The Letters of Paul

Paul became a Christian in the 30s of the first century.  Most of his writing was done in the decade of the 50s.  He gives us, therefore, an important glimpse of the first generation of Christians.  Without Paul, or someone like him, you and I would likely not be Christians.  Why not? 

The earliest congregations were composed of Jews who believed in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.  Many of them did not recognize that God wanted the Gentiles—us non-Jewish people—to be included in their congregations.  The church of Paul’s time, therefore, faced a crucial decision not unlike the decision the Christian church of today is facing: Shall we bring this message about Jesus to the Gentiles, at the risk of losing some of our identity?  Some said, “No.”  Paul said, “We must.”

Paul the Person

To understand Paul the person, we will look at him as a Jew, as a Greek, as a child of the time, and as a convert.

1)                  As a Jew:  As one reads Paul’s letters, one learns quickly that he was filled with a burning love for his own people and proudly pointed to his Jewish heritage.  “But whatever anyone dares to boast of, I also dare to boast of that.  Are they Hebrews?  So am I.  Are they Israelites?  So am I.  Are they descendants of Abraham?  So am I.”  (2 Corinthians 11:21-22) In his pre-Christian days, Paul was a zealous Pharisee who had no doubt that he was righteous in God’s in God’s sight.

2)                  As a Greek: Paul was a Jew from the Greek city of Tarsus located in what is modern-day southeastern Turkey.  He wrote his letters to congregations in Central Turkey, Greece and Italy—and they understood him!  Paul was a Hellenized Jew, meaning a Hebrew raised not in ancient Aramaic Judaism but in the dominant culture of the day—Greek.  While Rome was the political giant of the day, Greek learning was the culturally dominant. The Roman Gods, for example, were all Latinized versions of the earlier Greek Gods—Jupiter for Zeus for example.  Paul spoke and wrote the Greek language and was much influenced by Greek civilization.  It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of his knowledge of Greek.  Greek was the most common language of the day.  It transcended most national boundaries and ethnic cultures. 

3)                  As a child of his time: Paul knew the philosophical and religious movements of his day, and he used this knowledge to express what God had done in Jesus.  When it was advantageous to claim he was a Jew, he did so.  When it was advantageous to claim he was learned in Greek, he did so.  When it was advantageous to claim he was a Roman citizen, he did so.  He was the right man at the right time in the right place to break Christianity out of its Jewish boundaries and launch it into the wide-open spaces of the Roman Empire and beyond.

4)                  As a convert: Paul had experienced the sudden, unexpected appearance in his life of the crucified but living Jesus.  The appearance of the post-resurrected Jesus to Paul while Paul was traveling there from Jerusalem in order to hunt down and kill Christians literally knocked him for a loop.  That appearance convinced him that Jesus was indeed the Christ and the Son of God.  It further convinced him that, through Jesus, God was offering salvation to all people.  Jesus’ intervention in Paul’s life changed him from a persecutor of the church to a proclaimer of God’s love in Christ.  Paul had the special assignment of taking that news to non-Jews.

The Times of Paul

The greatest thing other than the Gospel that Paul had going for him was the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome.  For most people, life was more settled at this time than it had been a century earlier. The economy was more stable and travel was safer than ever before in that part of the world.

On the other hand, Paul’s world was an extremely complex one, a world of many cultures, many nationalities and many languages.  The world of the mid-first century AD was united politically and economically under the Roman Emperor.  It was culturally and linguistically joined by the international attitudes that had begun with the Greek emperor Alexander the Great.  Still, people kept their native languages and customs.  They also moved a great deal creating a very heterogeneous world.  In short, Paul’s world was an intricate quilt of sometimes-fitting, sometimes-clashing patches, a world not unlike our own today.  Indeed, many folk today, historians, theologians, sociologists, political observers, etc. say our world of today is more like Paul’s world that even the world of fifty years ago.

This means Paul’s world was like ours: full of tensions, disagreements and the like.  There were arguments over the roles of women and men, slave and free; mistrust between ethnic groups, social classes and the like; wars were more regional than global.   

Galatians

Into this mix, came Paul with his letters with the message of Jesus.  Thirteen letters in the New Testament are associated with his name.  Scholars still debate over the authenticity of all of them.  I want to look at just one of them over which there is no dispute, his letter to the Galatians considered by most scholars to be his earliest work and, therefore, the oldest of all the New Testament books.  That’s right; Paul’s letters predate the Gospels and the Book of Acts, Revelations, Hebrews, the letters of Peter and John.

Galatia is a region located in the center of present-day Turkey.  The letter is written to several congregations in that area.  Although we do not know for sure, Paul probably wrote this letter while in the Greek city of Corinth in AD 51-52.  He wrote it after his missionary work in Galatia in response to a report of trouble in the congregations.  Among the many themes Paul explores in this letter, four are most important.

1)                  Paul the Apostle: Paul begins his letter with the ringing claim, [I am] “Paul an apostle.”  Paul claimed he was an apostle of Jesus through the direct authority of Jesus and God.  However, there were other Christians in Galatia skeptical of Paul’s teaching probably because a) he was not one of the original twelve and b) he rejected the idea that you had to be a Jew first before becoming a Christian.  To discredit his teachings these Christians attacked his credibility.  (My word, Christians disagreeing with each other.  Whoever heard of such a thing?)  Paul responds by saying, “if you reject me, you reject Jesus Christ himself.”

But Paul says more than that in the opening of his letter.  He tells them the message he is sent to proclaim.  He comes representing Jesus and the God “who raised him from the dead.”   At the very heart of Paul’s message is the death and resurrection of Jesus.  And he says this death and resurrection means Jesus “gave himself for our sins.”  Jesus was not forced to die—he gave himself.  Why?  “For our sins.”   Jesus died “on behalf of” or “in the place of” us.  This brings me to my next point.

2)                  Justification: The heart of Paul’s message is found in chapter 2:16, “We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”  The words justify and justification comes from the law court. 

I have told this story often but it makes the point better than any other.  Within the first week I first arrived in Fort Wayne, August 1, 2001, I had performed a wedding rehearsal and wedding, four worship services, a funeral and several meetings as well as hospital calls and staff meetings.  I tell you this only because I was going home late the next Thursday after an evening meeting and after turning right off Stellhorn onto Maplecrest; I came to that ridiculously close stop light there by the bank leading into Scotts.  I was only thinking about going home and going to bed.  I stopped, looked right, then left and proceeded to drive right through the red light.  Half way through the intersection I realized what I was doing but it was too late.  But what was even worse, I had pulled out right in front of a Fort Wayne City Policeman.  He had me red handed!  He pulled me over and asked for my driver’s license.  He went to his car and proceeded to check me out.  Upon returning he asked me what church I was from since my license had Reverend on it.  I introduced myself to him as the new Pastor of Messiah and apologized for my stupidity.  (I have to tell you that has never worked for me but, what the hey, it was worth a shot.)  Miraculously, he said, “Pastor, next time stay out of the communion wine.  Drive safely.”

I was guilty as charged.  I deserved the ticket.  But the officer said in spite of the evidence, you are free to go.  In other words, I was justified or “made right” by the officer out of his sheer grace not on anything I had done.

Paul’s message is simply that, humanity continually breaks the covenant and thereby its relationship with God.  We break that covenant every time we substitute God with anything else—good, bad or indifferent.  Through Jesus God restores that relationship with sinful humanity out of sheer love.  Justification, then, is a free gift—a gift that we receive through faith.

3)                  Faith: God restores the covenant with humanity through the death of Jesus.  But how do people connect with the justifying activity of God?  How are people made right with God?  Paul answers, “By faith” and uses as his illustration the faith of Abraham.  Abraham by faith left his family home and moved to the Promised Land to be the father of a great nation.  Abraham kept the faith even when it seemed in his old age he would never have any children.  Incredibly, Abraham keeps the faith even when asked to kill his only son and heir.   Indeed, Paul says, we who keep the faith are the true descendants of Abraham not those who claim it only by genealogy.

4)                  Freedom: Finally, the baptized believer is not only a child of God and a child of Abraham.  The believer is a free child, a child a freed from and a child freed to.  Paul again uses an illustration from the Old Testament to make his point.  God set the Hebrews free from slavery, from oppression, from captivity in Egypt even though they had not kept faith with him.  In the same way, through Jesus, God sets all humanity free, free from the law, from sin, death and evil in order they—we—might be freed to live, and to serve. Freedom does not mean, “do whatever you want.” Freedom means the ability—by the power of God’s love—to serve others.  And that is ultimately the purpose of the church—to serve, not be served!

Let me conclude with just one more of the genius characteristics of Paul and those were the strategies he used to tell the good news.

1)                  He never apologized for the message of the cross.  He didn’t water it down or try to make it more palpable;

2)                  He underlined the importance of what God had done in Jesus Christ.

3)                  He was experience oriented.  Paul always began where the people were, not where he thought they ought to be.  If he was talking to a Jew he became as a Jew; if a Greek he talked to them in their language using words from his world;

4)                  He was boundary breaking.  He shattered the old way of doing things because for him what was all important was the message of Jesus and the transformation of people into disciples;

5)                  And finally, he realized he was not alone.  Paul was no lone wolf.  He worked with Silas, Timothy, Barnabas and a host of others in team-like fashion.  Paul is not always successful.  He realizes his own weaknesses.  But he also knows the love of God, which has been poured out to humanity through Jesus the Christ.