Recently I had the privilege of giving a lecture on Paul and the law of Moses to a mixed group of religion scholars. Not all were theologians or Christians, and the lecture presented a Paul who was much more positive about the Law than we see in many traditional Protestant interpretations.
But one member of the audience, a Jewish philosopher, was still concerned. He shared that when he hears what Paul wrote about the Law, he can’t relate. Their forms of piety are alien to each other because for Judaism, the Law is life-giving, whereas for Paul, the Law brings death. How could Paul, a Jew and a Pharisee, think such a thing about the law of God?
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