Paul the Missionary

Now there begin the seven years of work which mark the crown of Paul's ministry. Into these seven years is crowded an achievement beyond what many great men have wrought in a lifetime. One province after another Paul lays claim to in the name of Christ. With restless energy he carries the message, assisted by a group of workers. Nor is he content to be a mere wandering preacher. As he goes he establishes Christian communities, and over these he keeps watch, dispatching one or the other of his assistants, or sending letters like those which have come down to us under his name.

Beneath all these varied activities there lay a definite plan, which comes to the surface again and again. Paul did not strike out at random into the Gentile world. His plan was nothing less than to win the whole empire, and to do this by planting the church in order in the Roman provinces that surrounded the Mediterranean. In an interesting passage, written to the Romans about the close of this period, he tells of these plans. "God sent me," he says, "to be a minister to the Gentiles. This mission I have fulfilled from Jerusalem around as far as Illyricum. I have one last task here, to take to Jerusalem the money that I have collected for the church there. This done, I shall start for Spain, stopping on the way at Rome to see you as I have long wished to do" (Rom 15:14-33). This imperial plan appears in the way in which Paul refers to his work. As a rule, he does not mention the cities where he works, but speaks, rather, of the provinces. He refers to Asia, not to Ephesus, to Macedonia and Achaia, not to Corinth and Philippi (Rom 16:5; 1 Thess 1:7).

It was a great conception, this winning of an empire for the new faith. Paul has been called a second Alexander, moving westward instead of eastward in this march of conquest. More than anything else it brings to light the difference between him and the Jerusalem leaders, and the significance of Paul's idea of the gospel. With the exception of Peter, it seemed that they were content to remain at Jerusalem, praying and waiting for the heavens to open again and Christ to return. Paul saw the wealth and the meaning of the new faith as they did not, a religion of life and power for all men and not alone the Jews. That conception was back of the mission: "I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." That was why he felt himself sent to all the Gentiles and counted himself "debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians" (Rom 1:13-17).

This general plan had certain limits. (1) Paul would not go where others had laid the foundation (Rom 15:20). That is why he makes it plain to the Roman church that he is simply stopping off to see them on his way to Spain (Rom 15:24). (2) Paul would not work in Jewish territory. This may help answer the question sometimes raised, Why did not Paul, who swept around the circle of the sea from Jerusalem to Spain, go south to Egypt, especially to Alexandria? The reason may be that Alexandria was so much of a Jewish city. It had a large and prosperous Jewish population, which had its separate quarter, even having its own city walls inclosing it. (3) One other element enters into Paul's plans. He felt that the return of the Lord was near. The time was short. He had to give his message and start the work and care for it from a distance as well as he could. But he could not remain, he must hurry on.

The missionary was not a strange figure in that age. It was a day of religious ferment. The old national religions were passing away. New cults were coming in, especially the mystery religions from the east. Traveling merchants and soldiers were often zealous propagators of such faiths. There were also traveling teachers of rhetoric and philosophy. The Jewish missionaries were probably the most active. Jesus spoke of the Pharisees as compassing sea and land to make one proselyte. The bitterness of the Jews against Paul was caused largely by his success in making converts and in drawing away the proselytes whom they had won.

Paul's first act in coming to a city would be to find quarters for himself. Ordinarily, he planned to stay for some period and so sought a place where he could carry on his trade of tent-maker. For to his many burdens he added this other, that of self-support. From only one church, that at Philippi, was he willing to take aid. He believed in the right to such support for Christian apostles. He defended the principle and his own right to this later on. But for himself he would not assert this claim. "We bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ" (1 Cor 9:1-18). Paul probably had a double reason. He did not want to be confounded with traveling rhetoricians who talked simply for hire, and he wanted to remove all ground for misunderstanding and criticism of his motives on the part of his Jewish enemies.

Paul's next task was to find a way of approach for his message. That led him naturally to the synagogue. He did not consider this a violation of his agreement to go to the Gentiles. Apparently, that meant to Paul simply that he was to keep away from Jewish territory. But here, where none of the apostles from Jerusalem came, there was no reason why he should not speak to the Jews. This, however, was not the main reason for his presence in the synagogue. Jewish missionary work had been carried on for years, and while the Jews were hated by many, there were others who were attracted by their lofty moral and religious teachings.

These adherents or sympathizers afforded some of Paul's first and best converts.

In the free worship of the synagogue there was always opportunity for such a visitor to speak. Naturally, Paul could not continue his preaching permanently in the synagogue. Some Jews he won, but the major part would refuse his message. Often they followed him from one city to the other and turned the Jews against him. But he had found interesting hearers among the proselytes, and now through these he could meet other Gentiles. So his work was continued usually in the house of some well-to-do convert. Thus in Philippi he was guest of Lydia, at Thessalonica he used the house of Jason, and at Corinth that of Titus Justus (Acts 16:15; 17:7; 18:7). In Ephesus we read that he continued in the synagogue three months. Apparently, Paul's success there demanded a larger room than a private house could afford, and so he spoke in a public hall, "the school of Tyrannus" (Acts 19:8, 9). One of the oldest manuscripts of Acts adds to these verses the words "from the fifth to the tenth hour," that is, from eleven to four. Paul, it would seem, rented for this part of the day a hall which was given to other uses as well.

Judged by the common standards of his day, Paul was not a great speaker. It was a day when rhetoric and oratory were carefully cultivated, and of these things Paul made no pretense. His enemies said that he was rude of speech, that his speech was of no account and his bodily presence weak (2 Cor 11:6; 10:10). Paul makes no denial. He says to the Corinthians: "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom" (1 Cor 2:3, 4). At Athens they called him a babbler (Acts 17:18) It is a fair question, however, whether the fault did not lie in the artificial standards of the time rather than with Paul himself. Simple, direct, unpolished, even rude, his speech probably was. But it met the final test: he stirred men's hearts and swept them off their feet. He carried the council of Jerusalem, though he stood there almost alone. And how many a later company, Jew and Gentile, cultured and pagan, was borne down by the earnestness and sincerity and moral power of his address. Earnestness and spiritual power were the mark of Paul's speech. The man was wholly lost in his message. Men did not listen to fine phrases, they heard a man, and a man aflame with his thought. Some might call him mad, but others trembled (Acts 26:24; 24:25). With this earnestness went a power of will that made Paul commanding when he spoke as when he acted. Back of all else was the utter devotion of his soul and his utter dependence upon God. Men felt that God was speaking through this man, and he could call the Corinthians to witness that though in weakness, yet his speech was "in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power."

But though Paul's speech was plain and direct, with no regard for niceties of style, there were times when it must have risen to heights of real eloquence. We are justified here in drawing conclusions from his letters; for these were spoken, not written, being dictated by him. Even with the limitation of slow dictation, Paul's letters show us passages where his soul, kindling at the great truths he is considering, rises to speech of beauty as well as power. Such is the simple but beautiful song of love that lifts itself above the controversies of the Corinthian church (1 Cor 13). Such are the passages which interrupt again and again his argument in the letter to the Romans. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written,

For thy sake we are killed all the day long;

We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 8:35-39).

What Paul said in his sermons we cannot know with certainty. Not one of them lies before us. His letters are not sermons. He writes in these to companies of Christians, discussing special questions of faith and life. We find theology in them and practical maxims, but this is quite different from what he would bring to a group of Gentiles to whom he was preaching the gospel for the first time. And yet we are not left without some real knowledge. Brief as it is, such a summary as that given us in Acts of the sermon at Athens is suggestive of Paul's method in a particular situation. And of much more importance are some of his references and passages in the epistles (1 Thess I. 9, 10; Acts 14:15-17; Rom 1:18 to 2:16; 1 Cor 15:1-11).

The passages just noted suggest what his preaching to the Gentiles was. We may distinguish certain parts in this message: (1) Paul proclaimed to them the living God. He probably did not say much about idol-worship. He did not need to. That was a dying faith. It was enough to bring to them the word of that God who had made the world and ruled in history; who had sent his prophets and in these latter days had sent his Son to show forth his mercy, whom also he had raised from the dead. (2) He preached to their conscience. With searching words he set forth their sin. It was not mere sin of ignorance. God had not left himself without a witness. There was an inner law that he had written in their hearts. But they had darkened this light by their disobedience, and had turned to their sinful desires. All this God had passed over, but now he was calling men to repent; the day of judgment for men's sins was at hand. (3) He preached Jesus Christ. However Paul began, his sermon always tended to this. Here was his real message.

All else was preparation. "We are ambassadors therefore," he says, "on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor 5:20, 21).

Here Paul had reached the heart of his message—"Christ, and him crucified." For him this was no mere phrase or formal doctrine as it is so often today. It was a gift of life that he was bringing to men, and of life here and now. That was what it had meant to him. It had changed his whole life. He probably did not dwell upon Jesus' words and deeds as man. He told how God had sent his Son to men, of his death, and how God had raised him from the dead. Then he set forth the meaning of all this. It was God's love for men. God had done this to win men to himself. This God in his mercy was willing to receive them all as his children, to give them forgiveness and life. He asked only faith in return, that men should trust him and give themselves to him. That life was theirs here and now: forgiveness, and peace, and the Spirit of God in their hearts. But besides this there was a hope: very soon this Jesus was to return and set up his final and full kingdom upon the earth.

There is no indication that men responded to this message in the mass. In 1 Cor 1:18-31 is given a picture of the failure and success of Paul's appeal. Paul declares that his message of the crucified Christ was a stumbling-block to the Jews. They wanted signs, that is, indications of power. How could they accept a Messiah who, instead of overthrowing Israel's enemies, had himself suffered death? The Greeks, he said, thought his preaching foolishness. They wanted wisdom, fine rhetoric, and philosophical speculation, or strange mysteries such as the new religions from the East afforded. Paul brought them a simple message of a God who showed his love to men and called them to repent.

And others would draw back at this moral demand, the call to leave sin, to live a new life of righteousness.

But there were others that were won: some of them by the ethical appeal, smitten in their conscience by his searching words; many of them by his message of the living God, the God of love and power who could save them from their sins and from death. It was a day when the old faiths were breaking down, and especially upon the common folks the burdens and misery of life rested heavily. What men wanted from religion was help, redemption from these ills. That was what Paul promised: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Paul tells us that most of these converts, at least in Corinth, were from the poorer classes. Early Christianity, as a whole, was a lower and middle-class movement. "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble" responded. Every great and permanent religious movement has followed this order. It has never filtered down from an upper few, but has had its origin in the great masses in which the real strength of any generation lies.

The little bands of converts Paul gathered together. Among them were a few of wealth and station. Such a convert would offer his house as a meeting place for the little brotherhood. Over these circles Paul watched. To them he sent his messages, rebuking, exhorting, comforting, teaching, encouraging. And these little communities, with their spirit of love for each other, with the evident joy and peace of their new faith, formed in turn an attractive power that drew others from without. At the same time their members became themselves missionaries to propagate the new religion with zeal and enthusiasm. And when they moved to other places they kindled new fires. It was not Paul and Peter and Barnabas alone that spread Christianity. They were but leaders of a great company. The new religion was a great lay movement. Jesus was a layman. Paul was a layman, who never asked ordination from anybody. And the great work of spreading the faith in the first generation was done by men and women whose names have long since been lost to us, but whose work remains to this day.

Directions for Reading and Study

Read Rom 15:14-33. Locate upon the map the provinces of Syria, Cilicia, Galatia, Macedonia, Illyricum, Achaia, Asia. Illyricum lay along the eastern shore of the Adriatic, extending north to Italy. The region is marked Dalmatia upon our map. We have no record of Paul's work there.

As to Paul's trade and support of self, read Acts 18:1-4; 1 Cor 9:1-18.

For a typical synagogue experience, read Acts 13:13-16, 42-52.

Concerning Paul as a speaker, read 1 Cor 2. Read Rom 8:35-39 as illustration of what he may have meant by 1 Cor 2:6, 12.

As to Paul's message, read 1 Thess 1:9, 10; Acts 14:15-17; Rom 1:18 to 2, 16; 1 Cor 15:1-11.

Read 1 Cor 1:18-31.