The British novelist P.G. Wodehouse wrote a series of
comic novels about the aristocratic but
dim-witted Bertie Wooster. In one of the novels, Bertie said that he had failed
a course in New Testament because he had been taught that it was wrong to read
other people's mail and most of the New Testament was made up of St. Paul's
letters.
I think that's a case of doing the wrong thing for the
right reason!
Bertie Wooster was right: The largest component of the New
Testament does consist of the letters of Paul. The 13 letters by or attributed
to Paul amount to only one less than half of the 27 books of the New Testament
or almost a third of the New Testament by length.
But there are quite a lot of people who would be just as
happy to see Paul excluded from the New Testament , and a number of them are
Anglicans. To Thomas Jefferson, Paul was "the first corrupter of the
doctrines of Jesus." And to Jefferson's friend, Thomas Paine, he was
"a manufacturer of quibbles."
By and large, Anglicans have preferred the gospels,
especially the gospel of John, to Paul.
But just consider a few things:
In Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the
wedding feast. Those who arrived unprepared were sent into the "outer
darkness, where there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."
And in the parable of the sheep and the goats (also in
Matthew), those who have not cared for the poor and hungry are sent "into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
Paul, on the other hand, tells us that "love is patient
and kind," that "faith, hope, and love abide but the greatest of
these is love."
One of the most common charges brought against Paul is
that he was a misogynist or anti-woman. There is no doubt that Paul or one of
his disciples writing in Paul's name urged women to be obedient to and
subordinate to their husbands. But it was also Paul who selected a woman,
Phoebe, a deacon of the Corinthian church, to be his personal ambassador to the
church in Rome. And it was Paul who declared that two woman of the Philippian
church - Euodia and Syntyche -were his "fellow workers."
Furthermore, I believe that the greatest chapter in the NT
is the 8th chapter of Romans, at the end of which Paul declares, "I am
convinced that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
To understand Paul, it's helpful to know a little
background. In the first century, there were 2 great divisions of Judaism -
Palestinian Judaism and Diaspora Judaism. The diaspora consisted of the Jews
who lived outside of Palestine. There were Jewish communities in all the great
cities of the Roman empire - Rome, Athens, Corinth, Alexandria, Antioch, and so
on. It is estimated that there were about 4 million Jews in the first century,
and about 3 million of them lived outside of Palestine.
Paul was a Jew of the Diaspora. For the Jews of the
Diaspora, Greek was their first language. Hebrew was the language of the Torah
and the synagogue.
The Book of Acts tells us that Paul was a Roman citizen
from the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor or present day Turkey. But Acts also
tells us that Paul studied with Rabbi Gamaliel in Palestine.
One mystery about Paul is his name. We are told that he
was called Saul until his conversion and Paul afterward. This is probably not
exactly correct. More than likely, Jews of the Diaspora had 2 names: a Hebrew
name used by other Jews and a Greek name they used outside the Jewish
community. Saul is a Hebrew name, and Paul a Greek name.
But the most famous story about Paul is the story of his
conversion in the 9th chapter of Acts. Paul, a disciple of the most famous and
important rabbi of the first century, had become the chief persecutor of Jesus'
followers. He was so fierce in his determination to persecute Christians that
he was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus - a journey of about 100 miles in
a day when such journeys were difficult and dangerous - to continue the
persecution.
Lo and behold, as Paul was riding along on his ass, when
all of a sudden, a light from heaven knocked him off it! The heavenly light
shone and a voice from above said, "Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?"
The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and
enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."
One of the most interesting things about this story is
that Paul never tells it himself. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul simply
says that he was called by God and received a revelation. In 1 Corinthians 15,
Paul says that the Risen Christ appeared to him "last of all, as to one
untimely born." And that's it - Paul himself tells us nothing about the
heavenly light, the voice from above, or about being knocked of his... uh...
donkey. And that's it -Paul says nothing else about his conversion.
But it is this experience, the so-called conversion of
Paul, that I want to talk about, because in many ways it is the most
problematic part of Paul's story.'
It is problematic not because of the historical questions
it raises: Did it happen the way Acts describes it? Why does Paul himself not
tell this story? And so on.
It is problematic because for many Christians, especially
for evangelicals and charismatics, the story of Paul's conversion, his
"Damascus road experience," has become a paradigm, a model, for the
way that we are supposed to become Christians.
To be a Christian is to be converted from our sins and
wickedness, to give up our vices and embrace virtue.
It reminds me of the time that Mark Twain went to see his
doctor. The doctor said, "Mr. Twain, if you want to continue living, you
must stop drinking whisky and smoking cigars." So Twain promptly did that.
An elderly widowed school teacher went to the same doctor, who told her,
"Madam, if you want to continue living, you must stop drinking whisky and
smoking cigars." She said, "But I don't drink whisky or smoke
cigars." To which the doctor replied, "Then I'm afraid there's no
hope for you." You should always have some vices to give up!
A lot of evangelicals tell us that to become a Christian
is to go through emotional agonies about our sinful past, to undergo a
cathartic experience, to kneel in the divine presence and confess our sins and
repent of them. It is to walk the aisle at a crusade by Billy Graham or another
evangelist and say the so-called "sinners' prayer" with a counselor
and sign a card saying that we have turned our life over to God, or made a
decision for Christ, or something like that.
But it is precisely at this point that Paul himself comes
to our rescue, because Paul says nothing of the sort is necessary to become a
Christian. Paul says that what is important is not our choice, our decision,
but God's choice. The important thing is not what we do for God but what God
does for us.
Think back to what I said earlier about the unflattering
comparisons made between Paul and the gospels. Paul, it is often said, is the
legalist, the Pharisee, the corruptor of the pure teaching of Christ. The
gospels, esp John, teach the doctrine of "gentle Jesus, meek and mild."
But where is the verse so often held up at the Super Bowl and World Series,
"You must be born again"? It is not in Paul; it is in John's gospel.
Instead, Paul says, "If anyone is in Christ, they are
a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All
this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the
world to himself..."
So is conversion necessary? Absolutely. But the conversion
we need is not the kind of experience that Paul had on the road to Damascus.
Make no mistake: there are many people who have had the
kind of experience that Paul had on the way to Damascus - a sudden, cathartic,
wrenching emotional experience when you see that you had been headed in the
wrong direction and God sets your feet on a new and better path. Or in a flash
you see the world in a new light, God's truth becomes plain to you. Perhaps
some of you have had this kind of experience.
But the conversion that we all need is of a more mundane
variety. Conversion simply means to turn around, to go in a new direction. We
all need that conversion. We need it every day. And every day God will supply
it, if only we will be attentive, if only we will ask. Because every single day
of our lives we find ourselves going in the wrong direction, and we need to
turn around, retrace our steps, ask God's forgiveness, and set off again in the
right direction.
Not for a single minute do I believe that there is a
single way of becoming or being a Christian. It is different for every single
one of us because God made each us different and unique. I believe that most
Christians grow into the Christian life from the beginning to the end of their
lives. For most Christians, the Christian life begins with baptism and
continues with what we are taught by our parents and Sunday school teachers and
clergy.
In most of us the Christian life grows as quietly and
gently as the flowers and trees and grass. God does not coerce; God invites.
God rarely hits us over the head or blinds us with a heavenly light or deafens
us with a thunderous voice from above. Rather, God speaks to us with the
"still, small voice" that the prophet Elijah heard. Sometimes the
faint light of a distant star is all that we have but even that was enough to
guide the wise men to the manger in Bethlehem.
So, thank God for the gospels and thank God for Paul. One
witnesses to the life of Christ and his teachings and the other to what the
Spirit has revealed about the significance of that life.
But it was Paul - apostle of the heart set free - whose
own heart was set on fire with the love of God who took the Christian faith
throughout the ancient world, making Christianity into a faith that would
spread throughout the world.
"Facing danger at sea, and fearful persecution, Paul
became a chosen vessel of the Savior. With his sermons he enlightened the
nations, and to the Athenians he revealed the unknown God. Teacher of the
nations, Saint Paul, the Apostle, protector of us all, keep us who honor you,
safe from every trial and danger."
