St. Paul had it so easy

St. Paul had it so easy

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            In American Christianity we have it so much harder than the Apostle Paul had it. We have the burden of living in a land where Christianity depends on the Gospel and the right amount of presidential understanding. We have a much more difficult journey to navigate than the Apostle Paul did. We have to figure out when the message of the Gospel is not sufficient and when we have to trust that our political leaders will use the right mixture of Gospel and military. We can't even simplify things to the just war theory. We are expected to figure out when preemptive war is needed, when and how much torture to apply, how to starve out people with sanctions, and how to reward people showing some humility to our nation without letting them think we Christians are soft. That is part of being Christian in America's modern world. St. Paul, on the other hand, had it so easy.

            St. Paul had this strange idea that if he lived by grace he should be gracious to people no matter their religion, economic class, ethnicity, nationality, or gender. He thought he was indebted to all people because he was indebted to God who had granted him grace and forgiveness. I guess he didn’t understand the Gospel, as well as we understand it. He had this notion that if God forgave him his sins, then he should love God with all heart, soul, mind and strength. He then didn’t think it was enough simply to have a personal relationship with God through the Gospel. He believed if God called him to love God with all heart, soul, mind and strength; then God wanted him to love those made in God’s image. So he started thinking he should love his neighbor as himself and that he should even love those were his enemies.

He believed that God made him a debtor to all of humanity created in God's image. He said “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise.” He seemed intent on seeking to fulfill this debt to the grace of God by showing to all of humanity the love of God in Jesus Christ. He lacked common sense. He spoke of God’s love to people who didn’t want to hear it and to people that no one else thought wanted what he then offered to them. The word got out about Paul and those like him. He got himself arrested and one judge told another how he wanted to see this Paul because he had heard how these people were turning the world upside down with a message about a guy who had been dead that they now claimed was alive. When the judge came down to meet him, Paul explained to him that he hoped one day the judge would be just like him, “well except for these chains.” Poor Paul didn’t have a plan B. He had this message that he admitted seemed like weakness to some people, and foolishness to others; but he saw it as the grace of God. He had no plan B. We evidently have a big advantage over Paul. If we can’t convince by the message about this guy who was dead and is now alive; we can call in the Air Force. We don't have to risk getting caught without a potential military intervention. Paul never figured out his need for a plan B.

Can you imagine if Paul was alive today and was walking around Chapel Hill in North Carolina, like he did another hill back when he was alive? He would tell the people gathered to hear him, whether they were Christian, atheist, or Muslim about a God who raises people from the dead because he raised Jesus from the dead. Maybe not everyone would believe his message. But his message would unfold in a different way for everyone there. The Christian hearing him might become ashamed of how he had put so much trust in the nations that were as drops in a bucket and failed to see that what mattered, and all that mattered was that Jesus who had died had also risen from the dead conquering sin and death. An atheist who may have done some evil thing would hear a Gospel of grace from one who could relate to him as the chief of sinners. A grieving family from a different religion would hear of God's mercy. I think he would relate to them how God will and has remembered the kindnesses of men and women from the nations who sought to do good such as these three who sought to study so as to give themselves to doing works of charity. He would tell them of the God who raises people from the dead even as he raised Christ from the dead. He would speak to them not as enemies but respectfully as human beings. Each one hearing such a message would have every reason to believe that this Paul who spoke to them spoke with genuine kindness to them. Some would believe and some would doubt, and some would want to hear more about this on another day. Paul would speak to them as if he was a debtor to them because he was a debtor to the grace of the God in whose image they had been created.

St. Paul had it so easy. He was a debtor to God’s grace and therefore a debtor to all humanity created in God’s image. He had it so easy.