Kevin Beauchamp

Last week when the archbishop of Canterbury began correcting the nativity story of Jesus with Biblical fact instead of man-made myth, many Christian leaders actually took issue with the archbiship. For some people, the controversy created for them a “faith crisis ”. Was the Church lying?

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Paul’s “Stigma”

Over the centuries, scholars have speculated that Paul suffered from some debilitating physical disease as a direct result of his “thorn in the flesh”, his aggelos satan or “angel of Satan” that God had sent upon Paul. (See Part 2 of this series) Many scholars, both ancient and modern, have been in agreement that the physical disease Paul suffered was being caused by this demonic spirit (Thayer). It is indeed Paul himself who emphasizes that despite his (Paul’s) heartfelt pleas, God would not remove the “angel of Satan” the Most High had sent upon Paul. This is not a situation and condition we should disregard, gloss-over or take lightly.

Read from series beginning …

Paul’s “Thorn”

Perhaps the most egregious issue with Paul is that he openly admits that it was God who punished him with a “thorn in the flesh” for being, of all things, too “boastful”. In the modern era we have indeed given Paul much more than just a pass on this admission. We have more than just brushed-off the whole issue of his boastfulness—and what God did about it—as much ado about nothing. So rather than “dress the wound as if it were not serious”, (Jer. 8:11) here is where we need to do some real excavating of the event and begin to look a bit more closely, honestly and objectively at this issue of Paul’s “boastfulness” and what it was that Yahweh God actually did to Paul in response.

Are Paul’s Letters “Scripture”?

While doing some research for the book Standing Before God, I ran across a discussion regarding whether or not Paul (his epistles) really should have been canonical material (included in the Bible canon). It was an interesting discussion filled with a lot of really good points about how Paul preached a different gospel than Jesus and the Twelve and that it is really Paul—and not Jesus—who actually became the de facto leader and teacher of the “orthodox” Christian faith.

Dr. Bacchiocchi’s response was again quick but it was also quite flat. He wrote: “Hi Kevin: I do not have time to argue. I am busy writing the new book POPULAR BELIEFS: ARE THEY BIBLICAL? If you are interested to study the story of the formation of the NT canon, you will a lengthy article (about 30 pages) in the introduction of the 5th volume of our SDA Bible commentary.”