Apostles With Authority
These past few weeks, and with still more to come, we have studied Jesus’ selection of the apostles. There is no fair argument from scripture that the words of the apostles are any less authoritative than the words of Jesus. Despite this, there is no shortage of arguments claiming that Jesus deserves more trust than the men He chose to author His story. This is especially true of Paul, the apostle chosen out of due time. He became a Christian after the crucifixion and is the most well-known defender of the Christian faith.
We read of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 while he travelled on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. A bright light shined on him, and Jesus in His glory spoke to him. The resurrected Christ appointed him as a preacher of the gospel especially to the Gentile nations. This appointment vested Paul with no less authority than the original apostles chosen during Christ’s ministry (Galatians 1:11-17; 2:6-9). God has His purposes, and we are at loss to determine the reason most of the apostles wrote nothing recorded as scripture while Paul wrote more of the New Testament than any other. Jesus and Paul are the two most prominent people in the New Testament. Luke who wrote his gospel account also wrote the Acts of the Apostles in which Paul dominates after chapter 12. To pit Jesus against Paul is to make warring factions that would destroy the unity and credibility of the entire New Testament.
Peter who was the central figure of the original apostles declared the letters of Paul were scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). When Jesus commissioned the apostles, He said to his disciples: “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me” (Luke 10:16). Jesus did not personally record any of His sermons, He never made a note of them, He never wrote about His birth, death, and resurrection. Neither did He record the everyday conversations with His apostles or with the common people. Every statement He made to the religious leaders and to any person—every piece of information we have about Him comes from the apostles whether in the gospels, the epistles, or Revelation. The source materials for both Mark and Luke are the remembrances of the apostles. Thus, we understand that if the apostles are incorrect about any information, the are suspect in their entire Christology.
The most often attacked apostle is Paul. There are those who say they love Jesus, but Paul is a different story. Their objection arises from their misunderstanding of both. Their Jesus is malleable to conform to whatever they wish Him to be. They speak of His love and compassion without knowledge that love without justice is not only meaningless but exceedingly harmful. There is no love in God without the accompaniment of all His attributes. God is love (1 John 4:8), therefore He exercises justice in love. He exercises punishment in love. It sounds contradictory, but without it, His people suffer bad company forever.
Paul gets his bad rap mostly for his rigid posture on social issues—feminism and homosexuality being the top two complaints. To rid ourselves of Paul’s teachings on these subjects is to oppress women and elevate the most heinous crimes found in scripture. The abandonment of the divine order of our social structure and God’s design for human relationships causes the hastening of the justice of judgment (Romans 1:28-32).
Read the Bible with the understanding the authors spoke under the authority of the divine author. Their words are His words for acceptance and obedience without question.
Pastor V. Mark Smith