Paul's Different Gospel Part 6

Paul's Different Gospel 6

What can we make of Peter's commendation of Paul in 2 Peter 2:14-18:

14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

Also of John's failure to correct Paul's different gospel?

It is said that the apostle John outlived Paul by 20-25 years, and wielded enormous authority in the church as the last living apostle. He was one of the people closest to Jesus. If Paul had perverted the message of Jesus, it was within John's power to correct it, and rather easily. John did not. The easiest explanation for this would be that John agreed with Paul.

Firstly with regard to 2 Peter. Most scholars are of the opinion that 2 Peter is a pseudepigraph (i.e. author unknown and not Peter) and date it between 100-160 CE, out of range of Peter's lifetime.

Much of its material has been copied or is literarily dependent on Jude, which itself belongs in the post-apostolic age. It is also highly Hellenistic in concept and (rhetorical) language as is 1 Peter, something one would not expect from an unlettered Galilean fisherman (Acts 4:13).

Secondly, it is even more strange that John never mentioned Paul at all. It is as if he didn't even know of Paul or did not want to acknowledge his existence. Furthermore, would the Apostle John have become so anti-Jewish as the "Gospel of John" makes out?

 

John was dated at a time when the Gentile Christians were breaking loose from the Jewish origins of "Christianity" and developing their own theology and also possibly facing much opposition from "Jewish Christians" as well as trying to cope with a potentially if not actually hostile Roman regime.

The fact that the early followers under the leadership of James - after Jesus's ascension - were still allowed to pray in the Temple somehow vitiates against any charges of blasphemy against Judaism in Jesus's teachings - and obviously they still adhered to Mosaic Law (Acts 21:20 "...they are all zealous of the law:"), for the other Jews to continue to tolerate them.

There were incidents of persecution and Paul was of his own admission said to have been one of the persecutors, yet the puzzling thing is that they still managed to stay on in Jerusalem and even worshiped in the Temple with the other Jews. Why were they persecuted then by the priests and were not persecuted later?

The Acts seem to reveal a fair bit about how even James and the other elders of the "Jewish Christian" community who were "zealous for the law" differed from Paul. While in the Acts Paul denies going against the law, yet as we have seen from his own words in his letters that this is exactly what he has done.

Acts "[21] And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.

[22] What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come.

[23] Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them;

[24] Them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.

[25] As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.

[26] Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.

[27] And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him,

[28] Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place."

What the Jews of Asia were complaining about of course were the very essence of Paul's different teachings, in accordance with his own "different gospel", such as we can glimpse from the Acts and his letters.