Wow, I can't believe that it has taken me this long to have my first original thought. I may have had a few thoughts before this one, but none of them have actually materialized onto this spot.
Here we go then: Paul wasn't seeking to please God as he was persecuting the Church. He says about himself:
"I persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers." [Gal 1:13-14 ESV]
It sounds like he was zealous for what he thought to be right. He thought that the Church was a heresy, and so he was trying to stamp out this blemish among God's people. The problem for this zealot, though, is that he was wrong.
I mis-quoted the above passage. It actually says:
"I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers." [Gal 1:13-14 ESV]
Paul now recognizes that he was wrong. Because the truth has be revealed to him by Christ, he now knows that it is the church of God, not a blemish among God's people. Paul in his own life is showing what he is talking about in Rom 1:18-32. In his own unrighteousness, he was actually suppressing the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord. He was a great Jew, zealous for God. He thought that he was seeking God's approval, but he was actually suppressing the truth that God has made known, and not serving God.
Whoa, wait a minute, how can we be sure that we are doing the right thing? Because God has actually revealed truth to us. Let's not assume that we know who God is, but instead listen to who he says he is, and how we should respond to this. Praise God that he has given us his Word!
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2 comments:
Hey Dan,
Good to see that the internet encourages original thought...rather than the 'information age' stifiling all orginiality and the need to think things through ourselves.
I am interested by the way that you describe Paul's change of mind. Indeed, he was convinced that the 'church' was against God's purposes, and he acted zealously in that light, until God's revealed truth stopped him in his tracks. For Paul, his 'Damascus-event' was far more startling a revelation than most of us have experienced. I assume that before this event Saul must have heard the Apostles preaching the gospel that he was railing against, the apostles that were speaking God's words, and who were to go on to write the very words of God that are our revelation for today. This started me musing about the nature of revelation. While God's words apparently were not convincing in one instance (the asusmed apostles preaching), they were convincing in another (Damascus road). I think we see the same today. Any old person reading the Bible does not necessarily hear God speak, nor are they necessarily convinced by it. Some are, and some aren't - and some who initially were not come to accept the truth.
While there are many factors that could explain these observations, the first Biblical answer that comes to mind is twofold
1) The work of God's spirit in revealing. God's revelation is not static and impersonal, it is active and personal. God speaks in a relational manner, by his spirit, to those that he chooses to reveal himself to
2) The soverignty of God in choosing those who are to know him, both in person, and in timing.
(Biblical references may follow...)
It just made me think...that's all.
Interested to hear your response.
Cheers,
Christopher
I think your observations are quite helpful. It does seem that Paul would have had access to the gospel via the other apostles even before he saw Jesus in the flesh on that road.
I feel like we can adopt some scary application from thinking about this though. Was the message preached not powerful enough to convert Paul, presuming he heard what the apostles were preaching? Maybe he needed to experience a more "supernatural" revelation. Maybe having had this "appearing of the resurrected Jesus" to the apostles is what gave them the fervor to do all that they did in Christ's name. I don't think so.
I think that we see something of God's plans in his appointing of Paul as the apostle that he was. What more can we say though? God chose to have a foundation of his church this someone who was so clearly converted from opposition to God to being a true zealot for God's plans. That seems to be what has happened, but what emphasis do we place on that? We can try to learn about God in postulating why he does something, but I think we learn more as we look at what he does (in this case only - this is very specific to this event where we aren't told the reasoning, so to come up with reasoning is probably unhelpful conjecture).
My original point was musing over the fact that Paul was religious as a Jew. But just because he was religious, even for the God of our forefathers, doesn't mean he was right in what he did, right in who he thought that God was, or right in relationship with that God.
I think it is just another example of how God is the one who sets up the means of being in relationship with him.
Jesus appeared to more than five hundred others at one time [1 Cor 15:6]. Are they apostles? What qualifies Paul as an apostle? And who are the super-apostles of 2 Corinthians?
Maybe we are discussing stuff that is of no importance. What is unhelpful conjecture? Being silly in what we engage in is perhaps something we should try to avoid. Yet how does one avoid silliness?
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