Meet Paul...The mystic...

I understand why, when I speak to students about kabbalah or mysticism, there is a concern. So if I have a blog calling Paul a mystic, then I do have the responsibility of explaining myself.

At the base level, the term "kabbalah" simply means "received". Of course there is more to this concept and it does imply very special revelation which is sacred and yes, potentially even dangerous if approached incorrectly.

DOES PAUL SHOW EVIDENCE OF BEING A MYSTIC?

Paul literally speaks about "mysteries" being revealed. He even mentions receiving his "gospel" not from man. This is but a drop in the ocean of empirical evidence in terms of proving Paul was in fact a mystic.

Not surprisingly, Christianity, leaning heavily on Paul, has for the duration of its existence, effectively built a mystic religion when it speaks about supernatural encounters and revelations pertaining to the Spirit or Jesus. What this proves is that even while we expect mysticism to be baked into Judaism, which it is, even Christianity, while setting itself up against Judaism and being "weary" of mysticism, is in fact a mystic religion resting on the foundational teaching of a mystic Pharisee and rabbi, Paul.

WHAT ABOUT THE TRADITIONAL WARNINGS PERTAINING TO KABBALAH/MYSTICISM?

As a means of warding off foolish, irresponsible practitioners, there has developed from within the heart of mystic sects in Judaism, the dire warning about messing with mysticism. Rumours of people losing their minds has clearly made it through the grapevine so that it has most people with even just a superficial handle on the topic, nervous.

Then no doubt, there are beliefs and practices within certain sects practicing mysticism which can comfortably go into questionable content and ideas. The fact that this is possible does not by itself, render the phenomena of mysticism problematic.

A hammer can be used to hit a nail while building something useful, or it can be used to do physical harm. We don't blame the hammer, we blame the potential misuse of the hammer on the person using the tool.

In the same way, Kabbalah or mysticism should be approached.

WHAT WOULD THE IMPACT ON PAUL'S WRITINGS BE IF WE REMOVED THE MYSTICISM?

We would begin by noting the themes Paul teaches on which sit in mystic space. Once we identify those themes and we consider removing it from Paul's teachings, we can see the impact. Here is a simple list of what we would have to remove:

1. Spiritual transformation in the life of the believer from the nations who is not from Israel
2. Removing the spiritual transformation of the believer would block that person from becoming part of the commonwealth of Israel, thereby leaving them dead in their sins
3. For an ethnic son or daughter of Israel, from the 12 tribes, connection to Jesus in the physical sense of Jesus being the Son of David who will reign on earth, is a given. If you take the spiritual/mystical component of this from Paul's mystic teaching, again you have cut off Gentiles from salvation(mystically)
4. Since Paul even meeting Yeshua was itself a mystic revelation beyond the natural realm, you could effectively cancel much of what we learn about Jesus, through the writings of Paul.

This list is not exhaustive of course but you can see for yourself that Paul's unique gospel, note that Paul calls his gospel unique, is itself designed mystically and so pulling at these threads effectively destroys the entire gospel Paul was given, by none other than Jesus Himself...mystically.

This blog is part of a Covenant Publishing initiative to introduce future book titles.