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Jesus Said It All
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Jesus Said It All
The Bible New Testament has four gospels, the book of Acts, numerous letters, and the book of Revelation. The four gospels tell us everything we need to know about how we are to live to get to heaven and our penalty of going to hell if we reject following the Lord. People in this site and throughout the world reference the words of Paul for guidance and direction but we get nothing but confusion from debates about what Paul said and what he meant. Jesus is the ultimate authority and, I believe clearly explains everything we need to know. So why not just stick to the words of Jesus (the four gospels, book of Acts, and the book of Revelation)?
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12 Replies
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I don’t disagree actually. Why didn’t Jesus simply write his own gospel and avoid all of this? However, those who canonized the Bible decided that Paul’s letters were important enough to include as scripture, so why are you wishing to remove them now? Have they become too unconvient in modern times because they show the opinions of someone who is clearly merely human rather than someone who was divinely inspired to write?
It seems clear to you that Paul’s letters were not god breathed, so why did the early Christian’s think otherwise?
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Good question. So that they could cause confusion because with confusion people needed ‘help’ to understand scripture?
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I am not an inerrantist, but I think God has a reason for all the books we have in the Bible today. Maybe God doesn’t think that these books that you mentioned are the only ones that are important.
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You are correct, John, that the person and words of Jesus are the foundation of the Church and of our lives and that these are largely found in the gospels, Acts and Revelation.
However, you cannot be serious if you really mean that following only them will avoid all confusion and debate (was Jesus really born before the governorship of Quinious? Are you preterest, pre-trib or post-trib?, etc, etc.)
Some of us do seem to lay an overemphasis on Paul, but the epistles are valuable beyond our ability to mention here, but for starts:
The epistles share the early doctrine of the Church as first revealed by Jesus but not found in the gospels or Acts.
The epistles contain the earliest creeds of the church
The epistles contain facts and allusions which help to establish the historical validity of the entire New Testament, including the gospels.
The epistles (esp I Cor 15) contain the earliest record of the death and resurrection of Jesus and its purpose.
The epistles predate the gospels and revelation making them of immense historical value.
That’s just a beginning. For more info let me suggest that you study any good, standard text on Intro to the New Testament.
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Hello Mark,. I’m don’t consider myself a preterest, pre-trib, post-trib or any one of the many labels people who study scripture seem to gather to. I’m just an scientist with an investigations background searching for the truth. Paul was not an eyewitness of Jesus and there were twelve others whom Jesus picked to be eyewitnesses. Am I the only one thinking that it is a strange coincidence that we have anonymous gospels, most of the New Testament from a man who was not an eyewitness but wrote a lot about Jesus, and nearly all other documentation is missing. This data, together with the fact that the Catholics owned the church and claimed Peter was in charge, smells of corruption.
My work has proven that gospels to be eyewitness accounts that PROVE the story of Jesus to be true, but, this is in spite of all the shenanigans the early church pulled on the church of Jesus Christ started by the disciples.
I’m not saying the epistles are worthless–they do provide information about the early church. What I’m suggesting is that people debate them more than the words of Jesus and I don’t think that the words of Jesus leave anything out worth debating. The words of Jesus with the book of Acts pretty much provides everything people need to follow the Lord. If you disagree, provide an example of something Jesus doesn’t address so we need the words of Paul.
You reference 1 Corinthians 15, but doesn’t that start out contradicting the gospels? Wasn’t Mary the first at the grave, then John raced Peter and won? That simple verse tells you about the competition between John and Peter (together with other verses). These men were not saints as painted by the early church, they were people just like us–and that’s a beautiful message.
Ponder this—If the epistles predate the gospels then we have no official record of Jesus life and ministry.
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Hi John, if you read Bart Ehrman’s book Forged, I think it would help you a lot with the issues you’re thinking through.
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Certainly looks like he did a lot of groundwork and he’s a pro. I’m an amateur with no PhD or scripture credentials past my name. From a brief review it doesn’t look like he named who wrote them. I did.
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Hi Jason and thanks for the input. If you read his book do you mind providing a brief take on it. Did he conclude the story of Jesus was true? Why do you think it’s worth reading-was the technique he went through to get to his conclusions compelling?
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Thanks for checking out my recommendation. 🙂 I read the book a long time ago, so unfortunately I don’t have the clearest memory of the details. What I do remember, is that he presents the more widely accepted view of New Testament authorship among scholars. So if you want to know what the serious critical analysis of authorship looks like, his is a great book to read. Ehrman is an Agnostic/Atheist, so he doesn’t believe the Gospel obviously, but the point of reading the book, is to get a look at the critical scholarly view on who wrote what. Ehrman’s beliefs are irrelevant. You might also find this video of Ehrman discussing some of these issues helpful:
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Thanks Jason, I watched some of the video and have a completely different take on this. My research has also shown me that there are contradictions, but every time I encountered one I could find a logical explanation for it. In contrast to Ehrman, in my humble opinion if there weren’t any contradictions in scripture I would find it to be an indication of a falsely generated story. The contradictions in scripture that I found can all be attributed to either eyewitness testimony or false teachers editing scripture to promote the story of Peter. Eyewitness testimony will not always agree because people see things differently and remember it a bit different. I was very skeptical of the gospels being real but I concluded that they were eyewitness statements written by people Jesus selected to document his words and actions.
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yor spot on John, Test everything in the bible against exactly what Jesus says.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” Timothy.
But read that carefully, its for “reproof” and “Correction”
Its very possible Paul is there partly as a way to demonstrate false thinking that can be corrected by “reproof” simply by going back to the gospel. or Acts, or any of the other parts.
only thing that actually matters is that it lines up with what JC states.
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👍🙏
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