What are your thoughts on these comments by Daniel Botkin?
If a person has a fair amount of exposure to Mainstream Christianity, and a familiarity with the Bible, he may notice that Mainstream Christianity often de-emphasizes the Old Testament and puts a disproportionate amount of emphasis on Paul’s epistles. I would hesitate to say that any part of the Scriptures can be overemphasized. However, if we give uncalled-for weight and emphasis to certain parts of the Bible, and neglect what the rest of the Scriptures teaches about an issue, we will probably develop and imbalanced view of that particular issue.
By volume, Paul’s epistles make up approximately 5% of the Bible. Paul’s writings are holy Scripture, but neither Paul nor the Holy Spirit expected us to give more weight and authority to these epistles than we do to the Old Testament or to the rest of the New Testament.
By putting a disproportionate amount of emphasis on these letters that Paul sent to various churches, we fail to follow the example of Paul, who told the Ephesians, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Ac.20:27). By neglecting certain parts of the Bible, we ignore Paul’s declaration that “all Scripture is inspired and is useful.” (2 Tim. 3:16).
Christianity’s strong emphasis on Paul’s writings, and lack of emphasis on so much of the rest of the Bible, is puzzling. It is especially puzzling when we consider Peter’s warning about Paul’s writings: “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 Pet. 3:16).
My first thought is that I don’t see how this can possibly be true. If Mainstream Christianity overemphasizes the Pauline epistles, how can they ignore all he had to say on the subject of homosexuality (particularly I Cor. 5)? That certainly seems to be the single issue driving the so-called progressives toward change, doesn’t it?
Some put more weight on the NT because it is a clearer dispensation of the covenant of grace.
I think some put more weight on Paul because they are partial to his theological writing.
I’ve seen still others put weight on the Gospels alone…even to the point of only seeing weight in the red letters of Christ Himself.
It’s a scary place to be picking and choosing which words of God we esteem and which we don’t.