YOUR SAY: Paul was right, and I care
Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. After reading the column, "Paul was wrong, but who cares?" by Dr. Bill Cummings, I went through several emotions. Now that I have settled down enough to put my anger and shock aside, and the column needs to be corrected.
In reading the column, the Apostle Paul is mentioned some 29 times by name and referred to as "he" many others. One immediately gets the idea that Paul is more important than the Lord whom he was writing about.
To call the Apostle Paul "wrong" is to say that God is wrong. (All emphasis in this article is mine.). I am not saying Paul is equal to or that he is God, but what Paul wrote was the "very words of God." As a man, he was fallible and subject to mistakes as anyone would be, but the difference is, and there is a "big" difference, that as an apostle, called of God, what he wrote could not be a mistake.
The Scriptures were given by "inspiration." We know that inspiration means "God breathed." It is more than God simply breathing out words for a man to write down. Paul, and all of the writers of the Bible, did not follow the Lord around with "pad and pen" in hand recording the Lord as he spoke.
Looking at what the "holy" scripture says as to how it was given and written. Note, the word "holy" means "set apart, unique, different and pure." So the "holy" Bible is not just the writing of men as they attempted to remember what God wanted them to write. The writers themselves were "holy" men of God (II Peter 1:19-21).
In verse 21, the Bible says that "holy" men of God spake as they were "moved" by the Holy Ghost." If your Bible doesn't have the word "holy" before men, you have a corrupt Bible. The word "moved" means "to be carried along, or guided." As these men of God wrote, they were carried along by the Holy Ghost. In I Corinthians 2:13, Paul said, "Which things also, we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." The word "comparing" means "to join fitly together, exact." (Wuest, Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, p. 60).
The question is how did Paul know what to write? Since the writer of the article mentioned Galatians, that Paul wrote, let's see what he says concerning his own testimony. Galatians 1:1 says that Paul was not chosen as an apostle of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father. When Cummings said Paul was wrong, but Galatians 1:20 says, "Now the things I write unto you, behold, before God, "I lie not." Emphasis is mine. Now, who should we believe, Cummings or the Apostle Paul?
Also, Paul did not start "this little Jewish cult" called Christian, as Cummings called it. The Christian faith and church is founded on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said in Matthew 16:18, "Upon this rock, I will build my church." He, of course, was referring to himself as the rock. In Paul's preaching, he did build on the foundation of Christ. Those who follow the Lord are called "Christian," but not by Paul. See Acts 11:26. That verse simply says that the disciples were called Christian first in Antioch, but it does not say that Paul gave them that name.
1 Peter 1:23 says that the word of God is "incorruptible," meaning there is nothing impure in it. Paul wrote "scripture," and "ALL" scripture was given by "inspiration" of God. Examples of inspiration:
1. Moses (Exodus 4:10-16); God said "Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." Moses wanted Aaron to speak for him and the Lord said (vs. 15) " I will be with thy mouth and with his mouth." How could they go wrong?
2. David: (II Samuel 23:2), "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." Wow! Now that is inspiration.
3. Jeremiah: (Jeremiah 1:9), "Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth."
Time and space will not allow me to give every example, for every holy man of God that spoke and wrote God's word "exactly" as God guided him. See 1 Peter 1:20,21. Perhaps one more will be convincing: Luke had "perfect understanding of the things he was writing (Luke 1:3,4; Acts 1:2,3). The Holy Ghost gave the apostles "commandments" to write.
That is enough, if by now one cannot see that we have an inspired, inerrant (without error), infallible (non-failing, because it is perfectly preserved), plenary (complete, nothing to be added or taken away), word of God, then may I suggest it is because "the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of them which believe not." (II Corinthians 4:3,4).
It is my prayer that Cummings and all who read this article will "receive the word of God as in truth, the word of God and not of man." 1 Thessalonians 2:13). (quoted in part). "For we are not as many, which "corrupt" the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ." (11 Corinthians 2:17).
The Bible I refer to is, of course, the Authorized King James Bible. When one says that he is a Christian and then questions the Word of God, as the column "Paul was wrong" does, it causes people to doubt the sincerity and accuracy of the word of God. Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.
James Harrison is pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Cochran.
This story was originally published January 23, 2016 at 9:25 PM with the headline "YOUR SAY: Paul was right, and I care ."