I've got a question for those of you who are in the more conservative camp? When you read scripture, especially in the epistles, do you apply it against the actions and words of Jesus? I guess I'm asking, do you ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?" or does it matter?
I'm wondering this because I think there is a tendency in the liberal mainline tradition to do this, at least where I come from, especially when thinking critically about passages of contention or contrary messages, i.e. passages on the authority of women to teach.
I think my people tend to look to Jesus as the big authority and sometimes disregard Paul as lesser spokesperson, whereas I see a lot of conservative church practice and policy based pretty strongly on Paul and less so on Jesus in these points of contention.
I know it's more complex than this, but am I misreading this? Or is this the way it really is?
I'm wondering this because I think there is a tendency in the liberal mainline tradition to do this, at least where I come from, especially when thinking critically about passages of contention or contrary messages, i.e. passages on the authority of women to teach.
I think my people tend to look to Jesus as the big authority and sometimes disregard Paul as lesser spokesperson, whereas I see a lot of conservative church practice and policy based pretty strongly on Paul and less so on Jesus in these points of contention.
I know it's more complex than this, but am I misreading this? Or is this the way it really is?
5 comments:
weird. I commented this morning but it seems to have disappeared.
~ I don't know that the conservatives will claim me as one of their own or not...I'm kinda hard to pin down like that...but I always ask myself what Jesus would do (in one way or another). I think Paul did too - so his words are important to me, but I wouldn't say Paul is my example or determiner, Christ is.
Whenever questions about dealing with *people* arises I find myself mentally leafing through the gospels, imagining Jesus' reactions and the way He loved people.
I don't find Paul inconsistent with Jesus (although I don't think you were saying that) - just more complicated.
I find the problem is I can apply so much of Paul to THEM. But most of Jesus speaks to ME.
I'm not sure why my comment got removed. I don't think I did that...
Anyway -- Tonia, as usual, you respond with far more grace than I.
And QP, yes -- that it! And also, I think Paul is often easier to grasp than Jesus. Even though Paul understood living by grace, not law, I think we have a tendency to read him as the checklist that ensures we are, indeed, graced, and thus turn him into law again...
Obviously, I'm still mulling this over...
spot on IMHO
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