Book Plunge: The Pauline Paradox Chapter 1

How do we start this one? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Give credit where credit is due. This book starts with an excellent opening.

Fact: every pastor, theologian, and Bible teacher on the planet holds on to doctrinal error to some degree. An honest teacher will readily admit the possibility they are in error on some things. It’s foolish to think that we, or anyone else, has everything figured out or has all of the answers.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 7). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Indeed. We all do. I would like to think everything I teach here is correct, but I am sure it isn’t. While I would like to always be right, I would hate it if you think I am always right and don’t need to check up on what I say. Something I have learned in the PhD program here is the importance of teachability. My professors would agree with my natural intellect, but I think they also admire that I am willing to go to them for advice despite that. There is always something to learn.

Salvation is received by faith in Yeshua (Ephesians 2:8). We are not saved by anything we do. Our works cannot and never will have any causal relationship with our status as saved sons and daughters of God. However, though no causal relationship exists, works and salvation do correlate. The Bible is very clear on this (James 2:14-26). Works do not save us, but a true saving faith will produce works. We strive to be honest, give to the poor, etc., because of our salvation, not for our salvation. The same holds true for every commandment of God. Keeping God’s commandments is evidence that we have faith in God—that we believe his Word and follow it. Again, obedience to God’s commandments is the evidence of our saving faith, not the cause of it. It is correlational, not causal.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (pp. 7-8). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

This is again an excellent point. I would hope that 119 Ministries would not see what they teach as an essential. For instance, if you do not observe the Sabbath on Saturday or if you are a man, get circumcised if you are not, then you are not a Christian. I am of the persuasion that if you are a Christian and want to follow the Law, suppose for instance being a Messianic Jew and having a deep respect for the tradition, then have at it. As soon as you make it necessary for salvation, we have a problem.

Everyone that has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them should always be in the process of learning. Everyone is both a teacher and a student in some capacity. The only thing we can do—and certainly should do—is to test others and ourselves to the Word of God. We should love being corrected. Correction humbles us and helps us to know our Father in greater depth. Those are both wonderful things.

119 Ministries. The Pauline Paradox: What Did Paul Teach About the Law of God? (p. 9). 119 Ministries. Kindle Edition.

Again, another great statement. This is also why I ask people what was the last book they read they disagreed with. If you just read what you agree with and stay in your echo chamber, you will not do much learning.

Not too much further along, they quote Mark 7 in saying:

He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Interesting in a book about the Law and what Jesus taught about it, they left out the following verses:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

But that being said, their point is that the Pharisees were very wrong in their doctrine and that nullifying what Moses wrote is a very bad thing. Of course, I presented some questions about this in yesterday’s post. This assumes that when Jesus rises from the dead, the Mosaic covenant is still in play. I contend that the destruction of the temple in 70 AD shows that that covenant has been replaced with a new one where the sign of the covenant is not the Law, but faith in Christ.

That being said, there is not too much disagreeable in this part of the book. We’ll see if that holds up as we go on through the book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What’s Going On With The Syro-Phoenician Woman?

Is Jesus being rude? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we read Mark, it’s a bit of a shock for audiences when they get to the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman. The Jesus we normally think we’ve seen in the Gospels seems very different at this point. Here comes a lady who is suffering and Jesus is not being willing to help her. What is going on?

Let’s start with who she is. First off, there’s no man mentioned in her life. Is she a widow? Has she come and left her husband at home? Is her husband in the Roman military somehow and away from home? My way of thinking is that this woman probably doesn’t have a man in her life to help support her. This isn’t to degrade women. This is to say what the attitude was of most people back then.

Second, in the lines of women in the world, this is a daughter that is being asked help for. If this was a son, the request might be more understandable. A son could provide for this woman and make sure she is taken care of. A daughter is just not as capable. This would be another strike.

The woman also initiates the conversation with Jesus. Jesus is pretty much minding His own business with His disciples when the woman comes up to Him. This means that she is approaching a group of men, which is very unfitting for a woman to do.

And finally, she is a foreigner. We are told where she is born and that she is Greek. In both cases, she would be outside of the covenant of Israel. This woman has nothing really that she can appeal to to get Jesus to help her.

But she’s going to try!

Jesus’s response at first seems hard on her. She is not a child? She is a dog? This does seem hard, but when we only have the text, we don’t know how things were said. There was something in the way that Jesus said it that indicated that the woman needed to keep trying. She wasn’t shut off entirely. She was not asked to be dismissed.

She also doesn’t deny the charges. Is she outside of the covenant people of Israel? Yep. Would she be considered a dog to them? Yep. None of this is being disputed. The woman is not interested in how she is perceived by Israel. She is just interested in getting help for her daughter.

Note about her response. By that response, she is the rare exception of a person who gets one up on Jesus in debate. She gets Him to change His position and she gets the help that she needs.

Jesus is not being mean or cruel to this woman. He’s really seeing how deep her faith is and this passage should give hope to many of us. When we come to Jesus originally for forgiveness and we are outside of the Kingdom, we have nothing in us that Jesus should honor our request to be included in the blessings of the covenant, but He does include us. The woman got what she wanted because she trusted Jesus and was willing to accept whatever He could give as a gift.

Perhaps we should do the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters