May 17, 2003 This letter was sent to the Wesleyan Christian Advocate in Atlanta, GA. The subject is Jesus and Paul.

For Jesus our goal is simple: to draw all people into discipleship with us. When our brother sins and repents, we rejoice, and call him as we do all into this discipleship. Behold! your brother was lost, but now he is found.

But unlike Jesus Paul had to deal with two different discipleship congregations, the Jewish AND the Gentile. He could not speak authoritatively to the Jewish Christians, for he was handpicked only for the Gentiles; but he did speak to the Gentiles with Jesus' authority: while you can do all things which promote your embodiment of the Spirit of Christ or also all things which are otherwise indifferent to that, you may not, as a Christian brother of course, do that which appears offensive to your brother who has some law in addition to the Golden Rule and who believes that he sins if he violates or condones violations of that law. For the sake of the conscience of him who is weaker in faith (but no less beloved by all the brothers and sisters and God), avoid demonstrating your liberty to his face.

The entire New Testament message (especially with regard to Gentile Christian) makes so much sense and is so clear and liberating that you have to believe that the only reason that Mohammed did not pick up on it (instead of going his own unfortunate way) is because the story of the Gentile Christian had already become lost under the (benevolently intended) onslaught of Constantine the Great, where the bible stories were put into a law book (as the Christians came to understand things), a law book called the Bible and the liberating spirit was hidden in pages and subdued by the state.

Yours in Christ!

Philip McPherson Rudisill