The MSNBC Bible

Final Round: Fight!  (Round 2 here)

13 “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

15 And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:13,15 NASB)

There’s this whole “Wawagate” thing going on in the news lately…

Oh, cut that out!

Well, in some news outlets, I guess.

A reporter on MSNBC showed a video of Mitt Romney giving a speech. In it, he talked about this “amazing” experience of going to a restaurant, tapping a few buttons on a touch screen, and like magic, your sandwich is being made. The video was very reminiscent of the old story of President George H. W. Bush seeming to express surprise at a checkout cashier’s scanner in a grocery store. The implication the reporter made was similar. “Mitt Romney is out of touch. He’s a wealthy politician who is far removed from the average person’s experience.”

Turns out the video was heavily edited, going from about three minutes to about 30 seconds.

In the unedited video, the candidate makes a completely different point. He’s not talking about how amazing it is to order food off a touch screen. He’s comparing the technological efficiency of the private sector to the paperwork bureaucracy and inefficiency of government.

It’s quite a different video if you don’t cut out 80 percent of it.

Some of my co-workers and friends like to discuss religion, and one of those discussions prompted a few questions that need answers.

Did Jesus really command obedience to the 613 rules found in the Law of Moses?

Did Jesus mean it when He said our righteousness had to exceed that of the Pharisees in order to get to Heaven?

Was Paul completely wrong about all he wrote concerning the Law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Does modern Christianity claim the writings of Paul trump the teachings of our Savior?

I’ve been addressing some of the differences and similarities between Paul and Jesus in this series, and now I’d like to answer the remaining questions from the introduction:

Are we terrible Christians who don’t even follow the faith we claim? Aren’t we failing to obey God, and thus damning ourselves to hell?

And aren’t we simply picking and choosing parts of the Bible we like while ignoring parts we don’t?

“Paul isn’t Jesus, so if Jesus says one thing and Paul another, Paul loses.”

I was not impressed by MSNBC’s video editing skills. I admit, the video looked pretty clear-cut. It was all in order, and the way it was edited, the story made sense.

But it was still a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened.

That’s why I don’t like the way these questions view Paul and Jesus.

The Apostle Paul stood before the Twelve in Acts 14 and explained what he had been teaching to the Gentiles. Paul ran his ministry by the guys who had spent three years in direct contact with Jesus Christ. He did this to ensure that his teaching lined up with the Apostles, and to make sure they knew exactly what God was doing in and through him.

No, Paul wasn’t Jesus. But using that as an excuse to ignore everything Paul wrote is the same as editing away 80 percent of a video and calling it accurate news reporting.

Paul’s epistles have been a part of Christianity ever since the first century. His teaching was foundational in the early church. His opinions and doctrine were evaluated by those who knew best what sounded like Jesus and what didn’t measure up.

And if you have faith, Paul’s understanding came from revelation given directly by God.

What sort of Christians would we be if we blew all of that off simply because Paul wasn’t Jesus?

As best as we understand it, Jesus didn’t write down His teaching in a neat and tidy Gospel for us. (Well, again, unless you have faith to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, Jesus didn’t do this.)

So what we have in the Gospels are accounts written by witnesses or by writers interviewing witnesses. I suppose since Luke and John aren’t Jesus, we should also throw out anything they have to say, by the same logic as what’s been presented to me.

I find that faulty.

Throwing Paul out is unnecessary. As I’ve tried to point out in the previous posts, it’s better to understand how his teachings and the words of Jesus align. They’re saying essentially the same core message. It’s just that the timing and audiences require two vastly different approaches.

Despite what my friends might think, we are not horrible Christians as a result of our adherence to the whole Bible and our willingness to reconcile the different messages. On the contrary, we would be horrible Christians if we ignored what Paul wrote. His teachings are central to the Christian faith, tying the Old Testament promises to the New Testament fulfillment and making all of the work of Christ abundantly clear.

And since it is also clear that Jesus didn’t really mean for us to follow the example of the Pharisees, or to follow a Law that He came to fulfill, we are not damning ourselves to hell by supposedly ignoring our Savior’s words on the subject.

And neither do we pick and choose which words of Jesus apply, whether they come from one of the Gospel writers or from Paul’s letters.

Jesus says a lot that we would do well to pay attention to.

We do not have license to sin wherever, however, whenever we want. Jesus reminds those to whom He ministers, “Go and sin no more.” More than that, His parables show us how we ought to live. He tells us that we’ll be known by what we do, no matter how much we say “Lord, Lord!” And He reminds us that what matters most is how we treat “the least of these,” those who most need love and care.

Paul likewise argues with those who would claim we have freedom to do whatever we please. He wrote that we should use our freedom to go do good, and not to return to a bondage to sin. Paul encourages us to set aside all the best the world has to offer and to ignore the worst the world throws at us, all for the purpose of knowing Christ. “Everything is permissible, but I will not be mastered by anything. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”

You can have recording and editing software. Just be sure to use it in support of the truth, not to cut something up and make it what it was never intended to be.

Paul vs. Jesus is a contrived conflict; it’s the edited video missing most of the important parts. It sells well to a particular crowd, sure. You can watch and believe it, if that’s the reality if you want.

Just don’t call it accurate.

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