

Doug L. from Rockwall, Texas, asks:

How do we understand 1 Cor. 7:12, when Paul says, “To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord),” when all of Scripture is meant to be from the Lord? How do we make sense of this in light of the debates on inerrancy and authority of Scripture?






Who Is ‘the Lord’?

The first matter to clear up is what the questioner means by saying that “all of Scripture” is “from the Lord.” In one sense this is true, in another sense it is not.

Most broadly, the whole Bible is certainly from “from the Lord” if by “the Lord” we mean the triune God—the 66 books of the Bible are God’s self-testimony to a fallen world of his identity and his mighty deeds in our space-and-time history for the sake of sinners. Every word is a word from God.

But not all of Scripture is “from the Lord” if by “the Lord” we mean the Lord Jesus in his earthly teaching—and it is Jesus that Paul has in mind when he speaks of “the Lord” in 1 Corinthians 7.

When Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:10 that it is “not I, but the Lord” who declares that a husband and wife should not separate, he is drawing on the words of Jesus (e.g., Matt. 19:4-9). When Paul goes on to say that it is “I, not the Lord” who says that a believing spouse should remain with a contented unbelieving spouse, he is acknowledging that Jesus did not explicitly address such a situation, as the Corinthians are now facing.

Canon Within the Canon?

Of course, this raises a question. Is Paul saying Jesus’ words are more authoritative than his own? Have we created a canon within the canon? Are we saying that if Paul were to buy a Bible today, he’d prefer a red-letter edition?


The 66 books of the Bible are unified, but not uniform. The Bible gives us a coherent message, but every text must be read in light of the entire Bible; Leviticus must be read in light of Mark 7. Anything less would be sub-Christian. I don’t read Isaiah the way a Jew would in 50 B.C. for the same basic reason I’m not writing this article on papyrus: it’s not where we are in the Story.



What is relevant here is simply the question of authority. The king had formally sanctioned a specific number of officials to carry out his laws. The officials therefore write a letter to the people explaining their solution. In that letter they explain that the king himself had ordered every male 18 years of age to enter the military. The officials then further explain that, although the king did not explicitly address the unusual circumstance of foreigners becoming citizens, the officials themselves speak on the king’s behalf and with his authority. The people of the land are therefore to receive the officials’ decision just as they would the king’s very words.

Distinction of Source, Not Authority

The point of this imperfect analogy is simply that even when Paul is speaking beyond the actual words of Jesus, he is speaking with apostolic authority. He acts on behalf of the King. It may sound odd, but we receive Paul’s instruction in 1 Cor. 7:12-16 as the very word of God even though it is not the very words of Jesus. 1 Cor. 7:12 is no less inerrant than 1 Cor. 7:10 (or the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, for that matter). For Christians today, Paul’s “I, not the Lord” is not less authoritative than his “not I, but the Lord.” It might be worth remembering also that even the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels are the true voice of Jesus but not the actual words of Jesus. He spoke in Aramaic, but our New Testament recorded those words in Greek. So even in the Gospels, we are dealing with a similar dynamic. We do not view the Greek text of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as inferior in authority to the Aramaic that Jesus would actually have uttered.

In other words, the distinction we today discern in Paul’s words in 1 Cor 7:10, 12 is a distinction of original source, not final authority. Paul is telling us that he is quoting Jesus in 7:10, but not in 7:12. But for us today, both verses have full authority. Perhaps Paul’s apostolic authority in these matters is the reason he reminds his readers that he too has the Spirit of God in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 7.
