WHAT WAS THE APOSTLE PAUL REALLY TRYING TO SAY?
The Apostle Paul, who wrote many of the books in the New Testament, was a fearless and revolutionary religious innovator. In a society where slaveholding was commonplace and women were little more than servants, he preached a groundbreaking equality founded on a new spiritual identity. Yet Paul diverged from many of Jesus’s own teachings about the world and God’s kingdom, and his writings have been used to justify slavery, defend violence toward women and vilify followers of other religious paths. What was Paul’s core message really about, and how can it be a guide for our own spiritual journey today? “How alike and unlike were Paul and Jesus? If there were differences between them, what effect did that have on the growth of Christianity?” writes Ron Miller in THE SACRED WRITINGS OF PAUL: Selections Annotated & Explained (SkyLight Paths / July 2007 / Quality Paperback Original / $16.99). “And how can these differences help Christians today find their way forward in the midst of countle
