled, and to make it even more unambiguous, he states that this will be until heaven and earth have passed away, that not one dot or iota in the Law will be affected. I believe Jesus went to some much trouble to spell it out so clearly because he knew someone would follow in his footsteps with a gospel that preached the exact opposite to what He was teaching. And that is exactly what happened. Additionally, not only does Paul denounce the need for works/deeds of which Jesus and others like James, Peter and all the Old Testament prophets spoke so much, in Romans 3:27-28 and Galatians 2:16 he actually specifically identifies which works he is talking about: those of obedience to the Law, which he says are no longer required. We were warned, so why do we still listen to Paul?
Throughout his letters Paul goes into great detail presenting arguments which are often difficult to follow and at times even contradictory, in his quest to justify us (and him) not having to sumbit ourselves to the basic laws of life that God gave Moses. I believe the real reason he took this stance is not because of a revelation from God that those Laws no longer applied to him, but because he had tried so hard to live up to those standards and failed. Because of that failure, he deemed it impossible to ever achieve it and so came up with a argument that let him off the hook. Unfortunately, the argument is seriously flawed, and it led him and his followers into erroneous doctrine that contradicts everything Jesus taught about salvation.
Paul explains his twisted theology in Romans 7: 15-25: "For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would that do I not; but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me is in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh (I serve) the law of sin."
Here Paul admits he's got a problem, and a big one at that, but for whatever reason he is convinced he can't change. The fact that Jesus would say he has to change whether he likes it or not is totally ignored. His solution is to exhonerate himself by playing the blame game. Adam was the first to go down that path - "the woman you gave me the fruit to east", he told God, as though Eve had held him down and forced the fruit into his mouth. Mankind still follows Adam's lead, pleading that it is not our fault that we are like we are. "I come from a broken home", "my father was an alcoholic", "my parents didn't love me", "the Devil made me do it", we say. It might well be that things beyond our control have shaped us into what we are, which could be why Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, "neither do I condemn you". But that was only half of what he said to her. Having identified her problem, he then gave her the solution - "go and sin no more". God is willing to forgive the shortcomings of our past provided we are willing to take responsibility for them and do something about them. That was how Jesus saw salvation; the Church's great mentor, Paul, saw it differently. He first blamed his bodily parts (v23) for obeying the sin within him, as if those parts were somehow separate from him and not in any way under the control of his mind, will and emotions. His solution was to let his body go off and do its own thing and serve the law of sin, whilst his mind serves the law of God (v25). Try finding that theology in the teachings of Jesus.
That's about as far away as you could get from the solution Jesus gave for mankind's sin problem: "repent and change; do that and God will forgive you." Though Jesus did teach that God meets us half way, it was not the half way Paul suggested. Paul would have us believe that God is prepared to overlook our shortcomings by having Jesus take the consequence of our sin, provided we simply believe it. But Jesus didn't tell the woman caught in adultery He was going to make up for her shortcomings, he told her to stop doing those "works" that caused her shortcomings. He made it quite clear to everyone he spoke to that they must first repent and set a new course for their future, and when they have done that, they will receive forgiveness for their past. In every instance, it involved a radical change from within, a change Jesus referred to as being born again. Before he could reconcile with his father, the prodigal son had to first come face to face with who and what he had become. Only then could he ask for forgiveness and a second chance, after having made an inner change from being self focused ("I want ... Give Me") to "others" focused ("Make me a servant"). Read Paul's letters and this is something Paul never did, which is probably why he constantly faced the internal struggle he documents in Romans 7. Paul's focus was always on Paul, what he said and what he did. He referred to the gospel he preached as his gospel (he was right in one way, as it was certainly not the gospel Jesus preached). In spite of Jesus warning those who think they stand to take heed in case they fall, Paul was so self opinionated, he constantly urged everyone to follow his example (wasn't Jesus's example good enough for us to follow?) and even spoke a curse over anyone, even if it was an angel from heaven, who dared preach anything different to what he taught (Gal. 1:8)! No wonder George Bernard Shaw, the English playwright, believed that "... it would have been a better world if Paul had never been born.
Jesus and Paul also left contradictory legacies as to the manner in which worship should be conducted. Jesus preached as an itinerant wanderer, informally to locals he encountered in his travels. Usually these were small groups, though he did encounter the occasional large crowd. Jesus always prayed privately, and taught his followers to do the same. In fact, he specifically warned against public prayer and public displays of worship (Matt. 6:1-18). The fact that he belaboured this point so thoroughly in his Sermon on the Mount, his first and greatest public teaching, almost suggest a premonition that others would follow to undermine and contradict him. Jesus never set up a church or established an organisation to continue on the work he started. Every time his disciples quizzed Jesus about this, and who He would like to take the lead after He had gone, Jesus insisted there would be no structure or chain of authority in which one was placed in authority over another ("in my kingdom it will not be so", Mark 10:42-45). He made it clear to them that if they aspired to be the greatest in His kingdom, they must first become servants. A servant has no say whatsoever as to what happens within the master's household; in the pecking order in the household, there is none lower. Jesus was effectively saying that being the lowest of the low is the highest position available in His kingdom. Any position which comes with more authority than no authority at all is not part of His kingdom. Call no one master, call no one father, call no one leader, Jesus said. The closest Jesus came to establishing any kind of authority was in Matt. 16:18, when he designated an itinerant fisherman named Simon to become "Peter" the "rock" upon which his church would be founded. And if you look closely at what Jesus said, the rock to which Jesus was referring was not Peter himself, but the declaration Peter had just made, that is, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God.
So why do we have churches with varying levels of authority for us to submit to? Because our churches follow what Paul said, and not Jesus. It was Paul who organized the great system of churches, which he based it on the structure of the pagan Mithras religion of his day. Even the terminology he used was the same - from the title of those in positions of authority, ie. bishops, to each local gathering being called a church. The story of Acts is the story of Paul travelling throughout the known world, establishing churches. His epistles, which comprise the greatest single portion of the New Testament, were written to maintain administrative control of this great ecclesiastical network and to standardise its doctrines based on his own theology. The stucture we see in churches today is still based on the Mithran pattern introduced by Paul, even though Jesus said that in His Kingdom "it will not be so" (Mark 10:42-45). This casts real doubt over whether Jesus sees the church of today as part of his kingdom.
Jesus ministered to the sinners, with no reluctance to engage adulterers, whores, publicans, tax collectors, lepers, or any other "unclean" person (the whole done need not a physician, said Jesus). This, of course, completely negates the argument that God cannot be in the presence of sin, unless you do not believe in the notion of Jesus being God. But Paul says: 1Cor 5:11 "But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one do to eat."
Jesus taught in Matt 25:31-46 that our final salvation and judgment would be based in large part on our willingness to feed the poor. Paul contradicts this in 2 Thess 3:10 "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." Does this mean that if poor people are unemployed, we should turn them away from any charity, both those who want to work and cannot, as well as those who can work but won't? How many Christians have resisted giving food to a poor person simply because they are unemployed and believe the person did not show a willingness to work, based on Paul's statement in 2 Thess? Nowhere in Hebrew Scripture is there any such barrier to God’s command that we are to feed the poor.
Exodus 23:11 says “but the seventh year thou shalt let it [your land] rest and lie fallow; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beast of the field shall eat.” The field owner was also not supposed to glean the field in ordinary harvests but leave the “fallen fruit” for the “poor and sojourner.” (Lev. 19:10.) Thus, scripture always depicts food being provided to the poor without any requirement to work for the food they picked up from the orchard (Many Christians, of course, do not follow Paul’s dictum, and follow instead the Bible’s rule of open-handed provision of food to the poor).
Just as it was Paul's words that were held up in the mid-1800's to justify slavery, so Paul's words today are still used to persecute others. When the Southerners in the United States of America sought to defend slavery, they cited Paul to back them up, quoting Ephesians 6:5 and Titus 2:9-10, where he exhorts slaves to obey their masters, and the fact that though slavery was widely practiced, Paul never condemned it once. Paul appears to have been very anti-woman also. This may be because Mithraism was restricted to male worshippers, since female worshippers were expected to worship either Cybele or Isis instead. He ordered that they not be allowed to speak in churches (I Cor 14:34-45); that they stay home and take care of the kids (1Timothy 5:14); that wives should be submissive to the mastery of their husbands (Ephesians 5:22-24 and Colossians 3:18-19) and that it was better for a man to be unmarried than married. On their own, they does not consitutue denegration of women, but together they form part of a whole negative attitude Paul had towards women. Jesus, however, had a totally different attitude, and some of his most loving, caring one-to-one ministry was to women.
The only passages in the New Testament that are offered as evidence against equal rights for homosexuals are those taught by Paul (various passages have been construed to oppose homosexuality, but the most direct reference is in Romans 1:26-27). Jesus himself never uttered a single word against homosexuals and, given his affinity for sinners, lepers, tax collectors, and other outcasts, it is likely that in our modern times it would be Jesus who would be embracing the homosexuals rejected by those who claim to be his followers (that is not to say that he condones their actions, just as he would did not condone the actions of tax collectors or prostitutes). Many Christians eat pork, prawns or rabbit (forbidden in Leviticus 11) because, in accordance with what Paul said, the Law of Moses is no longer operational the Law no longer applies. Ironically, these same people cite Leviticus 18:22 (part of the same Law which no longer applies) in their opposition of homosexuality - talk about having it both ways.
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