Illustration: The Apostle Paul in prison, where tradition holds that he wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians with assistance from his courier, Tychicus. Original image sourced from Britannica; enhanced and brought to life from the original grayscale etching-style image using Google Gemini.
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Introduction: A Strange New Canon
A claim has been spreading on the edges of the Christian world, and it often comes wrapped in pious language. It goes something like this: “I believe the Bible is the Word of God. I believe the Law, the Prophets, and above all the words of Jesus. But Paul is different. Paul was a latecomer who never walked with the Lord. Paul twisted the simple message of Jesus. Paul’s letters should never have been placed beside the Gospels.” Some who say this want to remove Paul from the canon altogether. Others keep his letters on the shelf but grant them no binding authority whenever they seem to clash with a preferred reading of Jesus.
This position is not new, but it has gained new life through YouTube channels, TikTok videos, self-published books, and online forums. It also draws its followers from surprisingly different camps. Torah-observant believers, progressive Christians, some charismatic preachers, and spiritual seekers who distrust institutional religion all arrive at the same verdict by different routes: Jesus yes, Paul no.
This review sets out the main streams of that commentary as fairly as possible, traces their historical antecedents, and then weighs their claims against the evidence of the New Testament and the early church. The conclusion will not surprise readers of this publication: the attempt to keep the Bible while discarding Paul does not hold together. But the reasons it fails are worth examining carefully, because they tell us a great deal about how the New Testament holds together, and about what happens when a reader appoints himself judge over which parts of Scripture may speak.
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I. The Current Voices
The anti-Pauline argument today does not come from one organized movement. It comes from at least four overlapping streams, each with its own motives and emphases.
The “Jesus’ Words Only” Stream
The most systematic modern case against Paul was made by attorney Douglas Del Tondo in Jesus’ Words Only (2006). Del Tondo argues that Paul was not a true apostle, that his teaching on the Law contradicts Jesus, and that his letters were wrongly admitted to the canon. A related online work, Craig Winn’s Questioning Paul, extends the argument further. In his review for the Christian Research Institute, James Patrick Holding summarizes their key claims:
- Paul abolished the Law of Moses, which Jesus said He came not to destroy (Matthew 5:17).
- Paul’s teaching on faith contradicts James on works (Romans 3:28 versus James 2:24).
- Galatians 2 reveals a split between a true “Petrine” faith and a corrupted “Pauline” faith, and the modern church descends from the corrupted branch.
- Scripture contains hidden warnings about Paul. Genesis 49:27, which calls Benjamin a “ravening wolf,” is read as a prophecy about Paul, a Benjamite.
Holding notes that these works lean heavily on popular authors and internet commentators rather than on serious scholarship. Even so, their arguments have been widely recycled, and they form the backbone of much of what circulates online today.
The Fringe Torah-Observant Stream
A second stream comes from the edges of the Hebrew Roots and Torah-observant world. Here a fair distinction must be made at the outset. The mainstream of that movement does not reject Paul. Ministries such as 119 Ministries, whose book The Pauline Paradox insists that “Paul was not preaching against the Law of God,” argue that the church has misread Paul, not that Paul was a deceiver. The Christian Century’s 2024 profile of the movement notes that its adherents often cite 2 Peter 3:16 to explain why Paul is so frequently misunderstood. Whatever one thinks of their reading of the Law, these teachers keep Paul in the canon.
On the fringe, however, some have taken the next step. The YouTube channel Christian Truthers, led by Justin Best, produced a series titled “50 Reasons to Never Quote Paul Again.” Its arguments, as summarized by Messianic teacher David Wilber in his published response, include these:
- Revelation 2:2 commends the church at Ephesus for testing those who “say they are apostles, and are not,” and this is read as a reference to Paul.
- Paul called himself a spiritual “father” (1 Corinthians 4:15), allegedly violating Jesus’ command to “call no man your father” (Matthew 23:9).
- The accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts allegedly conflict, putting him in the same category as Joseph Smith and Muhammad, whose shifting accounts of their founding visions are well documented.
- The disciples in Jerusalem allegedly rejected Paul (Acts 9:26).
It is worth noticing that the most direct rebuttal of this material has come from within the Torah-observant world itself. Wilber, who shares Best’s high view of the Law, answers each claim from the text and concludes that rejecting Paul would require rejecting Luke, Acts, and 2 Peter as well.
The Progressive Stream
A third stream comes from progressive Christianity, and its motive is usually ethical rather than legal. Here the objection is not that Paul abolished the Law, but that he was too strict: on sexuality, on marriage, on the roles of men and women in the church. The argument often runs like this. Jesus welcomed sinners and spoke of love; Paul wrote Romans 1 and 1 Timothy 2. Where the two seem to diverge, believers should follow Jesus.
In a widely discussed 2024 TikTok video, progressive minister Brandan Robertson argued that evangelicalism dwells too much on “the teachings of Paul” and too little on Jesus, and that Paul contradicts Jesus on important points. Dale and Tamara Chamberlain of the Kainos Project responded that several of these claims were misleading or false. Similar arguments appear across progressive writing. In fairness, not every progressive voice goes this far. The Red Letter Christians organization, whose name evokes the words of Jesus printed in red, has itself published pieces arguing that progressive Christians can embrace Paul. But the popular shorthand “I follow Jesus, not Paul” has taken on a life of its own in online discussion.
The Charismatic and Prosperity Stream
A fourth and less expected source is found among some charismatic leaders. In March 2024, The Christian Post published a column by Nigerian evangelist Oscar Amaechina responding to Johnson Suleman, founder of Omega Fire Ministries. As Amaechina reported it, Suleman claimed that Jesus had told him directly that Paul’s writings did not come from Him, a claim that sparked controversy in Nigeria and online. Amaechina argued that some prosperity preachers resent Paul because his teaching on contentment, suffering, and self-denial undercuts their message. Because the column does not quote Suleman’s original statement, his exact words should be treated with some caution. But the pattern is significant: a private revelation is used to overrule a public, apostolic text.
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II. An Old Error in New Clothing
None of these streams is truly original. The church has met every one of their arguments before.
In the second century, Irenaeus of Lyons described a group called the Ebionites, who used only the Gospel of Matthew and “repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law” (Against Heresies 1.26.2). Their reasoning was almost identical to that of today’s Torah-based critics. At the same time, the heretic Marcion made the opposite error: he rejected the Old Testament and kept only Paul and an edited Luke. The church refused both. It would not accept a Bible without the Law and the Prophets, and it would not accept a Bible without Paul.
The modern form of the argument owes much to the Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson, who famously cut his own Gospels down to the moral teachings of Jesus, called Paul the “first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus” in an 1820 letter to William Short. In the nineteenth century, F. C. Baur and the Tübingen school proposed that early Christianity was divided between a Jewish party led by Peter and a Gentile party led by Paul. Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Antichrist, cast Paul as the very opposite of the “bearer of glad tidings.” And in 1904 William Wrede described Paul as the “second founder of Christianity.”
The point is not that an argument is wrong because it is old. The point is that these claims have been examined thoroughly for nearly two centuries, and the critical theory of a Peter-versus-Paul church has been heavily revised even within mainstream scholarship. Today’s online critics often present as fresh discoveries arguments that were tested and found wanting long ago.
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III. Weighing the Claims
Paul Was Received by the Other Apostles
The anti-Pauline case depends on the idea that the original apostles regarded Paul as an outsider or a rival. The New Testament says the opposite. Paul himself reports that when “James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship” (Galatians 2:9). At the Jerusalem Council, Peter and James publicly supported the gospel Paul preached to the Gentiles, and the council’s letter speaks of “our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:25–26).
The claim that the Jerusalem disciples rejected Paul rests on reading Acts 9:26 in isolation. The very next verses say Barnabas brought him to the apostles, that Paul was “with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem,” and that when his life was threatened, “the brethren” brought him to Caesarea and sent him to Tarsus to protect him (Acts 9:27–30). Their initial fear was understandable; Paul had been their persecutor. It did not last.
Most striking of all is the testimony of Peter. In 2 Peter 3:15–16, the apostle speaks of “our beloved brother Paul,” acknowledges “the wisdom given unto him,” and then places Paul’s letters alongside “the other scriptures.” He warns that “they that are unlearned and unstable wrest” them “unto their own destruction.” The very apostle whom anti-Paulinists set against Paul describes his letters as Scripture and warns against people who twist them. Critics who question the authenticity of 2 Peter must at least concede that the earliest Christians who preserved it saw no division between Peter and Paul.
Jesus Himself Commissioned Paul
Paul did not appoint himself. According to Luke, the risen Lord told Ananias, “he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Paul’s apostleship rests on the same foundation as that of the Twelve: a personal commission from the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8). To reject Paul, then, is not to choose Jesus over Paul. It is to reject the decision Jesus Himself made.
You Cannot Remove Paul Without Removing Luke
This is perhaps the most practical difficulty for the “everything but Paul” position. Luke was Paul’s traveling companion; the “we” passages of Acts place him beside the apostle on his journeys (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–21:18; 27:1–28:16). Paul names him as “Luke, the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14) and notes that “only Luke is with me” in his final imprisonment (2 Timothy 4:11). Luke devotes more than half of Acts to Paul’s ministry and presents him throughout as a faithful servant of Christ.
If Paul was a deceiver, then Luke was either his dupe or his accomplice. Either way, Luke’s credibility as a historian collapses, and with it goes the Gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts together make up roughly a quarter of the New Testament. The person who says, “I trust the words of Jesus but not Paul,” must face the uncomfortable fact that many of the most beloved words of Jesus, among them the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, the story of Zacchaeus, and the Emmaus road, come to us only through Paul’s companion.
Paul Is Our Earliest Witness to Jesus
There is a further irony. Paul’s letters are among the earliest Christian documents that survive, most of them written before the Gospels reached their final form. In 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, Paul passes on a summary of the gospel he had “received”: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, rose the third day, and appeared to Peter, to the Twelve, to more than five hundred brethren at once, to James, and finally to Paul himself. Scholars across a wide range, including many skeptical ones, date the formula Paul quotes here to within a few years of the crucifixion. Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23–26) closely matches Luke 22:19–20.
Paul also cites the teaching of Jesus directly. He passes on the Lord’s command on divorce (1 Corinthians 7:10–11), the Lord’s instruction that those who preach the gospel should live by it (1 Corinthians 9:14), and a word of the Lord about His return (1 Thessalonians 4:15). In 1 Timothy 5:18 he quotes the saying “The labourer is worthy of his reward,” the same saying Jesus spoke in Luke 10:7, and introduces it with “the scripture saith.” Far from competing with the words of Jesus, Paul is one of their earliest and most careful transmitters.
The Early Church Received Him Without Hesitation
The generation immediately after the apostles shows no trace of the suspicion modern critics project back onto them. Clement of Rome, writing to the Corinthians around A.D. 96, urged them to “take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle” (1 Clement 47). Polycarp of Smyrna, who according to Irenaeus had been taught by the apostle John, spoke of “the blessed and glorious Paul” in his letter to the Philippians. These leaders stood within living memory of the apostles. If Paul had been regarded as a false apostle by John’s churches in Asia, Polycarp is the last man who would have praised him.
That fact also answers the reading of Revelation 2:2. The Ephesian church was commended for testing false apostles, but Ephesus was the church Paul had planted and served for nearly three years (Acts 19:10; 20:31). Its elders wept when he left them (Acts 20:37–38). And Paul had warned those same elders that “grievous wolves” would arise among them (Acts 20:29). Revelation 2:2 describes that warning being heeded, not Paul being exposed.
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IV. The Alleged Contradictions
Most anti-Pauline arguments ultimately rest on the claim that Paul contradicts Jesus or the other apostles. Each of the main cases can be answered from the texts themselves.
Paul and the Law
Paul did not teach that the moral law was evil or worthless. He wrote, “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12), and “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). What Paul denied was that keeping the Law could justify a sinner before God, or that Gentile believers had to become Jews through circumcision to belong to God’s people. That was precisely the question the Jerusalem Council settled, with Peter and James agreeing with Paul (Acts 15:7–11, 19). Paul’s own conduct shows that he did not despise his Jewish heritage: he circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:3) and took part in purification rites at the temple (Acts 21:23–26).
Paul and James
The supposed conflict between Romans 3:28 and James 2:24 dissolves when the two writers are allowed to answer their own questions. Paul asks how a sinner is made right with God, and answers: by faith, apart from works of the Law. James asks how genuine faith can be recognized, and answers: by the works it produces. Paul agrees that faith works. He speaks of “faith which worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6) and says believers are “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Ephesians 2:10). James agrees that faith comes first, citing Abraham, who “believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness” (James 2:23), the same verse Paul uses in Romans 4:3.
Paul and Jesus on Grace
The claim that Paul invented salvation by grace ignores what Jesus Himself taught. In the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the tax collector who cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” went home “justified” rather than the man who listed his religious works (Luke 18:13–14). Jesus used the very language of justification that Paul would later develop. When Jesus said that “the Son of man came… to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) and that His blood was “shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28), He laid the foundation on which Paul built.
Paul and the Progressive Objection
Progressive critics typically set Paul’s sexual ethics against Jesus’ compassion. But Jesus was not silent on these matters. When asked about marriage, He grounded it in creation: “he which made them at the beginning made them male and female… and they twain shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4–5). He listed “fornications” and “adulteries” among the evils that come from the heart (Mark 7:21). Paul’s teaching stands in continuity with this, not opposition. Nor was Paul the cold figure he is often made out to be. The same apostle who wrote Romans 1 also wrote 1 Corinthians 13, declared that in Christ “there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28), and commended women such as Phoebe, Priscilla, and Junia as fellow workers (Romans 16:1–7).
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V. The Deeper Problem: Who Decides?
Beneath the specific arguments lies a more basic question. The person who keeps the Gospels but rejects Paul is making a judgment about which parts of the New Testament carry authority. On what basis?
Every word of Jesus that we possess comes to us through apostolic witnesses and their associates. Jesus wrote no books. The “red letters” are themselves the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written decades after the events and shaped by the same Spirit who guided Paul. The practice of printing Jesus’ words in red is a helpful modern convention, introduced around the turn of the twentieth century by publisher Louis Klopsch. It was never intended to rank the inspiration of one part of Scripture above another.
Jesus Himself told His disciples that His earthly teaching was not the end of revelation: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12–13). The apostolic letters are, in large part, the fulfillment of that promise. To reject them is not to honor the words of Jesus but to set aside one of His promises.
Finally, the selection itself is revealing. The Torah-observant critic rejects Paul because Paul seems too lax about the Law. The progressive critic rejects Paul because Paul seems too strict about sexuality. The prosperity preacher rejects Paul because Paul glories in weakness and suffering. Each removes the part of Scripture that challenges his own commitments. That is the oldest temptation in the history of interpretation: to make the reader the final authority over the text. Once a reader claims the right to remove Paul, nothing in principle prevents him from removing any other part of Scripture he finds inconvenient, including the hard sayings of Jesus Himself.
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VI. Practical Counsel for Believers
How should Christians respond when they encounter this teaching, whether online, in a Bible study, or from a friend?
- Ask where the argument leads. If Paul goes, Luke and Acts must go with him, and 2 Peter as well. Most people who begin with “Jesus, not Paul” have not considered how much of the New Testament they are actually discarding.
- Read Paul in context. Most alleged contradictions arise from isolated verses. Romans, Galatians, and James each make sense when read whole.
- Return to the primary sources. Acts, Galatians 1–2, and 2 Peter 3 speak directly to Paul’s standing among the apostles. The writings of Clement and Polycarp show how the earliest church regarded him.
- Distinguish between teachers. Not every Torah-observant or progressive believer rejects Paul. Engage specific claims rather than whole movements, and acknowledge allies where they exist, as David Wilber’s defense of Paul shows.
- Respond with patience. Paul himself wrote that “the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Timothy 2:24–25).
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Conclusion: The Chosen Vessel
The modern campaign against Paul presents itself as a return to the pure teaching of Jesus. In reality, it is a departure from the Jesus who chose Paul, from the apostles who received him, from the Scriptures that preserve his testimony, and from the church that has read his letters as the Word of God for two thousand years. The man who once persecuted the church became, by the grace of God, its greatest missionary and one of its foremost teachers. He said of himself, “I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle… But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:9–10).
Those who would have the Bible without Paul must in the end decide whether they will stand under Scripture or over it. The church’s answer has been consistent from the first century until now: the same Lord who spoke in red letters also spoke through His chosen vessel, and the faithful hear Him in both.
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Works Cited
Amaechina, Oscar. “Beware of Preachers Who Attack Apostle Paul’s Teachings.” The Christian Post, March 21, 2024. https://www.christianpost.com/voice/beware-of-preachers-who-attack-apostle-pauls-teachings.html
Araujo-Hawkins, Dawn. “The Roots of Hebrew Roots.” The Christian Century, September 2024. https://www.christiancentury.org/features/roots-hebrew-roots
Chamberlain, Dale, and Tamara Chamberlain. “Does Paul Contradict Jesus? Progressive Christianity on TikTok.” Kainos Project, January 23, 2024. https://www.lifeaudio.com/kainos-project/does-paul-contradict-jesus-progressive-christianity-on-tiktok
Clement of Rome. First Epistle to the Corinthians. In The Apostolic Fathers, edited by Michael W. Holmes. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Del Tondo, Douglas. Jesus’ Words Only. Infinity Publishing, 2006.
Holding, James Patrick. “Robbing Paul to Pay Peter and James.” Christian Research Journal 35, no. 5 (2012). https://www.equip.org/articles/robbing-paul-pay-peter-james/
Irenaeus. Against Heresies. In The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994.
Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to William Short, April 13, 1820. Founders Online, National Archives.
Minton, Evan. “Why Progressive Christians Are Wrong to Pit Jesus Against Paul.” November 17, 2023. https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/24253182-why-progressive-christians-are-wrong-to-pit-jesus-against-paul
Polycarp. Epistle to the Philippians. In The Apostolic Fathers, edited by Michael W. Holmes. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Wilber, David. “Defending Paul: A Response to Justin Best of Christian Truthers.” Updated August 19, 2020. https://davidwilber.com/articles/defending-paul-a-response-to-justin-best-of-christian-truthers
Wrede, William. Paul. Translated by Edward Lummis. London: Philip Green, 1907.
A Note on AI, Research, and Accountability
Concerns that artificial intelligence can distort facts, misrepresent sources, or introduce inaccuracies into serious research deserve to be taken seriously. But acknowledging those risks does not require dismissing AI’s value as a research tool. The relevant question is not simply whether AI was used, but how it was used—and how its contributions were checked.
This work brings together the author’s investigative inquiry, verified primary documentation, and the analytical capabilities of AI-assisted research tools. AI was used to help organize material, compare sources, explore questions, and identify connections for further investigation—not to replace independent judgment or serve as an authority in its own right. Its role was to support the research and writing process, not to relieve the author of responsibility for the finished work. That responsibility remains mine.
Every factual claim in this work has undergone active verification. Whenever AI-generated material served as a starting point, it was checked against relevant primary sources, peer-reviewed scholarship, official institutional documentation, or established historical records. Where discrepancies emerged—and they did—corrections followed. I have made every reasonable effort to attribute quotations accurately, present historical details faithfully, and represent theological positions fairly, including those I challenge.
The defense of AI-assisted scholarship offered here rests not on the presumed reliability of a tool, but on the discipline of the process: examining evidence, checking sources, distinguishing documented facts from interpretation, and correcting mistakes. AI-generated material was treated as something to investigate, not something to accept on trust.
Nevertheless, no work of this scope is immune to error. I have no interest in preserving an inaccuracy merely because it supports an argument. Readers—whether sympathetic to, skeptical of, or opposed to this work’s conclusions—are welcome to identify factual errors, misattributed quotations, misrepresented teachings, or claims that cannot be substantiated. Please bring such concerns to my attention, along with supporting evidence wherever possible.
The purpose of this work is not to win an argument at the expense of the evidence, but to get the history right. Corrections offered in good faith will be considered in the same spirit, and verified corrections will be incorporated into future editions without hesitation.
Truth has nothing to fear from scrutiny. Neither should this work.
I’m of Paul and Peter, wait also of Barnabas! Ooppss, wait a minute, what about James? Jude? Ahhhhh John the Beloved, that’s who!
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