It is incorrect to regard St. Paul as some kind of spiritual “lone ranger,” on his own with no particular ecclesiastical allegiance, since he was commissioned by Jesus Himself as an Apostle.
- In his very conversion experience, Jesus informed Paul that he would be told what to do (Acts 9:6; cf.9:17).
- He went to see St. Peter in Jerusalem for fifteen days in order to be confirmed in his calling (Galatians 1:18),
- and fourteen years later was commissioned by Peter, James, and John (Galatians 2:1-2,9).
- He was also sent out by the Church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-4), which was in contact with the Church at Jerusalem (Acts 11:19-27).
- Later on, Paul reported back to Antioch (Acts 14:26-28).
- Acts 15:2 states: “. . . Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.”
- The next verse refers to Paul and Barnabas “being sent on their way by the church.”
- Paul did what he was told to do by the Jerusalem Council (where he played no huge role),
- and Paul and Barnabas were sent off, or commissioned by the council (15:22-27), and shared its binding teachings in their missionary journeys: “. . . delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem” (Acts 16:4).
The Jerusalem Council certainly regarded its teachings as infallible, and guided by the Holy Spirit Himself. The records we have of it don’t even record much discussion about biblical prooftexts, and the main issue was circumcision (where there is a lot of Scripture to draw from). Paul accepted its authority and proclaimed its teachings (Acts 16:4).
I gave several passages showing that Paul was under Church authority, in various ways. It is the pitting of the ultimate source against the secondary, human source (the Church) which is the problem in your approach and that of Protestantism in general. You guys don’t like human, institutional authority and don’t have enough faith to believe that God can and does preserve it,
so you try to undermine it by fallacious arguments, as presently.
No doubt you aren’t even aware that you are doing it. To do this is automatic in Protestantism; it’s like breathing. It’s like the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water. It all comes from the rejection of the infallibility of the Church (which is one thing that
sola Scriptura always entails).
In Galatians 1-2 Paul is referring to his initial conversion. But even then God made sure there was someone else around, to urge him to get baptized (Ananias:
Acts 22:12-16). He received the revelation initially and then sought to have it confirmed by Church authority (
Gal 2:1-2); then his authority was accepted or verified by James, Peter, and John (
Gal 2:9).
So we see that the Bible doesn’t pit the divine call directly from God, against Church authority, as you do. You do it because
it is Protestant man-made tradition to do so; period, and because the Protestant has to always undermine the authority of the Church, and the Catholic Church, in order to bolster his own anti-system, that was set up against the historic Church in the first place.
We believe in faith that the Church is infallible and indefectible, based on many biblical indications. It is theoretically possible (speaking in terms of philosophy or epistemology) that the Church could stray and have to be rejected, but the Bible rules that out.
We believe in faith that it has not and will not.
Protestants don’t have enough faith to believe that God could preserve an infallible Church, even though they can muster up even more faith than that,
which is required to believe in an infallible Bible written by a bunch of sinners and hypocrites.
We simply have more faith than you guys do. It’s a supernatural gift. We believe that the authoritative Church is also a key part of God’s plan to save the souls of men. We follow the model of the Jerusalem Council, whereas you guys reject that or ignore it, because it doesn’t fit in with the man-made tradition of Protestantism and a supposedly non-infallible Church.
What is straying from God’s word is the very notion of denominationalism, which is always considered an outrage in the NT; the rejection of apostolic succession, and of, e.g., bishops (plainly present in the NT), or belief in a non-literal Eucharist, or a baptism that doesn’t regenerate, or
sola Scriptura or faith alone (separation of justification and sanctification):
all the host of unbiblical teachings that are in Protestantism. That’s why I left the system; wanting to follow biblical teachings more closely, traditional moral teachings, and the historic Christian Church.
The Bible teaches that the true Church is infallible and indefectible. That is a promise of God. One either accepts it in faith or not. That is the task: does one accept all of what the Bible teaches, or just selectively, with man-made traditions added to it?
There is such a thing as a false church and false gospel, that must be rejected, a
nd there is also the one true Church that cannot fail doctrinally, based on God’s protection. You assert the first thing but reject the second, which is your difficulty (accepting one part of the Bible but not another). We accept both things and have no difficulty.