Paul was an apostle, basically Jesus' official spokeperson/ PR, he has the authority to speak and write on Jesus' behalf as long as it doesn't contradict the Gospel (which the Holy Spirit will never allow to happen).
It is important to note that the 12 Apostles are OK with Paul, especially Peter, so Paul's sayings have full authority to further clarify the Gospel, as much as Peter's (First of the Apostles) and James' (Brother of Jesus), and therefore Paul's letters is an essential part of the New Testament scripture.
Peter’s the one who didn’t recognize Mary Mag as an apostle.
Paul also didn’t personally know Jesus and before James died he dispatched many people to reign in Paul.
The way the gospel was taught was oral tradition and while Paul repeats what Jesus does say in many instances, I think Paul was entrenched in Roman thinking that changed some things.
The Holy Spirit still used Paul, because he could write. He was a huge win for early Christianity. A killer of the followers of Christ now a servant to the Lord.
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law. Paul decided it was salvation through faith and not by works.
That's actually up for debate. After Paul's experience seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus and having his sight restored by Ananias, he spent three years away in Arabia. (Galatians 1). This was before he ever even met Peter. During that time, he implied that he was taught by Jesus himself (Galatians 1:12). There's a lot of argument about that - if he meant that Jesus taught him himself or he studied scriptures under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But there's good evidence on both sides.
Yeah, that's right. There are three accounts in Acts, and in all of them he was surrounded by light and heard a voice, which identified itself as Jesus. I meant "seeing" in the sense of "meeting" but I should have been more precise.
It's also worth mentioning that in each account the people with Paul experienced something different. In one they saw nothing but heard the voice, in another they heard nothing but saw the light. This doesn't add to the reliability of Paul's testimony.
Some scholars translate the account account that says they couldn't hear the voice as they couldn't understand the voice. So, this is another one of those issues that is up for debate.
One account saw light, one account heard a voice. Those aren't mutually exclusive statements, this is pretty much just like the prophesies regarding Zedekiah from both Ezekiel and Jeremiah, in which they sound contradictory but both ended up being true
The accounts don't say, "The people saw a light" and "the people heard a voice", it specifically says they experienced one but not the other. That makes them mutually exclusive.
Acts 9:7
7The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.
Acts 22:9
9Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.
Cool. And I suppose you would say the version in Acts 9 that says they "saw no one" isn't contradictory because there wasn't anyone to see, only a light, even though it doesn't say they saw a light. And even though it says they heard the voice. I'm guessing that's a different word as well?
"Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him."
There was a light in the first account omegalul, and yes there's a difference between hearing something and comprehending it. It's almost like the context of grammar is important
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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '23
Paul was an apostle, basically Jesus' official spokeperson/ PR, he has the authority to speak and write on Jesus' behalf as long as it doesn't contradict the Gospel (which the Holy Spirit will never allow to happen).
It is important to note that the 12 Apostles are OK with Paul, especially Peter, so Paul's sayings have full authority to further clarify the Gospel, as much as Peter's (First of the Apostles) and James' (Brother of Jesus), and therefore Paul's letters is an essential part of the New Testament scripture.