😇 Xmas 2

Readings: 📜Jeremiah 31:7-14; 🎶Psalm 147:12-20; 📜Ephesians 1:3-14; 📜John 1:1-18. For full access, see pewpewhq.com/tfw/a-x02

Central Thesis/Theme

In this episode, I wrestle with the growing tension I feel between Pauline Christianity and the Jesus I encounter in the Gospels. The Christmas readings this week force me to confront my discomfort with Paul's privileged position and philosophical approach versus Christ's radical accessibility to the poor and marginalized. I'm arguing that if we must choose between Paul's epistles and the Hebrew scriptures, I'd choose the latter—not to reject Paul entirely, but to prioritize the Christ of the Gospels and the story he fulfills over the institutional church-building project I see in Paul's letters.

Key Textual/Historical Insights

The readings present a progression from prophetic promise to incarnational fulfillment. Jeremiah announces God gathering scattered Israel from exile with consolation and joy. The Psalm celebrates God's sustaining provision and unique covenant with Israel. Ephesians articulates a high Christology of cosmic redemption and predestined adoption. John's prologue grounds the eternal Word in flesh, emphasizing recognition failure and the gift of becoming God's children. My paraphrase work reveals how Paul's Greek philosophical vocabulary—charis, doxa—doesn't naturally flow from Septuagint language, raising questions about whose theological framework we're actually following when we read his letters.

Theological Argument

I'm making a case for Gospel-centered interpretation that subordinates Pauline authority when it conflicts with Christ's example. Paul's Roman citizenship and military imagery reveal a privileged position that shapes his theology in ways that diverge from Jesus's actual ministry to the poor. The Acts narrative shows Paul leveraging his citizenship while the Jerusalem apostles who actually walked with Jesus show remarkable restraint in accepting his authority. I'm not advocating for removing Paul from canon, but I am insisting we stop ignoring difficult Old Testament texts while treating Paul's more palatable institutional vision as normative Christianity. If Jesus primarily attended to the lowest, poorest, and most marginalized, our theology must do the same.

Contemporary Application

My military service and subsequent disillusionment inform this reading. Just as Rome granted citizenship to veterans while denying rights to military families, America deports combat veterans—revealing how privilege operates in imperial systems. Theologians who claim they "don't know what to do with" Joshua or Judges while building sophisticated Pauline frameworks are exercising a luxury that veterans and their families don't have—the luxury of ignoring violence. When scholars and church leaders can simply bypass texts that make them uncomfortable, they're replicating the same privilege dynamics I see in Paul. We need a Christianity that meets people where they are, like Jesus did, not one that builds institutions requiring money and property to access the Gospel.

Questions Raised

• If Paul's theology conflicts with Jesus's actual ministry practices, which should take interpretive priority for Christians?
• How does privilege—Roman citizenship, property ownership, educational access—shape whose interpretation of scripture becomes authoritative?
• What does it mean that the Jerusalem apostles who walked with Jesus showed such restraint toward Paul's self-proclaimed apostleship?
• Are theologians who ignore difficult Old Testament texts practicing a form of Marcionism by selection rather than explicit rejection?
• Can institutional church structures built on Pauline models actually serve the poor Jesus prioritized, or do they inevitably center those with resources?