"You can measure leaders by the number and the quality of their friends. Judged by that measuring rod, Paul had a genius for friendship. He was essentially a gregarious man." -- J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (Chicago, Moody Press, 1967)
Thoughts on Sanders' measurement system? Do you think of Paul as a gregarious man?
Paul didn't have friends, he had followers. And shouldn't it also count against him that three apostles (John, Peter and James, wasn't it?) were opposed to him?
ReplyDeletei can't think when john or james were opposed to him. and when peter was, paul rebuked him, peter accepted the rebuke, and they supported each other and agreed on the issue that was in dispute.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Paul, Peter accepted it. ;)
ReplyDelete2 Peter 3:15 "Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him."
ReplyDeleteThe books of Peter are pseudopigraphic, written at later times and then attributed to historical figures.
ReplyDelete"The first mention of 2 Peter occurs in Origen's Commentary on John from the third century. However, its view of the Christian faith fits well with other Christan literature of the middle-second centgury, and scholars have traditionally assigned it a date from 124 to 150 CE." - "Who Wrote The New Testament?", Burton L. Mack, p. 208.
It was likely written a centrist xtian who already agreed with Paul's views, so would have written an apologist commentary on Paul's exchange with the Pillars of Jerusalem.
ok, so you're saying that paul was a dictator and therefore not gregarious or what?
ReplyDeleteNo. I'm just saying that what we see in the NT doesn't point to friends, but to followers. ;) Though based on the things I read, he was someone with a lot of ad hoc rules for things.
ReplyDelete