Author Archives: Paul Pavao

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About Paul Pavao

I am married, the father of six, and currently the grandfather of five. I teach, and I am always trying to learn to disciple others better than I have before. I believe God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith. In order to ensure that I do not become a heretic, I read the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. They were around when all the churches founded by the apostles were in unity. My philosophy for Bible reading is to understand each verse for exactly what it says in its local context. Only after accepting the verse for what it says do I compare it with other verses to develop my theology. If other verses seem to contradict a verse I just read, I will wait to say anything about those verses until I have an explanation that allows me to accept all the verses for what they say. This takes time, sometimes years, but eventually I have always been able to find something that does not require explaining verses away. The early church fathers have helped a lot with this. I argue and discuss these foundational doctrines with others to make sure my teaching really lines up with Scripture. I am encouraged by the fact that the several missionaries and pastors that I know well and admire as holy men love the things I teach. I hope you will be encouraged too. I am indeed tearing up old foundations created by tradition in order to re-establish the foundations found in Scripture and lived on by the churches during their 300 years of unity.

The Sign of the Cross and Other Early Christian Traditions

I often run across historical claims that make me angry, especially from Roman Catholics. Because they assume so much they are constantly reinterpreting early church history into their own viewpoint, even when their viewpoint is ludicrous. Worse, when I point … Continue reading

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The Gnostic Attempt at an Alternate Christian History

I don’t know if you run across the modern gnostic attempt at an alternate Christian history much, but it’s in the news a lot. The Da Vinci Code borrows a lot from Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot, and Dan Brown, … Continue reading

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“Alternative” (read “Fake,” “Fraudulent,” or “False”) Christian Histories

Okay, I just put up a blog minutes ago. Rather than go edit it immediately (and probably too quickly) as I normally do, I’m going to rant about false, fraudulent, fake, feigning, and phony historians like Elaine Pagels and Dan … Continue reading

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John Calvin and the Church

It’s funny that while I’m doing a series on Calvinism, I ran by chance across some statements by John Calvin on the Church. They’re pretty amazing. I found these in Volume VIII of Philip Schaff’s History of  the Christian Church, … Continue reading

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Predestination, Calvinism, and Bible Interpretation: Part Three

We have been looking at Calvinism’s TULIP a little bit. I considered going point by point through TULIP–and I still want to do that–but there’s something more important than that. Does the Scripture ever really bring up Calvinism? Are the … Continue reading

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Romans and Calvinism: an Excursion

I’m doing a series on Calvinism and Predestination here on this blog, but I want to make a quick side trip. I mentioned in the last post that Romans has a series of arguments concerning Jews and Gentiles and the … Continue reading

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Calvinism, Predestination, and Bible Interpretation; Part Two

Well, since Britt–a dear friend of ours and a good, godly man–has put it on my mind with his comment, let me make part two to cover Romans 9-11. I need to keep this short enough for a blog, which … Continue reading

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Calvinism, Predestination, and Proper Bible Interpretation

Someone once told me that if I wanted to know if a teaching was true, look at what it asks you to do. If it asks you to do something that Scripture also commands, you can probably trust the teaching. … Continue reading

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Apostolic Succession: Tradition, Apologetics, and Contending for the Truth

Due to working on Christian History for Everyman, I’ve been slow in posting here. I’m working on a page on apostolic succession, however, and it is perfect for a blog entry. The line (uh, here I am quoting myself again) … Continue reading

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Revisiting the Ten Commandments of Catholicism

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog on the ten commandments. There I argued that the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) split “You shall not covet” into two commands in order to draw attention away from the command they omit, … Continue reading

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