Mohammed, the founder of Islam, had revelations. Joseph Smith, of the Mormons, had revelations. Paul did too. Why do Christians accept Paul’s and not the other’s?

Jesus is not be equated with Mohammed, Joseph Smith, or any of the myriad of others who have claimed to be prophets. Jesus, whose life, from birth to death, had been outlined in detail in the Scriptures we know as the Old Testament centuries before the actual events, and who is the eternal Son of the Father, did not even claim prophet status. Jesus did not claim revelations either; his very person is the revelation--God in the flesh. 

Jesus, after his resurrection and ascension, appeared to Paul while Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there. Paul was never the same. Predestined, chosen, and called by God before eternity (as all genuine Christians are), Paul was given the responsibility of preaching a Jewish based gospel to a Graeco-Roman culture. 

Paul was no innovator either. He brought no new revelations. Rather, Paul interpreted for the Gentiles (Greeks) the life and ministry of Jesus in a way that could be understood. For instance, Paul commonly spoke of Jesus as Lord in his letters to Gentile churches. To the Greek mind it meant that Jesus was God himself. To Jewish people Paul tended to refer to Jesus as Messiah or Christ—a title of major significance to Jews. Paul contextualized the age old story of salvation, which the Jews had knowledge of, if they were paying attention, to the Roman world. 

Paul applied the doctrines of Scripture to the church of his day. From the Hebrew Scripture, through the teaching of Jesus as recorded in our four Gospels, Paul acquainted first century believers with biblical principles of faith and living. Paul, a keen student of the Old Testament and the words and deeds of Jesus through the Apostles, delivered to the churches of his day, and of course to all church through the ages, the major doctrines of our Faith. 

To a Greek Church Paul wrote, ‘Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you ‘ (1 Corinthians 15:1). He went on to say, ‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that we was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ ( 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Paul was a prophet only in the sense that he preached the age old story of God’s salvation for fallen humans. Paul developed no new religion; he only and always pointed others to Jesus and his cross. To the Corinthian Church Paul ‘decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 12:2).

Paul’s revelation on that momentous day near ancient Damascus was from Jesus and about Jesus and nothing more, nothing new, nothing that changed the Hebrew prophecies about the coming Messiah, the Christ. Mohammed’s revelations utterly controvert the prophecies of the Old Testament. Likewise Joseph Smith’s. Neither Mohammed’s nor Joseph Smith’s word can be accepted because they do radically alter the Scripture. Anyone who reads the Qur’an or the Book of Mormon will see this. 

Why Paul? All we find of Paul in the New Testament aligns perfectly with the Old Testament and the life and teaching of Jesus. A three fold witness then--Old Testament, the Gospels, and the revelation of Jesus to Paul. 

Why not Mohammed, or Joseph Smith, or any of the others who periodically appear with new improved truth? Their testimony does not line up with the primary witnesses—the Old Testament and the life and teaching of Jesus—and now the teaching of the great apostle himself, Paul.

Kent Philpott
March 2007