Replies

So Peter was wrong? The writings were not inspired until the Church stated so 400 years later? It only becomes deemed inspired based on the council decree-not an apostle and Pope?

If Peter was the head of the Church and Peter said Paul's writings were inspired, why did it take the Church 400 years to agree with Peter? Moveover, why did it take the Church 400 years to determine what the first Pope states? Peter was after all the first Pope and I would assume probably the most important one. I would have thought that his writings would have been treasured.

If Peter was the head of the Church and Peter said Paul's writings were inspired, why did it take the Church 400 years to agree with Peter?

I already explained this. Not everyone believed that 2 Peter WAS Scripture, nor even WRITTEN by Peter. So how can we base "what is Scripture" on a letter that Christians weren't sure on, that many disagreed on its inerrancy? The Church didn't take 400 years to decide that Paul's letters were Scripture. Some of them were noted as Scripture by future writers in the second century. But some of "Paul's" writings were debatable. Hebrews. The Pastorals. Did Paul write them? Evidence is clear that not everyone was sure about their authenticity. There appears to be a gradual acceptance of the Pauline Corpus, but none of this was ever universal until the Church declared it so.

And last I looked, the NT consists of more than some writings from Paul and the Gospels... Where does the Bible state that James is inspired by God? John's Epistles? Jude? 2 Peter? The fact of the matter is that regarding doctrine, the Church DEFINES issues when there is disagreement on true teachings. The reason for councils was to define and weigh in on one side or the other. The same is true on the Canon of Scripture.

Regards

I defer to Jo Kus's 2,143; also note that Peter doesn't exactly declare Paul's letters inspired:

14 Wherefore, dearly beloved, waiting for these things, be diligent that you may be found before him unspotted and blameless in peace. 15 And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: 16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.

What St. Paul definitely is doing here is warning that endless quotes from Romans and Galatians vainly purporting to prove salvation by faith alone lead to the destruction of Luther and his unlearned and unstable disciples.