Must We Allow Paul to Contradict Jesus Because God Has Allowed Paul in Canon? Ep 1: Questioning Paul

Elevating Jesus over Paul: Handling Objections



Hi Anonymous

Well, you appear to be asking how to overcome the objection that the Bible we received must be accepted in its present form because God supposedly would not allow this to exist unless it was His will. Am I close to identifying the point you anticipate will be raised against ignoring Paul?



Of course, this objection has no Bible support itself. It is just a human doctrine.

It may be influenced by the mistranslation of 2 Tim. 3:16 -- rendered as "All scripture is inspired of God." But in Greek, the KJV inferred IS there where it did not belong. It truly reads "all scripture inspired of God is useful," etc. See link.

First, it was always absurd to say all "scripture" -- a word simply meaning a writing - is inspired, as that would mean my email here, and yours to me would be inspired because they are writings too. This is why Tyndale in 1536 rendered this from the Greek -- as was the Latin translation too -- only that "all inspired scripture is profitable," etc. Id.

More important is the following information to challenge the human supposition behind this objection you allude to:

1. In 1885, the King James Bible removed several books that were included in the 1611 KJV Bible. See link.

So did God make a mistake for 274 years? or did He allow us to make a mistake for 274 years? It necessarily is the latter, because God does not make mistakes.



2. Also, reading Jesus over Paul is a proper Protestant hermeneutic if we follow even Luther's principle of how to read canon when one passage contradicts another. We just make a different choice than Luther did on who is our sole teacher.



When Luther started the reformation, and did not merely correct Catholic errors on indulgencies and baptism for justification, Luther relied upon Paul to change salvation doctrine to faith alone. Luther did so by claiming Paul was in "advance" of Jesus and Moses. Luther recognized that Paul contradicted both. Thus, Luther for the first 17 years of the Reformation taught that it is proper we read Paul, and we can ignore the Jesus speaking in Mark, Luke & John who was "behind" Paul in wisdom and inspiration.



First, read this from Luther:

“There is no man living on Earth Who knows how to distinguish between The law and the gospel … even the man Jesus Christ was so wanting in Understanding when he was in the vineyard that an angel had to console him though he was a doctor from heaven he was strengthened by the angel.” (Luther, Luther Works 54, 127.)



Second, read this from Luther in the 1522 Preface to the NT: "the Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter are far in advance of the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke." See "Luther's Criticism of Scripture," The Bibliotheca sacra (Dallas Theological Seminary: 1906) Volume 63 at 18, citing Luther Preface to the New Testament from E.A. lxii, 137.)



You can see the word "advance" is used in the last quote similar to how Luther in the first quote says Jesus is "wanting" in "understanding" on the Law which obviously Luther thought only Paul supposedly understood was abrogated. Jesus is therefore supposedly behind Paul in wisdom and inspiration, so Luther implied. The driving wedge was Jesus' adherence to the Law.



Luther explained not only why he prefers Paul over Jesus of the Gospels, but also why he picks Paul over James who is also in the Bible -- James and Paul too contradict:



Many sweat hard at reconciling James with Paul, but unsuccessfully. ‘Faith justifies [Romans 3:28] stands in flat contradiction of ‘faith that does not justify’ [James 2:24.] If anyone can harmonize these sayings, I’ll put my doctor’s cap on him and let him call me a fool....Flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture, it [James] ascribes righteousness to works, and says Abraham was justified by his works, in that he offered his son Isaac [James 2:21], though St. Paul, on the contrary teaches in Romans 4 [vv. 2-3], that Abraham was justified without works, by faith alone, before he offered his son, and proves it by Moses in Genesis 15 [v.6]. [Quoted in Jason Von Vliet, Living Waters from Ancient Springs: Essays in Honor of Cornelis Van Dam (Wipf & Stock Publishers 2011) at 103.] [FOOTNOTE 1]



FOOTNOTE 1: By the way, Paul misread Genesis 15:6. Abraham attributed God's giving him a baby in old age to the righteousness of God. It was not God attributing righteousness to Abraham for believing God would do this. See link. END FOOTNOTE.

[michelemoneywell]

Summary -- Can we question whether Paul's writings are inspired by God? Since they are in the New Testament, doesn't that mean they belong there as inspired?
1. The canon was put together by men.
2. 17 books have been removed.
3. Doesn't make sense to use Paul's writings to defend him.
4. The "all scripture" verse has an "is" added.Should be All writing that is inspired by God is profitable (along that line).
5. Martin Luther was against James because James contradicted Paul. He later changed his stance.
6. If Paul contradicts Jesus, we should go with Jesus, as he is the higher authority.
7. Deuteronomy says there are false prophets as a test to who truly loves God.
8. Peter called Paul's writings just that -- writings. Doesn't mean holy, inspired, or Scripture. Calls him brother, not apostle. Says Paul's writings are confusing. See Jesus' Words Only video on faint praise.
9. James says faith without works is dead. Paul says saved by grace alone. Can't both be right.
10. The 4th Gospel writer (attributed to John but could be Lazarus) said the focus should be in the message, not the Messenger. Paul emphasized the person and rarely if at all quoted Yahushua (Jesus).

Thank you for your work. If you can either edit out long gaps of silence or put up something to read during the gaps, your excellent videos would be even better.

[wengercleopatra]

The church should be called Paulianity

[andrewclemons]

Doug do you have a website a guy could refer to? Also do you have a video with your thoughts/research on the Jerusalem council

[mikedollinger]

It all comes down to faith & child like faith. Jesus is the way the truth and the life

[gamewizard]

God didn't make Paul's letters Canon, the papacy did.

[bridgerbergman]

is the test of Deut 13, and the Wheat and the Tares in Matt 13.

[victorguzman]

This is one of the many things that cause people to stop believing. Why? Too many contradictions, errors, plagiarism and of course lies. Now, anybody can reject whatever they don’t like from the Bible, as Luther did, and also the writers of the King James Bible did as well, so why not to reject everything and live a much better life without worrying what’s going to happen to you if you don’t know either
Being a good person is all that it takes to live a good and fulfilling life. That’s all you need. You don’t need religion to be a good person. On the contrary. Religions turn good people into haters and criminals. Forget religion and allow other people to live their lives in peace without trying to impose religion on them, especially through oppressive and criminal “laws” based precisely on religion.

[bibledefinedbymartycozad]

If we are wrong, then we will be saved by grace alone. LOL

[jayupton]

You truly are a machine Mr. Del Tondo, putting out all of this high-quality content and information. You are indeed planting the seeds of a Second Reformation, which is necessary to save Christianity from what it has become. Thank you for all your work.

I have also started encouraging Christians to question the Canon, realizing after much deliberation that there is simply no way to reconcile Paul with Jesus. I usually go about pointing how long the process took, nearly 400 years until the "orthodox" church officially recognized the 66 books of the Biblical Canon. And as you point out, at times other books were considered canonical along the way. As long as people view every word (or author) of the Bible to be equally authoritative with every other word, it will be impossible to deal with Paul's contradictions.

[stevenschmitz]

Luke 8:6 some fell among a rock (petra, mass of rock, G4073 come s from G4074 petros, a small stone or boulder, Peter.

They have no moisture. Used only once in NT. In OT it can mean hot. One use is coming inflamed with idolatry (Isaiah 57:5).
Is this verse a play on words?

[SixSevenPodcast]

This one might be your most solid case to date. What’s the best way to get in contact with you? Email or DM or what? I think I know how to fix the audio gap issues

[simplysavvylife]

Continue to enjoy your content even if I don't share exactly all of your perspectives I'd like to see you dig into the matter of the Bible being "The Word of God" or not- the difference between Inspired human writing, human selections for cannon under political pressure, and the actual living Word, the Utterance of God- which I hope you will find and argue are different things, and the many arguments insisting God owes or promised "His Word" in the form of an inerrant book (which could even be categorized as an idol made of wood) are unfounded. Also to think the truth will be discerned by others and handed to us on a silver platter that we don't have to demonstrate the care, love and consideration to bother finding it ourselves even if only by discerning the Bible as opposed to thinking every word must be true, using mental gymnastics to try and make them mesh, thus watering down the truth.
Another good topic would be monotheism versus the false Trinity .

[MessiahWordsOnly]

This is a video that needs to be repeated often. Once Paul is proven to have no validity retractors of Jesus' words cannot cite a Pauline passage to prove anything. All mentioned in this video are powerful. I also like to bring up Yahweh choosing Yahshua as the Messiah and commanding we obey him. Yahweh is the only god and his authority is the highest so whatever he commands ends any argument. Paul is not the Messiah. People on Facebook are continually sending me quotes of Paul and I ask why would you quote anything this man says. Yahshua is the one to quote because Yahweh told us.

[narcissistinjurygiver]

did you ever do a vid about how when questioned about what Paul taught he denied what he taught? he lied when on trial and he lied to the 12 about what he taught.

[DEO]

Here's another example of Paul showing us who he is...
Jesus says:
[Mar 12:17 KJV] 17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

Paul says:
[Act 25:11 KJV] 11 For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.

[eew]

I thought Abraham was approved at Genesis 12. He didn't have to wait until the "sacrifice" of Isaac

[ottom.]

Were countless people whom Jesus healed and forgave their sins - healed and forgiven because of their works or faith and grace? It’s faith and grace. Once we are re-born in Christ we are to live in the Spirit and deny the flesh; which means following the 10 commandments. Rich man asked Jesus how do you have eternal life. Jesus said keep the commandments. If you love me - obey the commandments - Jesus. Jesus saved you through grace and faith - and if you love him for that then wouldn’t you try and follow the commandments? Paul says in Galatians chapter 5 if we go back to old self - sins of the flesh - then we are no longer going to inherit the kingdom of God. Just like Jesus said in his parables - “not everyone that calls me Lord, Lord, will inherit the Kingdom.” So there is literally no contradiction. The confusion is “saved through grace and faith” order of operations. Once the Father draws us to Christ - our previous sins are washed away by the Blood of our Messiah - if we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Therefore, we are saved by the Grace of God (James and Gospel of John confirm Grace), and not our previous works we did leading up to the revelation of Christ in our lives. Afterwards, we are to live in the spirit, and follow the commandments.

[wesleyadams]

May God have mercy on your deceived soul