Okay, maybe the title of the post is a slight wind-up. But having come clean on that, I do have a serious point to make. The dominant picture of Paul, particularly among the Churches of the Reformation, is derived from Galatians:
For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)
Paul, as a charismatically gifted prophet, has no time for human traditions and neither, so the implication goes, should we. We may lack his direct revelation, but we have Scripture in its place, and so we can resolutely oppose all those who claim tradition, and follow instead in the apostle’s footsteps. In its Bultmannian form this goes further and makes Paul entirely uninterested even in the traditions about Jesus: all that matters is the saving Christ-event, and its interpretation existentially revealed from heaven.
One might think that Bultmann and the evangelicals were miles apart, but on this they are remarkably close. “You ask me how I know he lives: he lives within my heart”, never mind five hundred witnesses transmitting the tradition of the resurrection. And so (to continue in full hyperbolic ranting caricature mode for one more sentence 
) the more people talk about “the gospel,” the less likely they are to pay attention to the gospels.
But consider the picture of Paul from 1 Corinthians:
- He appeals to a saying of Jesus for ethical guidance: “To the married I give this command– not I but the Lord– that the wife should not separate from her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:10 NRSV) And, despite all those who assert the readiness of the early Church simply to make up saying of Jesus, we should note how sharply Paul distinguishes his own advice from the sayings tradition.
- He appeals to a saying of Jesus to discuss his own apostolic practice: (possibly to draw some force for it being used against him): “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:14 NRSV). Here he notes that he could insist on his right as the Lord’s command to them to support him, but that he freely offers them his ministry.
- He appeals to church tradition (which is also Jesus’ teaching) to regulate liturgical practice: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread … (1 Corinthians 11:23 NRSV) So what he demands of them is rooted in the traditions that are passed on, originating with Jesus, received through the apostles, given to Corinth as part of Paul’s founding of the church there, and fundamental to its life.
- He appeals to church tradition for a basic summary of the faith, and witness to the resurrection: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures … (1 Corinthians 15:3 NRSV) and is actually able to equate this handed on tradition with “the good news that I proclaimed to you” (15:1).
- He appeals to the sensus fidelium: “But if anyone is disposed to be contentious– we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God” (1 Corinthians 11:16 NRSV) Admittedly this appears to be when he has some sense of not making the world’s most coherent argument, and may represent a fall-back position, but it is still one he can make quite readily.
Where in all this is the Paul who rejects the Church’s common traditions? Perhaps it is the polemical sharpness of Galatians that should be read through the lens of the more discursive Corinthians, and not the other way round. Galatians represents Paul’s approach to one very particular and drastic situation. Corinthians shows him working across a range of problems. Nor can we easily speak about a developing view. When it comes to the respective dating of the two letters scholars are divided: either they were written fairly close together in the mid-50s (on a North Galatian hypothesis) or Galatians may be the earlier by some years, with Corinthians representing a more mature and considered view (on a South Galatian hypothesis – to which I incline). But at the very least, it would seem that Paul’s obvious concern for the tradition needs to balance his sense of immediate revelation in the way that we regard him.
