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 (2Tim. 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"" (2Pet.3: 16)

If it was easy for Paul's contemporaries to misunderstand his epistles, we can be sure that it will be even easier for us to do so, with out limited knowledge of the situations and problems Paul was addressing when he wrote to these various churches. Yet some Christians, perhaps unknowingly, are more intent on following the easy-to-misunderstand teaching contained in Paul's letters than they are on following the plain teaching of the Messiah Jesus contained in the Gospels.