Is the Word of Paul the Word of God?

Title: Is the Word of Paul the Word of God?

Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Peter 3:15-16, Acts 14:8-18

Date: July 23rd, 2009

 

For the past few weeks I’ve been teaching about the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible. I’ll continue on that same subject today. One of the many problems with the Bible that people seem to have today is over the teachings of the Apostle Paul. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked with people who are fine with almost everything the Bible teaches — except for the teachings of the Apostle Paul. And I’m not talking about unbelievers or non-Christians; I’m talking about professed Christians, church members and Bible readers. It seems today the Apostle Paul isn’t a very popular person – even within the Christian church. Now why is that? Why would people in and outside the Christian church have a problem with Paul? There may be many reasons, but probably the main reason why so many people object to the Apostle Paul today is that he speaks forthrightly about controversial topics in his biblical writings. Paul takes the gospel message and explains it in detail and also applies it directly. He speaks bluntly about sin, judgment, God’s wrath, damnation, confession, repentance and faith. He is willing to contend earnestly and argue strongly for the Christian faith. This style of outspokenness and frank truth telling gets Paul into trouble today, as it did in his own day as well. And so we can see how easy it is for some people to question whether the Apostle Paul deserves to have his words categorized as God’s Word in the holy Bible. Now what I’d like to do this morning is answer the question, “Should the words of Paul be considered the Word of God?” I’d like to show that yes indeed the Word of God includes the writings of the Apostle Paul as we have contained in the Bible. And I’d like to clear up some of the misconceptions that people have over the writings of Paul found in the New Testament. I’d like to ask and then answer three questions. First question, “Are we free to disagree with Paul?” I’ll argue that we are not free to disagree with Paul because to do so would be to disagree with a prophet of God speaking the Word of God. Second question, “Are all the writings of Paul the inspired Word of God?” I’ll show that all of the writings of Paul contained in the New Testament are indeed the inspired Word of God. Third question, “Wasn’t Paul just a man?” I’ll prove that Paul was just a man who God chose to inspire for the purpose of bringing forth God’s Word. It seems that most of the problems people have with equating Paul’s writings with the Word of God come from a misunderstanding concerning inspiration and how God inspires the prophets of old to bring forth the Word of God. Another reason why people have a problem with the Apostle Paul today is that they simply don’t like all of what he teaches even though it is perfectly consistent with the other inspired writers of the New Testament. I hope that I can help people understand and appreciate the Apostle Paul better so that they might be able to read, understand and follow his teachings as the Word of God, which it is. It’s simply not acceptable for anyone to pick and choose from within the Bible those parts to believe and follow, yet reject other parts. The fact is the writings of Apostle Paul are part and partial of the Bible; we must believe and follow them. Let’s go further.

 

First, are we free to disagree with the Apostle Paul? 1 Thessalonians 2:13, “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” It’s amazing how many Christians think that it’s perfectly permissible to disagree with the Apostle Paul. Perhaps because he wrote in the form of letters and the somewhat casual style he uses to communicate his message, or maybe because there are places in Paul’s writings where he makes such statements as, “To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)” or “Now about virgins; I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy” or “In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is – and I think that I too have the Spirit of God,” 1 Corinthians 7:12, 25, 40. For whatever reason, people today feel at liberty to dismiss the teachings of Paul in ways they would never do for Jesus and the original disciples – or even Moses and the Old Testament prophets. But they fail to remember that Paul’s writings in the New Testament are considered Sacred Scripture by the disciples and the early church, according to 2 Peter 3:16. And also, the historic Christian church considers Paul’s letters part of the canon of Scripture. So we are not free to pick and choose from different parts of the Bible, accepting Moses and Jesus, for example, while rejecting the Apostle Paul in places and accepting him in other places. 2 Timothy 3:16 says “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and because we know Paul’s writings are included in the canon of Scripture, we therefore must conclude that “All Scripture (including the writings of the Apostle Paul) is given by inspiration of God.” We are not free to disagree with Paul’s teachings, any more than we are free to disagree with Moses’ teaching or Isaiah’s teachings or Peter’s teachings or even Jesus’ teachings, because all these teachings are included in the canon of Holy Scripture. When we receive the teachings of inspired prophets of God as recorded in Scriptures we are actually receiving the very words of God, from God. That’s what 1 Thessalonians 2:13 is saying, “When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God.” So also, we must follow that same pattern. When we receive the teachings of the apostles and the teachings of the Apostle Paul, we are to receive it not merely as the words of men, but also as the very Word of God. To disagree with Paul is to disagree with God. To agree with Paul is to agree with God. It is nothing short of spiritual rebellion to disagree with or reject the teachings of the Apostle Paul. Just because Paul writes in letter form, just because he sometimes speaks casually, just because he talks frankly about a wide variety of controversial issues is no justification for disagreement. However he writes or about whatever topic, his writings are holy writ – and that must be respected. There can be no legitimate disagreement with Paul.

 

Second, are all the writings of Paul the inspired Word of God? 2 Peter 3:15-16, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” I bring this verse up again to point out that the Apostle Peter, in speaking of the Apostle Paul, equates his writings with that of Holy Scripture. And there is no distinction between one particular writing of Paul and another. All of Paul’s writings are considered Scripture, that is, all of the letters we have from Paul included in the canon of Scripture. There were no doubt other letters that Paul had written, but these are not considered Sacred Scripture and thus not included in the canon of Scripture. In this we see the providence and inspiration of God at work. What Christianity teaches is that God inspired certain writers to write certain prophetic writings – these are included in the canon of Scripture. No doubt there were other writings that these holy men wrote but were not considered Sacred Scripture for one reason of another. There is even evidence that Paul himself wrote an additional letter to the Corinthians, but it was not preserved. In the providence of God it must not have been meant to be preserved, or maybe it was not something inspired directly by God as the Word of God. In either case, the early church made a distinction between a prophet writing and a prophet writing the Word of God. So too, the historic Christian church eventually came to recognize authentic Scripture from merely good writings. So in answer to the question, “Are all the writings of the Apostle Paul inspired as the Word of God?” – the answer is that all of Paul’s writings included in the holy canon of Scripture are the Word of God. Nothing in all of the writings of Paul included in the New Testament is anything less than God’s Word. If it were not so then we would need some extra-biblical revelation from God in order to help us distinguish which parts we could trust as the truth and which parts we should not trust as the truth. In other words, we would need scripture beyond scripture to help us determine God’s Word in the Bible. But 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” And everywhere in the Bible Scripture is equated with the Word of God, and the Word of God equated with Scripture. So there really isn’t any justification for considering some teachings of Paul God’s Word and other parts not God’s Word. The early church never made such distinction, the historic church never made a distinction, and neither should we today. The word of Paul in Scripture is the Word of God.

 

Third, wasn’t Paul just a man? Acts 14:11, 14-15, “When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, ‘men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, humans like you. . . .” For some people, viewing Paul’s writings in Scripture as the Word of God is like making Paul out to be something more than a man, but rather making him out to be a god. But that kind of thinking is going to extremes. People will sometimes say, “Stop elevating the man Paul too high. After all, Paul was just a man, not God himself. Stop making his word, the Word of God.” But we could say that about the entire Bible. “Stop equating the words of Moses with the Word of God in the first five books of the Old Testament. Stop equating the words of the prophets Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel with the Word of God; they were after all just men. Stop equating the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John as the Word of God because after all they were just men.” But this kind of argument, again, misses the whole point of divine inspiration and prophetic writings. God chooses certain men to be prophets to record the Word of God. So then, even though they all are mere men, they are used by God to record the Word of God. The prophet Isaiah often says, “This is what the Lord says.” Is that taking too much upon himself as a mere man? No, because he’s fulfilling his role as a prophet. In the same way, the Apostle Paul and the other apostles communicate the Word of God in their writings. In that sense, they too fulfill a prophetic function for God. Even as mere men, they carry out their assigned task of communicating sacred Scripture. This doesn’t mean that they are anything other than men, but it does mean that they were used of God to bring forth the Word of God. So the argument that because Paul was a mere man he shouldn’t be listened to in everything he teaches in the New Testament misses the point of what prophecy is and what divine inspiration is. Nobody is advocating worshiping Paul or elevating him to the status of a god. Paul himself discouraged such a thing in the passage I pointed to at the beginning. But Paul, or for that matter the Apostle Peter, was not hesitant to claim full divine inspiration for their writings. They were conscious of the fact that they were bringing forth the Word of God. And they expected everyone to receive it as the Word of God and not merely the words of men. So we see then there really isn’t any reason for doubting or mistrusting the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. Just as Peter says, there are many things in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand — and with that we can all agree. But let us study harder and think deeper and pray more fervently in an effort to understand more clearly the Word of God brought forth through the writings of the Apostle.

 

As Christians we must ask ourselves whether we are going to be fully obedient to the Word of God or not? The Bible presents to us many challenges. God has chosen to communicate his will and way and word to us through the writings of the prophets in Sacred Scripture. God uses the personalities and vocabularies and styles of the individual prophets to communicate his Word. Many of these different personalities and styles challenge us to be more flexible and think bigger than simply straightforward commands dictated from heaven. For example, in giving the Ten Commandments, God used a rather straightforward style – he etched the Word of God on tablets of stone. But for most of God’s revelation, God’s Word, he used the personalities and styles of the prophets to record his will. There are many different types of revelation recorded in the pages of Sacred Scripture. The Old Testament is God’s Word not because it comes in only one format or style, because it actually comes in many different forms including poetry, proverbs, history, commands – to name only a few. The same with the New Testament. The four Gospels present God’s Word in the form of historical narrative plus spiritual commentary. The Book of Revelations presents a unique challenge to all Christians as it presents the Word of God through the use of signs and symbols. The Apostle Paul’s writings come to us in the form of letters to individuals and different churches. Paul uses different literary techniques in his letters. Sometimes he recounts history and adds spiritual commentary. Other times he presents the Word of God as didactic teaching. Most of the time he is responding to questions presented to him from individuals and churches, or addresses situations and problems that come to his attention. Sometimes Paul is rebuking individuals, at other times he is encouraging. A few places in his writings he seems to be almost cursing false teachers and false prophets. And while these individuals no doubt deserved something in the form of rebuke, it still challenges our thinking to consider such writings as included in the Word of God. But we must because this is how God would have us receive his total revelation. Perhaps a main problem that many people have with the Apostle is that, to their way of thinking unfortunately, Paul wrote too much. His writings make up a such great portion of the entire New Testament. And because he wrote so much he opens himself up to greater criticisms from his critics. But as Christians we must not make ourselves critics of the Bible or biblical authors; we should not sit in judgment of the Bible. But rather, we must permit the Bible, God’s Word, to judge us. God has given us his Word; it comes in many different forms in Scripture. We must receive it as such and submit to it’s final authority – not submit it to our judgment as if we are the authority. God is calling us to humility.