With My Mother's Approval
Theory will take you only so far.
-Oppenheimer
This will be roughly my fifth attempt to write this blurb. Every time I have tried, I have deleted it, feeling like I was crossing the line. Yet my dilemma remains, stronger and (I believe) clearer than ever. So I'm gonna try again, and I'll start by stating the problem very plainly:
I don't like Paul's Letters. They rankle me, and I read them as little as possible. No matter how much I bring the matter to the Lord, no matter how much I have drudged through them to try to get used to them, it has done no good; Paul's writing is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
This problem has continued unbroken for many years, and has gotten worse, not better, since I truly devoted my life to Scripture about five years ago.
Furthermore, this distaste I have for Paul is not to be found anywhere else in Scripture. Moses, the Prophets, the Gospels, Revelation… no other Book in the Bible brings me anything but Joy and satisfaction. This includes the other New Testament Letters, with both 1 Peter and Hebrews being particular favourites of mine.
This has, of course, brought me much turmoil. I am not happy about this situation. I have prayed and reflected very hard about this massive Biblical roadblock.
Yet the roadblock remains, as strong as ever. Even as I write, I feel no shining light from heaven that suggests I reopen 1 Corinthians or Philippians and expect to find the key to shaking off my aversion to the part of Scripture many of my peers delight in most. To the contrary, my motivation for writing this blurb is because I believe that God, in his timing, has helped me understand that he approves. That he himself has played a part in this years-long struggle in order to bring me to this point.
Let's get something clear: I am extremely happy with the Biblical education I have accrued. I have not needed to know Paul backward and forward to understand God and his nature and plan. I would like to share what God has shown me about Paul in relation to my own journey with him.
My first problem is personal. I will emphatically restate what I said at the beginning: I don't like Paul. I mean literally, I don't like him. I like his theology, of course, but the actual man that shines through his writing? He annoys the hell out of me (and I like my choice of words.) I feel like if Paul and I ever met in this lifetime, we wouldn't get along at all.
I love Paul as my brother in Christ. I have nothing but the deepest respect for him and his ceaseless desire to spread the Good News of God. He merely strikes me as a man that I wouldn't care to know personally.
My second problem is much more urgent.
Paul is a teacher in the truest sense. His Letters are academia. They are about scholarship and semantics and understanding God on an educational level.
I am not an academic. I have never set foot in a Bible college. I am an artist and an entertainer, and I approach my faith as such.
Paul bores me. Give me a sweeping epic like Genesis, or a poetic enigma like Ecclesiastes, or a thundering prophetic barrage like Jeremiah. That's what I need. That's what I, as God made me, can use and weaponize.
Go back to 1 Kings and read about Elijah. If there is one word that does not apply to him, it is academia. Elijah was a man of action. A man of audacity and theatrics and grit, whose education was not in the classroom but in brutal solitude in the wilderness. He was not an intellectual, he was a soldier who waged all-out war against evil.
This is part of the problem in our time, friend. The western Church is all Paul and no Elijah. We are fixated on learning about God, and not acting in his name.
Learning about guns is all well and good. It is perfectly fine to know the history of guns, the different types of guns, the mechanics of how a gun operates. But when you are in the heat of battle, with the enemy closing in around you, only two things matter:
Point the damned gun, and pull the damned trigger.
There is nothing wrong with studying Paul. Understanding God's nature is a wonderful experience. But if we wish to reach the lost and defeat the evils of our day, we need to make fire fall from the sky. We need to make pathways through the water. We need to help the lame to walk and the blind to see. And these things do not require a formal education.
They require the faith and courage to march to the front lines, look the armies of hell straight in the face, and say, ‘You have come this far, but you will go no further.’
Good hunting.
Theory will take you only so far.
-Oppenheimer
This will be roughly my fifth attempt to write this blurb. Every time I have tried, I have deleted it, feeling like I was crossing the line. Yet my dilemma remains, stronger and (I believe) clearer than ever. So I'm gonna try again, and I'll start by stating the problem very plainly:
I don't like Paul's Letters. They rankle me, and I read them as little as possible. No matter how much I bring the matter to the Lord, no matter how much I have drudged through them to try to get used to them, it has done no good; Paul's writing is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
This problem has continued unbroken for many years, and has gotten worse, not better, since I truly devoted my life to Scripture about five years ago.
Furthermore, this distaste I have for Paul is not to be found anywhere else in Scripture. Moses, the Prophets, the Gospels, Revelation… no other Book in the Bible brings me anything but Joy and satisfaction. This includes the other New Testament Letters, with both 1 Peter and Hebrews being particular favourites of mine.
This has, of course, brought me much turmoil. I am not happy about this situation. I have prayed and reflected very hard about this massive Biblical roadblock.
Yet the roadblock remains, as strong as ever. Even as I write, I feel no shining light from heaven that suggests I reopen 1 Corinthians or Philippians and expect to find the key to shaking off my aversion to the part of Scripture many of my peers delight in most. To the contrary, my motivation for writing this blurb is because I believe that God, in his timing, has helped me understand that he approves. That he himself has played a part in this years-long struggle in order to bring me to this point.
Let's get something clear: I am extremely happy with the Biblical education I have accrued. I have not needed to know Paul backward and forward to understand God and his nature and plan. I would like to share what God has shown me about Paul in relation to my own journey with him.
My first problem is personal. I will emphatically restate what I said at the beginning: I don't like Paul. I mean literally, I don't like him. I like his theology, of course, but the actual man that shines through his writing? He annoys the hell out of me (and I like my choice of words.) I feel like if Paul and I ever met in this lifetime, we wouldn't get along at all.
I love Paul as my brother in Christ. I have nothing but the deepest respect for him and his ceaseless desire to spread the Good News of God. He merely strikes me as a man that I wouldn't care to know personally.
My second problem is much more urgent.
Paul is a teacher in the truest sense. His Letters are academia. They are about scholarship and semantics and understanding God on an educational level.
I am not an academic. I have never set foot in a Bible college. I am an artist and an entertainer, and I approach my faith as such.
Paul bores me. Give me a sweeping epic like Genesis, or a poetic enigma like Ecclesiastes, or a thundering prophetic barrage like Jeremiah. That's what I need. That's what I, as God made me, can use and weaponize.
Go back to 1 Kings and read about Elijah. If there is one word that does not apply to him, it is academia. Elijah was a man of action. A man of audacity and theatrics and grit, whose education was not in the classroom but in brutal solitude in the wilderness. He was not an intellectual, he was a soldier who waged all-out war against evil.
This is part of the problem in our time, friend. The western Church is all Paul and no Elijah. We are fixated on learning about God, and not acting in his name.
Learning about guns is all well and good. It is perfectly fine to know the history of guns, the different types of guns, the mechanics of how a gun operates. But when you are in the heat of battle, with the enemy closing in around you, only two things matter:
Point the damned gun, and pull the damned trigger.
There is nothing wrong with studying Paul. Understanding God's nature is a wonderful experience. But if we wish to reach the lost and defeat the evils of our day, we need to make fire fall from the sky. We need to make pathways through the water. We need to help the lame to walk and the blind to see. And these things do not require a formal education.
They require the faith and courage to march to the front lines, look the armies of hell straight in the face, and say, ‘You have come this far, but you will go no further.’
Good hunting.
