Week 11

This week we started the book “The First Paul”. As I began to read I realized that I was one of the people who hardly knew a thing about him. There were two other categories, appalling and appealing. I found it interesting that there are these two different groups and that some people either think he is appalling or very appealing to them. I know that for most people that are known publically there are going to be people that have these two different views of him or her. However I never thought of it this way. I also was very unaware that Paul was responsible for the creation of Christianity, at that time a new religion. It seems somewhat funny to me that he wasn’t even aware of this creation either.

It is interesting that Paul wrote many letters and that his life work eventually led to a new denomination. Along with that I think it is interesting that even though many are unaware of it, hundreds of Protestants have Paul as their theological ancestor. All of these facts that I have discussed, I was unaware of. I had no idea that he had such a huge influence in many people’s lives. I know there was many that didn’t like him, but that had to affect them in some way too. When Borg says, “but how he matters and how much he matters vary greatly among Christians”, shows my point of how he influenced people in different ways (4).

It is so true that many people in life can have different understandings about everything. It is very rare in life to have someone see something the exact same way as you. If you as the three people walking next to you to write down and describe the sunset, you will get a different description from everyone. This is because we all see life differently and Borg makes a good point about that. As Borg says, “ there are very diverse understandings of Paul’s importance,” (4). The one sentence that Borg wrote that stood out to me the most is, “But all Christians agree that Jesus was admirable, attractive, and appealing. Not so with Paul”(4).

This sentence stands out to me the most because I have never heard such a thing said. I mean how does he even know that everyone agreed on that? Where in the Bible or in life does it say that everyone agrees on those aspects of Jesus? I mean I could understand how he might think not everyone that Paul was appealing, but I feel that there are many people that might not think Jesus was admirable, attractive, or appealing. There is always so much controversy with peoples opinions I just don’t see how everyone agrees on those three aspects of him.