As our church explores Paul's Letter to the Romans during the July sermon series, "The Greatest Letter Ever Written," it's helpful to spend some time thinking about who the author of the letter was. We don't have time to fit this into the sermon series, so hopefully this web blog will provide us with some of the background on Paul as an individual.
Who was this man?
Well, first of all, I think it's important to make a distinction between Jesus' ministry and Paul's ministry. While they both shared the good news of Jesus Christ, Jesus was primarily focused on sharing this with the people of Israel, while Paul needed to translate this message to a largely non-Jewish world. This is one of the reasons why Jesus was silent on the issue of homosexuality and Paul address the issue in Romans 1.
The remarkable thing about Paul was that he was able to consistently straddle the two worlds of Judaism and Roman paganism. Being a citizen of the Roman empire as well as being raised an observant Jew, he became the ideal ambassador to the Gentiles.
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He was able to communicate with the Jewish world that the covenant that God had made with Israel was not meant to be exclusive to them but a means by which God would offer salvation to the whole world through Jesus Christ. And to the non-Jewish world, he was able to talk about Jesus Christ in the context of Judaism to help them see how the good news of Jesus Christ makes sense.
In his communication to both groups, he was somehow able to help both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians celebrate the unity they have through Jesus Christ while respecting each other's backgrounds. This ability to bring different groups together, is a very rare gift and one that is needed desperately today as we are fast becoming a very polarized society based on ethnic groups as well as political persuasions.
One of the reasons his Letter to the Romans is considered the greatest letter ever written is because Paul lays a theological context regarding the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that both Jews and Gentiles can understand. Since most of us come from a non-Jewish context, we would do well to read Romans for all it's worth to help us understand the good news of Jesus Christ in the context of the whole bible.
One other comment on Paul - some have argued that Paul simply continued the patriarchal/sexist attitude that was prevalent during his day. Couples about to be married are reluctant to choose a text on marriage like Ephesians 5:21-33 because on surface reading, it appears to perpetuate this hierarchical mindset.
Yes, Paul lived during a world where this was the thinking across the board but what is amazing about Paul is that he was bold enough to write such things as, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians)
In the Ephesians marriage text, Paul makes another counter-cultural statement by writing, "In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself." - Ephesians 3:28 We also seem to easily screen out the first verse of this passage in which Paul writes, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ." (v. 21)
To not factor the cultural norms of 1st century Judaism into the backdrop of Paul's letters is to be like the person who complains that a male writer from the 1940s doesn't use inclusive language in his writings. My point in all of this is that in the bigger scheme of things, Paul was way ahead in his understanding of the equality of male and female. It's a shame that many have not interpreted Paul's writing in this context and have mistakenly used Paul as a justification to be sexist.
And finally, Paul teaches us that as followers of Jesus, we need to be rooted in our Judeo/Christian faith while at the same time be in touch with our present day culture. Paul consistently built bridges between the common non-biblical worldviews of his day and the good news of Jesus Christ in the context of the Jewish faith. The temptation for Christians is to either build a moat around our faith separating us from the world or to do the opposite and water down the Christian faith to the point that it loses its distinctiveness.
For all these reasons and for many more I could mention, the Apostle Paul was a remarkable person.
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