MYTH #22-Jesus sent Paul primarily to the Gentiles!
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This myth is so common and is so easily debunked that it becomes a tester for whether or not we are really paying attention to the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel writings. How is it possible to have the words of Jesus clearly written, not requiring any linguistic or cultural interpretation, to be so misunderstood and mis-taught? Yet we are finding these kinds of myths all around us.
The greatest damage comes when those who are freshly searching out the teachings and principles of Jesus discover that the traditional teachings don't match up with what Jesus actually did and said. In fact, there is such an undercurrent of concern within Christianity right now over losing the youth. This has been called the last Christian generation and I think there is great reason for this concern. It's because of teaching and holding to the many man-made traditions and teachings that just cannot be established by a simple reading of the life of Jesus. What's lacking is authenticity. This is why we continue to work our way through the many myths that have developed over the years.
This myth has a couple of dimensions. The first dimension is the traditional division that says Peter was sent to the Jews and Paul was sent to the gentiles. That's even the way I was taught how to divide the book of Acts. Acts 1-8 was about Peter and 9-28 was all about Paul.
