Paul reshaping the church

[Aractus]

1 Corinthians 10:25-33
25 Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26 for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”

27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. 29 I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience?30 If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Paul is basicially saying, "Don't be legalistic about the meat that comes from the marketplace...give thanks to God for all that is good. HOWEVER, if you KNOW that the meat has been sacrificed, then do not eat it."

This instruction is in line with the letter from the Council of Jerusalem which read in part:

Acts 15:29
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.

Sorry, you're right I misquoted it. But the substance of my argument remains the same. Paul says explicitly in no uncertain terms not to bother abstaining from "meat containing blood", and "strangled meats". Yet he did not have the authority to make this direction to people. In fact no one single early church leader in c.51 AD has that authority, as evidenced from the fact that they held a Council to decide upon it.

We know now that by the second century there were several different flavours of Christianity - not just Orthodox and Gnostic. Paul is one such splintering group, as is clearly evident from the fact that he does not follow the direction of what the Council decision was. I put it to you that unlike some of the other leaders of the time (James, Peter, etc) Paul went into the Council meeting with a clear state of mind about Circumcision and the Law of Moses, and that he left it without it having any effect over him whatsoever. Basically all he wanted from it was to convince the other leaders to do as he was doing.

What Jesus taught and what Paul taught were very different to each other. Jesus defended the Law of Moses to the letter - yet Paul says it's not important.

Paul's Christianity is a complete contradiction to the New Covenant that is prophesied by Jeremiah 31:31-34 (/Hebrews 8:8-12), in which it is made explicit that the New Covenant will be between Jehovah and the Judeans and the Isralites, and no one else, and that it will entirely replace the need for religious institution .

If Paul's branch of Christianity had died out we'd know very little about Paul just as we know precious little about James the Just. If Jame's Christianity had survived instead of Paul's it would today look very different. It'd be much more Jewish. The Gospel of John with its anti-Semitic tones would almost certainly not have survived, perhaps the Gospel of the Hebrews would have survived. Paul's letters would not have survived, in their place we would have Jame's letters.

My point is that in the first century the Church was highly malleable. Paul taught complete contradictions to what Jesus taught, and yet today Christians follow a branch of Christianity that later developed from Pauline Christianity.