Discrepancies between Jesus and Paul?

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staranthology

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Please pray for me, for I am currently undergoing a major crisis of faith.

It is about many things, but the problem my mind keeps going to first is this:

I’m not sure if I can trust St. Paul.

Mainly this is centred around discrepancies regarding the law such as
Matthew 5:18 :" “…until pass away the heaven and the earth, iota one or one point by no means will pass way from the law…" and Romans 7: 6 "But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. " Should we not still try to follow the Law?

and how, in Matthew 10:5-6: "5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. " and how Paul preached to the gentiles. If Jesus actually meant that they should preach to the Jews first, and then the gentiles, why did He say it in that way? How can I be sure that Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus was what he said it was and that he wasn’t an imposter? Lastly, if someone else (Paul) was going to come along and preach to the gentiles, why wouldn’t Jesus have said something predicting this?

I genuinely want to believe like I have in the past, but doubts keep arising in my mind to this effect.

(Edit: I don’t endorse these arguments, but I’m making this thread because I want to know how they can be refuted, what I’m misunderstanding, etc)
 
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For the question of why Jesus wouldn’t have said something about Paul, how do you know He didn’t? After all, Jesus lived into his 30s, and there isn’t a 30-year-long script in the Gospels. As the Gospel of John says, many things were not recorded in the Gospels.
 
Footnotes:
until heaven and earth pass away nothing of the law will pass. Yet the “passing away” of heaven and earth is not necessarily the end of the world understood, as in much apocalyptic literature, as the dissolution of the existing universe. The “turning of the ages” comes with the apocalyptic event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and those to whom this gospel is addressed are living in the new and final age, prophesied by Isaiah as the time of “new heavens and a new earth”
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Dunno; you’ll have to ask the writers.

But seriously, the other Apostles took Paul seriously. That’s enough for me to take him seriously.
 
Referring to your first citation, look to the verse immediately preceding it. “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” some translations the word ;perfect" is used. The beginning of the chapter is the Beatitudes which is one way that the Law is perfected.

As to your second quandary, Jesus’ admonition about the lost sheep of Israel was for that one mission. At the end of Matthew, Jesus says “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” so Paul went to the gentiles.

Patrick
AMDG
 
I was led down the same rabbit hole about a year ago, and it led me into a heretical cult called the Hebrew Roots Movement. While I don’t see myself as being in a place where I can answer your questions, I can assure you that there are no real discrepancies between Jesus and Paul.

God bless you on your journey 😃
 
I was just reading the other day how Paul says how he had seen Jesus. I found that interesting and a bit related.
 
For the first one, you leave out important context. Jesus says it will not pass away “till all is fulfilled.” He fulfilled it all. Likewise, St. Paul explains how the law no longer applies: by us following Christ in His death and resurrection (through Baptism):
7 Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during his life? 2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

4 Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
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Thank you! I think the issue might be that I’m not sure how abolition and fulfillment differ? I know I’ve hit a misunderstanding somewhere.
 
As for your second issue, Jesus did predict the Gentiles would be preached to when many Jews rejected Him and the Gospel. He did so in parables:
Matt. 21:33 “Hear another parable.[d] There was a householder who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; 35 and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did the same to them. 37 Afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
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Matt 22: And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’ 5 But they made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’
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St. Paul in Romans teaches the same, how some Jews were cut off and some Gentiles grafted in in their place.

Of course there is the “Great Commission” where Jesus sends forth His church to make disciples of “all nations.”
 
The general thrust of your argument seems to be that Paul dedicated his life to the mission of converting the Gentiles, in contrast to Jesus whose preaching was clearly addressed to the Jewish nation. This contrast has been discussed from time to time, as you would expect. It is significant that, in the Gospels, Jesus makes at least one exception to his general rule in the episode of the Gentile woman described as “Syro-Phoenician” in Mark 7:24-30 and as “Canaanite” in Matthew 15:21-28.

Then Jesus went from that place and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

 
Couldn’t someone just argue that that’s the exception that proves the rule?
 
Patrick, just wanted to share with you…I always put AMDG on the top of every letter and card I write. A Jesuit priest I met years ago in Philly and became a good friend of my family had sent a card with AMDG on the top, I asked him what it meant and he was more then happy to tell me…I have never seen it used here…Have a Blessed Christmas. 'All for the greater glory of God"…
 
Fair point.

I meant, since Jesus restates that He was “Sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and then only helps the woman because of her great faith, wouldn’t that mean that His mission was still to only help the lost sheep of Israel AND ALSO a few gentiles of unusual faith, not to help everyone indiscriminately? Note that I’m not subscribing to or endorsing these interpretations, they’re more… intrusive thoughts that I’m not sure how to refute
 
I suspect you may be reading more into Jesus’ words than he intended. Here’s another, simpler, possibility. First he says he was “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and then he changes his mind.
 
staranthology said:
Mainly this is centred around discrepancies regarding the law such as
Matthew 5:18 :" “…until pass away the heaven and the earth, iota one or one point by no means will pass way from the law…" and Romans 7: 6 "But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. " Should we not still try to follow the Law?
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Paul is not saying that we should not follow the law. Rather, he is speaking of the curse of the law. Keep in mind that immediately before this section, Paul had already said, do we nullify the law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary we establish the law. Galatians perhaps gives a better explanation where it states: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Not it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’…Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” Later he continues: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh…But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under (meaning under condemnation) the law. In other words, Christ frees us from the condemnation of the law that we might walk in him and fulfill the requirements of the law having been born of the Spirit through faith.
staranthology said:
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. " and how Paul preached to the gentiles.
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During his ministry Jesus initially had the disciples minister to the Jews, however, all throughout the gospels Jesus also ministered to the Gentiles. That quote was specific to the sending out of the twelve early in his ministry. The peoples of the Decapolis, Sidon and Tyre, the Samaritans, Gedara, etc., whom Jesus also ministered to, were Gentiles. Mark and Luke especially use them as contrasts to unbelieving Israel. Additionally, in the Great Commission Jesus instructed the disciples to go therefore and make disciples of all nations…

There is no contradiction between Paul and Jesus, Paul just came at a time where the revelation of Christ was completed.
 
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staranthology said:
How can I be sure that Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus was what he said it was and that he wasn’t an imposter?
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Mmm let us see. An impostor always gets some personal gain out of his schemes. In the case of St Paul, he suffered and was fiercely persecuted while converting many to Christianity and ended up martyred in Rome for his preaching. So no, he wasn’t an impostor. By their fruits, you will know them.
 
When you approach the Bible, you ought to be reading it with the perspective of harmonization.

Garry Wills, a “Catholic,” has written two books, What Jesus Taught, and, What Paul Taught (or something to this effect). If I read these, they’re in some box and I don’t remember.

Certainly: the coming of Christ represented an end of the cultic requirements of the Old Testament. You can’t have all the people on earth going to Jerusalem for the high feasts three times a year, for example. There are some Jews planning to rebuild the temple, but that’s beside the point.

Paul’s ministry begins with his loss of vision and then with a new vision of God’s plan for His people. It was a real epiphany.

I’m on book overload. I started reading NT Wright’s Paul but set it aside for several other books I couldn’t resist. It’s a very good book on Paul, as much as I read already. I recommend it.
 
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