Thursday, March 5, 2009

Jesus vs Paul - An Interesting Point

It should be clear from all this that if Paul had simply trotted out, parrot-fashion, every line of Jesus' teaching-if he had repeated the parables, if he had tried to do again what Jesus did in announcing and inaugurating the kingdom-he would not have been endorsing Jesus, as an appropriate and loyal follower should. He would have been denying him. Someone who copies exactly what a would-be Messiah does is himself trying to be a Messiah; which means denying the earlier claim. When we see the entire sequence within the context of Jewish eschatology, we are forced to realize that for Paul to be a loyal `servant of Jesus Christ', as he describes himself, could never mean that Paul would repeat Jesus' unique announcement of the kingdom to his fellow Jews.
N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham
Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Who-Founded-Christianity-Jesus-Or-Paul.aspx?p=3

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