Should we come to the text with completely open minds, or should we hold some ideas and convictions with certainty? This may be a poor example to help illustrate my question, but in Ephesians 2, Paul speaks about Christ abolishing the law. Christ himself says he came to fulfill the law and the prophets. Is it cowardly, faulty, and/or problematic in some way to be committed to analyzing and studying from the perspective that Paul cannot be contradicting Christ who cannot be contradicting the Old Testament writings? Or should we be willing to explore openly and to accept whatever conclusions our analysis leads to, which in this scenario could be something like Paul is actually saying something Christ would not.

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