Jesus Is NOT Paul
...and Paul was NOT Jesus. Sometimes people forget to look back and examine whether what they're basing their action on is something based on Jesus, or on Paul. Paul was a flawed follower, just like the rest of us, self-admittedly blind leading the blind, and definitely a product of his time. By his own accounts, Paul had been a persecutor of Christians. He never actually even met Jesus, except in a vision on a road to Damascus where he was struck temporarily blind and fell from his horse. Paul contradicts Jesus all over the place. Contrary to Paul [1Cor 5:11] Jesus ministers to sinners, caring more for His healing presence in their broken lives than their unwholesome effect on Him. After all, people who are perfectly well and happy aren't the ones who need help, right? Contrary to Paul [2Thess 3:10] Jesus says we must feed the poor, not judge them. Jesus never condemned homosexuality... that was Paul. And yes, it was Paul who told women, and slaves, to submit to the mastery of ownership. Jesus railed against the dominant tyranny of the family structure in his day, and allowed women as his disciples. Do not make the mistake of confusing Jesus and Paul! Don't get us wrong: we don't think Paul is all bad. Anyone who wrote as beautifully about love as he did [1Cor13] is worth knowing about. We just don't think he's Jesus.
Fear not, there's nothing heretical about thinking for yourself. One of America's founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, famously wrote in a letter to James Smith, that "Paul was ... the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." (Works, 1829 edition, vol. 4, p. 327.) Just because Paul's anti-women [I Cor 14:34-45, ] and pro-slavery rulings made it into the Bible doesn't mean that God didn't give you a beautiful brain between your own ears to think with. Many beautiful scriptural passages did not make it into the Bible, and were found in a jar in Nag Hamadi less than 50 years ago,. Although they shed new light on many of Jesus' numinous dharma teachings, the four gospels are sufficient without them. A lot of people who get turned off to Jesus' dharma teachings are basically reacting to something else than Jesus... like organized religion, or Paul. That's like getting turned off to air because someone you don't like breathed air — how's that going to really work out? Why not read Jesus' beautiful words for yourself, meditate on them, and maybe meditate on whether some of these greats like MLK and Gandhi were on to something when the looked to Jesus for light...
What's with the Secret Symbols?
Ichthus - Fish
During persecution of Christians under the Roman empire (54 A.D. – 307 A.D.) by people like Paul, the Ichthus was a secret symbol of Christianity. Wherever Christianity has been illegal (even 20th century Russia and China) Christians have had to meet in secret to avoid persecution. Christians have needed a way to know if they were in the company of friend or foe, so a Christian might casually draw a single arc of the fish to see if the other person recognized and drew the rest of it.
Okay, but why choose a fish? Knowledge is power... Check out our symbols page...
