Paul Writing Scripture and Us

When Paul wrote his various teachings to the churches - what he wrote about worship or loving one another or marriage or any of the rest - it was not that the Spirit whispered into his ear what he should write. Paul reasoned from what he knew. Paul’s teachings were the results of his own reflections on Old Testament Scripture. The same is true of the other New Testament writers. (The mysterious thing is how the Spirit superintended this whole process so that the teachings that they wrote were also what God wanted written.) 

Why is this important to note? It establishes that the difference between the writers of the New Testament, and the rest of us is not a difference of kind but of degree. This is not to say that any of us can now write Scripture like they did. But it is to say that we can also derive truths from the Scriptures to believe and to teach. And that is what the Church has been doing and will continue to do. There is much more in Scripture than what we have discovered. 

So, just as the Church was able to establish the truths of the deity of Jesus, the Trinity, justification by grace through faith in Christ and lots more, it will continue to establish truths – doctrines – in the centuries (millennia?) to come. And I suppose we just might be doing this in the age to come.