As Christians, we’re generally well aware that we have to be prepared to answer attacks on God and the Bible. We study apologetics and learn how to refute evolution, the Big Bang theory, critics of Biblical inspiration, etc. One area that doesn’t receive as much of our attention but is growing more valid all the time is the importance of defending Paul’s role in the church today. Many people want to separate Paul from Jesus, to say that he acted of his own accord and wasn’t associated with Jesus or His disciples.
It’s not that this is anything new. Those who are skeptical of the Bible have long mocked the idea that the attributed authors of Bible books were actually connected to those books, meaning Paul supposedly didn’t really write a lot of Paul’s letters. Now the attacks are more direct.
To give a few examples… One attack on Paul I heard recently stated that he was a double agent sent in by the Roman empire to infiltrate the church and turn them astray. Another said that Paul had turned against the Jews and was trying to abolish any influence the Old Testament had. The most intricate theory I’ve heard states that Paul declared himself an apostle and had his friends (such as Luke) help him establish that lie in the first century church. Paul’s connection to Christ was only established by His own stories, so those can’t be trusted, and the other disciples never recognized Him in the NT. But what about 2 Peter 3:15-16, you say? Oh, that doesn’t count because 2 Peter “isn’t a reliable text,” to borrow from the aforementioned biblical critics. So, half of the New Testament is wiped out just like that. Paul is dismissed and his writings are rendered worthless and therefore anything he said has no bearing on us today. Mission accomplished. (Here’s yet another attack on Paul. Here’s a book that claims Paul invented what we know as Christianity. Or, if you really want to see some interesting thoughts, just do a Google search for the phrase “Paul invented Christianity.”)
Why is this necessary? Though the tactic isn’t new, it’s important now for people to separate Paul from Jesus, because “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality” (a claim I refuted here). Because “Jesus didn’t come to establish a religion.” Because “Jesus just wanted His followers to do good, not to set rules.” Simply put, the 21st century cultural picture of Jesus can’t survive if Paul’s words were spoken by inspiration.
No matter how ridiculous the theories and attempts to discredit the Bible (either in its entirety or cherry picked sections), we need to be aware of them and we need to understand how to refute them. So, here’s what we need to keep in mind.
1. God aided the establishment and growth of the early church through the direct guidance of His Spirit (John 16:13, Acts 1).
To say that Paul was able to take Jesus’ message, deceive people into listening to Him, and teach the Gospel in a way that God wouldn’t allow, forever changing the face of Christian discipleship is to say that God was powerless to preserve the purity of Christ’s message. What kind of faith does a person have in Jesus if they agree that He was the perfect Son of God who was sent to die for our sins, but then allowed His entire ministry to be destroyed by a single individual set on creating a new religion?
2. The early church accepted Paul.
Even outside of the Bible’s text, Paul’s writings were widely quoted by church leaders very early on and that’s continued on ever since. We don’t have any evidence of Peter or the other apostles making an effort to stop Paul from teaching or to keep Christians from reading anything he wrote. To assume that they would allow such a blatant false teacher to have such a great influence over the church across the Greek and Roman world is absurd.
3. Paul’s writings fit perfectly with the rest of the NT authors.
If Paul was running his own program and designing his own religion, then it makes no sense that what he wrote would fit so well with what James, Peter, John, and the Hebrew writer wrote. Beyond that, at no point does his writing contradict Christ in any way. Jesus planned to establish His church (Matthew 16:18, also “the kingdom,” in much of Matthew) and promised that the Spirit would be there to guide them as they spread the Good News of His kingdom… but without Paul we would have almost no understanding of how that church is supposed to function. Just because Paul penned some of the more unpopular truths in the New Testament doesn’t mean he can be tossed aside.
Again, it’s important that we understand ways in which people will try to discredit the Bible and avoid submitting to its teachings. As people try to disassociate Jesus from Paul, let’s help them see the necessity in the entirety of the Scriptures and that God has ordained all of it as useful and necessary for our walk with Him.
By Jack Wilkie