Paul’s Journey For Me

MON., JAN. 20, 1992, 6:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

You accepted the assignment I gave you and completed it in fine fashion. The Acts of the Apostles tells mainly of the trials and successes of Peter and Paul in developing the early Christian communities. You should see quite a difference between “the church Paul was seeking to encourage and the Church as it functions in this time, especially on Sunday mornings. Just realize and know that the church in which you functioned yesterday had its Abrahamic beginnings in the congregations Paul visited and to whom he ministered.

The title is important. Paul’s major motivation was to serve Me. Oh, he had some ego, as any person strong enough to accomplish such a commission must have, and therefore he sometimes spoke and wrote as though the loyalties of these Christians should be to him. If I, as Jesus, had had the commission to start churches I would have had to display a different personality. Those servants who were more like Me were not as successful as Paul in keeping congregations going.

You noticed again, as you noticed before, that Paul, despite his call to take My message of salvation to the Gentiles, continued, almost to the end of this “Book”, to go the Synagogues and take the message to the Jews. He was a Jew, of course, and one well educated in the Pharisee tradition. He knew the Jews had been chosen, and I, as Almighty God, would not renege on this election. Hence he was torn between this original chosenness and that which brought some Jews and many Gentiles to accept the grace that came forth from My sacrifice, as Jesus.

I was the Messiah, but I did not lead My people as David did. I was (somehow) out of the house and lineage of David, seen as the mighty King of Israel, but I was not to be that kind of leader. And those Jews who knew their Scriptures well could not accept Me, as the suffering servant. That Messiah was not their Messiah, and that judgment continues in much of the Jewish community today.

I even gave them another sign. Their country of Israel was reestablished because of the sacrifice of six million Jewish lives. The complication, of course, is that those who took those lives were representatives of a Christian nation. But you see that the Jews had Me, as Jesus, crucified, and out of this came believers in My power over death who became the Christian Church. The Church is far from a perfect body (except by definition) in its dividedness and its self-serving actions. In like fashion, out of the Holocaust came Israel, and it is far from perfect as a nation (except in their allegiance to Me, as Yahweh). Paul, the Jew, had to battle with Paul, the Christian, and though the Christian seemed to win out, his Jewishness also prevailed.

It is obvious that these Scriptures tell only a portion of the story of Paul’s journey. When he was in a place and with a small Christian group for two years, what did he do? How much variation was there in his message? Did he function as a pastor as well as a preacher? You can assume that his “sermons” were like unto his epistles, but the details of his life as an evangel are few.

Obviously you need to study now these epistles, which shall give you more understanding of his theology and the relationship with Me that he wanted all of those early Christians to experience. Don’t read commentaries on them. Just study them, in reverse order, from the Living Bible. There’s no hurry. Do give your main attention to this study of Peter’s message.