Is Paul's writings apart of scripture?

Peter believed Paul's writings were inspired.

2Pe 3:15And account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation; even as our beloved [b]brother Paul[/b] also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

2Pe 3:16As also in all [his] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, [b]as [they do] also the other scriptures,[/b] unto their own destruction.

Greetings Dear Saints in Jesus' Name by Whose BLood we are Saved.AMEN.

sis Jeannette indeed as the word says, all scripture is breathed of God so even where Paul said that he and not the Lord had said certain things, he remained under the inspiration of Holy Spirit. Paul experienced God in such a manner that it left him with an abundance of Revelation Knowledge of God so even the way he reasoned things was affected by that to the point where God could speak through him without necessarily say to him "write this". in essence Paul knew what God would have him say in a certain situation because of the closeness of the relationship with God.

Grace and Peace are ours in Jesus.AMEN.

Compliments wrote:

My question for everyone is, do you believe that Paul's writings are considered scripture.

Thank you

How many of us have spoken inspiration to someone and we didn't even know that it was inspirational?

[b]Gal 1:12[/b] [color=990000]For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it(by man), but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.[/color]

It is more like they Knew God and/or Christ along with the Old Testement so well that they wrote the Truth that axactly agrees with Who, what, and how God is.
God gives the Scriptures that they wrote authority to be His Word because the Apostles had authority.

2Tim 3:16a [color=990000]All scripture is inspired by God..[/color]
Like prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledg.

There was a wife of a witch Dr. in Africa that my pastor lead to the Lord through an interpreter, she didn't know a bit of English. Once she was saved, she was afraid of her husband and she spoke in perfect English "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, says the LORD."(Isa 54:17)

The Holy Spirit did not "control" her mind or toungue, She yielded herself to the Spirit and He gave her the utterance. So it is with the Holy Scriptures.
The Holy Spirit "dictated" to the authors what he wanted them to write through impressing on the author what the mind and heart of God is.

There was no mind control but a yeilding of spirits.

I am posting this because a member of my immediate family believes that somethings that Paul wrote were indeed inspired, while other times he was causing more trouble by saying, "I, not the LORD" as in 1Cor 7:12.

Notice what Luke said in the beginning of hid Gosple:
[b]Luke 1:3-4 [color=990000]It seemed good to me[/b] also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, [b]to write to you[/b] in order, most excellent Theophilus, That you might know the certainty of those things, in which you have been instructed.[/color]
God did't compel the authors to write.
They wrote from what was on their haerts concerning certain matters.

16For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:16-21

So what is the Bible? Does it represent a hallmark of mere human literary achievement? Or is it indeed the inspired word of God, that is without error or contradiction, having been inspired and preserved by God himself?

If you adhere to the former, then there is a logical fallacy. If man's relationship with God is indeed fully conditional on the part of free will, and hence man at any time could fall into sin and thus lose his salvation altogether, why should we trust the inspiration of the Bible when in fact it's authors could have at any time simply lost their standing before God? Would not such a possibility open the door for the probability of the Bible not being fully inspired and innerant?

How can we say that the inspiration of scripture was genuinely safeguarded from human error unless God himself intervened in the thought processes of free men?

On the otherhand, if the above were not the case and scripture was written by people who had attained sinless perfection without God needing to directly intervene in their thinking, 2 Peter 1:16-21 would have to be wrong, thus making the Bible contradictory and containing error.

It is also interesting to note how Peter regarded scripture; he saw the manifest glory of the Son of God with his own eyes, yet even so, he held God's inspired word as being more trustworthy than his own subjective experience.
By saying that "no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation", he immediately shoots down any idea of bias within the scriptures on the part of the author. I've been to a lot of Bible studies where instead of examining the texts via historical and grammatical contexts, the focus is "What does it say to you", as though when you examine the scriptures according to personal opinion there may be the possibility of a subjective insight, and when these insights are mutually shared in a group setting the whole group supposedly becomes edified. Simple fact of the matter is that the Bible isn't written that way in the first place! (This is yet another reason why the Emerging Church's postmodern take on things is so erroneous).

[b][color=FF0000]I Corinthians 14:37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, (let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.)[/color][/b]

I think Paul makes it pretty clear in this verse that when he writes, it should be taken as though God himself is speaking.

So you either have to accept all that he says, or throw out all he says.

this is like asking is flour apart of a cake?

If we can assume higher criticism's position of judgement over the content of the New Testament', insisting that there is a disparity of credibility between the 4 Gospels and the New Testament letters, then we must ultimately share higher criticism's conclusion that Paul invented Christianity; a proprietary concocted religion that is distinct from Jesus' oringinal intentions.

In short, the New Testament letters are either God's word, or they are antique writings with no more authority then any other ancient scrolls. We might as well include the sayings and ethics of Jesus as presented in the gnostic gospels too. Without the New Testament letters we have little cause to believe in justification through the righteousness of God by faith, the crucifixion and resurrection life of Christ and the walk in the Spirit, the Gospel’s triumph over inherent sin, (Romans) the Gospel of Grace (Galatians), the believers position in Christ through faith, or revelation concerning the body of Christ (Ephesians), the experiencial and authenticating relationship between faith and works in true religion,(James) or the qualifications and functions of elders and the pastoral work of a true elder (Philemon).

We've mentioned a related topic in previous threads but it makes sense to bring it up here. The inspiration to hilight Jesus' human laranyx utterances with red ink in our bibles is not divine, but commercial...about a hundred years ago some enterprising publisher came up with 'red letter edition' for a marketing feature. This modern practice of using two colors of inks can suggest two levels of scripture that does not exist...namely that within the pages of the bible some words are from God while other words are merely about God, from man's mind. However, any scholastic methodology for seperating the divine from spurious in either testament of the bible is subjective and prejuduced at best. Nothing wise, or even honest is achieved by this, except that honest doubt is put into the weaker brethren regarding the whole counsel of scripture.

Let's not be critics and judges of scripture...but rather the reverse brethren.

MC

MC wrote:

Without the New Testament letters we have little cause to believe in justification through the righteousness of God by faith, the crucifixion and resurrection life of Christ and the walk in the Spirit, the Gospel’s triumph over inherent sin, (Romans) the Gospel of Grace (Galatians), the believers position in Christ through faith, or revelation concerning the body of Christ (Ephesians), the experiencial and authenticating relationship between faith and works in true religion,(James) or the qualifications and functions of elders and the pastoral work of a true elder (Philemon

I suggest adding to this list the teaching how Jesus' sacrifice made the OT animal sacrifices obsolete. So, if you really want to be logical, you will need to resume the sacrifice of animals if you want to discard the epistles and adhere strietly to Jesus' teaching. He hinted at this in his preaching but did not go into detail like the epistles do.

And there are other laws you need to observe, like the washings, the dietary laws, the stoning of certain sinners...

Just my thought..

ginnyrose

Excellent point ginny.