The Entire New Testament Is Red Letter
The Greek word apostolos (απόστολος) means “a delegate, a messenger, or one sent with orders.” The Apostles were spiritual emissaries of Christ. During their ministries, they spoke for Him with the mind of the Holy Spirit and they continue to do so today, to us, through the pages of the New Testament.
It has become fashionable in society – both Christian and otherwise – to claim that the scriptural authors at points stand in doctrinal opposition to Jesus Christ. Arguments in favor of certain biblical tenants or behavioral standards espoused in the epistles of Paul, for instance, but not specifically addressed in the red letter portions of the Gospels (denoting the very spoken words of Christ Himself), are said to be the apostle’s indefensible installment of arbitrary commands that forever stand as secondary or disposable next to those issued by Jesus.
For example, when Paul forbids women from serving in the churches as pastors (I Timothy 2:12-15; I Corinthians 14:33b-38) or declares that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Christian life (I Corinthians 6:9), we are told that these statements are the exclusive purview of Paul but not Jesus, and are therefore constrained by the unenlightened cultural standards of the time and rightly rejected by those of us with a higher, truer understanding of things.
People have essentially come to believe in a two-tiered system of biblical interpretation: the words of Christ… and everything else.
The problem is that neither Jesus nor the Bible sees it that way.
After washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus instructed them in how they ought to view themselves as His servants in the days to come. “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” (John 13:16) So far, so good. He’s helping His disciples understand how they need to think during the time after He’s gone; not replacing Him, but serving in His stead… as His messengers (consider Matthew 22:1-14, for instance). But then, He declares something that ought to put all of this Paul vs. Jesus stuff to bed once and for all: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the One who sent me.” (John 13:20)
Don’t miss it: the authority of the Apostles functions in much the same way as the authority Christ Himself had received from God the Father. It’s just like when a diplomat speaks for the chief executive of their country back home: the words of the diplomat function as the words of the executive, regardless of who literally says them. Christ spoke for God (“For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak,” – John 12:49), and the Apostles spoke for Christ. (Check out Hebrews 1:1-3, as well.)
And the application should not be hard to miss, either: if you reject the teachings of the Apostles as somehow not having the same authority as those of Christ, you essentially reject Christ and God the Father.
The Apostles themselves seconded the idea:
And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed… knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by
the Holy Spirit. – II Peter 1:19-21
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. … Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
– I Thessalonians 4:1-2, 8
We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. – I John 4:6
Peter, Paul and John all drove home the point that the words they were writing were just as authoritative as the very words of Christ Himself. And, of course they were: the Apostles were the sent ones, the emissaries, the messengers, the envoys, the ambassadors. They spoke on behalf of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, who is God just as Christ is.
So, always remember: when a highly regarded biblical scholar or a pastor with a 20,000-member megachurch or a friend on social media attempts to separate Paul and Jesus in order to pit their teachings against each other, the Word of God is the Word… of God. The acceptance of the Apostles’ doctrines is the acceptance of Christ’s teachings.
“Christ didn’t say a single word about homosexuality!”
Of course He did. He just used something other than His mouth to do it.
If you reject Paul, you reject Christ.
Christ Himself said so in the red letters.
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And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, shining with the glory of God. Its radiance was like a most precious jewel, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.
The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
- Revelation 21:10-11, 14