Tag: Paul

Sharing the Gospel…Even When It’s Hard

ShareTheGospelHow far would you go to share the gospel?  Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9 constitute a rallying cry to “pull out all the stops,” as it were, to get the gospel to those who need to hear it:

Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Paul’s call to “become all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” has been a topic of many a conversation about what is involved in showing and sharing God’s love to a world that is hostile to the exclusive claims of Christ.  Though many things could be said about proclaiming the gospel in a world like this, there is one thing in particular that I would focus on in this post:  Proclaiming the gospel to a world adverse to its message often involves pain.

Proclaiming the gospel involves much more than just being familiar enough with the culture around you to speak the gospel in a way that is intelligible to that culture, it involves enduring persecution from that culture when it takes umbrage with the gospel’s message.  This was certainly the case with Paul.  Paul writes, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews” (verse 20).  To become like a Jew was no easy task for Paul, especially since his Jewish comrades considered his message of a crucified Messiah blasphemous.  And the punishment for speaking blasphemy was nothing less than a beating.  This is why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:24:  “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.”  Interestingly, a compendium of Jewish rabbinical teaching called the Mishnah considers lashes to be only a secondary punishment for blasphemy.  The primary punishment was that of being cut off from the Jewish people.  The rabbis wrote, “All those who are liable to extirpation who have been flogged are exempt form their liability to extirpation” (Mishnah Makkot 3:15).  The primary punishment for blasphemy, then, was that of being excommunicated from the Jewish community, but if a person could not stand the thought of excommunication, he could instead choose to be lashed.  Paul chose the lashes over the shunning.  But why?  It certainly wasn’t because he took any particular pride in being a Jew by birth.  Paul says of his Jewish pedigree:  “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 1:8).  Paul chose the lashes because he could not stand the thought of being excommunicated by his Jewish comrades.  After all, such excommunication would spell the end of his efforts “to win the Jews” (verse 20). Paul was so desperate to share the gospel with his Jewish community, he was willing to be beaten within inches of his death to do so.

The apostle Peter writes, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21).  Sometimes, becoming “all things to all men…for the sake of the gospel” means suffering for the sake of the gospel.   By the Spirit’s enabling, may we be prepared to face adversity and pain to share and spread God’s message and power of salvation!

ABC Extra – Building Your Endurance

When I lived in north Austin, there was a park close to the house at which I was staying with a beautiful jogging trail, complete with lots of forested areas and a breathtaking open field full of wildflowers.  At the time, I was overweight, so I decided taking up running might be just the thing to help me shed those unwanted pounds.  So one afternoon, I hit the gravel.  The trail was a mile and each tenth of a mile was marked.  I made it about two- tenths of a mile before I had to stop.  I was dripping with sweat.  I was out of breath.  But most of all, I was embarrassed.  “Two-tents of a mile?” I thought to myself.  “That’s not even once around a running track!”

After my embarrassing initial outing, I knew something had to change.  So I went out again…and again…and again.  I sweated.  I grunted.  I pushed myself.  I was tempted to give up and tap out.  But I knew the more I ran, the more my body and health would be transfigured and transmuted.  And so, I endured.  And that endurance made all the difference.

These days, I am thankfully many pounds lighter and can run much farther.  A three-mile run is now a part of my daily routine.  Although now, being a little older and wiser, I know that pre-dawn mornings in Texas are much better for running than are sun-scorched afternoons.  But beyond the temperature, it is my endurance that made all the difference in my health and fitness.  Endurance was the key.

In our text for this past weekend from 2 Corinthians 6, Paul rattles off a list of the hardships and joys he has experienced in ministry:

As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:4-10)

With such a lengthy list, it does not take long to discover that Paul has had more than his fair share of ups and downs in ministry – everything from beatings and imprisonments and sorrows to purity and love and rejoicing.  Yet, it is the first thing in Paul’s list of ups and downs that sets the tone for the rest of Paul’s list:  endurance.  Paul writes, “As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way:  in great endurance” (verse 4).  Through all of ministry’s ups and downs, Paul highlights one thing that has made all the difference in his ministry:  endurance.  The Greek word for “endurance” is hypomone – mone, meaning “to stand,” and hypo, meaning “under.”  Thus, to “endure” means to “stand up under” even the toughest times.  The great New Testament scholar William Barclay comments on hypomone:

It describes the ability to bear things in such a triumphant way that it transfigures them and transmutes them. Chrysostom has a great panegyric on this, this triumphant Christian endurance. He calls it the root of all goods, the mother of piety, the fruit that never withers, a fortress that is never taken, a harbor that knows no storms.[1]

Barclay’s thoughts describe precisely what Paul does with the ups and downs of his ministry.  He endures through them so that he might be transfigured and transmuted.  Rather than giving up or tapping out, Paul endures.  And you should too.

What ups and downs are you experiencing in your life?  When you endure through them, God can change you by them.  God can use them to “conform us to the likeness of His Son” (Romans 8:29).  So stand up under hardship.  Stand up under good times as well.  For standing up under life, which is the very definition of endurance, can be used by God for His purposes.  And God’s purposes will endure long after you fail and falter.  His endurance is an endurance we all need – for life and for eternity.

Want to learn more? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!

[1] William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), 237.

ABC Extra – Let Slavery Ring!

“Men desire above all things to be free and say that freedom is the greatest of blessings, while slavery is the most shameful and wretched of states.”[1]  So said the first century Roman philosopher, Dio Chrysostom.  Although philosophers are known for writing convoluted and delicate treatises, there is no convolution or delicacy here.  Freedom is great.  Slavery is wretched.  The end.  Dio could not be clearer.

The reason Dio does not need to speak of slavery delicately is because, in ancient Rome, slavery truly was a wretched state.  Consider this description of slaves from Apuleius, a Roman author from the second century:

What scrawny little slaves there were!  Their skin was everywhere embroidered with purple welts from their many beatings.  Their backs, scarred from floggings, were shaded, as it were, rather than actually covered by their torn patchwork garments.  Some wore only flimsy loincloths.  All of them, decked out in these rags, carried brands on their foreheads, had their heads half-shaved, and wore chains around their ankles.  Their complexions were an ugly yellow; their eyes were so inflamed by thick dark smoke and the steamy vapor they could barely see.[2]

According to Apuleius, slavery was so intolerable that he could not bear even to look at slaves without gasping.  Seutonius, in his history of the Roman emperors, describes Augustine’s policy of, with few exceptions, allowing only free men to serve in his army:

Except as a fire-brigade at Rome, and when there was fear of riots in times of scarcity, [Augustus] employed freedmen as soldiers only twice: once as a guard for the colonies in the vicinity of Illyricum, and again to the defend the bank of the river Rhine; even these he levied, when they were slaves, from men and women of means, and at once gave them freedom; and he kept them under their original standard, not mingling them with the soldiers of free birth or arming them in the same fashion.[3]

No one wanted to be a slave.  Everyone wanted to be free.  And this is what makes Paul’s words in Philippians 2 so striking.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7).  The Greek word for “servant” here is doulos, meaning not only a servant, but a slave.  Jesus, being in very nature God, became a slave!  And He did so willingly.  No one coerced, cajoled, or compelled Jesus into slavery.

Jesus’ willingness to become a slave is especially gripping when one considers that Philippi was a town filled with veterans and soldiers.  Thus, those who lived there prided themselves on being free men, for, as Seutonius explains, only free men could serve in the Roman army.  So Paul writes to a town full of people who prided themselves on being free about a man who willingly let go of His freedom to become, of all things, a slave.

Jesus’ willingness to let go of His freedom for the state of slavery can serve us a model for us.  After all, Paul regularly identifies himself as a doulos of Christ (e.g., Romans 1:1, Philippians 1:1).  Like his Lord, Paul is happy to be a doulos to his Lord.

How about you?  Do you pride yourself so much in your freedom that you forget that you are called to be a slave to Christ?  Slavery, when it is to the things of this world, is indeed wretched.  But slavery to Christ is glorious.  For serving Christ is hopeful and heartening.  In a world that is obsessed with freedom, we rejoice that we are slaves to our Savior!

Want to learn more? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Tucker’s
message or Pastor Zach’s ABC!

[1] Dio Chrysostom, Orations 14.1.

[2] Apuleius, Metamorphoses 9.12.

[3] Seutonius, Augustus 25.