Quote:
Originally Posted by The Lee-ading Lady
Two thousand years ago, Paul told the council he was standing before:
'I am a pharisee. I am DESCENDED from pharisees'
Take careful note that he qualified his standing as a pharisee, ONLY by identifying with that religious sect by a link of lineage. And no more.
And that was because his status had, in fact, changed. His 'citizenship' had been altered (Eph 2:19)...and because it had been altered he no longer 'belonged' to the sect of the pharisees.
His life was no longer governed by the Mosaic Law, to which the pharisees clung like a drowning man to a floating debris, and without which they could have had no justification whatsoever for their existence. Their lives revolved around the 'law', and nothing else (Matthew 23:2)
Paul's life, however, was now governed by Christ's Law (or, the law of Christ). He was a 'new creature' and 'old things had passed away'. From Saul, his name was changed to Paul, signifying his change of citizenship.
He was as much a pharisee, therefore, as President Joe Biden is Irish.
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I see your argument, but it looks strained. Would anyone ever say, "I used to be Irish, but now I'm a Christian"? No, of course not, because being Irish isn't mutually incompatible with being Christian.
Why then do we think it's mutually incompatible with being Christian and Pharisee? Luke says in the next verse, in case anyone lacks awareness, that Pharisees believe in the resurrection. How then is it fantastic if they believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?
Following your logic, we end up in a strange world, like a Jehovah Witness painting, where everyone looks like us, or at least what we think they should look like according to our cognition.
The Bible says, "Every tribe and tongue and nation", and we add, "as long as they are not Jewish", but by our qualifiers, what have we done to the law of Christ? "I will love you, as long as you're not a Pharisee"?
To repeat, the the running theme of the NT was whether the gentile converts should be forced to live like the Jews, and that in a perpetual second-tier status, like a proselyte. The answer was unequivocally "no". But nothing was stated, or implied, that Jews were forced to abandon the law.
I was in a meeting once, the Blended Brother read the part in Acts where James told Paul that all the Christian Jews in Jerusalem were "zealous for the law". The brother then closed his eyes, leaned back, and went, "Noooooooo!!!" But notice that Paul never did this. He only did this when they tried to force the gentiles to live like the Jews. See, e. g., Gal 2:14