it would be interesting--and very time-consuming--to redo the above tables based not merely on words written, but on words written and/or spoken. I.e. Paul's words in Acts should be taken from Luke and assigned to Paul; same with Peter; and the Lord's words in the Gospels etc. taken from the writers and assigned to him. In that case, Paul (and Peter) would certainly rise, while Luke and the other gospel writers would go down quite a bit. Anybody ready to count some more beans?
First, great job on the stats <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bravo.gif" alt="" /> If some of you proceed with this very bean intensive task please also remove all the OT references listed—that is if we are looking for originality in who said the most.
Second, an argument can be made that Peter was too busy leading to write as much as Paul, Luke, etc., so don’t spend too much time with the stats.
Third, Catholics argue that Peter was the Pope of Rome which IMO has "somewhat" of a bearing on the question at hand.
When Paul writes to Rome, he never greets Peter in the letter (strange if Peter is in charge). In speaking of the Pillars of the church, Paul writes,
so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Gal 2:9). This is a very important. It shows clearly that
every apostle had a limitation to their authority. The Apostles had ministry assignments.
Acts 15 records an important issue that came up to the apostles. How were they to deal with Gentiles becoming Christians? Paul and Barnabus shared the miracle of the conversion of Gentiles. After some discussion Peter offers his opinon. However in the end, it is James who has the last word:
“After they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, "Brethren, listen to me” (Acts 15:13).—significant!
In Matthew 16:18-19, the argument made by the RCC is this: Jesus gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so he alone had the authority to “bind and loose.” The problem with their argument is this: Jesus gave not only Peter the power to “bind and loose,” He gave this power to all His disciples. Look carefully two chapters later. Jesus said the same thing,
“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven,” (Matt 18:18) when He was speaking to ALL the disciples [pl] (Matt 18:1). Jesus discussed the role of leaders and
their [pl] power to “bind and loose,” (
not just Peters).
In addition, Peter’s pope skills would be questioned: (1) he was not always the brightest bulb in the bunch (Mark 9:2-6) (2) he was over confident (Matthew 26:31-35) (3) he denied the LORD, (4) he was too impulsive (John 18:10), and (5) he was married (Matt 8:14; Mark 1:30; Luke 4:38; 1 Cor 9:5). However, he was still a called Apostle—marvelous grace!
