One of the things I liked about my preferred Bible translation for many years was that it sub-titled the first eight chapters of Romans a "The Gospel According To Paul".

The main problem I have with the modern church and Paul is that the church won't teach doctrinal provenance. We know Paul's writings (at least the ones we still have) happened over at least a decade, possibly two. So his ideas developed over time, some influenced by the Jewish Christians still in Jerusalem. We also know that the order of his letters in the Bible are basically in order of size. This means that, in my experiences, most church-going Christians have no idea that there are "early Paul teachings" and "later Paul teachings" nor what they are. (Galatians is purported to be the earliest letter we have of his.)

The other aspect is that Paul was versed in early Greek Philosophy and he was likely influenced by this. Greek Philosophy is what seeded the modern ideas of hell and the afterlife. Jewish ideas of those at the first century were, I'm told, rather different. Again, most church-going Christians appear to not know this.

Wade.