@Theo202,
And your propeller beanie is on way too tight.
Paul lost his vanity on the way to Tarsus: G*D gave him the chance to repent of his serial mass murdering ways and come to Jesus.
I always had trouble with Paul. So many righteous, worthy, godly people with lives of living and spreading the Gospel announcement of salvation and redemption. So many.
It troubled me.
It wasn't until I finally got the whole message: we sin. We confess. We are redeemed. The formula works whether we are Mother Theresa or Paul.
Father G*D wanted us to know that Christ's message in the Parable of the Vineyard - all share in the feast. If dirty evil, Paul can be a part of the harvesters, so can I - middling, piddling me.
Three things caused me to question the Church for many years - Paul, Grace without worthiness, the Holy Spirit.
But the Father promises us, if we need the answer all we need to do is ask and to listen and hear. Looking through mirrors darkly is not the way to understand truth.
And I discovered
1. Paul was brought up to let us know if we submit we can lead. Any single one of us.
2. Good works without being able to go to our knees will not save us, (in some ways this is an example G*D 'changes his mind'. When we couldn't be "good", he sent Christ the redeem our debt.) We aren't saved by being Christian, we are saved by the grace of Christ, the only requires us to knowledge our sinful nature, repent and accept forgiveness.
3. As a Lutheran who went through Lutheran parochial school where we had intensive religious teaching. As a young child it just seemed to me the Holy Sprit was almost a pet dove, that it stood in for times when G*d wanted his presence known but not the center of attention, such as at Christ's own baptism.
The Spirit is the knowledge. The Spirit helps belief and faith become a transcendental sort of knowledge. When you've taken the Father's invitation - 7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
I think verse 12 is the verse that always gets edited out or ignored.)
Humble yourself and talk to Jesus.
