The Opponents of Paul: First Century Disputes Within Christianity

Throughout the writings of Paul we find about competing and different set of beliefs that are being passed around, and we know this thanks to Paul himself, who condemns and attacks these people for preaching a different message to what he was. The only unfortunate issue is that we don’t have the writings of those people, rather we can only rely on Paul.

The main importance of this is that it shows early differences in first century Christianity, THE very first decades of Christianity itself! Modern day Christians often try to downplay Christian groups that disagree with their doctrine based on their dates, for instance many Christian sect and groups that vastly disagree with orthodox Christianity appeared during the 2nd-4th century, and modern day Christians say since they aren’t first century, and come sometime after Jesus, they aren’t to be taken too seriously. Although this logic is faulty because there was no official orthodox position until the 4th century! Hence anything between the first century and 4th century could be considered fair game, in fact the term early Christianity denotes the time between the 1st century to the 4th, after the Council of Nicaea!

In this case though, Christian apologists won’t be able to play that game, as we are appealing to the very writings of Paul, in the first century, and a couple of decades after Jesus. So with all of that said, let us go into the writings to see the disputes and differences he was having.

We start with the book of Galatians, where Paul writes the following:


So according to Paul, another Gospel was being preached, and not only was it being preached, but many people were deserting Paul’s teaching for this other Gospel! Off course Paul is not too pleased about that, and he condemns the people who are preaching the different Gospel, he claims that they are eternally condemned, and that they are trying to pervert the Gospel message. Paul warns the people, to not dare follow any other Gospel message that is different from his, even if it was an angel giving the message!

What gets more interesting is that Paul begins to try and convince the people that the Gospel he has is divine, and not from any normal man, but it was revealed to him by Jesus Christ. Obviously he makes this plea because people were beginning to doubt him and his authenticity, yet he is trying to convince the people otherwise, that his message is from Jesus.

Now what could these opponents be preaching? Well we know they were preaching something different to Paul, hence we ask what was Paul preaching? One of the hallmarks of Paul’s theology is that the Law doesn’t matter anymore, that the Jewish Laws and customs are useless, and it’s all about faith and grace now. So we can assume that these opponents were obviously preaching something opposite to this.

In the next chapter we get the context of what Paul is talking about, and WHO Paul is talking about in Galatians chapter two:


So in this chapter we see the differences arise again, and this time we see the specific people who are being confronted by Paul, and it happens to be Peter! The very same Peter who was a disciple of Jesus, and said to be the right hand man of Jesus! Paul confronts Peter, and calls Peter a hypocrite! The obvious major disagreement here has to do concerning the Jewish Law, as Paul makes it clear, the Jewish Law in no way saves a person, rather it is by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice that people are saved. Obviously this means that Peter and his group were preaching something different, the opposite to this, that the Jewish Law DID matter, and was not as useless as Paul was making it out to be.

Now let us not forget, in the previous chapter, Galatians 1, Paul CONDEMNS his opponent, and claims they are perverting the Gospel, now is it possible that these harsh rebukes were in fact directed towards Peter as well? We could speculate about this, and it would seem that Paul is not only talking about Peter, but all those others who are disagreeing with him as well, so we can see major differences arising here.

In fact in the book of Acts were read more about the major disagreements Paul is having:


So according to the above, Paul was summoned to Jerusalem, and they were obviously concerned with what they were hearing about Paul, that he was effectively turning the Jewish Law into nothing, which was true. The situation completely heats up later on when a group of Jewish followers see Paul, and they want to get at him because of his teachings against the Jewish Law, and Paul is eventually forced into protection. So you can see how tense and heated the situation is, this isn’t some minor small disagreement we have here, this is a major issue running through the early Christian church.

In fact the situation is so heated that as we saw in the book of Galatians, Paul is eternally condemning his opponents, and warning the people to not follow them!

In Acts 22 we continue to read more about this situation:


So here Paul tries to explain himself to the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, and they are having none of it, they all become very agitated at Paul, and eventually Paul escapes punishment because he is a Roman citizen. Many scholars often point to this incident and call this the moment Christianity split, the split between the Jewish Christians and Paul’s version of Christianity.

We continue to read about the differences other Christians were having with Paul, this time from 2 Corinthians:



Paul yet again warns the people to be wary of following another Gospel, or following another different Jesus that is being preached! Paul goes on to call these people false apostles, deceitful workers, fakes, and he even likens them to satan!

Now since we don’t have the writings of these people we don’t really know what they were preaching, but what we do know is that it was something different to what Paul was preaching, as Paul said, they are preaching a different Jesus, a different Gospel. Obviously this means that these Christians had something different, they most likely taught that the Law should be applied, and should be followed, and that it wasn’t as useless as Paul was teaching, that salvation was not on faith alone. Anything else is speculation, it could be on a wide range of issues in which they disagreed with Paul, and preached something different, what it was, we don’t really know. What we DO KNOW is that these texts prove that there were some serious early disagreements within the early Christian Church, and that there were competing messages being taught.

Christians may simply try to downplay this, but the text doesn’t allow them to do so, for if these were some minor disagreements, then Paul would not have been so harsh in his condemnations, and he would not be so eager to make sure that this different message to his was not being accepted and followed. Therefore it’s quite clear that there were some major disagreements happening here, and indeed it should be a cause for concern!

In fact according to Philippians chapter 4, Paul claims that many churches rejected him:


So there were several Churches rejecting Paul, not wanting to work with him! Now if that’s not a major difference then I really don’t know what is! And this is from the FIRST CENTURY! A few decades after Jesus!

So let us summarize everything we have:

1-Other gospels and opposing teachings were being made

2-These teachings were gaining followers, and people were abandoning Paul’s message

3-Paul condemned his opponents, calling them deceivers, fakes, and likened them to satan

4-Some of Pauls opponents included the disciples, such as Peter, whom Paul confronted and insulted

5-Paul was summoned by the Church in Jerusalem, who themselves had disagreements with Paul, the Christian Jews of Jerusalem under James, forced Paul out of Jerusalem

6-Many Churches were rejecting Paul, and refused to work with him

So we can clearly see some major disagreements in early Christianity, first century Christianity, just a few decades after Jesus, and many of these Christians who disagreed with Paul eventually became to known as Ebionites, and other early Christian 2nd century groups, their foundations all lied in the first century.

Categories: Christianity

3 replies »

  1. You ignore all the moral admonitions in Paul’s writings. It’s a very distorted picture of Paul on this website.

    They were all preaching the same gospel of the resurrection of Jesus and remission of sins through his name. Peter was behaving in denial of the gospel that he preached and so Paul had every right to rebuke him.

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo



Connecting to %s