Discovering Paul – Chapter 3: Paul the Preacher
3. Paul the Preacher
To discover who you are is to make the most profound discovery of all. Then to be what you say you are is the greatest challenge of all.
Following his conversion on the Damascus road, Paul set out to become what he said he was. His life had meaning, integration and purpose. In discovering Jesus, Paul discovered himself.
On the Damascus road Paul came to himself. The prodigal son came to himself in a pig pen. Any place and any time can be the place and time when God becomes real in our lives and we see the light, and so come to ourselves.
After his conversion Paul immediately became a preacher of the gospel. He was to spend the rest of his life proclaiming the good news.
Where Paul preached
Paul’s preaching was done in four basic locations: in private homes, in Jewish synagogues, in public halls and in the open air.
1. Private homes
The home was the fundamental unit of society within the Roman, Greek and Jewish worlds. It had the wonderful advantage of being a small intimate group of people which allowed for questioning and discussion to take place. Paul used to be invited to the homes of people in the areas to which he travelled, entering their home for hospitality, and being led into discussions about the faith.
An early occasion where this took place was when Peter stopped at the house of Simon the Tanner at Joppa and from there went to the house of Cornelius in Caesarea. In both places people came to faith which resulted in baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Paul frequently stayed during his travels at the homes of Jews who were interested in the Messianic promises and who became Christians, or in the homes of Gentiles who feared God and became the basis of a church in their areas. So in Thessalonica, Jason’s house became the centre of a new church in that area; and in Corinth right opposite the synagogue where Paul had had some dispute was the home of Titius Justus and there Paul established a teaching ministry which led to the church in Corinth.
It is not surprising that preaching in houses became the first means by which the early church grew. Jesus was a frequent guest in the home of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law at Capernaum, frequently stayed in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus at Bethany, and probably held the Passover meal in the home of John Mark’s mother in Jerusalem. Very soon this particular house passed into history, being known as the home with the upper room in which the Last Supper was held and the early church gathered for prayer, and in which the disciples received the Holy Spirit.
An interesting example of a household meeting, albeit a very large house, is found in the account of a Saturday evening during Paul’s last visit to Troas. After they had shared in a fellowship meal or Communion, we read:
Paul spoke to the people and kept on speaking until midnight, since he was going to leave the next day. Many lamps were burning in the upstairs room where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in the window, and as Paul kept on talking, Eutychus got sleepier and sleepier, until he finally went sound asleep and fell from the third storey to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead. But Paul went down and threw himself on him and hugged him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘He is still alive!’ Then he went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After talking with them for a long time, even until sunrise, Paul left. They took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted. 1
Paul took every opportunity to preach the good news about Jesus and, speaking in home meetings, he established churches. The phrase ‘the church that meets in your house’ became a common usage in the early church. Twenty centuries later it is interesting to see the rise once more of the house church, and just as Christians met in the house of Philemon which formed the nucleus of a group of believers, so today house churches are established in every continent of the earth, being the forerunner of a more formal larger congregation covering an area. Some very large churches with tens of thousands of members, and some super-churches with hundreds of thousands of members, base their growth and existence on one central mother church building, surrounded by hundreds and even tens of thousands of smaller local house churches where the host is the pastor and teacher for the small group of believers who gather in their house for prayer, fellowship, teaching and the celebration of communion.
2. Jewish synagogues
Immediately after his conversion and the sharing of his faith with the other believers under the leadership of Ananias, Paul ‘went straight to the synagogues and began to preach that Jesus was the son of God’. 2 His recorded speeches in synagogues all follow a similar pattern. Although the house group provided opportunities for dialogue, for question and answer and perhaps debate, the synagogues provided a more formal environment where any visiting teacher, and especially a visiting Pharisee, was invited to read the scriptures and to teach from them. As Paul travelled he went first to the synagogues where he was given the opportunity of opening the scriptures and his pattern of preaching follows a similar line.
The fullest report of his preaching in a synagogue is found in Antioch in Pisidia. ‘On the Sabbath they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law of Moses and from the writings of the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message: “Brothers, we want you to speak to the people if you have a message of encouragement for them.” Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and began to speak.’3 His speech in the synagogues was a carefully constructed sermon. After graciously greeting his hosts, Paul recited the history of the Jewish people indicating how God had chosen and made them a great nation, how the people loved the traditions of their forefathers, how they triumphed over great difficulties and something of their expectation of the coming of the Messiah.
His second point was that Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the expectations of a Messiah, the one promised by John the Baptist to bring salvation. Paul said that it was people who lived in Jerusalem who had taken Jesus, the one spoken about by the prophets, passed the death sentence on him and asked Pilate to have him put to death. But after his death and burial, God raised him from the dead as a sign that he was the Messiah. Paul quoted form the prophets and from the psalms to prove that Jesus was not only the long-prophesied Messiah but the very rationale for their existence as a nation.
Like any good preacher, Paul hammered home his message. ‘All of you, my fellow Israelites, are to know for sure that it is through Jesus that the message about forgiveness of sins is preached to you; you are to know that everyone who believes in him is set free’ from all the sins from which the Law of Moses could not set you free’ and he finally warned them to take seriously God’s mercy lest they scoff at the message and be rejected.
This sermon was typical of the message that Paul gave to Jews in the synagogue. It is interesting to note that after he had finished the sermon the people invited him to come back the next Sabbath and tell them more about these things and that a number of the people, including both Jews and Gentiles, followed them home and discussed the matter further with them in private. 3
Paul, like any good preacher, started where they were, understanding their pride in their history and their knowledge of the scriptures. He took them through their own history leading up to the central place occupied by Jesus Christ. He respected their dignity and knowledge of the scriptures, but courageously and pointedly indicated that Jesus was the answer to their deepest needs and required belief and commitment.
3. Public halls
When Paul took the message of Jesus Christ throughout Turkey, Macedonia and Greece, he found many public places in which he could proclaim the gospel. The Greeks were used to public teachers and had many lyceums, or public halls, for teaching and philosophical debate available for visiting lecturers. A public hall had the advantage of providing a reliable venue to teach consistently over a period of time people who would be willing to come and hear him at a regular hour, and was less likely to attract the attention of hooligans and the public police who on a number of occasions broke up Paul’s open-air meetings.
A classic example of him preaching in a public hall occurred in Ephesus on his second visit. He had returned to this centre to strengthen ‘all the believers’ and for the first three months went into the synagogues and proclaimed his usual gospel message, speaking ‘boldly with the people’ and ‘trying to convince them about the kingdom of God.’
After he had been rejected by a number of the more conservative Jews in the synagogue, ‘Paul left them and took the believers with him, and every day from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. he held discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the people who lived in the province of Asia, both Jews and Gentiles, heard the word of the Lord.’ Apparently the lecturer Tyrannus – not a very flattering name for nay teacher! ¾ only held classes in the early morning and in the later afternoon and Paul hired the lecture hall during the middle of the day, probably spending the rest of his time earning his living. 4
Unfortunately we do not have an example of Paul’s lectures in public. However, judging from his other speeches before both Jews and Gentiles we believe that they would have followed a similar pattern, being relevant to his hearers, quoting local authorities and poets, emphasizing the fulfillment of the scriptures in Jesus, and of God’s special work of salvation through the man Jesus who was rejected, crucified, buried, but whom God raised from the dead and expects people to believe in for the forgiveness of their sins.
4. The open air
Different generations have found the value of open-air preaching: Lord Soper in recent years spoke to hundreds of people daily on Tower Hill, London; John Wesley and George Whitefield addressed tens of thousands at open air meetings; Jesus gave his greatest teachings on the mountainside, on the level plains, and along the seashore.
Peter preached in the open air on the day of Pentecost, and the early disciples took the message about Jesus into the market places, along the lakes and river banks, in the open fields, and in the town squares. Paul frequently preached in the open, debating with hecklers and ruffians as the case required. Frequently there was great danger to speaker from flying stones and public assaults.
In Athens Paul had a marvelous opportunity in the most famous public arena of all to proclaim the eternal truths. With the Areopagus and the Acropolis as a breathtaking backdrop, Paul stood in the open Agora and began speaking to any who would listen.
Having commenced with an illustration that they all knew and understood, Paul moved quickly to explain to hem the God they did not know. He stressed God’s greatness and creative power, quoted from some of their own contemporary authors, outlined his own theology of God and made God’s commands clear. He immediately led to Jesus and his resurrection at which point he was interrupted. 5
This initial address in the open air had a remarkable impact in view of the fact that these people of Athens were used to hearing philosophers and debaters. It is interesting to note that in Athens today the names of the philosophers and debaters are completely unknown, and the only names that survive from this era are the names of those who believed in Jesus because of Paul’s preaching in the open.
So Paul the preacher took every opportunity to proclaim how God worked in history through the nation Israel, through the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah, and through Jesus of Nazareth who was both Lord and Christ.
He took the opportunity in private homes, in Jewish synagogues, in public halls and in the open air to proclaim his message. Throughout his life, Paul lived true to himself, a preacher of the gospel:
So then, where does that leave the wise, or the scholars, or the skilful debaters of this world? God has shown that this world’s wisdom is foolishness! For God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, by means of the so-called “foolish” message we preach, God decided to save those who believe. Jews want miracles for proof, and Greeks look for wisdom. As for us, we proclaim the crucified Christ, a message that is offensive to the Jew and nonsense to the Gentiles, but for those whom God has called both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 6
What are the main themes in the recorded sermons of Paul? The best of Paul’s theology can be seen in his letters to the church at Ephesus and to the church at Rome. Indeed his clearest and finest doctrinal summary is in the first eight chapters of Romans. This is the closest Paul ever comes to a carefully reasoned, sustained, to a carefully reasoned, sustained, theological presentation.
However, a study of Paul’s addresses and sermons in The Acts of the Apostles provides the key theological insights to Paul’s preaching.
The preaching themes of Paul
Although many themes in his preaching can be named, there are six that are constantly presented.
1. The righteousness of God
It is Paul’s understanding of the nature and character of God that becomes the basic of his preaching. ‘Salvation is of the Lord’. That became the basis of his preaching. ‘Salvation is of the Lord’. That became the basis of all that Paul preached. Salvation is from and of God and in the good news the righteousness of God is revealed: ‘I have complete confidence in the gospel; it is God’s power to save all who believe, first the Jews and also the Gentiles. For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, “The person who is put right with God through faith shall live”. ’ 7
Salvation does not depend upon man’s moral or ethical achievements but solely upon God’s grace and mercy. Our salvation is not earned or purchased or achieved by anything that we do. ‘It is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.’ 8
With our reception of God’s righteousness, we receive peace, joy and the hope of glory. This being put right with God is at the heart of our salvation. No matter how much humans might sin, God’s grace is such that it expands and covers even the greatest of sins, ‘Where sin increased, God’s grace increased much more. So then, just as sin ruled by means of death, so also God’s grace rules by means of righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ 9
The key to our relationship with God is being put right with God and that is appropriated by us through God’s own grace and mercy.
2. The sinfulness of man
Each one of us is less than we ought to be. Like Humpty Dumpty, all of us have had a great fall, and not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can put us together again! Every psychiatrist has patients who tell him that the patient is not what he ought to be, and that he is powerless to be different.
Paul out of his own experience speaks of how far each of us is from what we ought to be:
God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence. But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus who sets them free. God offered him, so that by his sacrificial death he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him. 10
In the mid-1970s we watched the agony of Watergate. One of President Nixon’s closest aids, Chuck Colson, watched the President’s resignation from prison. Ten years later Chuck Colson reflected: ‘Mr. Nixon’s greatest legacy may not be the oft-neglected good points of his presidency but the flaws of this character. For they remind us that even presidents are human, or sinners, as the Bible puts it so indelicately.’ 11 Before you can ever get your life together, you have to realize just how far from God you are. That is why decent living people who have no need for God can be further from God that the person who has publicly sinned and is overwhelmed with guilt. For the guilty one can come to God but the self-sufficient one remains lost.
Paul stressed our human nature and our apartness from God. He described this as being in Adam: our humanness which we all share incorporates the sin that Adam committed. Our common humanity involves us is an attitude and tendency towards self-sufficiency, pride and independence from God.12 One of the common threads entwined throughout humanity is our general state of depravity. There is within the marrow of our bones the genes of our own destruction. There is nothing that we can do about it to put ourselves right with God. The nature of man is unrighteousness.
Such is our human predicament. Anyone who knows anything of human history, of the way we misuse every scientific and technological invention and pervert the results of science, has no doubt that man ultimately is his own greatest enemy and the results of our unchecked humanity are disaster, disease and death.
Paul indicates man’s moral bankruptcy in one of the most terrible passages in the Bible. He outlines man’s immorality, emptiness and futile living. It starts with man’s basic idolatry ‘exchanging’ the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself. That idolatry leads to immorality. ‘Because they do this God has given them over to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way the men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for the wrongdoing. Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds.’ Human depravity leads to personal conflicts, wickedness, greed, vice, fightings, murder and every kind of unpleasant relationship. The list is miserable. Their only response is to rationalize what they are doing. ‘They know that God’s law says that people who live this way deserve death. Yet not only do they continue to do these very things, but they even approve of others who do them.’ 13
Mankind shares with Adam a humanity that bears the seeds of its own destruction. ‘But God…’ For Paul those two favourite words change every scene. ‘But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed…God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ.’ 14
In Jesus Christ we have a second Adam. Just as sin entered the world through the first Adam, so forgiveness and life eternal came through Jesus Christ. God gave his son as a gift to overcome the result of the sin of Adam and with him all mankind since.15 John Calvin has said, ‘Christ was more powerful to save than Adam to ruin.’ 16
When through our faith we are incorporated into Christ, we take upon ourselves the essential nature of Christ and become a new person. Christians by their faith are incorporated into the life of Christ and appropriate to themselves his qualities and character.
That is as far as we need to go for our eternal salvation no matter how apart from God we have been. However, so rich is his character that we still have a long way to grow in Christian maturity. We need to grow in grace and in character to become more like Christ. ‘We shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature.’ 17
In all of Paul’s talk about our humanity he stresses our sin, rather than our sins. Today people like to refer to sins rather than sin. It is easy to point to the wrongdoings of others and to indicate that on a scale of preference we are not as bad as some other people. But sins are only the symptoms of sin and it is that sin — our apartness from God — which is the common factor all humanity shares. Because of this apartness from God we commit sins according to the influence of our heredity, our environment and our personal response. It is not the sins that distinguish us, it is the fact that we all are in sin by being apart from God. The good news is that God in Christ has overcome our sin and enabled us to belong to the new humanity.
3. Christ — the wisdom and power of God
It was to be expected that the Greeks with their long traditions of philosophy and honouring of wisdom should regard a message of a crucified and resurrected carpenter as being ‘foolish’ and beneath their intellectual level. Paul would point out that it was that very attitude of intellectual superiority that condemned them.
For what seems to be God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Now remember what you were, my brothers, when God called you. From the human point of view few of you were wise or powerful or of high social standing. God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful. He chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing in order to destroy what the world thinks is important. This means that no one can boast in God’s presence. But God has brought you into union with Christ Jesus, and God has made Christ to be our wisdom. By him we are put right with God; we have become God’s holy people and are set free. 18
How God turns upside down the values of the world. God’s love in Christ reveals his power to save us and the way he chooses to save us is an example of his understanding of the true nature of people. From the time of our baptism we are to live in the way of Jesus. Jesus Christ has now become the head of a new humanity.
4. The power of the cross
The cross is at the one time a past event, a present experience, and a future encounter. The cross is a past event anchored in human history. Salvation has already been accomplished through what Christ did upon the cross. His death, once and for all, ensured the salvation of all who would believe.
Because of our sin we inherit death. Sin finds expression through our flesh, and our humanness is expressed frequently by Paul by the phrase ‘in the flesh’. To live after the flesh is to live in sinful self-reliance. Because man seeks to regulate how he should live, laws are given both by man and by God and our humanness results in legalistic attitude of knowing we are wrong and trying to correct it by living according to laws. By obedience and correct living we hope to gain righteousness. Paul’s world was simple: the law is powerless to save us and ‘a person becomes an enemy of God when he is controlled by his human nature; for he does not obey God’s law and in fact he cannot obey it. Those who obey their human nature cannot please God.’ 19
What God has done upon the cross in Christ Jesus is to make us completely new people. Christ through his self-sacrifice has enabled us, by the appropriation of what he has done through our faith, to be seen as brand-new people. Hence the living Christ is the means by which we are saved.
But the cross is also a present experience. Because God has saved us on the cross, we have been freed from sin in order that we might now live a life in conformity to Christ. There is no way that we should continue to live in sin. ‘Should we continue to live in sin so that God’s grace will increase? ’Certainly not! We have died to sin – how then can we go on living in it?’ 20 Once we have been saved we are committed to serve God through the quality of our living and by the service of our lives.
Paul roundly condemned the thought that any life of good deeds can save us, but he commended the thought that once we are saved we should live a life full of good deeds. Our human effort is no condition of salvation, but is a consequence of it. We have been freed from sin, the law and death so consequently we shall live not as slaves of sin but as slaves of God. ‘Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slave of the master you obey – either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being out right with God. But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were salves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received.
You were set free from sin and became the slaves of righteousness.’ 21 As a result now we must continue to serve God as his saved people. Our salvation is at the one time a gift from God and a task to be completed. Even when God is living within us we still have to complete our salvation in present experience: ‘Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.’ 22
The power of the cross is a future encounter. Our salvation has been completed upon the cross, yet it is simultaneously lived out in our daily experience and it is yet to be consummated. When we are freed from death and part of his eternal kingdom our salvation will be complete. There is a future consummation that will be found in the complete restoration and renewal of the whole cosmic order. It is not only believing humans that are saved: the entire creation will be renewed and remade. That Christian hope which starts now is complete at the omega point of time. We cannot even comprehend how incredibly beautiful will be that final consummation of all things.
Paul says quite clearly ‘we were saved’ 23 and ‘we are being saved’ 24 and ‘we will be saved’ 25 and all three tense attributing the power of the cross are used in the one text: ‘Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us by faith into this experience of God’s grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory.’ 26
5. Salvation for all who have faith
The fifth aspect of Paul’s preaching is that salvation is available to everyone who has faith. The old human distinctions are all done away with. Our sex is irrelevant, our socio-economic status is irrelevant, our religious tradition is irrelevant: we are now one in Christ provided we have a common faith in him.
Paul took the message to the Gentiles which indicated that they too could be part from God’s family. ‘You were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God’s chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based upon God’s promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God. But now, in union with Christ Jesus, you, who used to be far away, have been brought near by the sacrificial death of Christ. For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people…’ 27
Over and over again Paul emphasizes that alienation has now been overcome by reconciliation, that condemnation has been annulled by justification, that human guilt has been cleansed by expiation through his blood. Everyone can now be part of God’s faithful through faith.
Paul is uncompromising in his declaration that salvation is by faith only: ‘for the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith form beginning to end. As the scripture says, “the person who is put right with God through faith shall live”.’28 It is through faith that we can become God’s holy people and be set free.
6. The spirit within
The final aspect of the preaching of Paul is found in his continued emphasis upon God’s spirit within the believer.
The Holy Spirit’s presence within the believer is central to Christian teaching. The Holy Spirit came upon the believers at the time of Pentecost as evidence of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. 29 It was the Holy Spirit that witnessed that Jesus was the Messiah. The Holy Spirit, Paul explained, is the guarantee or the earnest of God’s abiding presence with us. The Holy Spirit is a pledge of our immortality. ‘You also became God’s people when you heard the true message, the Good News that brought to you salvation. You believed in Christ, and God put his stamp of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised. The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall receive what God has promised this people, and this assures us that God will give complete freedom to those who are his.’ 30 The Holy Spirit comes upon us at the time of our baptism and is associated with our response to Christ in faith and our receiving of the forgiveness of sins. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings us together in unity and incorporates us into Christ’s body.
These six themes are stressed again and again in the preaching of Paul. He was truly ‘occupied with preaching’. Throughout all of his life the apostle used every opportunity to tell out the message outlined here. Preaching with Paul wasn’t an occupation; it was his preoccupation.
Endnotes:
1. Acts 20:7-12
2. Acts 9:20
3. Acts 13:13-43
4. Acts 19:8-10
5. Acts 17:16-38
6. 1 Corinthians 1:20-24
7. Romans 1:16-17
8. Ephesians 2:7-9
9. Romans 5:20-21
10. Romans 3:22-26
11. Charles Colson, ‘Ten Years after Watergate’ in Christianity Today, 1985
12. Romans 5:12-21
13. Romans 1:18-32
14. Romans 3:21-22
15. Romans 5:16-18
16. J. Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Collected Works.
17. Ephesians 4:13
18. 1 Corinthians 1:25-30
19. Romans 8:7
20. Romans 6:1-2
21. Romans 6:16-18
22. Philippians 2:12-13
23. Romans 8:24
24. 2 Corinthians 15:2
25. Romans 5:9
26. Romans 5:1-2
27. Ephesians 2:12-16
28. Romans 1:17
29. Joel 2:28
30. Ephesians 1:13-14
For personal reading
Theme: Preaching salvation
Monday : Sinful nature of man (Romans 3:19-28)
Tuesday : Salvation through faith (Romans 2:8-17)
Wednesday : Power in the cross (1 Corinthians 1:10-25)
Thursday : Man’s helpless condition (Romans 1:18-32)
Friday : Lord of all (Roman 3:21-26)
Saturday : Free gift through Christ (Roman 5:12-21)
Sunday : Jesus breaks all fetters (Romans 6:1-14)
For group reading
Topic: The preacher of the faith
1. What was the place of house-meetings in the time of Paul? How effective are they today?
2. Is there a style in Paul’s preaching? What can we learn from Paul about communicating the truth with other people?
3. How close should the preacher be to his preaching?
4. What is your concept of God and man?
5. How does Paul deal with the question of man’s sin?
6. If the cross of Jesus means salvation of Paul, what does it mean to you?
7. How does God’s Spirit work in individual lives?
