"...Timothy was not forced to be circumcised...But then, along comes Paul and circumcises Timothy. What’s going on? If somebody is saying that you have to circumcise someone in order for him to be a Christian, Paul will say, “Absolutely no way.” If on the other hand Paul...thinks it wise to avoid offending Jewish sensibilities by paying for somebody’s sacrifices or by circumcising Timothy so that they can get into the synagogues without raising a whole lot of questions. Then fine, he’ll go ahead and do it. [2:43:27]"
Then Carson makes an anology to drinking alcohol. This is classic check it out!
"To take an analogy that’s not very good, but nevertheless shows something similar, you know that in certain parts – now I’m a Canadian – but in certain parts of the United States do you know that many Christians don’t drink alcohol. Now, if I’m in one of those parts and everyone’s going to be all upset if I drink alcohol, then – I don’t drink alcohol, it’s not worth the fight and so on. But if somebody says to me, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I will say, “pass the Bourgogne [Canadian wine]’!” Do you see?
Because you do not ever allow anything to jeapordize the absolute sufficiency of Christ. Not anything! [2:44:37-2:45:25 (Emphasis added)]
[These quotes are taken from D. A. Carson’s talk on the New Perspective on Paul ELF 2003 Theologians Network (European Leadership Forum). The hour, minute, and second markers corresponding to where I trascribed the quotes from are listed after each quote.]
To listen to the entire lecture click here [beware, it's around 3 hours long].
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