Romans 5:1-11 “Will
the Real Paul Please Stand Up?”
Do you remember the game show
called To Tell the Truth?
I remember watching it
growing up,
but turns out that it’s been running on television off
and on since it first began in 1956.
On this show, 3 contestants
would appear, all claiming to be the same person.
They would be interviewed by
a panel of celebrities in an effort to determine
who was the real one and who was bluffing.
The celebrities would vote,
and then the moderator would ask
“Will the Real ________please
stand up?”
That’s the question that kept
occurring to me as I studied and worked on
today’s scripture and on the Bible person we are exploring
today, Paul.
Will the real Paul please
stand up?
That’s because the real Paul
has to be pieced together from the 13 letters
in the New Testament that are credited to either him or
his associates:
Romans, 1 & 2
Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians,
1 & 2
Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.
We also learn some of his
story through the Acts of the Apostles.
What do we know about Paul’s
identity from these sources?
Paul was a native of
He was a freeborn citizen of
At the same time he was an
observant Jew in a multicultural setting --
a student not only of his religious faith, but also of
Greek philosophy and culture.
He was a missionary – a
traveler across an ancient world
including the
He was one of the first of
what we nowadays would call new church planters.
He planted or was part of
planting churches in
He was a tentmaker by trade
and took great pride in being able to support himself
even as he went about his missionary work.
Physically, he wouldn’t have
won any beauty contests.
He is described in the 2nd letter
to the Corinthians
as someone who could write strong letters, but had a
weak bodily presence.
In the same letter he reports
having been stoned, shipwrecked, beaten and scourged. He reports having a “thorn in the flesh,”
something to keep him from being too elated.
Despite his looks, he preached.
I guess he didn’t worry about
whether he was photogenic or not.
There are a number of his
sermons preserved in Acts.
He was called to be the
Apostle to the Gentiles,
and his preaching always reflected a deep understanding
of his audience.
With all the writings we have
from him,
one would think we could come up with
a clearer understanding of Paul and his theology.
But his writings simply do
not form the sort of clear doctrinal statement
that the modern American church seems most comfortable
with.
There are several reasons for
this:
1)
Paul is a product
of his culture, influenced by his Greek and Jewish education and life in the 1st
century.
2)
2) Paul’s
theology is embedded in letters. And
only his viewpoint has been preserved - we don’t know what the original letters
asking for help were about. Paul
developed his theology as he wrote to churches and individuals in them,
addressing specific controversies and issues.
Was circumcision necessary? How were spiritual gifts to be used? What was morally acceptable behavior and what
was not? How should the church handle
behavior that disrupted the body?
3)
Not all of the
letters considered to be Paul’s were actually written by Paul. This wasn’t considered plagiarism back then -
it was a common practice. But it does
make it harder to find the real Paul.
Because of Paul’s culture and
because he and some others wrote letters, we encounter contradictions.
On the one hand he accused
Peter and others of hypocrisy in Galatians
because they wanted to force Jewish food laws on Gentile
Christians. (Gal 2:11-14) But in Romans,
he suggests that although there is nothing wrong
with these liberated food laws,
it was wrong if these disagreements made others stumble.
(Rom 14:13-23)
In his first letter to the
Corinthians, in chapter 11
he writes to the church about worship practices -
specifically how women dress in worship.
The passage presumes that
women are praying, prophesying and leading in worship. But then several chapters later, he contradicts
himself when he writes
“women
should be silent in the churches.”
Then again, in Galatians,
back to a more inclusive view of the ministries of men and
women
“As many of you as were
baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or
Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one
in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:27-28)
These days Paul would be
accused of sounding like a vacillating politician
with his ability to adapt to different situations and
groups.
In 1 Corinthians 9 he writes
“For though I am free with respect to all,
I have made myself a slave to
all, so that I might win more of them.
To the Jews I became as a
Jew, in order to win Jews.
To the weak I became weak, so
that I might win the weak.
I have become all things to
all people, that I might by all means save some.
I do it for the sake of the
gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
( I Cor
Will the real Paul please
stand up?
The real Paul must be
understood through his dramatic encounter
with the Risen Christ on the road to
This was the most important event of his life.
You remember the story from
several weeks ago,
where he is flattened and blinded by the appearance of the
Lord,
an experience which so transforms him that he does a 180
degree turn,
going from a zealous persecutor of the Christians
to a Christian missionary extraordinaire.
For Paul more than anything
else, his identity was totally defined
in Christ.
“In Christ” is one of his
favorite ways of expressing the Christian life -
it occurs 164 times in these writings.
It means an intimate
relationship with Christ,
guided by the teaching of the apostles, and forming us into
the Body of Christ.
Although it is impossible for
any short piece of scripture
to be a summary of
Paul’s theology,
in some ways today’s reading from Romans is just
that.
Because here Paul teaches the
core of Christian faith:
All that God has done has been done out of LOVE -
gracious, unrelentingly faithful love
demonstrated
through the actions of Jesus Christ and the
presence of the Holy Spirit.
Paul experienced this
first-hand on the road, and he is never the same again.
Paul realized he was forgiven
and that Christ died for him.
That realization combined
with the Holy Spirit gave him his purpose:
to share the good news of God’s grace and salvation with
everyone he met.
He understood that despite
all his weaknesses, the promise of his Lord was
“My grace is sufficient for
you for power is made perfect in weakness.
That message of God’s
gracious love - a love which frees us from sin and self and death -
is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago.
If we could sort and sift and
lift out a theology and send it to the church today -
almost 2000 years after most of these letters were written
what would that sound like?
If Paul was to speak to us -
not the church in
but the church in Norcross, what would he say?
First of all it would be an
email, not a letter.
So just for a minute, let’s
imagine we’ve got an email from Paul - the real Paul.
Subject: In Christ
Date: For all time
From: Paulontheroad.com
To: peachtreecornerscc.org
Hello Friends,
Hope you’re well and
experiencing grace and love from God in Christ Jesus. I know I am, even when things are tough. That encounter with Christ on the road to
That love gives us an amazing
calling - to be saints. Actually there’s
even more to it than that. We’re in
Christ - so connected to him that the only way to describe it is that we’re
literally a part of his body. Now don’t
get me wrong in this email - this isn’t biology, it’s
theology. Because we’re in Christ, we are to learn and grow in becoming more
like him. We are to model our own lives
after his - serving, learning, praying, worshiping, forgiving, loving, caring,
sharing. We are to live out God’s love
and grace for us with other people.
Yeah, I know it sounds like a
big job. But God calls the most
inconsequential people to do his work.
Look at me! We’ve got to remember
that because we’re the Body of Christ, we’ve got work to do. We’re the hands and feet of Christ. When someone is hurting, we can go in there
and be Christ to that person. When the
church needs a strong witness, we together are that witness. We’re the ones that are learning and growing
in Christ so that we can be Christ in the world.
Say hi to all my friends
there for me - to all the leaders and the workers and everybody who does their
part to build up the Body there at Peachtree Corners Christian Church. Keep the faith, and stay in the grace and
love of Jesus Christ. Let’s do it.
Paul
P.S. Happy Birthday!