Paul - Apostle to the Gentiles

9/07

Paul. So much is wrapped up in that one name. He was a Jew, a Pharisee, a Roman citizen, and an apostle chosen by God to take the Good News of Yeshua (Jesus) to the Gentiles (non-Jews). The writings that Paul has left us are extraordinary, but do we truly understand what he has written? Is it possible that we can understand what he has written? What about being able to understand Paul himself?

Much has been left at the doorstep of Paul, some of which makes me cringe when I read it. It has been said that Paul abandoned his Jewishness - his culture, his people, and his religion - in order to start a new religion, Christianity. I've even heard people go so far as to say that he was anti-Semitic. Much of what has been written about Paul and his writing, things that have become foundational for the church at large, was written by men who lived many centuries after Paul and who lived in cultures that were completely foreign to the culture in which Paul lived. One way to help explain what I mean is to think of it like this. What if I handed you an object that you had never seen before in your life and asked you to figure out what its function was? You might study it, try to use it for various tasks, and in the end you would come to certain conclusions about the object. While the object may in fact be used in the manner in which you concluded, the true purpose and function of the object might have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with your conclusion. In this example the consequences of this type of error probably would not be significant. Unfortunately when this happens with Scripture the consequences can be devastating.

If we look at the writings of Paul, we can see that he had to address and bring correction for some of the same problems we see in the church today - there is nothing new under the sun. There were people who wanted to integrate Christianity with other types of religious practices. There were people who thought that God had washed His hands of Israel and that the Church had taken their place. There were those who wanted to abuse the freedom that Christ had brought them through the cross.

When Paul heard and saw these errors creeping into the fledgling church, he had the knowledge and experience to be able to decisively and authoritatively bring correction to stop these errors before they got out of hand.

Paul's knowledge and experience did not come from having read commentaries about Scripture. The culture in which Paul grew up was very special. He was a Jew, but more than that he was a Pharisee. He was raised in the Temple and lived the Scriptures. In fact, most Jews of Paul's day lived the Scriptures. Unlike our culture where religion is something a person does and incorporates into his life to the degree that he feels comfortable with, Judaism is different. You're not a Jew because you go to synagogue and you're not a Jew only on Friday night or on Saturday (the Sabbath). You're a Jew because that is who God made you and your whole life is a reflection of that. You live before God knowing that you are who you are because of God and that you have been born into a special relationship with God.

A Jew's “religious” life is not limited to synagogue, but everything that is done should be a reflection of your relationship with God. This includes teaching your children how to walk with the Lord and taking that responsibility very seriously. It was a complete way of life, unlike what we see so often nowadays with Christians, where religious duties are relegated to Sunday mornings and special occasions and the rest of their lives are lived out with little or no difference from someone who does not claim to be a Christian. Children are left to learn and decide for themselves what religion, if any, they will follow and usually end up following in their parents' footsteps because like it or not, parents are the very best example that children have and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

So, this is the experience of which Paul was a product. He had great knowledge of the Scripture (the Old Testament), and while he wielded this knowledge to persecute the early church, once Yeshua got a hold of him on the road to Damascus, God brought revelation and understanding to Paul that transformed his life. No longer was Paul legalistic in his keeping of the Law. He understood the grace and beauty that God revealed in the Old Testament and how the Old Covenant pointed to the Messiah. It was this grace and beauty that he taught to Jew and Gentile in the early church.

I'd like to go back to Paul's experience on the road to Damascus for just a moment. I've always heard it taught that when Paul was knocked off his donkey and he saw the Lord and heard Him speaking to him that Paul was shocked and didn't know what was going on or who was speaking to him. I'd like to propose something a little different. As has been said, Paul was a Pharisee, and if you read through the Gospel accounts of Yeshua's ministry you will see that the Pharisees always seemed to be where Yeshua was. They were watching Him, trying to trip Him up with their questions, and trying to find some conclusive evidence that would allow them to stop His ministry and His life. I'd be willing to bet that on more than one occasion Paul was one of the Pharisees who were shadowing Yeshua. Why?

As today, Israel was not a terribly large country, and if Yeshua was causing the stir that He seemed to be, a large percentage of the population would know about it. I also think that if the Pharisees were out to get Yeshua, to prove that He was a false prophet, they wouldn't have wasted their time by sending out their students or inexperienced members. Rather they would have sent out their best and brightest to ensure success on their part. These are two of the reasons why I believe that Paul was very familiar with Yeshua. Paul would have certainly known Him by sight.

So when God stopped Paul on the road to Damascus, I don't believe that Paul was completely unaware. I do believe that Paul did not initially recognize Yeshua, just as everyone else who saw Him after His resurrection did not initially recognize Him. But why didn't they recognize Him?

There are several references in the New Testament to the condition of Yeshua's body after He had been resurrected. When Thomas expressed his doubts about Yeshua really being with them in body in the upper room, Yeshua urged him to touch the wounds in His side and in His wrists (where the nails would have been placed to hold Him to the cross, not in the palms of His hands). When Yeshua said the blessing over the meal after having walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus it was then that they finally recognized Yeshua, because when He lifted His hands the marks on His wrists would have been visible. When Yeshua showed Himself to Mary at the tomb she did not recognize Him until she heard His voice. And in the book of Revelation, John sees in his vision the Lamb as it had been slain. Yeshua has chosen to carry in His body for the rest of eternity the marks and wounds that He received on our behalf prior to and during the crucifixion. The wounds that He received were severe, so severe in fact, that the prophet Isaiah wrote that He was so wounded that He no longer looked human. His beard was ripped out by the roots. His body was bloody and swollen from his torture. And these wounds are His crowning glory - proof that He was faithful and obedient to the Father to the very end. No wonder He has chosen to keep them. No wonder people didn't recognize someone that they loved and had lived with day in and day out for three years or more.

So, when Paul was on his face in the road trying frantically to piece together what was going on, it wasn't until the Lord identified Himself as Yeshua that things started falling into place for Paul. I can imagine the mental gymnastics that he was going through and the sinking feeling he had when he did recognize Yeshua for who He truly was - the promised Messiah of Israel. I'm sure that he remembered all of the times he has seen Yeshua perform miracles, heal people, raise people from the dead, and perhaps win debates with Paul hands down. Paul knew he had been bested, probably by the only one who could best him - God Himself.

I think that one of the biggest mistakes we make when we read the writings of Paul is that we superimpose our situations and experiences onto him and his writings. We read something that he has written and apply it to our situation without taking the time or energy to learn about why he wrote what he wrote or the Scriptural underpinnings that his writing was founded on. (We need to remember that the Scriptural foundation that Paul and the other apostles and disciples had was what we call the Old Testament.) Going back to the unknown object example cited earlier, we could come up with some plausible conclusions and applications for Paul's writing, but those conclusions and applications could be quite erroneous and lead to gross error if left alone.

I believe that one of the gravest errors that has been perpetuated by the church at large is that Paul was in some way trying to start (or that he did start) a new religion. That thought would have been completely foreign to Paul and the other disciples. They were living out their faith, their Judaism, in a more complete and richer way than ever before. It was only after they became a thorn in the side of the Jewish leaders that they were pushed out of Judaism and left to stand alone. The apostles wouldn't have thought to separate from Judaism because the faith that they were living out was a fulfillment of Scripture and was the most Jewish thing a person could do!

Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has been around for a very, very long time and it is alive and well - even in the church today. When the population of the body of Christ started to become predominantly non-Jewish, and when heads of state saw how they could use this new religion as a way to control the masses, the Jewishness of the religion became distasteful and the church began severing ties with its roots. When this happened the correct grid for understanding New Testament writings was thrown out the window and the way for erroneous teaching was thrown wide open. And because of the inclination toward anti-Semitism, there has been much erroneous teaching that is actually contrary to Scripture but because the correct grid is missing these teachings have flourished and are widely accepted today.

One of the biggies is known as replacement theology. This doctrine states that God is finished with Israel, that the church is now the new Israel and that the church is the recipient of all of the blessings that God had promised to Israel, because He can't give them to Israel because He's through with them. The ramifications go even further. If you follow this line of reasoning then there is no need to share the Good New of Yeshua with Jewish people because God has supposedly washed His hands of them. Also, if God is really finished with Israel and the Jewish people, then much of what is written in the New Testament won't make sense and would therefore be left to speculation and conjecture - two things that are deadly when in comes to Scripture. (One of the books most often falling into this category is the book of Revelation, which I will address in an article devoted to the apostle John.)

Also lost in the fog of replacement theology is the importance of prophecy and the return of the Messiah. Without getting into any great detail, Israel and the Jewish people will play a key role in the Messiah's return. Why? Because God has chosen them to be a key part of the salvation of the world and they will continue to be so, but not without paying a very high price.

I believe it was this high price that fueled Paul's passion for his people Israel, knowing that if they would only turn to their Messiah they could, at least individually, escape, while at the same time knowing that Israel has been put under a divine blindness so that they can't, as a nation, know their Messiah so that God's will will be accomplished. The passion of Paul's heart was indeed to get the gospel message out to all who would hear, to the Jew first, then for the Gentiles.

We mustn't allow our skewed perspective to obscure who Paul was. You know, if we let him, Paul just might be able to lead us back to the solid foundation that our faith should be built upon.

Back to Under The Shadow of His Wing

Back to Living Waters Homeschool


	Paul - Apostle to the Gentiles 9/07 Paul. So much is wrapped up in that one name. He was a Jew, a Pharisee, a Roman citizen, and an apostle chosen by God to take the Good News of Yeshua (Jesus) to the Gentiles (non-Jews). The writings that Paul has left us are extraordinary, but do we truly understand what he has written? Is it possible that we can understand what he has written? What about being able to understand Paul himself? Much has been left at the doorstep of Paul, some of which makes me cringe when I read it. It has been said that Paul abandoned his Jewishness - his culture, his people, and his religion - in order to start a new religion, Christianity. I've even heard people go so far as to say that he was anti-Semitic. Much of what has been written about Paul and his writing, things that have become foundational for the church at large, was written by men who lived many centuries after Paul and who lived in cultures that were completely foreign to the culture in which Paul lived. One way to help explain what I mean is to think of it like this. What if I handed you an object that you had never seen before in your life and asked you to figure out what its function was? You might study it, try to use it for various tasks, and in the end you would come to certain conclusions about the object. While the object may in fact be used in the manner in which you concluded, the true purpose and function of the object might have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with your conclusion. In this example the consequences of this type of error probably would not be significant. Unfortunately when this happens with Scripture the consequences can be devastating. If we look at the writings of Paul, we can see that he had to address and bring correction for some of the same problems we see in the church today - there is nothing new under the sun. There were people who wanted to integrate Christianity with other types of religious practices. There were people who thought that God had washed His hands of Israel and that the Church had taken their place. There were those who wanted to abuse the freedom that Christ had brought them through the cross. When Paul heard and saw these errors creeping into the fledgling church, he had the knowledge and experience to be able to decisively and authoritatively bring correction to stop these errors before they got out of hand. Paul's knowledge and experience did not come from having read commentaries about Scripture. The culture in which Paul grew up was very special. He was a Jew, but more than that he was a Pharisee. He was raised in the Temple and lived the Scriptures. In fact, most Jews of Paul's day lived the Scriptures. Unlike our culture where religion is something a person does and incorporates into his life to the degree that he feels comfortable with, Judaism is different. You're not a Jew because you go to synagogue and you're not a Jew only on Friday night or on Saturday (the Sabbath). You're a Jew because that is who God made you and your whole life is a reflection of that. You live before God knowing that you are who you are because of God and that you have been born into a special relationship with God. A Jew's “religious” life is not limited to synagogue, but everything that is done should be a reflection of your relationship with God. This includes teaching your children how to walk with the Lord and taking that responsibility very seriously. It was a complete way of life, unlike what we see so often nowadays with Christians, where religious duties are relegated to Sunday mornings and special occasions and the rest of their lives are lived out with little or no difference from someone who does not claim to be a Christian. Children are left to learn and decide for themselves what religion, if any, they will follow and usually end up following in their parents' footsteps because like it or not, parents are the very best example that children have and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So, this is the experience of which Paul was a product. He had great knowledge of the Scripture (the Old Testament), and while he wielded this knowledge to persecute the early church, once Yeshua got a hold of him on the road to Damascus, God brought revelation and understanding to Paul that transformed his life. No longer was Paul legalistic in his keeping of the Law. He understood the grace and beauty that God revealed in the Old Testament and how the Old Covenant pointed to the Messiah. It was this grace and beauty that he taught to Jew and Gentile in the early church. I'd like to go back to Paul's experience on the road to Damascus for just a moment. I've always heard it taught that when Paul was knocked off his donkey and he saw the Lord and heard Him speaking to him that Paul was shocked and didn't know what was going on or who was speaking to him. I'd like to propose something a little different. As has been said, Paul was a Pharisee, and if you read through the Gospel accounts of Yeshua's ministry you will see that the Pharisees always seemed to be where Yeshua was. They were watching Him, trying to trip Him up with their questions, and trying to find some conclusive evidence that would allow them to stop His ministry and His life. I'd be willing to bet that on more than one occasion Paul was one of the Pharisees who were shadowing Yeshua. Why? As today, Israel was not a terribly large country, and if Yeshua was causing the stir that He seemed to be, a large percentage of the population would know about it. I also think that if the Pharisees were out to get Yeshua, to prove that He was a false prophet, they wouldn't have wasted their time by sending out their students or inexperienced members. Rather they would have sent out their best and brightest to ensure success on their part. These are two of the reasons why I believe that Paul was very familiar with Yeshua. Paul would have certainly known Him by sight. So when God stopped Paul on the road to Damascus, I don't believe that Paul was completely unaware. I do believe that Paul did not initially recognize Yeshua, just as everyone else who saw Him after His resurrection did not initially recognize Him. But why didn't they recognize Him? There are several references in the New Testament to the condition of Yeshua's body after He had been resurrected. When Thomas expressed his doubts about Yeshua really being with them in body in the upper room, Yeshua urged him to touch the wounds in His side and in His wrists (where the nails would have been placed to hold Him to the cross, not in the palms of His hands). When Yeshua said the blessing over the meal after having walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus it was then that they finally recognized Yeshua, because when He lifted His hands the marks on His wrists would have been visible. When Yeshua showed Himself to Mary at the tomb she did not recognize Him until she heard His voice. And in the book of Revelation, John sees in his vision the Lamb as it had been slain. Yeshua has chosen to carry in His body for the rest of eternity the marks and wounds that He received on our behalf prior to and during the crucifixion. The wounds that He received were severe, so severe in fact, that the prophet Isaiah wrote that He was so wounded that He no longer looked human. His beard was ripped out by the roots. His body was bloody and swollen from his torture. And these wounds are His crowning glory - proof that He was faithful and obedient to the Father to the very end. No wonder He has chosen to keep them. No wonder people didn't recognize someone that they loved and had lived with day in and day out for three years or more. So, when Paul was on his face in the road trying frantically to piece together what was going on, it wasn't until the Lord identified Himself as Yeshua that things started falling into place for Paul. I can imagine the mental gymnastics that he was going through and the sinking feeling he had when he did recognize Yeshua for who He truly was - the promised Messiah of Israel. I'm sure that he remembered all of the times he has seen Yeshua perform miracles, heal people, raise people from the dead, and perhaps win debates with Paul hands down. Paul knew he had been bested, probably by the only one who could best him - God Himself. I think that one of the biggest mistakes we make when we read the writings of Paul is that we superimpose our situations and experiences onto him and his writings. We read something that he has written and apply it to our situation without taking the time or energy to learn about why he wrote what he wrote or the Scriptural underpinnings that his writing was founded on. (We need to remember that the Scriptural foundation that Paul and the other apostles and disciples had was what we call the Old Testament.) Going back to the unknown object example cited earlier, we could come up with some plausible conclusions and applications for Paul's writing, but those conclusions and applications could be quite erroneous and lead to gross error if left alone. I believe that one of the gravest errors that has been perpetuated by the church at large is that Paul was in some way trying to start (or that he did start) a new religion. That thought would have been completely foreign to Paul and the other disciples. They were living out their faith, their Judaism, in a more complete and richer way than ever before. It was only after they became a thorn in the side of the Jewish leaders that they were pushed out of Judaism and left to stand alone. The apostles wouldn't have thought to separate from Judaism because the faith that they were living out was a fulfillment of Scripture and was the most Jewish thing a person could do! Unfortunately, anti-Semitism has been around for a very, very long time and it is alive and well - even in the church today. When the population of the body of Christ started to become predominantly non-Jewish, and when heads of state saw how they could use this new religion as a way to control the masses, the Jewishness of the religion became distasteful and the church began severing ties with its roots. When this happened the correct grid for understanding New Testament writings was thrown out the window and the way for erroneous teaching was thrown wide open. And because of the inclination toward anti-Semitism, there has been much erroneous teaching that is actually contrary to Scripture but because the correct grid is missing these teachings have flourished and are widely accepted today. One of the biggies is known as replacement theology. This doctrine states that God is finished with Israel, that the church is now the new Israel and that the church is the recipient of all of the blessings that God had promised to Israel, because He can't give them to Israel because He's through with them. The ramifications go even further. If you follow this line of reasoning then there is no need to share the Good New of Yeshua with Jewish people because God has supposedly washed His hands of them. Also, if God is really finished with Israel and the Jewish people, then much of what is written in the New Testament won't make sense and would therefore be left to speculation and conjecture - two things that are deadly when in comes to Scripture. (One of the books most often falling into this category is the book of Revelation, which I will address in an article devoted to the apostle John.) Also lost in the fog of replacement theology is the importance of prophecy and the return of the Messiah. Without getting into any great detail, Israel and the Jewish people will play a key role in the Messiah's return. Why? Because God has chosen them to be a key part of the salvation of the world and they will continue to be so, but not without paying a very high price. I believe it was this high price that fueled Paul's passion for his people Israel, knowing that if they would only turn to their Messiah they could, at least individually, escape, while at the same time knowing that Israel has been put under a divine blindness so that they can't, as a nation, know their Messiah so that God's will will be accomplished. The passion of Paul's heart was indeed to get the gospel message out to all who would hear, to the Jew first, then for the Gentiles. We mustn't allow our skewed perspective to obscure who Paul was. You know, if we let him, Paul just might be able to lead us back to the solid foundation that our faith should be built upon. Back to Under The Shadow of His Wing Back to Living Waters Homeschool