Here I'm.
Rulai Sutra if you were to read above it's not about caring or not, it's about if you have the will to attack the Buddha. To attack a godly being. Anyway, Joseph is arrogant enough to do it.
But the Bell aspect of Rulai Sutra will block anything that tries to harm him till its destroyed. Phasing won't work as its created from energy (vital qi - spiritual energy). Qin Mu tried normal attacks, it didn't work. He tried elemental ones, it didn't pass through it. He tried soul attacks, still not. Energy attacks, vibrations/soundwaves? Still didn't do anything. So he chose to finally destroy it before using his Soul BFR that it's just speaking a few words. How thick is the protection? Qin Mu who scales above Ming Xin had to use a nine layered force to break through it (and the layer force its more powerful with each one - first has just a dragon, second two, third three....etc till the ninth which has 9 - that's a total of 45 attacks combined into one). That's how much he needed to exert to shatter the bell.
He doesn't need to resist to his attacks if they can't even harm him till the bell is shattered. Info analysis is good but while Joseph is very good at predicting and fighting, he still is someone who will fight at close range (excluding a few instances) - just look at his fights from anime. He will come in close range and that's when he will be harmed by the soul-shattering thunderclap or the golden light of purge.
Joseph : Standard melee range, extended melee range with clackers, potentially much further with other weapons and Hamon
Ming: Normal melee, tens of meters with various attacks
Hmm, Ming also has the advantage here. Joseph only has further if he were to have the Tommy Gun. The other weapons will mean that he has all of them on him (does Joseph suddenly have a spatial storage/hammer space and can have on him a tommy gun, greenades, oils, crossbows, etc)? No, he had just a few in each fight - he never had all of them on him.
Ming is also more mobile as he can semi-fly. He can easily get out of Joseph range and then attack him with lightning and his other skills.
Joseph while can increase his AP, he is still a lot lower overall. While Ming is normally at such a high value which is still above what Joseph reaches. If you want to scaling then I also can put over 10 characters that scale higher than the value which the AP is taken from (Monk Ban Chi < then there were lots of higher people in power that were chasing Qin Mu as he returned home, each being stronger than the previous one and they still lost to him who had problem with Ming Xin - if you want I can post the entire scaling but I like more to base on an apparent value).
These guys, you talk about with decades to hundreds of years of experience all fight weekly with foes on their calibre (Thunderclap Monastery, The Khans of the Middleland, The Daoist Sect, The Three Jade Palaces, The Peace Empire, demons, devils, monsters, etc - they have in spade experience with fighting other beings, races, etc), while the three pillars men were the strongest and most of the time they were asleep.