Replies

I figured I would just bump your post. There was no harder worker ... no bigger "MAN OF ACTION" than Paul. Looking back some 2000 years, it amazes me that the hard core persecutors of the early followers of Christ, would turn 180 degrees and use his knowledge and his beliefs and his faith to a degree of mission work that looks GOD sent.

God`s irony is that Paul was chosen for his mission....in spite of his past. A miracle.

I have long felt that the timing and location of Jesus’s coming, together with the missionary work into Gentile regions made perfect sense from historic and strategic points of view. He was sent into the dominion of the Roman Empire, one of the most powerful and extensive empires of all time. They had made travel easier with a system of roads. The early churches in Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor were on the crossroads of major trade routes to and from the known world. God in His infinite wisdom had a good marketing plan.

I think God chooses is own vessel. If Paul were no available, somebody else would have been.

He did.

He chose Jesus>

Jesus chose - and taught - his Disciples and chose the 12 Apostles = lived with them, taught them for 3 years.

And they set up a set format for adding a new Apostle after one was killed. It did not include a 'blinding light on a road somewhere and 'wham' - an Apostle - who had never met Jesus, never met with the Apostles, spent ten years, as a Roman commander hunting down and killing every Christian he could = who, after proclaiming himself an Apostle, deigned to even go to Jerusalem and meet with the leaders of the church - and it was JAMES THE JUST, Blood brother of Jesus that was the head of followers, not Peter - etc etc - there's a LOT of information -

But quite simply, as to the blinding light (convenient as Paul then didn't need to describe what Jesus, whom he's never met, looked like = etc) - Jesus didn't work that way.

To say that Paul was needed to basically save Christianity - is to say Jesus failed.

The main difference between Jesus's and Paul's teaching - Paul, in bed with the Romans, helped set up the church with the power, pomp & circumstances - and money, structure. NOT wast Jesus taught.

live links next post

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id4/qumran.htm

RE: It’s nearly certain, though, that there would be no Christianity without Paul’s efforts.

I think God chooses is own vessel. If Paul were no available, somebody else would have been.

Everything Paul wrote that is part of the Bible was by Divine revelation and he, like all "holy men of God", spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Christianity exists because GOD willed it to exist. Neither Paul NOR Peter invented it. It is God's doing and marvelous in our sight!