One apostle calls another apostle Scripture

Near the end of his last letter, Peter refers to Paul — and then says something about Paul’s letters that changes the shape of the whole question.

Read the last clause again. Ignorant and unstable people distort Paul’s letters, as they do the other Scriptures.

The other Scriptures. Peter has just put Paul’s working correspondence in a category, and the category is graphe — the word this volume studied in Week Five, which everywhere else in the New Testament means the sacred writings.

And he does it in passing, without argument, as though his readers would find it unremarkable.

Paul does something similar in a different direction.

He introduces the sentence with the Scripture says and then quotes two things. The first is Deuteronomy 25:4, about the ox. The second — the worker is worthy of his wages — is not in the Old Testament. It is a saying of Jesus, recorded in Luke 10:7.

So Paul quotes Deuteronomy and Luke under one heading and does not distinguish between them.

That needs stating carefully, because it is easy to claim too much. These two verses do not settle the boundaries of the canon, and they do not tell us which books belong. The formation of the list took generations, involved real disputes over several books, and Athanasius’ letter at the top of Week Seven is a milestone in it rather than the beginning.

What they do establish is that the category was open, and that apostles were putting apostolic writing into it while the ink was still recent.

Peter also gives us one of the most useful sentences in the New Testament for honest readers: Paul writes some things that are hard to understand. An apostle says that about another apostle, in Scripture, about Scripture.

It is worth naming what this day does not do. It does not prove any particular book belongs in the canon, and it does not settle the disputes over Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, Jude and Revelation that occupied the church for two centuries. It establishes something narrower and more useful: that the apostles themselves did not regard the collection as closed with Malachi.

So difficulty is not evidence against the Book. It was noticed at the time, by a man who wrote part of it, and his warning is not therefore be cautious about Paul. It is that unstable people twist hard things — and they do it to the rest of Scripture too.

The authorship and date of 2 Peter are debated more than most New Testament books, on grounds of style and of the letter’s relationship to Jude. Whatever conclusion a reader reaches, the verse tells us that within the first Christian generations Paul’s letters were being spoken of in this category by someone writing with apostolic authority.

The 1 Timothy 5:18 quotation is also found at Matthew 10:10 in a slightly different form; the wording matches Luke 10:7 exactly. Whether Paul is quoting Luke’s Gospel or a saying circulating in the same words is discussed at length in the commentaries, and both possibilities put a saying of Jesus under the heading the Scripture says.

Note what Peter says Paul wrote about: the patience of our Lord as salvation, and these matters — the coming of the Lord, which is the subject of Peter’s own chapter. He is not making a general remark about Paul; he is citing him as agreeing with the argument.

The formation of the canon is a genuine subject with genuine evidence: the Muratorian fragment, the lists of Origen and Eusebius, Athanasius in 367, and the councils at the end of that century. This day establishes only the starting point, and the honest reader should know the rest of the trail exists.

Peter’s remark also tells us something about circulation. He assumes his readers know Paul’s letters — not one letter, but letters, plural, addressed to various churches. Within one generation the correspondence was already gathered enough that an apostle could refer to it as a body of writing.

Look it upG1124 γραφή graphe, Scripture, the writing · G1425 δυσνόητος dysnoetos, hard to understand · G4761 στρεβλόω streblo, to twist, distort · G793 ἀστήρικτος asteriktos, unstable, unsteady

Where this touches2 Peter 3:14–18 · 1 Timothy 5:17–18 · Deuteronomy 25:4 · Luke 10:7 · 1 Corinthians 9:9–14 · 2 Peter 1:16–21 (Week Five, Day Four). Jeremiah, Luke, John, Revelation, Peter, Moses, Paul, the prophets and the Proverbs collectors gave the earlier accounts.