Paul was not a Christian. Nor was he a convert. He never converted to Christianity because there
was no Christianity to convert to. In Paul’s
time the name Christian had not yet been coined. He was a Jew first and foremost. He lived as a Torah observing Jew and died as
a Torah observing Jew. He came to believe
Jesus was the Christ. And he came to believe
non-Jews should be grafted into the Jewish covenant relationship with God. He cautioned non-Jews to not get arrogant or
snotty about their new faith.
For Paul, the words grace, faith, justification and Christ
were important for non-Jews to trust and understand. He was convinced that
Jesus Christ revealed the heart of God toward all human beings. And that heart was centered in the love of
God as he knew it from Jewish tradition.
Paul affirmed his Jewish tradition when he declared, despite all the
craziness that happened to people in their lives, nothing would separate them from
the love of God.
Most of his beliefs, especially the “despite” talk had
always been part of what it meant to be Jewish.
If you read his chapters 9-11 in his letter to the Romans, Paul affirms
that even without Jesus, God made promises to the Jewish people, and God has a
special relationship with the Jewish people that will never end. For Paul, Torah was the revelation which
helped him define the meaning of Christ.
I agree with Mark Nanos, a Biblical theologian you should Google,
if not read (www.marknanos.com). He posits
Paul as a Torah observing Jew who started small sub-groups or associations of
non-Jews in the hope to make them as Jewish as possible. His writing makes a lot more sense of Paul
that any other interpretation I have read.
If Nanos is correct, while it still does not diminish the
differences between Jews and Christians, it does challenge the way too many
Christians have understood Paul, as a Jew who gave up Judaism, Torah and the
Jewish community to become Christian.
Nothing, it appears, could be further from the truth.
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