Peter on Paul

It is well known that when Jesus and the apostles lived and taught, the only Scripture that they had was the Hebrew Bible, sometimes called the Old Testament. This Hebrew Bible was affirmed by Jesus many times, for example, when he said, “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). It was also affirmed by other apostles in their letters, for example when Paul wrote, “All Scripture is God-breathed” (II Timothy 3:16).

These words testify to the scriptural status of the Hebrew Bible. But is there anything that testifies similarly for the New Testament? Since the New Testament was not assembled into a collection until many years after it was written, we wouldn’t expect it to testify to itself. But there is a place in II Peter that appears to do so.

Peter’s second letter is thought by many to have been written by someone other than Peter. But one of the points he makes early is that he’s not making up the things he said about Jesus; he’s an eye witness. If he’s writing pretending to be someone he’s not, this testimony wouldn’t have much credibility. But as Peter, he certainly has standing to tell us what Jesus taught.

But he also seems to affirm Paul’s writings as Scripture. In the third chapter he writes, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (3:15-16) By comparing Paul’s letters to “the other Scriptures”, he affirms the scriptural status of Paul’s writings.

In discussing Paul’s letters, his main point is that they contain some things that are hard to understand, and that some people distort them through misunderstanding. Does Peter give any hint of how people misunderstand and distort Paul’s letters? Actually, he does.

He follows up the previous verse by warning his readers to “be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position” (3:17). So misunderstanding Paul can lead to “the error of lawless men”.

We have seen how this has played out in the history of the church. Despite clear and emphatic statements by both Jesus (Matthew 5:17-19) and Paul (Romans 3:31) about the continuing validity of God’s law, the bulk of the church took an anti-Jewish and anti-Torah turn in the second century, and has been insisting ever since that God’s law is obsolete. They justify this stance by citing some passages from Paul’s letters that may seem to teach such a thing on the surface, but on closer examination are often teaching that keeping the law does not save a person.

We will be looking at some of these passages in future posts, as well as passages where Paul affirms the law. But it’s easy to see how prophetic Peter was when he warned people to avoid distorting Paul’s letters and falling into the error of lawless men. That’s exactly what happened, and we’re still suffering the consequences.