Objections to Paul’s apostleship
Question:
It seems Paul compromised what he taught and preached. It's like me saying I'm going to a bar to get drunk and preach Christ Paul was a self-appointed apostle. When Christ chose the other twelve apostles, they were a witness to each other. Paul appears to be a bully and argued with everyone. He was a braggart, and he didn't suffer women.
Answer:
Paul had his detractors in his own day and it appears you are quite willing to sit in judgment on matters for which you have no evidence. I seriously thought about tossing your note because it makes accusations without evidence. Your opinions create no basis of truth, thus there isn't much left to discuss.
In regards to Paul's apostleship, you are quite wrong about his self-appointment. Luke (not Paul) records that the prophet Ananias was told concerning Paul, "He is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:15-16). Thus we find that Paul was selected by Jesus and sent on a mission to the Gentiles. That, after all, is the definition of an apostle -- one who is sent. Paul later confirmed that this was the duty given to him by Jesus, "Depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles" (Acts 22:21).
This mission was confirmed by the other apostles. "But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised" (Galatians 2:7-9).
Peter wrote, confirming that Paul was an inspired writer for God when he said, "and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation--as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 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" (II Peter 3:15-16). Notice that Peter called Paul's writings Scriptures.
In stating this, Peter is saying that Paul wasn't writing his own opinions but recording the words of the Lord. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (I Corinthians 2:12-13). Thus when you call Paul a compromiser of truth, a braggart, a bully, and someone who didn't suffer women, you are not really impugning Paul because Paul recorded what God wanted to be written. You are sitting in judgment on God and His word. "But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy" (James 4:11-12). Fortunately for us, you are not that one Lawgiver.
