Did Paul write a ‘different’ gospel, and should we listen to him?
Paul.
Such a misunderstood and accused brother in Christ. He is a pillar of our faith, an instrument in the hand of the Lord, and a faithful servant of Christ to the end. His ministry is so impactful and fruitful that the foundation he has laid continues to bear fruit to this very day.
Of all the New Testament (NT) scriptures, Paul’s writings have likely drawn the most criticism. Paul’s writings have been contested by Muslims, Jews, and now even certain “Christian” denominations and movements; primarily due to Paul’s teachings on homosexuality (men going to bed with men, more accurately), female roles in the church, and his claims of “saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.”
Paul was criticized by the early church as well:
“For some say, 'His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive, and his speaking amounts to nothing’ (2 Corinthians 10:10, NIV).”
Many people, even in the early church, took Paul’s words out of context. The apostle Peter put it this way:
“Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15-16, BSB).”
Paul was accused and persecuted by his own, the Jews,
“Men of Israel, help! This is the man [Paul] who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place (Acts 21:28, ESV).”
“And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him [Paul] to strike him on the mouth (Acts 23:2, ESV).”
“When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than 40 who made this conspiracy (Acts 23:12-13, ESV).”
Paul was arrested, stoned, shipwrecked, and brought before the council, Felix the Governor, Agrippa, Festus, Bernice, and had to appeal to Caesar due to his accusers, his fellow Jews.
“Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar—though I had no charge to bring against my nation (Acts 28:17-19, ESV).”
Islamic theologians claim Paul to be a heretic due to Paul’s claims of Christ’s divinity and teachings of the trinity:
“The heretical Paul of Tarsus was not mentioned in the Quran by name for reasons only God knows, but he is certainly pointed out in his deeds and teachings. We can group him in with the others of his time who took the beautiful teachings of Jesus and bastardized them for their purposes (Dayo, 2020).”
To this day, Muslims gloss over the claims of divinity that Christ made of Himself. Further, it was ultimately Christ’s claim of equality with God that was why He was crucified (for blasphemy). Therefore, Paul’s deification of Christ was in alignment with the teachings of Christ:
“So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple (John 8:57-59).”
And again, the Gospel accounts show us that the religious Jews knew exactly what Christ was claiming:
The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God (John 10:33, ESV).”
The Gospels are accepted by Islam and the Quran, and it is the Gospels (Jesus’s own words) that claim His divinity. That did not originate with Paul. So when Islam and others accuse Paul of ‘making up’ Christ’s divinity (being God), this is clearly inaccurate.
And to this day, even those who call themselves Christians are denying the words of Paul. They believe that the teachings of Paul contradict the teachings of Christ, but that is a gross misunderstanding of Paul.
This point is addressed further below.
Paul’s Conversion
To begin, we must remember Paul’s background in Judaism and his conversion to Christianity.
According to Paul, he was zealous for the law and well-read in the Old Testament (OT). He was also “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; (Phil. 3:5, ESV).”
Prior to Paul converting to Christianity, he was a persecutor of the Church and even approved of the first documented Christian Martyr:
“Now Saul [Paul] approved of putting Stephen to death (Acts 8:1, ESV).
He was not seeking Christ or interested in Christianity whatsoever until he encountered the risen Christ on his road to Damascus to further persecute the Church (Acts 9).
The disciples did not even trust Paul’s conversion at first:
“And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him (Acts 9:26-29, NKJV).”
Paul’s conversion to Christianity was significant. A Pharisee persecuting the Church, turning to then preach Christ meant that not only did the church have to take some time to trust him, but Paul’s own life became at risk due to the Jews now wanting him dead for what he was preaching.
The Disciples Received Paul as a Brother and Died For the Faith
One piece of evidence that Paul’s letters were considered inspired holy scriptures is the confirmation from other disciples. We know that the disciples did receive Paul as a brother and even counted his letters as scripture.
Peter, the one whom Jesus said in Matthew 16:18,
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” acknowledged his brother, Paul, as a partner in the gospel (2 Peter 3:15).
Paul gained everything in Christ and counted everything else as a loss. He even gave his very life up as a martyr because he had encountered the risen Jesus. While many people have died for their faith through the centuries, such as Islamic martyrs, Paul lived as a contemporary of the actual historical event of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He went from fighting what he thought was a fringe, blasphemous Jewish movement to preaching and dying for the same movement. Paul converted after encountering Christ alive and well, and as Lord.
While someone may die for something they hope is true,
no one will die for something they know is a lie.
While Scripture does not specifically mention Paul’s martyrdom, there are hints in both the book of Acts and 2 Timothy 4:6-8 that Paul knew his death was imminent. Extra biblically, there is evidence from 1 Clement 5:5-7 (c. AD 95-96) where the writer describes Paul as suffering tremendously for his faith and then being “set free from this world and transported up to the holy place, having become the greatest example of endurance.”
Other early evidence for the martyrdom of Paul can be found in Ignatius (Letter to the Ephesians 12:2), Polycarp (Letter to the Philippians 9:1-2), Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25.4), Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3.1.1), The Acts of Paul, and Tertullian (Scorpiace 15:5-6) (McDowell, 2015).
Paul Did NOT Teach Another Gospel
The New Testament comprises the gospels and epistles from the eyewitness accounts of the disciples and apostles. Paul’s letters, in particular, outnumber those of all other NT writers and play a significant role in bringing understanding of the Gospel message, the meaning of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, identity, and future for the Church. Keep in mind, the NT was being written during this time, so they only had the OT to reason and learn from.
“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures (Acts 17:1-2)…”
Many spiritual realities were not understood until after the resurrection. As a matter of fact, the disciples waited 50 days until they received ‘power from on high’ when they received the Holy Spirit of God to empower their ministry and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 2). There were many moments that as the disciples were learning from Christ, they did not understand until later. Jesus explicitly tells his disciples:
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come (John 16:12).”
The Spirit of Truth came at Pentecost after Jesus’s ascension to Heaven.
Even though Paul was not present on the day of Pentecost, God called him shortly after to be a foundational piece in the spread of the Gospel message. During Paul’s ministry, we can clearly see that Paul taught from the Old Testament (OT).
Christ had opened Paul’s eyes to perceive the fulfillment of prophecy and the law in the OT scriptures.
As a matter of fact, we see Christ doing these very things for some disciples in Luke’s account of the road to Emmaus. In Luke’s account, after Jesus resurrected and was appearing to people, Jesus was walking along the road with some men as they discussed what had happened, and He began teaching them, without them being able to see who they were speaking with. Jesus said to them,
“Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:26-32, NIV)
The Gospel message has been there all along, but the scriptures say that a veil will lie over people's eyes so they cannot perceive it.
“Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? (Mark 8:18)”
It is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to see Christ in all things, including the fulfillment of the OT message and the promise to bring redemption to the entire world through grace.
Paul did not teach another gospel but brought further understanding to the OT prophetic fulfillment of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He helped people see what Christ accomplished and what the future holds for believers and unbelievers.
For example, the entire book of Galatians helps Gentile believers understand they are justified by grace through faith, not the works of the law. He taught from Genesis (Sarah/Hagar/Abraham) to help them understand the Promise that had been hidden this entire time. Paul reasoned from the Old Testament; he was not creating a different teaching:
“When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers. From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets (Acts 28:23).”
Not only that, but Paul also attested to Jesus’s life (Blomberg, 432).
- He was born human (Romans 9:5)
- To a woman under the law, that is, a Jew (Galatians 4:4)
- That he was a descendant of David (Romans 1:3, 15:12)
- He had brothers, including one named James (1 Corinthians 9:15, Galatians 1:19)
- That he had a meal on the night he was betrayed (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)
- That he was crucified and died on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:23, Romans 4:25, 1 Thess. 2:15)
- He was buried (1 Corinthians 15:40)
- Raised 3 days later (1 Corinthians 15:4, Romans 4:25, 1 Thess. 4:14)
- And that afterward, Jesus was seen by Peter, the disciples, and others (1 Corinthians 15:5-7)
- Confirmed Christ’s teachings (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)
The risen Christ opened Paul’s eyes to see Him in all things, including the OT prophecy and law; to the point God had to keep him humble, because He was granting Paul deep, profound, and hidden revelation…sometimes too wonderful to even utter (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Paul is so highly honored by Christ that he will be one of the foundations in the New Jerusalem, “and the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21:14, ESV).”
The Lord also told Paul how much he was going to suffer for Him, “For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name (Acts 9:16, ESV).”
The Historical Reliability of Paul’s Letters
The early church had already adopted what they deemed as scripture, written by the Apostles, including all of Paul’s letters. One piece of evidence is the early church fathers’ writings (Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement) that, when combined, account for 95% of the New Testament (Strobel, 87).
According to Daniel B. Wallace, Executive Director of CSNTM & Senior Research Professor of NT Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary,
“We have thousands (at least 20,000) of handwritten Greek manuscripts reaching as far back as the 2nd century and others in Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and other ancient languages (6,000 in Greek alone). We also have more than 1,000,000 quotes of the NT by Church Fathers. To compare, no other manuscript from the Greco-Roman ancient world comes close to that type of data, such as manuscripts within a century or two of the original (New Testament Transmission, 2014).”
Paul’s letters are among the earliest documents we have, dating back to 50 AD.
(Blomberg, 298)
Even skeptics like Bart Ehrman concede that 7 of Paul’s letters are widely accepted by scholars as written by Paul himself (Ehrman, 2012):
- Romans
- 1 and 2 Corinthians
- Galatians
- Philippians
- 1 Thessalonians
- Philemon
Further, the Gospel writers attest to the legitimacy of Paul and his writings:
· Mark was a scribe for Peter, who was a first-hand disciple of Jesus.
· Matthew was a first-hand disciple of Jesus, written between 60 and 70 AD, using 90% of Mark’s account.
· Luke’s gospel was written to gentile believers around 70 AD, who was also the scribe for Paul, a first-hand eyewitness of Jesus, and used 50% of Mark’s account.
· Paul had a first-hand encounter with Christ and is the author of 14 of the 27 New Testament books.
· Peter was a close disciple of Christ and the author of 1-2 Peter.
· Peter confirmed Paul’s letters as scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16
Paul’s writings were so significant in the development of the early church that there was pseudo texts attributed to Paul:
(1) In 2 Thess 2:2, Paul says he rejects false letters. He mentions his “distinguishing mark” to help readers know it is an authentic letter from Paul.
(2) The early church writers were very concerned with authentic letters. Some letters (not in the Biblical canon) claiming to have been written by Paul were not. For example, the Acts of Paul were written by a Bishop who was removed from office because he wrote in Paul’s name. Pseudographical texts were never accepted as scripture.
Conclusion
The argument cannot stand that we should reject Paul’s writings because of the historical reliability of his letters, the acceptability of the other disciples, or his teachings about Jesus. Paul’s letters are historically reliable ancient documents, agreed to have been written by the Apostle Paul himself within the living memory of Jesus Christ. We can clearly see that the early church and the disciples accepted him as a brother and took his words as scripture. It is also clear that Paul did not teach anything that Christ did not claim himself in the Gospels or in the OT.
I assume people reject Paul because they cannot see the gospel in the OT, or because they dislike Paul’s teachings altogether. The latter reasons should not be held as proper reasoning, as Paul’s words help us understand Christ’s heart, and we are able to see the mysteries hidden for ages in the OT text through Paul’s ministry.
Dayo, Kaighla Um. “Why Isn’t Apostle Paul Mentioned in the Quran?” About Islam, 10 Mar. 2020,
Strobel, Lee. 2016. In Defense of Jesus. Zondervan
Blomberg, Craig L, and Robert B Stewart. 2016. The Historical Reliability of the New
Testament : Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs. Nashville: B & H
Academic.
“New Testament Transmission.” 2014. Daniel B. Wallace. December 28, 2014. https://danielbwallace.com/tag/new-testament-transmission/.
McDowell, Sean. 2018. “Was Paul Beheaded in Rome?” Sean McDowell. May 23, 2018. https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/was-paul-beheaded-in-rome.