How do you know? Because he says so in the letters?
It’s worth looking a bit closer at the fine details…
For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account. I have been paid in full and have more than enough; I am fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
Philippians 4:16-18
Interesting. Paul is getting fancy fragrances sent to him?
Should we be upset about this?
Well wait a second, what do those later cannonical gospels say?
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.
Mark 14:3-6
Pretty weird how Paul accepting an expensive fragrance is paralleled in the gospels with Jesus being gifted an expensive fragrance as being a good thing.
I’d be very skeptical of just how much of the money Paul was collecting was being used for its stated purposes.
How do you know? Because he says so in the letters?
It’s worth looking a bit closer at the fine details…
Interesting. Paul is getting fancy fragrances sent to him?
Should we be upset about this?
Well wait a second, what do those later cannonical gospels say?
Pretty weird how Paul accepting an expensive fragrance is paralleled in the gospels with Jesus being gifted an expensive fragrance as being a good thing.
I’d be very skeptical of just how much of the money Paul was collecting was being used for its stated purposes.