When I sit down to read my Bible I regularly encounter a mental struggle... Jesus or Paul? I do my best to spend time in all of the different books of the Bible (I need to write another blog about my peeve of ignoring the Old Testament). But when I am in the New Testament I struggle between reading some gospel from the gospels or some gospel from Paul or one of the other lesser epistles (haha jk lol). In my honest opinion Paul seems crazy in a lot of ways. I mean what he says about women or baptizing for the dead. If I didn't believe his writings in the canon were God inspired I would say he's a heretic. Just being honest. Jesus is crazy also, but he's crazy in a "so completely idealistic that I want to follow Him" kind of crazy. I come from a faith tradition that calls itself "church of Christ" but from it's teachings and behaviors acts more like the "church of Paul". Maybe that is part of the reason I have this internal resistance to Paul. My corner of the Kingdom has over-focused on the Pauline epistles to the detriment of learning the teachings of our savior and king. We fully believe that Jesus is Lord and Paul is one of his apostles, but we live like Paul was more right than Christ regarding how to live as Christians and "do church".
I know that in reality I need not choose Paul or Jesus but both. Paul is Jesus apostle and servant. And where it seems like they disagree, listen to Jesus. But my action item from this topic is get more into Christ's teachings which change me internally and still listen to Paul but only with the foundation of knowing what Christ taught.
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