Whenever I read Paul, the Bible speaks to me in very profound ways that I cannot express in words. I have come to love my Christian Faith by understanding somethings that I could not understand when I sat under any of my teachers and before I discovered the key to the scripture tucked in 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The key is in rightly dividing the word of truth.
When I visited Buddhist temples in Thailand, Hindu temples in Kenya, Krishna temples and Islamic Mosques, I never understood what I saw in the temples until I looked at Paul in his letters that all I saw made meaning.One reality that you and I can vividly see is that there is alienation evident in human relations. THERE IS A BIG CHASM BETWEEN the haves and the havenots, the rich and the poor, the first world and the third world, the religious and the infidels, Jubilee coalition and CORD, The Democrats and the Republicans and the list goes on and on. This gap is caused by what the bible calls SIN. This separation started in the garden of Eden and from then on, humanity has faced wars factions and rebellion.
The chasm I mentioned above, creates in man a hunger for something extraordinaire, something supernatural that he can run to for defense and protection, for extra power to conquer the enemy within and without, for comfort, for satisfaction, and for answers to the many QUESTIONS he has been unable to answer.Some, in the search for the answers and quest for insight in what might be the causes of these human predicaments, have resorted to magic, witchcraft, Loliondo, prophet so and so, bishop so and so, church this and that and the list is endless. In the world of politics, the Chasm( read sin) has caused human beings to call others refugees, immigrants, terrorists and so on.
The other Religions of the world apart from Christianity(which is not a religion in the sense of the word) and Islam have been in existence for many years but this Chasm was never filled, the hunger for something extraordinaire still persisted and still persists. Hinduism which is thought to be the oldest documented religion( I stand to be corrected here) has two epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, written down sometime between 300 B . C . and A . D . 300, which contain stories about a number of major Hindu deities and in these epics, the stories are weaved upon the themes of alienation, broken marriages, battles, evil, good and bad etc. These themes point to the big Chasm that occurred between God and humanity and Humanity within itself.
Coming back to the apostle, I submit to you that he is the only apostle of the The Church who puts the person of Jesus Christ and His ministry in perspective hence completing the missing part in the puzzle of life and that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:19-20
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