Jeff

Oct 04, 2024

I remember a conversation I had many years ago—it was during a small group Bible study at a church I attended during my college years. Someone tossed out a statement that caught me off guard—something to the effect of “We should prioritize Jesus’s words over Paul’s because Paul just had his own opinions, not the authority of Jesus.”

I sat there, trying to process the sheer misunderstanding embedded in that statement. Being raised in church, but not truly converted at the time, I was a little dumbfounded that there were “church people” who believed this.

Since then, I’ve continued to see variations of this claim pop up, particularly from those who are fond of the red-letter editions of the Bible. You know the ones—the folks who seem to believe that the words printed in red ink are somehow holier than the rest. It’s like they think the Bible is a restaurant menu where the ‘chef’s specials’ are in red, and the rest is just filler. So, let’s tackle this head-on.

Just a few years ago, it was Beth Moore pitting Paul against Christ while trying to justify her own egalitarian views. But here’s the latest iteration from Kevin M. Young—our favorite “progressive Christian” of the day.

I’ve got to ask—when did we start pretending that God’s Word is some kind of theological hierarchy where certain parts have a higher rank than others? This isn’t a game of “pick your favorite verses.” Yet, that’s exactly what this line of thinking implies.

People toss around this idea that Paul’s words are just the ramblings of a man, less authoritative than the words of Jesus, as though Paul was some rogue apostle scribbling down his hot takes on papyrus.

But here’s the reality. All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). It’s not a buffet where we load up on the verses that fit our preconceived notions and skip over the ones that make us uncomfortable. All Scripture.

When people say we should “only listen to Jesus,” what they’re really saying is they don’t want to listen to all of what God has to say. Because, let’s be clear—Paul’s words are God’s words. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit. And it’s not just Paul making that claim either, it’s the apostolic testimony. Peter himself refers to Paul’s letters as Scripture in 2 Peter 3:15-16, mentioning how some people twist Paul’s words just as they do “the other Scriptures.”

Notice that?

Peter puts Paul’s writings on the same level as the Old Testament. So, when someone comes along and tries to downplay Paul’s authority, they’re not just arguing with Paul—they’re arguing with Peter, the very disciple who walked with Jesus.

And while we’re on this subject, let’s address the notion that Paul’s teachings are somehow disconnected from Jesus’s words. So, are we just going to ignore the fact that Jesus directly commissioned Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9)? Or that Paul received the gospel “not from any man, but by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12)?

Are we to believe that the same Jesus who called Paul to be His apostle was suddenly okay with Paul running around preaching half-truths and personal opinions? It’s almost comical—Paul’s writings are saturated with Christ’s teachings. The very gospel Paul preached is the gospel of Jesus. It’s not some “Pauline addendum” to the Christian faith—it is the Christian faith.

I’ve witnessed this tendency to pit Jesus against Paul in theological discussions more times than I care to count. It’s as if people think they’ve found some clever loophole—“Well, Jesus never said anything about this issue, but Paul did, so we can ignore it.”

Oh, how convenient, especially to the LGBTQ-affirming crowd. The Brandan Robertsons and the Matthew Vineses. I suppose we’re just going to overlook that Jesus Himself declared that He came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).

And what did Paul do in his letters? He unpacked the full implications of Jesus’s fulfillment of the Law. He didn’t invent new doctrines out of thin air, he articulated the gospel as the fulfillment of everything Jesus taught and everything the Old Testament foreshadowed.

Let’s take a closer look at the actual content of Paul’s letters. Are we really going to sit here and pretend that his teachings on justification by faith, the nature of the church, and the resurrection of the dead are some sort of second-rate theology? Sadly, many do.

Paul’s words echo the teachings of Christ in ways that are sometimes more direct and confrontational than what we see in the gospels. When Paul talks about the depravity of man (Romans 3), the supremacy of Christ (Colossians 1), or the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5), he’s not spouting off personal opinions. He’s drawing from the wellspring of divine revelation. It’s like saying the apostles didn’t understand the gospel they were called to preach because they didn’t have a direct transcription of the Sermon on the Mount on hand.

And don’t even get me started on the hypocrisy of those who claim they’re only interested in “Jesus’s words.” If that’s the case, then why do they happily lean on Paul’s writings whenever it suits their arguments? They’ll quote 1 Corinthians 13 to talk about love but want to dismiss Paul’s teachings on sexual morality in the same letter.

They’ll use Galatians 3:28 to push a social justice view of “equality,” while conveniently ignoring how Paul explicitly states the created order in marriage and the church. It’s a buffet-line theology, through and through.

But it still begs the question—why are people so eager to dismiss Paul? Could it be that Paul’s words cut a little too close to the bone, exposing the very sins and rebellious hearts and attitudes that modern culture wants to normalize?

You see, the real problem isn’t with Paul or with his so-called “inferiority” to Jesus. The real problem is that people don’t want to submit to the full counsel of God. They want a Jesus who fits neatly into their own ideological boxes—a Jesus who only speaks through the passages they like, the ones that don’t step on their toes.

But the moment you start pitting one part of God’s Word against another, you’ve already lost. Scripture interprets Scripture. The New Testament writers, including Paul, were led by the same Holy Spirit who inspired the prophets and the gospel writers. The notion that we can somehow separate Paul’s authority from Christ’s is not only intellectually vacuous— it’s spiritually dangerous.

If Paul isn’t authoritative, then we’re left with a pick-and-choose religion, where we become the arbiters of truth over the God who is truth. So, let’s cut to it, to deny the authority of Paul’s writings is to deny the authority of God Himself. It’s an all-out rebellion against the Lordship of Christ, who commissioned Paul to preach and teach the gospel.

You want to stand on the words of Jesus? Great! Then take Him at His Word when He says He would send His Spirit to guide us into all truth (John 16:13). Or do we think the Holy Spirit somehow failed in guiding Paul?

At the end of the day, there’s really no wiggle room here. You either accept all of God’s Word as fully authoritative, or you set yourself up as a judge over Scripture. And trust me, that never ends well.

So, let’s stop this charade of trying to pit Jesus against Paul. It’s not clever. It’s not nuanced. It’s just wrong … and dumb. And more than that, it’s a rejection of the very Word of God that reveals the only gospel that saves.