Of course they did...They knew Paul was an apostle chosen by God...They knew his letters were from God...They knew Paul was putting to paper what he had been teaching orally...Just as this scripture which your religion perverts tells us...
2Th_2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.
Paul was putting to paper that which he was teaching orally...
No, these early Christian communities received them as exactly what they were; letters of spiritual guidance from a human ecclesiastical authority. Namely, the evangelist who brought them the Gospel. That is all.
Nonsense...Paul was chosen personally by God as THE authority to teach the Gentile church...You call the Bible spiritual guidance??? Those words are the 'words' of God...Like God says, 'the blind leading the blind'...
Excuse me. They believed "his letters were from God" but the letters carried no authority by virtue of their presence in a book which had been assembled and canonized by the Church and therefore officially designated as inspired by God. The Christians in Corinth were required to make an act of faith in a man and his words. There were undoubtedly many letters exchanged between the various evangelists and nascent Christian communities and Paul's letters were among them.
They knew Paul was putting to paper what he had been teaching orally...Just as this scripture which your religion perverts tells us..
Ahhhh....but it was most certainly not Scripture as you refer to it on this forum. The Christians in Corinth and Ephesus read them as letters from an evangelist. Just as I read a letter from a bishop. Paul's letters gained their authority precisely from who he was and the mission which had been entrusted to him and not from their presence in a sacred book. That is the essential difference.
It was "Paul sez"....and not "da Bible sez..." This is how the Church works, as mentioned above. Through human ecclesiastical authority.