M.B. said:
Controversial... nonetheless fact admitted to by Paul (Saul) himself, backed up by scripture and events.
Matthew 7:15
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
Code:
[Paul, describing himself]
circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee
Code:
Genesis 49:27
Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he devours the prey, And in the evening he divides the spoil
Read the book of Acts. The original and early apostles were a very close, tight knit and cohesive group that held to the teachings of Christ....then came Saul who changed his own name to Paul -- meaning humble -- and they began arguing amongst themselves and taking sides against each other.
If you're suggesting that Paul wasn't commissioned and sent by God, then you're also suggesting that the largest part of the new testament is deception, including the gospel of grace itself. I would recommend that you avoid that on a Christian web site, though you might be welcome to make such statements with approval on a Muslim web site or some other cultic venue.
If Paul were "untrue" then why would the church at Jerusalem accept him and send him on his way to preach the gospel to the gentiles?
Also the notion that the apostles were a close knit group is not entirely true as evidenced by disputes between them which are recorded in scripture. Jesus held the disciples together prior to His resurrection and He brought them together again (after they had been scattered) and He had resurrected Himself. (see the incident in which the mother of James and John asked Jesus to allow her sons places of honor on the Lord's left and right in His kingdom and the resultant argument.)
Its true that Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin and Genesis 49:27, being prophetic scripture can also be assumed to be entirely true, yet this doesn't make the Apostle the satisfaction of such a prophecy and leads to unresolvable conflicts in interpretation. Our God is not a god of confusion, so you should always be able to reconcile scripture to itself. That is, scripture from one letter or book, to be "unbroken" or retain integrity, must remain in agreement with scripture from another letter or book. Interpreting a book or letter in complete isolation from the rest of scripture will lead to error and commonly to apostasy (because of misinterpretation.) But even comparing scripture to scripture, error is introduced when we create inferences which were not implied in the original (see the kind of nonsense presented by defenders of the pre-trib rapture doctrine, repeated aggressively in various threads.)
Strong deception is strong deception because the Lord allowed it for the purpose of division or the revealing of those who are approved as opposed to those who may be safely ignored. The bible tells us that even the false prophets were sent by God to test the hearts of His people, but this doesn't make Paul false; his life speaks for itself. False prophets generally are only concerned for themselves, their comforts, their pleasures, their desires, and typically wouldn't stand in the face of stoning, whipping, beating, and execution.
When I was young and hadn't yet understood and received the gospel, it upset me that the scriptures could often be understood in two different ways, but God gave it as a divider of the heart (a revealer of the way we think and feel) and the interpretation we give something reveals something of our spiritual nature (alive or dead, spiritual or carnal, mature or childish, rebellious or obedient, etc.)
Perhaps you might explain how identifying the Apostle Paul as "a wolf" edifies the church or is in any way helpful to the cause of Christ. If you are unable to do so, perhaps you should spend some time contemplating your motives for writing such things: Ask yourself who benefits from what you write and what is damaged by it. The scripture tells us that in the end times there will be men who kill Christians while believing they are doing so for God. Does God need anyone's help? Does anything that any of us do or say add anything to God? We may blaspheme the Lord (at our own peril), but even in this do we really subtract anything from God?
When the Lord wiped out all the life upon the surface of the earth by the flood, He could have simply wiped out the entire universe and started over again, but even that would make Him to be something less than God (He doesn't make mistakes and there is nothing that has ever happened that came as a surprise to Him.)
The Lord works within His own creation to accomplish those things for which He intended it, but everything we see and experience in this life is part of a testing of our hearts and a preparation of our minds for the choices that God has required us to make. The only choice that really matters is to believe the testimony of Jesus the Christ; either we do or we don't, either we're His or we're not. No one that chooses to believe Him will ever have reason (in eternity) to be ashamed of their choice (the judgment of true believers is one for the determination of eternal rewards, not for condemnation because of evil choices.) I realize that it was Paul who instructs us repeatedly to examine ourselves, but this admonition makes perfect sense in light of what scripture tells us about the deceptiveness of our own hearts and the inclination toward evil of our own imaginations. If self deception is basic to our nature, then we have to anchor our faith upon something external to us and the only thing in all creation that is proven true by time and circumstance is the word of God.
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17