At different stages in my life I've read Paul the Apostle
differently.
Growing up, he was this authoritative source that we were
expected to follow on how church was to be done...for the most part, anyways. There were some notable exceptions, of
course, ranging from how to pray in mixed company (head coverings?) to the
proper way to greet one another (holy kiss?).
But, besides those verses, Paul was the "Church Order Guru"
whose counsel was to be respected and trusted.
Then in college and graduate school, I began thinking of our
famous apostle as "Paul the Theologian/Poet." He was certainly the go-to source for
understanding key doctrines, but his was not a cold theology. His view of God was rich and warm - full of
life and worship. His poetic imagination
had been enlightened by Christ on the road to Damascus and now his great
contribution to the Church was as the quintessential Doxological Theologian.
Then in my first few years of ministry, reading the works of
Eugene Peterson and others, I began to look at Paul through the lens of 'Pastor.' I saw him following the example of Jesus the
good shepherd (that's what pastor means - shepherd), caring for the flock
entrusted to him. He sat in his jail
cell, carefully choosing words to bless and encourage. He was preaching by means of a pen to the
people of God.
But, more recently after years serving as a missionary here in
northern Mozambique, I've begun to see him more as "Paul the Missionary."
Now, I know there are plenty of negative examples of people
who've let their own life experiences morph the way they consider key Christian
figures (see - Jesus Seminar). But, I've
found this way of reading Paul to be helpful.
So, to begin with by describing my glasses to you. Describe our work and experience here so you
can see how that would shape my reading of Paul as a missionary. It is
going to be tough to (briefly) describe our life in Mozambique, but I'll give
it a shot.
(Ahem)
We work with about 50 churches spread out all over the
province of Cabo Delgado. Some of those
churches have many people, but most of them have few. Some churches have good leadership while
others don't. Some are in more urban
environments, but most are in rural areas.
Some in the church are literate, while most are not. Some experience hunger and malnutrition and
others do not. Some of the people in the
churches are easy for me to love, and some of them are not. These churches are shaped by different contexts
- geographically, economically, and culturally.
And great distances and bad roads mean that we see some churches more
than others.
Like an orchard with trees spread all over the state. We are doing our best to run from place to
place, watering and nourishing the churches as best we can.
And this experience has definitely shaped how I read the Apostle
Paul.
Maybe this is where my bias is coming through, but it seems
to me that while there may be good reason to think of Paul as pastor, preacher,
or poet, the role he served most often during his letter-writing-years was that
of seasoned apostle or missionary. He
would take short breaks from planting churches and encouraging emerging leaders
in person to wring out a letter from where he sat in jail or maybe as he bounced
around on some ship.
So, from where I sit, in this season of ministry, when I
think of Paul writing letters to those congregations spread out all over the
ancient world, I imagine him feeling what I feel when I pause to consider the
churches scattered over this part of Africa.
I wonder if the way he felt about the churches in Corinth, Philippi or Colossae
was similar to the way I feel about the churches in Chipembe, Milamba and
Nekwaia.
And as I read him now, I see Paul doing things in those
letters that resonate powerfully with my experience and push me in ways that I
wouldn't have expected before beginning this life in Africa.
Love and Power: Reading
Paul now I am impressed with his love for the churches. He has shown me the importance and the pain
in giving my heart to the churches we're working with. In 2 Corinthians 11:28-29, he says,
"Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all
the churches. Who is weak and I do not
feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do
not inwardly burn?" Paul embraces
the weight of this regional network of churches, but it is a heavy burden. Reading him now helps me learn to embrace
both the burden and the blessing of this kind of ministry.
The apostle deeply loved the churches he worked with and
that love led him to speak in power.
From reading Paul I have become more willing to speak boldly about sin
and the power of the Holy Spirit in transformation. While I often wonder if things will really
change in people's lives, his confidence gives me added hope.
Paul's love for the churches not only led him to speak in
power, but it also led him to pray powerfully for the churches. At the beginning of his letters to them, he prayed
in ways that reveal a dependence on a God he looked to (and begged to) on
behalf of the church. Paul leaned on the power of God and I have come to identify
more with the desperation I sense in his prayers and counsel for the churches. I aspire to pray that way.
He also loved the people he was discipling and empowered and
challenged them to use their gifts. He
didn't just love the church in the abstract.
He empowered the people he worked with, sending Timothy and Titus, for
example, to very different places. Paul loved
and prayed for those friends and had expectations that each of them would use
their mix of gifts to serve the church in powerful ways.
Problem Solving: Paul
wrote to specific churches about specific issues and treated them differently. He crafted his letters using the rhetorical
conventions of the day, doing his best to convince them to live lives in tune
with the spirit of Jesus. His counsel to
them reflected not only his own situation, but also what they were ready to
hear.
Take Paul's discussion of slavery, for example (adapting Witherington).
1. This is what you say the first time addressing an issue. In Colossians 3-4, there is slavery in the Christians'
houses and Paul starts where they are, not with where he would like them to
be. He begins to inject salt and light
and yeast into a broken situation.
2. Then we have a second level, where he pushes the church
in Ephesus in uncomfortable directions (chapters 5-6). He tells them that we must all submit to each
other and that masters need to remember that they have a Master as well.
3. In Galatians 3:28 he pushes for the ideal - there is no
slave or free, but all are one in Christ.
4. Then in a letter to a friend, Philemon, we see his
application of the principle at level three in a specific situation. He respectfully requests (ok, he also does
some arm-twisting!) the release of that slave.
If we follow the trajectory of Paul's counsel regarding
slavery we see him move from gently challenging the societal norms...to pushing
believers towards mutual submission...to the ideal for human equality... and
finally the manumission of a slave.
Instead of writing to the church and dealing with them in
the exact same way or even the whole problem all at once, Paul trusted the Holy
Spirit to know HOW to deal with WHAT WHEN.
Paul addressed the real while still pointing to the ideal.
He has shown me that patience is the key for being good at
long-term-Kingdom-oriented-problem-solving.
Innovation in
Ministry: Oftentimes, when considering Paul, the expectation is that we
should not seek to do what he did, instead we just need to do what he said. There is a scene from the Pixar film Ratatouille
that comes to mind. One of the chefs is explaining
their role to a newly promoted cook.
When the newbie questions the viability of a certain dish, she tells him
her opinion of it related to the restaurant's founding chef, "It was Gustaf's
job to innovate. And it is our job to
follow the recipe."
So many Christian leaders and missionaries are afraid of
innovation. They think, it was Jesus and
Paul's job to innovate and our job to follow the recipe. Or depending on one's religious heritage we
say it was Augustine or Luther or Calvin or Stone or Campbell's job to innovate
and our job to follow the recipe. Now, while much good can certainly come from
following the recipe, doing anything new well usually includes some level of innovation. I think that in reading Paul, his ways of
innovation should inform ours. We can
innovate well because we have the Holy Spirit, too, especially if we are soaking
ourselves in the Word and living and working in Community.
When I look at the stories in Acts, it seems that the Holy
Spirit is the one leading the charge for innovation for the sake of the mission
of Kingdom expansion. While we should
certainly minister and counsel in ways that are faithful to scripture, maybe
faithfulness means less about being consistent with culturally shaped details
of practice and more about innovating in ways that are in tune with the work
that has been done before us.
I can imagine a master composer, like Mozart or Beethoven,
being pleased when someone plays his music well. But, I see him taking further delight in
listening to fellow composers whose compositions are inspired by and
incorporating his earlier masterwork in new and exciting ways. That's the way that I would like Paul to
connect with our ministry here among the Makua-Metto.
Well, thanks for indulging my ramblings and unfinished
thinking. I hope they are taken in the right spirit.
In summary, we should say that really Paul is all of the
above - Paul was a Church-Planting Guru/Theologian/Poet/Pastor/Missionary. And including that role of missionary can
round out that picture and help us be better interpreters of his gifts (his
letters) to followers of Jesus for two-thousand years. By incorporating that perspective of Paul as
regional church-planting missionary, we will increase our ability to carefully
unwrap those treasures and discern what God's Spirit is continuing to say to
His Church today.
May our reading of Paul's letters help us to hear God and
learn to live and minister like Christ today.
Grace and Peace,
Alan
There's a famous quote attributed to Woody Allen that says that eighty percent of success is simply showing up. I've become convinced that adage is true about ministry and missions, as well. It is only when we show up and are truly present that we can be the agents God can use for his Kingdom purposes. 
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