Why the Bible Loved Paul?
Question
Why the Bible Loved Paul?
Answer
The modern church loves Paul for many reasons. Paul was a great leader. He was very confrontational. He was the kind of guy that if you were in a pinch you would want to have your back. Or if you needed to talk to somebody about a difficult subject he would be glad to jump in to it.
As modern Christian we like this. We feel like if we don’t give our opinion then we lose. We feel we need to stand firm and be confrontational. This comes from the verse “if you are ashamed of me….I will be ashamed of you.”
While it is good to stand up for something and be strong in our faith. Some modern Christian have made Paul out to be this hard nosed individual that was super tough and aggressive. This is why we like Paul. But why did the Bible like Paul? What aspects did Paul have that God highlighted? Yes the ones we hold dear are good….but what is the most dear.
The answer is found in the verse: “Three times I asked my thorn to be removed?’ The first time Paul received no answer from God…dead silence….So Paul prayed again for his thorn to be removed and he received no answer….so Paul prayed again….This is the answer he received. “My grace is sufficient. Your weakness is magnified in my strength.” So here in lies the answer to our question why the Bible loved Paul in his response to God’s question.
Paul in the next verse basically say…I get it God…if you are made strong when I am weak then I will magnify my weakness. In essence, he is saying I will talk about how weak I am. I will shout it front the rooftops. We see this in the verses where he calls himself the chief sinner.
Far to often we try to hide our sins. What we should do as Christians is talk about how messed up we are so we can talk about how great Jesus is. This is not what we generally do. this is not what Paul did…And it seems the more holy and righteous Paul became the weaker he began. We see this in the succession of verses I am a sinner…I am the chief sinner….I am the least of the apostles.
I would dare say that I would probably prayed the prayer to remove my thorn one time…have God not respond and that would be it. But here Paul shows why he is a Biblical patriarch because not of God’s response to Him…but his response to God.
Paul was not answered the first time….so he asked again….and he kept asking till he got an answer. When he got an answer rather than complaining that God wouldn’t remove his sin or frailty he though about it said with joy “I get it” and he responded to it with humility and action.
Time and time again throughout the Bible it is the responses to God that make people “after God’s own heart.”
Take the example of David. After David was caught in sin with Bathsheba and Nathan confronted him with the story of the stolen lamb …..David was broken when many of us would have been defensive and anything but contrite.
David is comforting to us because he was a murder and an adulterer and called a man after God’s own heart. His sin makes us feel better about ourselves. So this is what we focus on. We focus on the sin..rather than the response. And we totally miss the big picture when we do this.
David was Biblically great and to be admired not because his sin makes us feel better about ours, but because of his humility and in the way he responded.
This is something we all can keep in mind in responding to God out of weakness rather than strength. I think we would all be a lot stronger as a body if we loved each other weakly in ourselves…but strong in the gospel and we responded accordingly…..
Dave Pillow
Vice President of Global Advancement