We all quote from Paul’s epistles so often because he is the Apostle of the Gentiles, and the forming of the Body of Christ was given to him, not Peter and the 11. We quote from Paul because we live in the dispensation of the grace of God. John, Peter, James all belong to the gospel of the kingdom, dealing with Israel, the tribulation, and the Kingdom that is to be established when Christ the Messiah returns. That is why James (faith and works) is trotted out so often to refute Paul’s gospel of the grace of God (faith alone). They are not the same. One is for a kingdom of believers. The other is for a body of believers.
Once people begin to internalize the “rightly dividing” idea it makes things so much clearer. It’s like those who don’t understand the coming 7 year tribulation and the return to God dealing with Israel.
I know about rightly dividing. However, I would not go so far as to say the same Jews (Peter, James, John) who were filled with the same Holy Spirit as Paul, Cornelius and the rest of the Gentiles are under a different Grace or plan of salvation. Paul even says both Jew and Greek (Gentile).
So I don’t want to take your post incorrectly. Are you saying there are some (kingdom gospel) that are faith+works and others (grace gospel) are faith only? But one Holy Spirit, one Sacrifice?
The sooner that artificial division of the gospel is abandoned the better. Peter and Paul preach the same gospel, which is why the former was reproved by the latter, as being inconsistent with what Peter himself affirmed.
In Acts 15 the early church discerned the Scriptural substantiation for the Lord granting repentance to the Gentiles, and affirmed
we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11)
There was a transitional period from observing ceremonial laws as being part of the obedience of faith, to the fulness of the new covenant, but any idea that Peter preached the former is without actual warrant. Meanwhile, Paul is the one who of his own accord took a Jewish vow, (Acts 18:18) before James naively had Paul take another one. (Acts 21) While Paul's main commission was to the Gentiles, and Peter's to the Jews, they both preached to both, and with the same gospel of salvation by grace thru faith, . (Acts 2:14-40; 3:19; 13:15-41)
In Acts 2:38 Peter preached salvation by faith, that being expressed in baptism, like as Paul preached "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:10) There is no real difference in confessing Christ by moving your mouth or your legs in body language, rather than lead 3k souls in a sinners prayer. And as it is such faith as is expressed in baptism that appropriates justification, thus Peter in Acts 10:36-43 in preaching to the Gentiles, promised,
To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. (Acts 10:43; cf. 15:7-9) And thus they confessed that faith in baptism. (Acts 10:47)
And if Peter is seen preaching a gospel of faith and works somewhere, then so is Paul, who taught "not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." (Romans 2:13) for works evidence faith, though they do not earn justification, and believers are given grace so "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Romans 8:4)
As salvific faith, that which appropriates justification, is a faith that characteristically follows Christ, so the lack of "things which accompany salvation" (Heb. 6:9) and a life contrary to it testifies to unbelief. And which is a result of not looking to the Lord Jesus of Scripture.
Thus Paul stated such a one has denied the faith, (1Tim. 5:8; cf. Gal. 5:1-4) and excluded "Christian" fornicators from salvation. And in so doing he taught this meant exclusion from the kingdom:
For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:5)
And in which kingdom Paul worked, for the elect are those who were called to be in His kingdom, (1Thes. 2:12) and to be in the body of Christ is to be in the kingdom of God, and to be in the kingdom of God is to be in the body of Christ.
Peter was also adding souls to the body of Christ before Paul was born again, while Paul provided for theology behind it.
John also clearly preached the same gospel of salvation by grace thru faith,(Jn. 3:16; 5:24; 1Jn. 4:10) but a faith that has holy effects. James is very Jewish, with no real mention of the atonement, but its focus is on the type of faith that is salvific, with works justifying that one has true faith, and which is comparable to some things Paul said as well.
I am not sure where this idea came from that Peter John preached a kingdom of believers and Paul for a body of believers, but they are one and the same.
That's puts things in the perspective where everything makes sense...One is physical, the other spiritual...