Reflection
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7TheMissionaryTheologyofPaul.pptxTHE MISSIONARY THEOLOGY OF Paul
Module 7 - MISS 500
Foundation for Biblical Mission
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
Paul was born in Tarsus into a devout Jewish family belonging to the Pharisaic movement.
It is not entirely clear where Paul spent his formative years. The traditional assumption is Tarsus in Cilicia.
If Paul grew up in Tarsus, his educational experience may have resembled that of Philo, his contemporary in Alexandria.
The sons of Jewish Diaspora families were educated in the following institutions:
Synagogue
Elementary school in synagogue
Gymnasiums
Ephebeia, public lectures, private philosophical school
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
Paul and his family evidently possessed Tarsisan and Roman citizenships.
Hellenistic cities made citizenship dependent upon the fulfillment of specific conditions, in many cases financial contributions or involvement in public building projects.
Roman citizenship could be obtained through birth by Roman parents, through manumission, when the owner of the slave was a Roman citizen, as a reward for the special services rendered, after 25 years of service in the auxiliary troops, or by official decree.
To possess Roman citizenship meant to possess privileges in private, criminal and civil law a (right to vote, exemption from certain forms of corporal punishment, it also implies duties in taxation and military service).
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
In 28 B.C., at the time of Augustus, there were 4,937,000 Roman citizens, and during Claudius’ reign the number had climbed to 5,984,672, most living in Italy or serving in the legion.
It is possible that Paul’s father received Roman citizenship through manumission.
Several church fathers claim to know that Paul’s father had been sold as a slave as a prisoner of war, originally living in Gischala in Galilee.
Since Pompey had occupied Palestine in 63 B.C., “there were other disturbances as well during which Galilean Jews might have become Roman slaves.”
Some scholars assume that Paul came from Tarsus to Jerusalem even as a child—that is, that he not only studied in Jerusalem but also spent his childhood and teenage years in the Jewish capital.
THE CONVERSION OF PAUL
Why did Saul/Paul persecute the followers of Jesus?
The followers of Jesus admits uncircumcised Gentile Christians—implausible
The contact of Jewish Christians with Gentile Christians—equally implausible
Proclaiming before Gentile audiences!—a Galilean who had been executed as a troublemaker by the Roman authorities as Messiah and savior who soon would return and establish the promised messianic age by bringing the existing world order to an end, implementing the kingdom of God. Politically dangerous message
More plausible is the suggestion that the pre-Christian Paul regarded the proclamation of a crucified Messiah to be utterly despicable and erroneous that he became convinced that the adherents of the new movement must not be tolerated and that active measure be taken to stop their activities. Torah will be replaced by the gospel….
The commission to be an apostle to the nations
In Paul’s case conversion and call to be a missionary coincided, a fact that is more clearly expressed in Paul’s statement than in Luke’s accounts of Paul’s conversion.
According to Acts 9:15 and Acts 22:14-15, it was Ananias, a member of the Christian community in Damascus, who communicated to Paul God’s election and calling to be his witness.
When Paul speaks of his conversion and call, usually in a polemical context, he emphasizes that God himself called and commissioned him directly in the encounter with Jesus Christ.
The commission to be an apostle to the nations
Paul describes in Gal. 1:16 his calling at the time of his encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus as a commission to missionary outreach among Gentiles.
Paul’s basic statement in Rm. 1:14 indicates that Gal. 1:16 should be interpreted in ethnic terms:
Paul understands himself as directed by the risen Lord to preach the gospel to Gentiles in particular—that is, non-Jews, polytheists, including proselytes and God-fearers whom he would encounter in the Diaspora synagogue.
The commission to be an apostle to the nations
2. Paul asserts in Gal. 2:7 that he received the approval of the Jerusalem apostles for his conviction that the risen Lord called him to preach the gospel to Gentiles, when he discussed his proclamation of Jesus Christ with the apostles in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:2).
The commission to preach the gospel to “the uncircumcised” that Peter, John, and James acknowledged in the Jerusalem conference took place in connection with his conversion to Jesus Christ as reported in Gal. 1:16.
The series of rhetorical questions in 1 Cor. 9:1-2 with which Paul provokes
positive answers, constitutes the start of Paul’s exposition of his apostolic
ministry.
Paul’s description of his mission in 2 Cor. 10:13-16 is part of his defense against
attacks from false “apostles.”
The commission to be an apostle to the nations
In Lukes’s first account of Paul’s conversion the Lord describes Paul as his “instrument” (Acts 9:15) who has been chosen to carry the “name” of Jesus to the Gentiles, to kings, and to the “sons of Israel.”
According to Luke’s account of Paul’s conversion in Acts 22:6-16, Paul’s call by God communicated through Ananias implied three tasks: a) Paul shall know the will of God (Acts 22:14a) b) Paul shall “see the Righteous One” is one of the expected of Davidic rule (Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15)—and accept his words as authoritative c) Paul shall be Jesus’ “witness to all the world” of what he had seen and heard (Acts 22:15); that is, he is directed to proclaim Jesus as the risen Lord and the message of Jesus before all people.
Paul’s calling is directly linked with the encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus in the third account of his conversion (Acts 26:9-18).
The commission to be an apostle to the nations
8. Another text needs to be considered that is connected not with Paul’s conversion but with his calling to be a witness among the Gentiles. Luke tells in Acts 22:17-21 of a vision that Paul had in the temple in Jerusalem, evidently at the time of his first visit to the Jewish capital after his conversion (i.e., in A.D.33/34).
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
Paul understands himself as a servant (1 Cor. 3:51)
Paul knows himself to be bound to God and to Jesus Christ, which excludes the possibility that he or anyone else might rule over the church or within the church.
Paul’s identification of preachers and teachers as “servants” turns the frame of reference of Greco-Roman society and its notion of social prestige upside down.
Paul use of metaphors from agriculture and house construction to describe the task and activities of missionaries, preachers, and teachers: they plant, they water, they build—tasks and activities that surely are no cause for boasting.
The Greco-Roman elites despised manual labor.
Missionaries and church leaders are not respected patrons who disdain people who had to earn their living by manual labor.
Rather they are diakonoi whose behavior and intentions are totally focused on serving their superiors, God, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pauls’ self-understanding as a missionary
God is the “Lord” (1 Cor. 3:5) of missionary work and of church work.
He is the “superior” whose “assistants” are missionaries, preachers and teachers .
It was God who assigned to each missionary and preacher “his task” and who gave to each and every one different gifts.
Both the task that God assigned and the gift to carry out His task are God’s gracious gifts.
Both missionary ministry and church ministry are the task God has given, work that God has assigned, commissions that God has granted.
Pauls’ self-understanding as a missionary
The bonds that tie preachers and teachers to the Lord not only excludes high-handedness but also establishes the unity of the ministry for all preachers and teachers who serve the church.
The pioneer missionary who “plants” and the teacher in the church who “waters” are involved in one and the same task, and both are dependent upon the same Lord: they have “a common purpose,” they are “one” (1 Cor. 3:8a).
It is preposterous to argue that Paul felt superior to the other preachers or teachers.
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
Paul sees himself as a pioneer missionary called by God to “plant” (1 Cor. 3:6) and to “lay the foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10) — that is to establish new churches.
Apollos and other preachers and teachers “water” (1 Cor. 3:6) and “build on the foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10).
Paul criticizes the attitude of Corinthian Christians who focus on the personality of the preacher and teacher ( 1 Cor. 1:10-17; 3:1-4).
This attitude may correspond to the Hellenistic praxis of itinerant philosophers, but it contradicts the character and the nature of the Christian message, whose center is the crucified Messiah (1 Cor. 1:13, 17-18; 2:2).
Paul sees himself and all other Christian preachers and teachers not as people who are in the foreground or in the center of the action but as people who have important, and at the same time, diverse tasks.
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
Success always comes from God and God alone
This is true both for the pioneer missionaries, preachers, and teachers in local congregations: only God gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6).
The effectiveness of missionary work and of church ministry does not depend on persons or programs, it does not depend on rhetorical techniques or methods of accommodation, but only on God’s activity.
Preachers are “nothing” (1 Cor. 3:7a), a “nothing” from which only a creative act of God can make something.
Paul emphasizes that the nature of the ministry prohibits deference to and exclusivistic respect for individual preachers and teachers: they are all instruments of God on whose work all “success” depends.
Apostles and missionaries are just “coworkers,” specifically “coworkers of God” (1 Cor. 3:9a; 1 Thess. 3;2). They are involved in God’s work.
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
The churches that are established as the fruit of missionary work belong neither to Paul nor to other teachers.
Church is “God’s field, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9b).
Since the origin and the growth of the church are the effects of God’s own work, the church is neither the work nor the possession of the apostle: it is the work and the possession of God.
Missionaries, preachers and teachers work on “alien land,” on land that belongs to God. The apostles and teachers belong together with the church to the “plantation” that is growing, to the “building” that is being constructed.
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
The responsibility of the missionary to God becomes apparent in the statement “…they will each be rewarded according to their own labor” (1 Cor. 3:8b).
God himself is the “employer,” and they are all accountable to him.
It is God alone who decides what constitutes the success or failure of the preacher and teacher, not the church or coworkers.
God knows the value of the missionary and of the preachers.
God rewards according to the “work” of the individual missionary, preacher or teacher in accordance with the energy displayed and the burden accepted.
Paul did not specify the wages in 1 Cor. 3:8.
He speaks of the prize of an imperishable wreath (1 Cor. 9:25); or the “crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:8).
The apostle Peter speaks of “the crown of glory that never fades away” (1 Pet. 5:4).
James and John speak of “the crown of life” (Jas. 1:12; Rev. 2:10).
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
“skilled master builder” (1 Cor. 3:10a)
Paul is a pioneer missionary who travels from city to city and from region to region and proclaims the message of Jesus the Messiah and Savior before audiences who have never heard that message before.
He helps them to find faith in the revelation of Israel’s God in Jesus Christ, particularly in the death and resurrection of Jesus—he is the foundation laid by Paul (1 Cor. 3:11, 23; 2:2).
The crucified and risen Jesus Christ is the content of the missionary proclamation and thus the foundation and the measure of the establishment of the church and of the growth of the church.
The decisive factor in the mission of the apostles is the one who is preached.
He gathers the new believers into a new community.
Paul’s self-understanding as a missionary
Preachers and teachers are responsible for the way they build on the foundation “Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:12-15).
They have the responsibility for the priorities, the perspectives, the motivations, and for the methods that are displayed and used in the building.
All “builders” who are involved in building the church of God are responsible to God for their actions.
This is a responsibility that will become evident and will have consequences in the final judgment.
The litmus test of missionary service is sound proclamation of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ the Messiah.
Independent of the question whether there was growth.
Whether people joined the church and whether people received support in their Christian lives.
