December 2005

QUESTION #1: Do any of the Jews of today know which tribes they come from?

ANSWER: No, when the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, the tribal records were also destroyed. Therefore, none of the Jews of today know for certain from which tribes they are descended. Yet, we can be assured that God knows, and when the time comes for God to seal the 144,000, He will reveal the identity of all the tribes (Rev. 7:2-8).



QUESTION #2: I’m a seminary student; and in one of my classes last semester, we were studying early Jewish-Christian groups like the Ebionites and the Nazarenes. It’s interesting that some of these groups rejected the writings of the Apostle Paul and actually considered him a heretic. I guess I never really thought too much about it—I just assumed the Pauline Epistles were Scripture because they are included in the New Testament canon. But I’ve been wondering lately if maybe this is another example of something we have accepted simply because of tradition. How do we know the Pauline writings were really supposed to be considered Scripture?

ANSWER: There is nothing wrong with questioning traditions to make sure they are grounded in Scripture. In fact, we have an obligation as believers to do precisely that (Acts 17:10-11). It is not difficult, however, to show that the writings of Paul were considered Scripture even by the Apostles themselves (that is, those of them who lived long enough to know Paul)—and the New Testament proves it. Peter, for example, wrote:

And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:15-16).

Peter says that the enemies of the Gospel were attacking the writings of Paul just as they attack “the rest of the Scriptures.” He doesn’t refer to the authority of the Pauline writings as an issue, but as an accepted fact. Ergo, the writings of Paul were recognized as Scripture by the Early Church. As you probably learned in your class, this was one thing that distinguished the Nazarenes from other early Jewish-Christian sects like the Ebionites. The Nazarenes (who are mentioned in Acts 24:5) accepted the authority of Paul’s writings. The Ebionites did not.