In this episode of For the Rest of Us, Canon Megan and Adam take a good, hard look at one of the most complicated and misunderstood figures of the New Testament: Saint Paul.

Paul is often remembered as the author of verses that have been used to prop up conservative Christianity—“wives obey your husbands,” “slaves obey your masters,” and “women be silent in church.” But who was Paul really? What did he actually write? And how did his letters go from problem-solving notes to scripture that shaped entire traditions?

Megan and Adam explore:

• Why Paul often gets a bad reputation as Christianity’s “buzzkill.”
• Which letters Paul actually wrote—and which were written in his name.
• How Paul’s Roman citizenship gave him privilege and power he wielded strategically.
• The mismatch between Acts’ version of Paul and Paul’s own letters.
• Paul’s cultural comfort with exaggeration, rhetoric, and hyperbole.
• His partnership with women leaders like Lydia, Phoebe, and Junia.
• How his letters, dictated aloud, were never intended to be systematic theology.
  

Along the way, they talk about Willem Dafoe as Jesus (and the Green Goblin), diner coffee, carnivorous seals, and why it helps our faith to remember that Paul was human—zealous, flawed, inconsistent, and yet deeply convinced of God’s overwhelming love.