What Did Peter and Jude View As Scripture?
Some Christians today believe only the actual spoken words of Jesus to be divinely inspired and to be taken as the authoritative word of God, and other Bible writings, including the Old Testament (OT), to be merely the words of humans.. Is this the way the early Christians viewed things? What did Peter and Jude view as scripture?
PETER’S VIEW
Below, we will examine the Apostle Peter’s view of the OT and also his view on his fellow apostle Paul’s writings:
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21) Peter viewed God as the source of Scripture, including the Old Testament. God is infallible, so His word is also.
“For, ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ And this is the word that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:24-25) God’s word (including the OT) endures forever and is infallible.
“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:15-16) The apostle Paul’s NT writings were equated to OT Scripture by the apostle Peter.
JUDE’S VIEW
“But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.'” (Jude 17-18) Jude viewed the apostles’ writings as being authoritative.
CONCLUSION
Early Christians, such as Bible writers Peter and Jude, viewed the Old Testament, and the apostles writings, as authoritative inspired scripture.