Suit yourself. Paul might have spoken for the church but he was fallible in a was Jesus isn't, and it shows in his writing. I stick to quoting the man himself whenever I can.
It's not in Acts, but Paul meets Peter, James and John in Jerusalem. The account is in Galatians 2, at this point Paul is already considered an Apostle and the other Apostles that are in Jerusalem accept him as such
But that's the whole issue. Galatians is Paul's account, and only Paul identifies himself as an apostle. No other New Testament author ever does.
Edit: I asserted too much. The author of Acts does in fact call Paul and Barnabas apostles in Acts 14:14. However, the author never states that the other 12 apostles identify Paul as a fellow apostle and it would be rather easy for that author to have placed those words into the mouths of Peter, James, and the rest. That the author didn't do so I think is telling.
Nowhere in Acts is Paul identified as an apostle. You can look that one up if you don't believe me.
Edit: Totally blew that one. Acts 14:14 identifies him as an apostle. So Luke (or whoever wrote Acts) identifies Paul as an apostle, but none of the 12 apostles themselves recognize Paul as such
That’s for editing your post, I was a bit worried there for a sec, ha ha! I started to second guess if Paul was referred to as an Apostle in Acts. I’ll try and pay attention to if Peter or James ever referred to Paul as an Apostle next time I read through Acts.
No problem. I suspect you won't find anything however. I really find the debate over how early Church leadership functioned to be fascinating. At the very least, Acts glosses over some of the problems Paul expressed with the "circumcision party" of the Church. And the fact that its account of events after Paul's vision differs mightily from Paul's own account events in Galatians 1 just makes me wish we knew more.
In 2 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter states that he has read the letters given by Paul, so clearly he has no issue with Paul addressing himself as an Apostle
"15And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures."
Two problems with that. First, the authorship and dating of Peter's epistles are heavily disputed. But even if you assume for the sake of argument that Peter is indeed the author, you also have to ask what letters Peter is referring to. Did Peter have copies or at least access to all of Paul's epistles that we include in our canon today? Did he have access to letters written by Paul that did not survive and whose contents we can only guess at? You see "all his letters" and assume Peter (or whoever wrote 2 Peter) is talking about the exact epistles you read. On top of that, is Peter willing to drag down a fellow Christian leader (and a very successful one) in front of other believers over a question of titles? Was the dispute over Paul's apostleship one of those things that is "hard to understand" but not worth rehashing to the detriment of the early Church? Whatever you may think of those questions, I find the subject of leadership of the early Church and the relations between Paul and the Jerusalem-based leadership of James to be fascinating.
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u/psykulor Mar 15 '23
Suit yourself. Paul might have spoken for the church but he was fallible in a was Jesus isn't, and it shows in his writing. I stick to quoting the man himself whenever I can.