27 Oct Why I love the Apostle Paul, and why you should, too
Without question, the central figure of the New Testament, apart from Jesus of Nazareth, is Paul of Tarsus.
As much or more than the person of Jesus, Paul is immensely valuable as proof that something happened in the first century, that, because of Jesus, changed the world. That something transformative happened to a real, first-century radical Pharisee Jew named Saul, who became known as Paul, is incontrovertible. His life and witness alone give us deep confidence and assurance of the truth contained in the New Testament.
But for a lot of people, Paul is problematic.
His personality and teachings can unnerve both traditional and modern people alike.
For the traditional, conservative person, his views on justification by faith can be…unsettling. Is God that forgiving?
For the modern, liberal person, his views on sexuality and statements about women can come across as mystifying. What does he mean?
Why do I bring this up?
As you may know, we are moving through 1 Thessalonians right now, one of Paul’s epistles.
And one of my not-so-secret goals with this letter, and with Paul in general, is to get you to love Paul’s person and teaching if you don’t already, as part of your Christian formation.
If you struggle with Paul, let me suggest this: perhaps it’s not because you’ve gotten beaten up by Paul, it’s that you’ve gotten beaten up with Paul.
That is, someone, in Paul’s name, perhaps unwittingly, has picked up Paul and clubbed you with his words; unfortunately, Christian communicators can do this all the time (and it’s more than likely that I have at some point as well).
Most Christian pastors and teachers now are smart enough and educated enough to know not to pick up an Old or New Testament prophet, and bring down the judgment of God on their congregation. Why? Because they know, rightly, that those letters were written to a people many years ago about their specific situation and sin. That is, they realize those people then lived in Israel, or Babylon, or Egypt, and they realize we are not the nation of Israel today. While there are clear parallels, we are not Ancient Jews.
A far more subtle mistake for all of us to make is to forget that in the same way that we are not the people of Israel in 800 B.C., we are not the Thessalonians or Galatians or Ephesians of 50 A.D.
Yes, we are the people of God, and even more specifically, the people of Jesus, but there is still a gap of space and time between them and us.
Affirming this does not in any way mitigate the Epistles as God’s forever, authoritative, and living word, written to them and for us.
What it does mean is that we want to be careful in what we do with God’s forever, authoritative, and living word.
Let me give you, then, four quick tips to being careful with Paul, from an outstanding resource we have at our bookstore in the lobby: Fee and Stuart’s Reading the Bible for All Its Worth. When it comes to Paul and his Epistles, here are four “best practices”:
- Understand that the Epistles (Christian letters) are occasional: that is, they are written for a specific occasion. Bottom line, they were written because something happened. What was that something? When we understand that, we understand better where the letter is going.
- Once we understand the occasion, we understand the task at hand in the letter. Paul’s letters were not meant to be theologically exhaustive; they are, primarily, task theology–solving a particular problem for a certain occasion.
- Therefore, a text cannot mean for us what it never meant for them. This does not always help us understand what a text does mean, but it can help us understand what a text does not mean.
- Finally, whenever we see where we share commonalities with the original audience, the solution is still the same (for example, if “all have sinned”—that would be all of us–all are in need of the saving “grace of God”, as in Romans 3:23).
There’s quite a bit more “meat on the bone” with this conversation, but hopefully that’s a helpful starter (or reminder) kit for you when it comes to reading the Epistles.
In the end, though, the greatest challenge we will ever face with Paul is not what we do with what we do not understand; it’s what to do with what we do understand. How can we live out what we do understand? A call to live by faith; the imperative to put others’ needs before our own; the necessity of keeping Christ as first place in our lives?
To those all-important ends, we need a community; supporting us, cheering for us, speaking truth to us, and calling us to greater Christ-centered love and service on behalf of the church and a world in need of redemption.
When Paul is held up rightly in a community like that, his words and witness can have an explosive, transformative power–just like they did many centuries ago.
I hope that as we gather and hear the word of God read and preached, our hearts would leap at the thought of hearing from a remarkable Christian individual who really did chang, and still changes the world today.
The Epistles of Paul: what a gift!
I love them, and I think you should, too.
See you Sunday for a great day, in one of our campus buildings and out on the North Campus parking lot from 4-7 pm for our Fall Fest.
Morgan