PAUL’S “A-PAUL-LING” EPISTLES (1)

Music to the ears but poison to the soul. 

Most Christians read the epistles of Paul with a veil over our eyes.  Otherwise, we would realise how ridiculous they often are.  Read the following so-called scriptures again and see if you would still consider them to be the infallible word of God.

Abusive

Calling some people “deceivers,” Paul says: “One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’  This testimony is true.” (Titus 1:12-13). 

Paul boasts concerning his word: “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:12).  But here he is validating the word of Epimenides.  This shows Paul’s word is the word of men and not the word of God.  James asks rhetorically: “Can clean water and dirty water both flow from the same spring?” (James 3:11).  The answer is a capital No!  Therefore, since Paul splices his truth with questionable non-scriptural quotations, his word cannot be the word of God.

The word of God promotes righteousness.  But here Paul’s so-called word of God is hateful and abusive.  Jesus says: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world.” (John 3:17).  Yet here, Paul condemns an entire race of people as “liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons.”  Jesus warns: “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of hell fire.” (Matthew 5:22).  But thanks to Paul, it is now popular to abuse a man by calling him “a cretin,” a derivative of “Cretan;” meaning he is an imbecile or a jackass.  Paul’s wisdom here is not godly but devilish. (James 3:15).

If indeed Cretans are always liars, Paul’s quote of one of them cannot be true but must also be false.  But Paul foolishly says it is true.  Thereby, he falls into a trap of his own making, and only ends up by revealing his bigotry.  Malicious fallacy is not of God.  This gives the lie to Paul’s vaunted declaration: “We have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16). 

Illogical

Paul says: “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14).   

However, if natural men cannot receive the things of the Spirit, then no man can become spiritual because every spiritual man begins as a natural man.  Paul himself foolishly acknowledges this inadvertently.  He says elsewhere: “The spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 15:46).  In effect, he sets a trap for himself and falls into it.  If the natural comes first before the spiritual, how then can the natural become spiritual when, according to Paul’s ingenuity, the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God?

How can this sheer illogicality be construed, even by the most uneducated of persons, to be the word of he who Paul himself refers to as “the only wise God?”  In no way should this kind of foolishness be dogmatically mistaken as the word of God.

Jesus knows Nicodemus is a natural man, nevertheless, he expects him to understand what it means to be born again.  He says to him: “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?” (John 3:10).   He does not say he cannot understand because he is a natural man.

Ludicrous

Paul says: “The man Adam wasn’t the one who was fooled. It was the woman Eve who was completely fooled and sinned. But women will be saved by having children, if they stay faithful, loving, holy, and modest.” (1 Timothy 2:14-15).

The most sophisticated Paulinist apologetic cannot dig Paul out of this hole.  Let us follow through on the sheer ridiculousness of Paul’s illogicality here.  If a woman falls into transgression by committing adultery, for example, all she needs to do, according to Paul, is get pregnant and she will be saved through childbearing.  This must surely be the most absurd and bizarre doctrine of salvation ever.

This statement is certainly not the word of God.  It cannot even be the word of an intelligent man.  Jesus says by the mouth of two or three witnesses everything is established. (Matthew 18:16).  There is absolutely nothing in the entire bible in support of this sophistry.  No matter how you slice and dice it, women are not saved in childbearing either physically or spiritually because they are of the faith.

As a matter of fact, some die while having children.  Rachel, Jacob’s wife, was not “saved in childbearing;” she died in childbearing.  Eli’s daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was not “saved in childbearing;” she died in childbearing.  I await the superior wisdom of heaven-bound Paulinists to fabricate suitable apologetics for this counterfeit word of God from the “infallible” mouth of Paul.

Isaiah says: “‘Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labour! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,’ says the LORD.” (Isaiah 54:1).  But it now appears that the barren should weep because, according to Paul, they cannot be saved because they will not go through childbearing.  What poppycock!

Soul poison

Paul says: “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39). 

This is music to the ears but poison to the soul.  It gives Christians a false sense of complacency that our salvation is assured come what may.  However, Jesus gives no such guarantee.  Instead he says: “Many are called, but few chosen.” (Matthew 22:14).  “If you keep on being faithful right to the end, you will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13).

Thanks to Paul, Christian mythology says God hates sin but loves sinners.  This is completely unscriptural.  God hates sin and he hates sinners: “(He) hates all workers of iniquity.” (Psalm 5:5).  “The wicked and the one who loves violence his soul hates.” (Psalm 11:5).  The truth is, if we fall into sin, it will separate us from the love of God.  Listen to what God says in Hosea: “All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them.  Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them from my house; I will love them no more.” (Hosea 9:15).

Paul says: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  But clearly, none of the quotations of Paul presented here can realistically be said to be the word of God.”

If, against all the odds, some still insist Paul’s word is the word of God, then here is “the word of God” declaring Paul’s word to be that of a nincompoop: “I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool.” (2 Corinthians 11:17).  Surely, God does not speak as a fool.