100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
25. The Sayings of Jesus and Early Church Doctrine
The letter of Clement of Rome and the Didache are two documents datable to the first century. These letters show conclusively that the early church regarded the sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels as inspired and authoritive. Equally regarded as authoritive, the New Testament epistles of Paul, Peter, James and John, were all written to inform and encourage the early church in matters of theology, worship, and day-to-day conduct. Seven of Paul’s letters are universally accepted as authentic, and arguments against the authenticity of the others are far from conclusive.
Many of the issues addressed in the New Testament epistles were very important in the lives of first century Christians looking for instruction. Matters such as husband-wife relationship, child-rearing, eating meats sacrificed to idols, and circumcision, were addressed in the epistles, but were not addressed by the Lord directly in the Gospel accounts. This fact argues against the notion that the Gospels as we know them today developed over decades of time to meet the doctrinal needs of the church.
To state it another way, if the church was really altering the biblical text to reflect its changing doctrines, one would expect that the Gospels themselves would have contained the authoritive words of Jesus concerning these matters. The fact that they do not can only argue for the unembellished, factual character of the Gospels.