Paul Is Confused

I'm reading the letters of Paul, and he is a very confused man. He alternates between the gospel as taught by Jesus, and some apparent insanity, some twisted version of Christianity. In one paragraph he speaks of love and understanding, and in the next, he speaks of turning our backs on sinners as if they could not be saved. There is the fact that he and we are also such sinners, should we turn our backs on ourselves as well?

He contradicts Christ's words and often contradicts his own. He goes on for pages how it is not the actions of man that gets us into heaven, but the action of God. He tells how those who follow the Law are trying to get into heaven by their own actions alone, and that the existence of Jesus has abolished the need for the Law. Then in the paragraphs immediately following these sentences, he lists a litany of actions that we should and should not perform that will allow or prevent our entering heaven. His confusion is wild and unchecked.

Notwithstanding, Jesus himself proclaimed specifically that he was not there to abolish the Law, but to enforce it. I will grant however, that Jesus rarely spoke plainly, as about the yeast, and could very well have meant that he was taking the Law's place. I will have to re-read multiple versions of this entry to be sure.

The wolves that Peter predicted would enter the Church did not waste time. There are no individuals that we may call wolves; no one person or group that we can suspect. The wolves are within each of us, even within the apostles. Every word a preacher speaks must be held up next to righteousness and compared to it. The problem is that the wolf is here, before my eyes. You and me, we are just as confused as Paul.

My only prayer is that one word be correct: it is an area where everyone agrees. That if I throw myself at the feet of our Lord and beg for forgiveness, for the scraps of his table, that I will receive a little mercy from Him. There is no way I can save myself, no way I could understand how, but in my begging, I will try to clean His floor with the only dirty rag that I have.