Copyright 2018 by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n
All rights reserved<\/p>\n
For years now I have struggled with the biblical writings of the Apostle Paul. For me it isn\u2019t the issues of women\u2019s roles in the church or human sexuality (probably the two most common points of controversy about the Pauline epistles in the 21st<\/sup> Century) that bothers me. For me it is something else entirely.<\/p>\n I believe that the great Apostle would be characterized today as a \u201cType-A\u201d personality. You might almost call him the \u201coriginal Type-A.\u201d Here is a man who endured an unbelievable amount and severity of hardship as he almost, it seems, single-handedly spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire to the Gentiles. While there are times when he stayed in one area for weeks or even months, it never says anything about his resting during these periods. Examine almost everything else he wrote and you might get the impression that he spent those times in one location constantly preaching or at least working long hours to restore his financial resources before getting back on the road.<\/p>\n Of course Paul does talk about finding rest in Christ and giving one\u2019s burdens over to Him on a spiritual and emotional level. What seems to be missing is the physical respite<\/em>. Based on his writings it would appear that if he had not ended up martyred by the Romans he would have travelled, preached and planted churches until the day he died, possibly of exhaustion.<\/p>\n Beyond this I think it is fair to say that no other New Testament writer is more \u201cexhortational\u201d in his messages to the Church than Paul. He never minces words about the absolute commitment to Christ required of His true followers. To call his letters challenging is an understatement. In Christian history Paul was perhaps the first true \u201cradical\u201d (a term we hear bandied about quite a bit these days by an influential group of young Christian media personalities as being \u00a0a one-word answer to all the woes of the Church in America)<\/p>\n Today in these churches we sometimes speak of \u201cliving the life of Paul\u201d in this radical sense. Sometimes this is mentioned in regards to his celibacy, but I believe it often refers to the implied or open message that every real believer is to live a life like his. Of course this also means, for those of us who do not live up to his level of Christian intensity, that there are unhappy prospects for our future on perhaps both a temporal and eternal level. This is a scary thing for many who take the Scriptures literally and seriously and who know we have come nowhere close to living out a \u201cPauline life.\u201d<\/p>\n I have certainly been one of the people who feel this way, and I suspect many of my readers do too.<\/p>\n For this reason I think it is important to remember that the Apostle Paul was a human being with a very specific mission, directly received from Christ Himself, and that he was to be the<\/em> leader in taking the Gospel to the Gentiles. I believe it is safe to say that very few Christ-followers today would be given the mission of evangelizing their entire town much less the entire Roman world of the 1st<\/sup> Century. Likewise I think it must be remembered that the only perfect person to ever walk the earth was our Lord Himself. Type-A\u2019s often end up becoming \u201cworkaholics\u201d. I will be so bold as to at least state the question that this might have been one facet of Paul\u2019s unperfected character. Many have noticed that his epistles seem to become a bit less exhortatory as he matured in years. Like any human being, Paul needed to grow as a believer. Could his seeming earlier \u201ctoughness\u201d in regards to urging on those in churches he started have been a symptom of an attitude in which he, himself, needed to grow in Christ?<\/p>\n Some will consider me considerably out of line to even suggest such a thing. From all appearances Paul lived an almost unimpeachable life after his dramatic conversion. At least that is the sense we get from the vast majority of the New Testament writings. As a believer in the entire counsel of Scripture, even as I propose that the man might have had his flaws I find myself feeling uneasy. Did David, the \u201cman after God\u2019s own heart\u201d screw up? Absolutely. Did Peter, the man Christ called \u201cthe rock,\u201d ever show any flaws? Yes. (In fact, in Galatians 2:12 it is, guess who, Paul who confronts him with one of them — Peter\u2019s refusal to eat with Gentiles when certain Jewish believers were present.)<\/p>\n Yet Paul seems to be nearly unassailable in his moral conduct. Because of that it is easy to almost feel like we are criticizing Christ Himself in even considering the possibility that there were aspects of Paul\u2019s personality which we might not want to emulate.<\/p>\n Personally I feel like I do not come within a million miles of living a life like Paul did, physically, spiritually, or emotionally, and I doubt I ever will. I must also admit I do not really want to live a life like his, and that<\/em> truly concerns me.<\/p>\n So despite my \u201cconciliating\u201d thoughts above, the problem of Paul remains for me, even as I write these words, just that\u2026a problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Copyright 2018 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved For years now I have struggled with the biblical writings of the Apostle Paul. For me it isn\u2019t the issues of women\u2019s roles in the church or human sexuality (probably the two most common points of controversy about the Pauline epistles in the 21st Century) that bothers… <\/p>\n