So Paul an Apostle of Christ is mistaken and outright lying, but Luther and the so called “reformers” got it right? Only Apostolic tradition aren’t treadtions of men, but traditions of Christ and as much inspired by him as scripture is.
Paul had something none of us have. The ability to go and visit one or all of Jesus disciples; and the disciples could do something too. The disciples could correct untruths or false teachings about the faith in real time, in their lives.
It's why we know anything at all about these earliest heresies, because people like John were standing against a false teaching or two when they wrote about it.
When the disciples thought Paul was going too far, we read in Acts 15 they sent for Paul to come to council, and in defense he spoke of what the Holy Spirit was doing in the Gentiles (exactly the same work the Spirit had done in the believing Jews) sans works of the law, and how the Scriptures prophesied about this day.
They argued it out, likely for hours, until they came to a firm decision.
We don't have disciples now 2,000 years later who heard directly from Jesus who can correct us, we have their writings. People can think whatever they want about these writings I suppose, but those writings are what we have for
our Jerusalem council.
And if we don't use it we are more likely to go astray then not.. that was Luther's point. That has been the point of all the reformers and it's our point today. We have scripture and this far removed from the disciples we must make use of it as foundational to our beliefs because when our practices are so far removed from the disciples it can, at some point, no longer be considered the same faith.
