Not the normal Church vs. Bible comic this Monday. I was listening to the book of Acts and through several verses (listed in the comic) recalled several conversations I have had with people and this one came to mind. When it comes to Paul it almost seems like people, including myself in the past, read his letters with a blank slate. Kind of like forgetting the rest of Scripture to read Paul, then try and understand the rest of Scripture through what they think they learned in Paul’s letters.
I’ve given an IT analogy in the past when it comes to Paul, so let me try a different one. Think about any popular book, movie, or TV show that you haven’t seen. Now, picture someone who watches it religiously talking to you about it. Are you going to understand it? Or are you going to sit there lost and only grasp a few things here and there and probably, in the end, have those things wrong?
Being one that has never seen Game of Thrones, I can tell you I have fallen in the latter on more than one occasion. Sure, I can name some characters and tell you what I think the plot is, but overall, I know I don’t understand the show. Now, let’s say I go and start watching the show at the point these people have told me about the show, will I understand it then? If GoT is anything like LOST, which I have watched all of, no I wouldn’t understand. I would be confused on what was going on in the show. I would have missed several building blocks to the story, because those were in the beginning episodes. To understand the show, and what these people are talking about, I would need to start from the beginning, the first episode, then work my way to where they are.
The same goes with Paul. You can’t start with Paul’s letters, or expect to understand them when you have only read the Gospels. You need to start with Torah, then the Writings and Prophets. They all build on each other, Torah is the foundation block that the story of the Bible is built on. The Writings and the Prophets are built on top of that. Paul references both, often. Without understanding them and their context, you can’t understand what he is talking about, thus falling into accusing him of the same thing he was accused of in Acts.