About the “New Perspective on Paul” (NPP)

This is the man, that teaches all men everywhere against the people, and the law, and this place. – Acts 21:28

After Christ, Paul’s undoubtedly the 2nd most influential person in Christianity. So it’s only natural, in a culture where it’s become self-defeating to attack Jesus directly, that he bears the brunt of the various attacks on Christianity.

Today, Jewish, Muslim and secular/humanist scholars (three groups that normally do not see eye to eye) have formed a united front of sustained, systematic attack on the person, motives and philosophy of Paul.

This attack, one that aims to review Paul and his teachings, is broadly termed “The New Perspective on Paul (NPP).” The NPP is a growing branch of scholarship that maintains that what we call “Christianity” today, is not the product of Jesus and His original disciples but is the invention of Saul of Tarsus, a converted Pharisee that brought in his own philosophies to turn the Faith into an apocalyptic religion unrecognisable to the original adherents.

At the core of the NPP is either the refutation of Paul’s doctrine of justification by Grace alone through Faith alone (and NOT by Works). Or the claim that Christians have misunderstood what Paul meant by those terms. Nevertheless, contrary to what its name implies, there’s nothing “New” about the NPP. The NPP is only a modern, scholarly re-presentation of the sustained attack on Paul that started right from his moment of conversion.

As seen above, the major proponents of the NPP are not your typical Believers; yet many Christians, even Pastors, are gradually acquiescing to the this attempt to dismantle the very foundation of our Faith.

Why are people outside the Church at the front of the war against the doctrine of Justification? Because Justification is the ONLY way sinful Man can be saved. Satan knows that if he can introduce an added requirement for salvation – in whatever guise – our hope of eternal salvation is lost. Christianity will then join the ranks of other world religions: teaching morality and hoping it’ll be good enough on Judgment Day.

But Paul – the real Paul of scripture, not the intellectually gratifying phantom they talk about – is unbending on this issue. He insists that God’s righteousness is revealed by and only through FAITH. Because “as it is written, THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH” (Rom 1:16,17). 

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.
GREG ELKAN