Dennis On : Paul and his "I have Become All Things to All Men..."

"I Have Become All Things to All Men..."

There is no one quite like the Apostle Paul in the New Testament and no one writes more than he does to explain his idea of Christ.  Paul had a way of reaching back, or over reaching, into the Old Testament to explain Christ. Of all things, though he may have been a "Hebrew of the Hebrews" and a "Pharisee of the Pharisees," and way ahead of his buddies in school, he only ever used the Greek Old Testament and often quoted the errors in it to make his point.  Go figure. You'd think he'd use the Hebrew and get the meaning correct.

Whatever kind of Apostle Paul was, only he and Luke seems to have recognized that ordination.  No one in the New Testament Church under Peter, James or John, as goes the story, ever called Paul an Apostle.  

 I say "Christ" because Paul was not big on any human Jesus.  He never met him in real life and never quotes him.  The Gospels were written long after the Apostle Paul died, and it is Paul's writings that are or should be listed first in the order of the New Testament.  For Paul, Christ was Cosmic in nature, was crucified in the heavens by wicked spirits and all the instructions Paul ever got from Christ came in the form of visions and voices in his head.   

But there is this other way of  being Paul brags about that has always been troubling to me. 

I Corinthians 9:20

" 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. "

It's no wonder the debate about is Paul for the Law or against it, a Jewish Pharisee or a Gentile wannabe, called on the Damascus Road or called from his mother's womb, as he noted in Galatians, is endless.  If Paul was a Pharisee, he was like no other Pharisee ever.  He says after his conversion he went immediately to the wilderness for three years.  Why?  No one knows and the "to be taught by Jesus" is just made up stuff and Paul never said that himself either.  On the other hand, Acts says he was taken immediately to Jerusalem to meet the Elders and while a big topic, both cannot be correct.  Someone is lying. 

Now please don't take this as a compliment to the more egocentric COG leaders.  It is not meant to be.  Paul loved to talk about himself.  

"I wanna talk about me." 

There are a number of reasons why many scholars today believe Paul was not the author of the book of Hebrews. One obvious reason is, in the other epistles credited to him, Paul doesn't hesitate to identify himself along with his supposed credentials. The author of Hebrews is strangely silent on these matters. Many scholars believe Barnabas was the author of Hebrews, but I think Apollos is a far better candidate... but that's a different subject. The point is, no one knows for sure.  But Paul certainly couldn't be in the running as the author of Hebrews when one also considers the statistical rate of the personal pronoun usage. The author of Hebrews refers to himself only 9 times, which is approximately 1.3 personal pronouns per thousand words. To help put this in perspective, let's compare the book of Hebrews to the book of Romans. They are both relatively large books of similar length, divided into 13 and 16 chapters respectively. Yet in only the first half of the first chapter of Romans, which is 16 verses worth, Paul uses twice as many personal pronouns as the author of Hebrews uses in his entire book! In the book of Romans, Paul refers to himself 103 times, which is rate of about 18.2 per thousand! That is 13x greater than Hebrews. In 1 Corinthians, Paul refers to himself 175 times, in 2Corinthians 103 times again, and in the relatively short book of Galatians, he refers to himself 69 times which is a rate of 25 personal pronouns per 1000 words!"
"No other epistle author in the Bible wrote like Paul. This would be true on a number of levels, but one aspect is of particular interest when we are considering how Paul views himself. He had a way of drawing attention to himself with his usage of personal pronouns. When it comes to how often he uses words like, "I", "me", "my", or "mine", the overall rate in his epistles is almost three times that of his next closest rival.

Scott Nelson,  Paul and Christianity

It's kinda like knowing that David C. Pack really wrote something because of the astounding numbers of personal pronouns, calling himself "Mr. Pack" when writing about himself or using the words "astounding,"  "incredible" and "I don't think I have ever given a sermon quite like this one...well maybe back in June of 1986, but not like this one..."  Stuff like that.  We'd be able to spot a genuine article in a second.  So it is with Paul. 

But there is this other thing Paul believed that is most troubling.  

I Corinthians 9:20;

" 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. "

If this really is the way Paul operates in ministry, how on earth would one ever know what he really believed?  Is this an admirable trait to act like everyone you come in contact with is just like you and you just like them?  Could you ever really trust a man who simply slipped in and out of costume depending on the kind of play he was in?  I don't recall Jesus, in the Gospels, becoming a Roman or Samaritan when it served him better to do so.  But then again, the Gospels NEVER heard of the Apostle Paul as Saul. Funny he should live right there in Jerusalem but never come up in the Gospels.  But then again, most theologians have never seen a Pharisee so cozy with the Romans , complete with Roman citizenship, as Paul seems to have enjoyed.  (Some suspect Paul was a Sadducee in fact and someone upgraded him along the way telling his story.)  Sadducee's loved the Romans and worked for the making some feel Paul was not so much a brilliant Pharisee "above all his fellows," (Sounds like Dave again..) but a temple thug who was sent out to harass the good folk not cozy with the Romans.  For this, I would recommend, Hyam Maccoby's  , Paul the Mythmaker

I won't repeat the argument that it was Paul that the early church considered a "Simon Magus" or why the Ephesian Church letter in Revelation probably can best be summed up by this short critique...

Paul to the Ephesians: "I am an apostle of Jesus"

The Ephesians to Paul: "No you're not."

Jesus  to the Ephesians: "Well done!" 

... but it is a great story!

So...should we trust a man and his view of Jesus, or rather the Cosmic Christ who would do and be anything to anyone they needed him to be to win them over?  I don't see the Peter, James or John of the New Testament thinking this was the way to go.  Would we not think such a way of being to be outright lying or duplistic?  Could you ever trust a man who bragged about doing his work that way?  

Paul went on to say,

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ."   1Corinthians 10:31-33

Whatever "Christ" he was imitating, it's not any Jesus I read about in the Gospels.  Pleasing all men???  When was this?   In Galatians 2:13-14 we have Paul practically cursing Peter and "withstanding him to his face," over Jewish sensibilities and seems he suspended his "all things to all men," and "pleasing" with this group from James.


Actually I believe we can argue that Peter plainly saw Paul was not even going by the Noahide ruling of James in answering the question, "if a Gentile can become a Jew with the Noahide rules, how can a Gentile become a Jewish Christian?"  The answer was..."The same way..."  Avoid meat sacrficed to idols etc....   Of course we see in I Corinthians that Paul went back to Corinth and had no intentions of abiding by even the Noahide rules given by James.  I believe Peter saw this at this meal and withdrew.

 
In my years of study on just who is this man that usurps the New Testament and out writes the 12 Apostles , who actually wrote nothing.  Sorry to say, Jesus himself never seems to have written anything so either he was illiterate or what? We find ourselves depending on this Apostle Come Lately for most of the NT theology about Christ.  


When you read the Gospels and try to match the Jesus of the Gospels with the Christ of Paul or the Killer Jesus of Revelation, well...it's a chore. 


Paul had a habit of saying, quite often,  "I lie not."  I think he was lying or at least was often accused of it by the Jewish Christian Church and Apostles of the Gospel  disciples to become Apostles stories.  Remember, Luke was Paul's biographer of sorts and the only one in the NT who seems to favor him.  Luke is also the only other human in the NT who calls this man who brags about being all things to all men an Apostle.  


So...if I had to pick a more accurate NT view of Jesus  (Not the Gnostic Heavenly Christ of Paul who is called "the hallucinatory Christ of Paul,"  I would pick the Jewish Christian view of Jesus.  I would leave the Apostle Paul out of the truth equation altogether.  The early church, if there really was one as presented, hated Paul and being hated by the Jewish Church does not prove he was God's man of faith and power and should get to write the story of whoever a man called Jesus really was.  I think I would pick the WCG again!  However, I don't trust the veracity of the entire story so, not to worry. 


I'd be the opposite of Marcion I suppose who cut out most of the OT and NT and only kept Paul's writings.  Today we understand that Paul's original writings are probably Romans, I and 11 Corinthians, Galatians, Phillipians, I Thessalonians and Philemon.  The rest are up for grabs and doubtful, containing church issues and topics that are far too far down the road to be issues in the life of Paul.  As we have seen, no Apostle Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews.


So...would you trust a man who brags about being all things to all men and who would do anything to please others?  i don't.  I also don't trust a man who is said to have fallen off his ass, heard the voice of Jesus in his head and saw a bright light, which are all the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy, (not the ass part) and all three renditions of it by Luke contradict each other. 

Dennis C
DenniscDiehl@aol.com