The Sinful Paul Thesis
Romans 7: 23-25 ~ "23-But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24-O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25-I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."
In the comments of the post Does The Bible Deal With Sexual Orientation? I was amazed to find that some Christians view Apostle Paul as a person struggling with sin within his personal Christian life to the extent that he was overwhelmed by it within his own Christian walk. This view is held by some who interpret certain verses of Romans 7 to be Paul's confessional and personal declaration of his own depravity. One thing to note, is that many who hold to that interpretation superimpose their life and struggle with sin on top of Paul's words in order to create a sinful Paul from his very own words in effort to make sense of their personal struggles. I call this the "Sinful Paul Thesis".
Assumptions such as these presuppose that Paul was "like us" in what he had been exposed to in life and that his sinful inclinations, propensities, and social conditions were similar to ours. The problem with this is that in order to make Paul like us, we have to strip him of his moral base. The life of a first century Jew was dramatically and drastically different than ours in 21st century Western America. Paul being a pious and zealous Jew was steeped in scriptural teachings and Jewish traditions which he readily admits. This by itself does not exempt Paul in any way from sin and that's certainly not the claim that we make, but it does set the backdrop of understanding that Paul would not have readily been a willing participant in issues that he knew were sin especially on an ongoing basis. Paul was familiar with certain disciplines that kept him from certain types of sins and sin in general. He introduces concepts of fasting prayer, meditation, supplication and immersion in the word of God in effort to give believers the strength to overcome personal struggles and to help edify the church and all believers in general. To take spiritual disciplines in Christ away from Paul is to miss his complete message as it pertains to overcoming sin through Christ and as it pertains to his understanding and explanation of what Christ actually did on the cross.
So at best individuals claiming that Paul was somehow a closet sinner do the gospel a disservice by actually taking Paul out of the context in which he existed, stripping him of his value set, and recreating a Paul who affirms and suits 21st Century struggles and failures. Further they create a message of Christ that is powerless to effect the practice of sin in the flesh. As we can see not only is this a bad way to read the bible it will never allow one to come to an accurate understanding of what's being communicated and it has some far reaching impacts.
The Impact Of A Sinful Paul
The fact is that Paul certainly sinned. That is not in question. However, for one to suggest that the overarching premise of Paul's life was sinful, is not only an perversion of scripture, it is a totally absurd and unsupportable view. This is the focus of what we are discovering in this post.
Read more!
