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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

PAUL THE INTERPRETER
OF CHRIST
A. T. ROBERTSON, m.a., d.d., ll.d., utt.d.

BY PROFESSOR A. T. ROBERTSON

Paul the Interpreter of Christ.
A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life
of Christ. In press.
Practical and Social Aspects of Christianity (Exposi
tion of James).
A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament.
Fifth Edition. Translation into Dutch, French, Ger
man, Italian.
A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the
Light of Historical Research. Fourth Edition, Re
vised.
John the Loyal: A Sketch of John the Baptist.
Epochs in the Life of Jesus.
Epochs in the Life of Paul.
The Pharisees and Jesus. The Stone Princeton Lectures
for 1916.
Luke the Historian in the Light of Research.
The Student's Chronological New Testament.
The Glory of the Ministry.
The Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of John.
Paul's Joy in Christ: Studies in Philippians.
Making Good in the Ministry: A Sketch of John
Mark.
The New Citizenship.
Commentary on Matthew: The Bible for Home and
School.
Studies in Mark's Gospel.
Studies in the New Testament.
Keywords in the Teaching of Jesus.
Life and Letters of John A. Broadus.
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning God the Father.
Syllabus for New Testament Study.

PAUL THE INTERPRETER
OF CHRIST

BY

A. T. ROBERTSON, M.A., D.D., LL.D., LITT.D.
professor of new testament interpretation,
southern baptist theological seminary,
louisville, kentucky

"That I May Know Him.'

NEW xflr YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, I92 Ii
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

mo

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY SISTER
ANNABEL R. SARTIN

PREFACE
The new books on Paul will never cease and they
ought not to cease. If we stop studying Paul, we
shall miss much of Christ. The world has never had
a man more wholly Christ-filled than Paul. In the
present volume no effort is made to tell Paul's life, as
is done in my Epochs in the Life of Paul and in
scores of other books by many writers. I attempt
here merely to look at various angles and corners in
Paul's life and teaching that have a keen present-day
interest. Paul was the most forward-looking man of
his generation. We have not yet caught up with his
farseeing vision of Christ and of the Kingdom of God.
A. T. Robertson.
Louisville, Kentucky.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Author makes grateful acknowledgment to the
publishers of the following periodicals for permission
to include in this volume these chapters or parts of
chapters which first appeared in their several issues.
— The Review and Expositor, The Expositor (Lon
don), The Methodist Review, The Home and Foreign
Fields, The Homiletic Review, The Moody Monthly,
and The Baptist World, and to further record that this
interpretation of Paul grew from the seed sown in the
opening lecture of the fall term at the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, October ist, 191 1.

CONTENTS
CHAPTEI PACK
I Paul the Interpreter of Christ . 13

II The Versatility of Paul ....
Ill Paul and the Deity of Christ . .
IV Paul Not a Sacramentarian
V Paul as Church Architect in Corinth 62
VI Paul's Ecclesiastical Independence
VII Paul and Patriotism 
VIII Paul's Missionary Statesmanship .
IX Paul's Interest in Young Ministers
X Paul's Preaching in Thessalonica .
XI Paul as Pastor in Ephesus .

40 So
59

7i
80
92
106 117
126

XII Paul in the Center of Greek Culture 141

PAUL THE INTERPRETER
OF CHRIST

CHAPTER I
PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
I do not try to get away from the "Charm of Paul,"
to use Sir W. M. Ramsay's felicitous phrase. He was
a tremendous personality, and a real man is always at
tractive. But, great as Paul was, our chief interest in
him lies in his relation to Jesus Christ. This in itself is
not a new theme. The Christology of Paul has re
ceived adequate treatment at the hands of Alexander,
Bruce, Du Bose, Dykes, Everett, Holsten, Lucas, Mon-
teil, Paterson, Pfleiderer, Schmidt, Somerville, Stevens,
and B. Weiss. I do not purpose to enter the realm
of Biblical Theology in this discussion. My aim is a
much narrower one than that of Paul's theology, or
even his Christology. I mean to keep close to the
path of the historical and exegetical and show how
Paul came to be the Interpreter of Christ that he was,
how his heritage and environment contributed to his
progressive apprehension, how the Epistles necessarily
reflected Paul's actual experience which served to re
veal new aspects of Christ to Paul. Matheson has
ably portrayed the "Spiritual Development of St.
Paul," and Sabatier has made a brilliant "Sketch
of the Development of His Doctrine." What I have
13

14 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
in mind is rather a combination of these two points
of view.
It is hardly worth while to pause long to lay one's
critical foundations for such a study. To-day every
thing is challenged by somebody. Dr. T. K. Cheyne
produces the tame and labored conclusion that, after
prolonged and unbiased research, he has come to the
deliberate conviction that such a man as Paul really
lived. We are very grateful for this comforting
opinion from the Oxford scholar. No doubt Paul
himself is relieved to think that he can now claim
historic existence. There is raging at present in Ger
many a fierce controversy as to whether Jesus ever
lived. "The Christ-Myth," by Drews, has gone
through a dozen editions. He claims to show that
Jesus had no historical reality and is pure myth. Even
radical German scholars like Von Soden and J. Weiss
have gone into the fray to show that after all Jesus
did live in Palestine. Last January, Prof. Shirley J.
Case, of the Divinity School of the University of Chi
cago, vigorously argued in the Biblical world against
the delusion of attributing divinity to Jesus. But he
now steps forth to prove against all comers '*Ehe His
toricity of Jesus." Jesus did live. For this we are
grateful. Both Paul and Jesus have historic careers
and may be fit subjects of antiquarian interest.
But the path is not yet clear. The Hibbert Journal
has been the arena of a stiff debate concerning "Jesus
or Christ." Granted the historic Jesus, one must not
admit the theological Christ. It is gravely argued by
these modern wise men that the Jesus of history and
the Christ of dogma are wholly different. The Christ

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 15
is a mere theological invention, the attribution to the
man Jesus of qualities which he did not possess, the
deification of the real man Jesus. Prof. W. B. Smith,
of New Orleans, has even undertaken to show us the
"Pre-Christian Jesus," the man stripped of all the later
Christological vagaries, the man as he was. Other
voices rise above the confusion and boldly charge Paul
with being responsible for having led the world astray
from the simple Jesus of the Gospels. He is even
called the creator of Christianity, or the perverter,
as one may choose. We have just passed through the
din of this conflict. The big German guns have ex
ploded and Paul still remains as the Interpreter of
Christ. The effort to find a different conception of
Christ in the Gospels has failed. Even the Synoptic
Gospels have been dubbed Pauline in spirit and the
earliest sources of the life of Jesus known to us (Q
and Mark) place Jesus on as high a pedestal as does
Paul. Let us then assume the facts in the Gospels and Acts
and the Epistles of Paul. That to some will be a
violent assumption, but some men have a spasm at
any statement of fact. Let us follow Paul in his
approach to and apprehension of Christ. He was
always pressing on, after he began, to apprehend that
for which he was apprehended. He was always on
the point of complete success, but the prize slipped
on ahead. It was the one great passion of his life.
Ev 8k. To forget and to push on to the riches in
Christ. Do his best, the figure of Christ grew larger
before him all the while. Nothing more than an out
line of this great theme can be here attempted.

16 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
I. Paul Knowing Christ after the Flesh. — When
Paul first heard of Jesus we do not know. It is
hardly probable that he saw Jesus when a student at
the seminary of Gamaliel in Jerusalem. Paul had
in all likelihood finished his course before the public
ministry of Jesus began. He may have remained in
Jerusalem, but more likely returned to Tarsus. It
is a fascinating theory of some men that Paul came
back to Jerusalem in time to see Jesus die on the
cross. But we have no evidence of that. When he
said (2 Cor. 5:16) that he had once known Christ
after the flesh (Kara capua ) he almost certainly
means that he once looked on Christ from the fleshly
standpoint, "yet now we have known him so no
more." He recognized Jesus on the road to Damascus
after the explicit statement, "I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest." So then Paul's first approach toward
Jesus was along the line of his prejudices. He was
taught to hate the new claimant for the Messiahship
who had been justly crucified to avoid an insurrection.
This brilliant, cultured young Jew had all the patriotic
fervor of Judas Maccabeus and the religious pride of
the typical Pharisee. He was in touch with the Hel
lenistic life of the time and had a broader outlook
on the world than many Palestinian Jews by reason of
his life in Tarsus. He was a Roman citizen and a
Hellenist, but he was most of all a Pharisee. The
contact with the sect of the Nazarenes inflamed his
religious nature and his orthodoxy blazed out with a
terrible light. As we see the young man holding the
garments while Stephen is stoned, he seems only to
possess disqualifications for understanding Jesus of

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 17
Nazareth. Every step that he takes in the persecu
tion of the Christians is away from Christ. He be
comes the very antithesis of Christ.
II. Paul Seeing Christ Face to Face. — It was a
violent revulsion in Paul's whole nature when he looked
into the face of the Risen Christ. It was the supreme
test of his life, like a collision of a steel train. He
was going at full speed against Christ and was ab
ruptly halted. The shock was very great to Paul's
physical nature. It was even greater to his spiritual
equipment. He was thrown to the earth, and blinded
in his eyes. But he had seen Jesus, the one whom he
had come to hate most of all, though he had not
looked upon His face before. He scorned Him for
the pestilent heresy caused by His unfortunate life.
In great moments the mind is abnormally active
and the essential facts are stamped upon the brain
with clearness and vividness. The salient features of
this climacteric event never faded from Paul's memory.
In speech and letter he repeatedly told of the revolu
tion in his own heart and life. In all essentials the
story never varied. It was not of his doing. Jesus
manifested Himself to Paul. It was not of Paul's
wish nor with his consent. But the undoubted pres
ence and voice of the Risen Jesus convinced Paul that
he was hopelessly in error. The look that Jesus gave
Paul before he became blind remained with him for
ever. On that day Light shined into his heart "to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). He under
stood now why Stephen had died rather than givejipu

18 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
that Light that had shined into his own heart. It
was here that Paul received his great qualification to
interpret Christ. It was in the look that passed be
tween Paul and Jesus. Dr. Dale once said that Mr.
Moody had a right to preach since he could not talk
about sinners without tears in his eyes. It was full
surrender on Paul's part in response to the unutterable
compassion of Jesus. As he stood in the white light
of Christ's presence Paul saw his own picture sil
houetted in the shadow of his sins. No man is qual
ified to talk about Christ who has not in a real sense
seen Him face to face. Paul had an objective vision
on a par with the resurrection appearances. The
modern preacher cannot claim that experience, but he
must have the look into the face of Christ in order
to help others to see Jesus. No sadder calamity can
befall Christianity than to have men as its exponents
who merely mumble what they have read or have
heard. Paul was not now able to reconcile his new
experience with his old theology, but he could not
deny his new experience. On this foundation he will
build a new theology and a better one, a scientific
theology in the true sense, the reflection of his ex
perience of Christ.
III. Paul Proving That Jesus Is the Son of God. —
There were good reasons why Paul should say nothing
at all. He was a tyro in Christian experience. He had
only scraps of Christian theology. He could easily
bungle what he did know. He was under suspicion.
Ananias who had baptized him had to receive a spe
cial revelation before he was willing to baptize him or

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 19
lend any endorsement to him as a disciple of Christ.
He was known as the chief foe of the disciples of
Jesus and he had come to Damascus to arrest those
who had fled thither to escape his clutches in Jerusa
lem. He had with him the official papers of the San
hedrin for the arrest of the Christians. Paul was
wholly on the defensive. The Jews would regard him
as a renegade. He was without a friend save Ananias
and Judas who were doubtful. He would not get a
hearing from Jew or Christian. And yet Paul would
not be silent. "Straightway in the synagogues he
proclaimed Jesus, that He is the Son of God" (Acts
9 :2o) . He must give his witness. It is a sure mark
of the new convert that he must tell others of his
new-found joy. Paul was a novice in Christ, but not in
mental equipment. He was already a man of high cul
ture, great genius, and much experience in public life
though comparatively young. He was trained in pub
lic discourse, but his voice must have sounded strange
to his own ears as he heard it deliver powerful reasons
why Jesus is the Son of God. He was refuting all
his old arguments as successfully as Stephen had done.
"And all that heard him were amazed" (Act 9 :2i ) . It
was the voice of a lamb where they had usually heard
the voice of the wolf. They were uneasy even now for
fear that the wolf might crop out and make havoc
as of old with all them that called on the name of
Jesus. But Paul had found his voice and stuck to his
message till it became familiar as well as sweet to him.
He did not have many aspects of Christ that he could
describe, but he knew one from personal experience.
He knew that Jesus was Messiah, the Son of God. He

20 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
had seen Jesus Christ in His risen state. He grasped
at once the two-fold nature of Christ, His humanity
and His deity. J Paul was wise enough to begin with
what he knew by experience. He stuck to that and
"increased the more in strength, and confounded the
Jews that dwelt in Damascus, proving that this is
the Christ" (Acts 9:22). Paul's first interpretation
of Jesus sounded the keynote of his entire ministry.
He will never get beyond this truth whatever else he
may learn hereafter.
IV. Paul Adapting Himself to His New Environ
ment. — It was clear to Paul that he needed a season
of retirement in order to take stock of his situation.
The rebuffs at Damascus made it all the easier for
him to follow his judgment to spend a few years in
Arabia. He must make adjustment and take his bear
ings. The call had come to him from Christ through
Ananias at Damascus to go far hence to the Gentiles.
Thus had ended the three days of darkness and doubt
as to his future. But even so, Christ had not told him
to go at once. The way was not now open nor were
the Jews anxious to hear him. He had his call, but
none to hear. Besides, there was needed a delimita
tion between his old Judaism and his new Christianity.
The two systems must come to terms in his own mind.
He had acted on the assumption that they were hos
tile to each other. Now that he had opened his heart
to Christ, how much of his old theology could he
carry on with him? He must think the whole matter
through in order to see where he stood. We do not
know precisely what part of Arabia Paul visited, but

. PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 21
at any rate it was the ancestral home of the Semitic
race. He went back to the old haunts of his ancestors
whether he actually journeyed as far as Mount Sinai
or not. There was in his heart the conflict between
law and grace. He was a master in rabbinic lore and
Mosaic law, though as yet unskilled in the grace of
Christ. But Christ had looked upon him and he
would gaze steadfastly into that face till he could
blend law and grace. Arabia was the melting pot for
Paul's theology. He was probably not wholly alone
during this period, but meditations and reflections were
predominant. He comes back to his work with a clear
vision of the cardinal doctrines of grace. He has
come to see how a new Israel is to supplant the old.
The new is rooted in the old and is the true realiza
tion of the hopes of his people. Paul perceives that
the Messianic longings of the Jews have come true
in Jesus. It is his task to convince the Jews of this
great fact and to help them see the wider outlook of the
new Israel which is to include Gentiles as well as Jews.
His life in Tarsus had prepared him for this revolu
tion. The experience of Peter on the housetop at
Joppa proves how difficult it was for a Jew to con
ceive of a Gentile in the Kingdom of God except in
terms of Jewish racial bonds. So far from the years
in Arabia being wasted, they served to lay broad
and firm the foundations of Paul's theological system.
V. Paul Winning an Ear for His Interpretation of
Christ — It was not a new Christ that Paul had to
preach, but he had a more just perspective of the world-
mission of Christ than any of the apostles had yet

22 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
grasped. Peter had said at Pentecost that the mes
sage was to them that were afar off, but he later
showed that he understood that to mean that Gentiles
would become Jews. Stephen had seen the matter more
simply in its true spiritual nature as Jesus had taught
the woman of Samaria that the worship of God was
not bound by temple or tribe. And now Paul was
taking up this larger conception of Stephen as his own
life-task. Would he meet the fate of Jesus and of
Stephen? The liberalizing of social and religious
prejudice is a perilous undertaking for any man. But
Paul's path is clear before him. He will heed the
call of Christ to bear the message to the Gentiles. He
knows also that he must suffer for Christ in so doing.
But the vision has come to him and he will not be
disobedient to it whatever befall him. It is good for
Paul that as he returns to Damascus he does not know
the details of his future career. God mercifully veiled
that from him. He will take up his burden day by
day. He is conscious of a richer experience and fuller
knowledge as he expounds anew the things of Christ
in Damascus. There is proof of his fresh power in
the plot of the Jews to kill him. He is not a negligible
quantity. Paul had taught the Jews how to kill people
for the crime of being Christians. They are now prac
tising what he taught them, and Paul was not successful
in convincing the Jews of Damascus that Christianity
was the true Judaism, that Jesus was in truth the
Messiah of their hopes. He was not able to answer
his former arguments, in their opinion. But he has
won the confidence of the Christians. He won con
verts to Christ to some extent, for we read of "his

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 23
Ndisciples" who planned his escape. It was a desperate
beginning and a lonely retreat, but Paul was unafraid.
He went straight on to Jerusalem. He would tell
his new story in the presence of Gamaliel himself if he
would hear it. If Paul had been fainthearted, he would
surely have hesitated to come back to Jerusalem. Once
he had been the joy and pride of the Sanhedrin; now
he is the victim of their scorn and hate. Once the dis
ciples had fluttered and fled with dread at his approach.
He is cut to the quick to note how they shrink from
him still. The smell of fire is on him yet. There was
no sympathy in Jerusalem for Paul, no ear for his
message. It was enough to throw a weak nature into
despair. Paul was sensitive and felt it keenly, as any
preacher does who finds his person and his message
unwelcome. It is an honor to Barnabas that he had
the insight and the courage to see what was in Paul.
On this endorsement Peter and John opened their
hearts to the new recruit. Paul had two weeks of
blessed fellowship with Peter (lo-Toprjo-cu). Peter
knew at any rate that Paul was a man of parts. He
had made the disciples feel his steel. It is no dis
credit to Peter to say that he could not have foreseen
how great a man he was dealing with at this juncture
nor how Paul would one day become the chief apostle
of Christ and rob Peter of his primacy as an exponent
of Christ. There was no jealousy between them, and
Peter could tell Paul many facts- about the life of
Christ, but Paul had already made his interpretation
of Christ, so that he could later say that Peter added
nothing to his knowledge oi Christ. It was a novel
experience to Paul to preach Christ in the Hellenistic

M PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
synagogues of Jerusalem. He did it with such power
as Stephen had done before that the Grecian Jews
were about to kill him. The Lord Jesus had to appear
to Paul in a trance in the temple and bid him depart,
for the Jews there would not hear him.
VI. Paul Pleading the Case with the Jews. — We
are not following closely the story of Paul's life. The
years at Tarsus were not wasted. The opportunity
came at Antioch for which Paul had long waited.
This again was due to Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas
have had a specific call of the Holy Spirit to go on a
world campaign to win the Gentiles to Christ. They
have not found the task easy. In order to get at
the Gentiles, they find it wise to preach to the Jews.
Many Gentiles had business connections with the Jews.
Some attended worship in the synagogues. Besides,
there had been no command to slight the Jews for
the Gentiles. At Antioch in Pisidia Paul had the
opportunity to plead the cause of Christ before Jews
and devout Gentiles. Fortunately we have preserved
full notes of this discourse, which is the earliest state
ment with any fullness of Paul's conception of Christ.
The accuracy of Luke in his reports of Paul's speeches
is well vindicated by Maurice Jones, in his book St.
Paul the Orator. Paul has now been a preacher of
Christ some ten or twelve years. He has put to the
test his interpretation of Jesus. He is in no sense
apologetic or timid. He is no longer a tyro, though
a stranger to this particular audience. Certainly he
has now learned how to put his view of Christ to a
Jewish audience with more suavity and winsomeness

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 25
than was true at Damascus and Jerusalem. The whole
point of his sermon is to show that Jesus is the prom
ise made to David. He speaks from the Jewish stand
point about the Jewish Messiah. Paul shows clear
knowledge of John the Baptist and his relation to
Christ. He states the facts of Christ's death and resur
rection and expounds the significance of both of these
great events. \He gives the core of his system of the
ology which is justification by faith in Christ, who
died on the cross for the remission of our sins. He
shows that the law of Moses could not justify the Jews
before God.' It was all very wonderful and strange and
yet very attractive. They wanted to hear more about
it. On the next Sabbath the jealousy of the Jewish
leaders led Paul to turn to the Gentiles instead of the
Jews. But we have caught a glimpse of Paul's point of
view and method with Jews. We see his skill in this
matter also as he speaks to the mob from the steps of
the tower of Antonia, and later before Agrippa in
Caesarea. ' He is thoroughly at home in all Jewish
questions and seems the man of all men to speak with
the Jewish people about Christ. In the last chapter
of Acts we see Paul pleading with the Jews of Rome
to accept the Kingdom of God as revealed in Jesus
Christ, and the partial success obtained there. In
Rom. 9-1 1 Paul reveals his own passionate love for the
Jews, his own kinsmen in the flesh.
VII. Paul Stating the Case to the Gentiles. — The
real work of Paul was to be with the Gentiles. This
was the call of Christ made long ago. The Jews them
selves drove Paul more and more to preach to the

26 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Greeks and the Romans. As the Jews spurned Paul
and his gospel, he dramatically and proudly turned
to the Gentiles. They will hear, he had said to the
Jews in Rome. He knew that by blessed experience.
The Gentiles persecuted Paul also. At first they were
put up to it by the Jews. But on the whole the Gentiles
gave an attentive ear to Paul. He glorified his min
istry and marvelled that Christ should have intrusted
to him, the least of all saints, this grace to preach unto
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul
evidently felt that he was not so well qualified to
speak to the Greek as to the Jew. His education was
Jewish and his pride and prejudices ran in that direc
tion. He had come to see that Christianity was the
true Judaism. He had overcome his difficulties in
that respect. It was a gigantic task to grapple with
the syncretistic religions of the Grseco-Roman world
of that period. Babylon, Egypt, Syria, Greece and
Rome had all contributed their share to make a mon
grel brood. Astarte, Isis, Diana, and Venus polluted
the life of the time. The emperor-cult had displaced
and degraded the old worship of Zeus and his circle
of deities. False philosophy had triumphed over the
nobler ideals of Socrates and Plato. Epicurean and
Stoic contended in the market-place with any chance
comer just for the sake of argument. Mithraism held
many in its grip by its mysticism and magic. Gnos
ticism was already showing signs of life. One needed
to be cyclopaedic in knowledge and masterful in inter
pretation to be able to win a hearing for a new reli
gion in a world already badly overstocked and disgusted
with what it had. But God had His man ready. Paul

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 27
was reared in Tarsus, the home of a great Greek uni
versity and of philosophers also, a center of Greek and
Roman life. The tides of the Roman world ran through
Tarsus, and Paul is never greater than in his power
to take the very language of the various cults of the
time and charge it with Christian meaning. He does
this time and again. Thus he gets a hearing from
the man in the street. He was a man of the schools.
But he knew how to talk in the tongue of his time.
He could be understood. A typical example of Paul's
skill in this respect is seen in the wonderful address
on Mars Hill. In the ipidst of all that was great in
Athens and before Epicureans and Stoics, Paul made
a most persuasive statement of the gospel of Christ in
such a way as to turn to his advantage all his sur
roundings and yet to bring out many of the funda
mental doctrines. He made some impression also upon
the fickle Athenians. How well Paul succeeded with
the Gentiles is seen in the long line of churches planted
by him in Asia and Europe. In his Epistles he will
glory in the power of the Cross of Christ. It was
foolishness to the Greeks at first, but to many it be
came the wisdom of God.
VIII. Paul Looking for Chrisfs Return. — In
Athens Paul was face to face with Greek philosophy
and sought to preach Christ in the teeth of it. At
Thessalonica just before, it was the power of the
Roman empire that confronted him in all its pressure
on the spirit of man. He has gone on to Corinth
where he writes, but the great problems of Thessalonica
are on his heart. There he felt keenly the conflict

28 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
between the Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of
Rome. He foresaw the inevitable grapple between
these two great forces for the mastery of the world.
He found hope in the coming of Jesus to claim his
own. It was natural that this hope should be brighter
in the earlier stages of the apostolic history. The sub
ject was left in doubt by Christ Himself as to the time.
The disciples were charged to be ready. There is no
doubt that this steady hope cheered them through the
first years of separation from Him. Some came to
look for Him at once. It was hard to preach on the
topic without creating a false impression. Hope would
so easily become certainty. So it happens that the very
first group of Paul's Epistles deals with last things.
Eschatology is to the fore in the beginning in the
apocalyptic language of the time, but it gradually re
ceded as time went by. Paul never lost his conviction
that Christ would come again nor should we, but
other topics came to occupy his heart more as the years
flew by. Indeed, the two Thessalonian Epistles are
written chiefly to correct misapprehension about what
Paul had said on this subject. It is so easy to be
misunderstood. Some had understood him to say that
those already dead would have no share in the second
coming. Others drew the inference that since Christ
was coming at once, there was no need to work. So
Paul has to deny that he said that Jesus was coming
right away, indeed the Man of Sin loomed large in the
horizon before that event. This conflict with Rome
did begin all too soon and lasted much longer than
Paul knew. \ln the Thessalonian Epistles, therefore,
Jesus appears in a very personal and real way to Paul.

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 29
He mentions various items about His life and death
and aspects of faith in Him as Lord, on a par with
God the Father. He is the Son of God, raised from
the dead, who will surely come back again. Salvation
is through the atoning death of Christ. The Christian
meanwhile lives in Christ as the sphere of his activity
and the ground of his hope. These are not doctrinal
Epistles, but Paul's great doctrines are here in the
most incidental form/ To understand Paul's standpoint
then one must look back across the eighteen years
that have passed since he met Jesus on the Damascus
road. It is all a matter of course with Paul now, but
the fire of love and faith burns bright. He is not
blase. Christianity is not stale nor is preaching per
functory. He meets every new situation with the alert
ness of youth and finds Christ adequate for everything.
IX. Paul Justifying the Cross of Christ. — Paul's
Epistles may not be a complete picture of his concep
tion of Christ. We have very few of Paul's many
sermons. He may have written other letters. He knew
things about Christ which it was unlawful to utter.
But, so far as they go, the letters do justly reveal
Paul's apprehension of the mystery of Christ, as he
himself said (Eph. 3 :3f.)- They go very far indeed.
They are the greatest letters of history, and sound
depths and scale heights that baffle the most of us. I
am not attempting here an outline of Paul's life nor
an exposition of his Epistles, but merely to draw a
pastel, so to speak, of the background of Paul's grow
ing knowledge of Christ. I am using the Epistles as a
revelation of Paul's progressive apprehension of Christ.

30 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
It is some four years later that Paul writes First
Corinthians. He is in Ephesus, and is cut to the heart
over the troubles in the church at Corinth. He has
lived to see the sad sight of a church split over the
merits of various preachers, including himself. They
have appealed to Paul for help and he has to speak.
The divisions led to or helped on various vices and
weaknesses. Paul feels called on to defend his style of
preaching in Corinth. Cephas had not been there and
Apollos was acknowledged to be eloquent. Paul makes
his defense by showing how he did right in deter
mining to preach only Christ Jesus and Him crucified.
It was baxd enough as it was. If Paul had pandered
to the false tastes and low standard of the Corinthians
by flashy oratory and superficial philosophy, he could
have made a greater name for himself and ruined the
church. As it turned out many scoffed at the foolish
ness of his preaching the Cross of Christ. But his
chief joy in it all is that he laid no other foundation
in Corinth than Christ Jesus. ] The Cross of Christ is
the truest wisdom for it is God's wisdom. It is a
great apologetic for the Cross that Paul makes in that
Epistle and one that is extremely pertinent now. The
heart of Paul's message is the Cross and the resurrec
tion of Christ as proving His power over death on
the Cross. \ Paul apparently moves in a new realm
on this subject, but we have seen the same point of
view in the sermon at Antioch in Pisidia. His mastery
of this great theme shows that he had often preached
on it and thought it through. He wields this weapon
with great power.

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 31
X. Paul Beholding the Glory of God in Christ. —
Second Corinthians is the most personal of all Paul's
Epistles. He is at white heat. The crisis has come at
Corinth. Paul is in flight from Ephesus. He has
met Titus in Philippi, with much agitation of spirit.
He writes with heart all aglow with emotion. He
seems to catch a fresh glimpse of the face of Jesus.
He lifts the whole discussion of the ministry out of
the sordid atmosphere of Corinth, and places it on
the pinnacle of spiritual communion with God in Christ.
The eternal relation of the soul with God in Christ
is here seen with marvelous clearness. This Epistle
is a Pierian spring for every preacher who is racked
with cares and ecclesiastical worries. Paul is able
to sing so nobly because he is sure of the presence of
Christ with him. He has real rapture with Christ.
Nothing else really matters now. He is the slave of
Christ in God's triumphal march through the ages.
He is an incense-bearer with the sweet savor of Christ
unto God, whatever men may think. So he is confident
in Christ with unveiled face before the whole world.
The light of God is in his heart through Christ, and
for Jesus' sake he will endure anything. He is
anxious to be at home with the Lord, but meanwhile
will endeavor to be well-pleasing unto Him as His
ambassador. The love of Christ holds him fast to
his great task. The power of Christ is with him in
his weakness. The glory of Christ ennobles men and
Paul glories in the possibilities of all in Christ.
XL Paul Battling for Liberty in Christ. — The date
of Galatians is much disputed, and the book has no

32 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
very clear earmarks of time save the note of protest
against the effort of the Judaizers to fasten the Mosaic
ritual on the Gentiles. That effort was made as early
as A.D. 50, after Paul's return from the first mission
tour as is seen in Acts 15. Paul took a bold stand
for freedom from the ceremonial law for all Gentile
Christians. He won the support of the Apostles at
Jerusalem and saved the day, but the Judaizers would
not stay defeated. They reopened the controversy at
Antioch and followed Paul's travels in Corinth and
Galatia. The Epistle to the Galatians is the bugle-
blast of liberty. It seems to come just after Second
Corinthians and has much of the same heat as that
great Epistle. '»Paul here conceives Christ in His uni
versal relation as the emancipator from the shackles
of traditional ceremonialism. In Christ Jesus there is
neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor fe
male. It is a great conception and is triumphant proof
of Paul's statesmanlike grasp of great issues in that he
saw at once and continually how much was at stake.
Spiritual Christianity was in peril and under God
Paul saved that blessed heritage in Christ for us all.
He brushed aside the Pharisaic pretensions to exclusive
prerogatives in the Kingdom of God. Paul saw that
class and national lines did not run through Christ.
In Galatians he seizes upon the root ideas in Christ's
mission and applies them to the cause of human free
dom and progress. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ made you free| Paul had drawn the picture
of Christ with a bold hand before the eyes of the
Galatians. He cannot understand how, once having
seen Christ, they can go back to the weak and beggarly

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 33
elements of rabbinism. That message is good for all
time as a protest against the bondage of mere tradi
tion and ritual. It is vital union with Christ that Paul
covets. Christ lives in Paul and he is crucified with
Christ. XII. Paul Expounding Redemption in Christ. — ¦
No condensed statement can do justice to Paul's rea
soned exposition of the varied relations of Christ to
all the phases of the work of redemption as wrought^
out in the Epistle to the Romans. It is not merely
that Paul is here seen at his best, in the prime of his
mental powers, on the greatest of themes, and with
sufficient space to give play to' his great genius. /Paul1
in Romans gives his gospel^ In a true sense Paul's
evangel is the full and finest evangel of all (cf. Whyte,
Thomas Shepherd, p. 18). It is not a new gospel;
it is the one that Paul had joyfully preached to the
Gentiles. Nowhere does Paul make it clearer that
Christ is the center of all his thinking and actions.
/The heart of his argument turns on the fact that
Jesus made propitiatory offering for our sins by His
blood on the cross, which offering is mediated to us
by faith in Christ as our Redeemer so that God freely
justifies us and declares us righteous and will ultimately
make us righteous./ There are great words in Romans
like righteousness, salification, redemption, propitia
tion, faith, justification, power, reconciliation, salva
tion, no condemnation, life, victory, sons, adoption,
heirs. But they are all meaningless to> Paul, apart
from Christ. | Christ is here seen as the sole means
of righteousness, the sole hope of redemption, the

34 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
pledge of all good. In Christ we are more than con
querors. Christ will never desert us till He takes us
to the Father. In Christ Paul defies all the forces of
evil in earth and hell. He stands upon the Rock of
Ages and faces the devil./ He writes from Corinth
with the storm at Jerusalem gathering in the distance,
but he is not afraid. Christ is over all God blessed
forever (according to the probable punctuation in
9:5). He is Son of David and Son of God.
XIII. Paul Learning Humility from Christ. —
Paul has been long a prisoner in Caesarea and Rome
when he writes to the Philippians. His spirit is
chastened and humbled. The proud eagle looks out
and sees the crags which he cannot reach. Paul is
confident, indeed, that he will be set free again, but
meanwhile he has learned how to be content. He has
come to see that Christ is his very life. He is in a
real sense living over the life of Christ. He is em
boldened to urge that the Philippians have the mind
that was in Christ. The greatest words that Paul
utters about Christ seem to come out incidentally. It
is so with the great passage in Phil. 2 on the humiliation
and exaltation of Christ. We see Christ in His pre-
existent state of glory, His lowly life and death, His
consequent greater exaltation. Paul betrays intense
passion for Christ in Phil. 3. He places his old life
and theology in the scales with his new life and joy in
Christ. That is but refuse beside Christ, who overtops
all earthly pride and pomp. And yet it is an elusive
chase. Christ lures him on to higher heights of serv
ice and fellowship. He knows the joy of this rap-

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 35
turous chase, for the goal is Christ, who is never out
of sight, ever beckoning him on. He sees the fore-
gleam of the riches of glory in Christ.
XIV. Paul Showing the Supremacy of Christ. — In
Rome, Paul is made aware of a new heresy in Asia
which he had foreseen in his address to the elders of
Ephesus at Miletus. This hybrid philosophy and spec
ulative Essenism degraded Christ to the rank of an
ceon or angel. /The Pauline Christology is now at
tacked at the center and Paul steps out into- the open
to show that Jesus and Christ are one and the same
(cf. the "Jesus or Christ" controversy in The Hibbert
Journal), that Jesus was a real man and died on the
cross for our sins, that Christ is the very image of
God, and the First-born before all creation, that Christ
is the author of creation, and the sustainer of the cre
ated universe, that He is supreme in the work of na
ture and given head over all. Christ is the key of the
universe, the reconciler between man and God and man
and man (the true Peace-maker), the mystery of
God, the fullness of N all the Godhead in bodily form.
Christ is all and in all. Christ is our ideal and our
goal. We are hid with Christ in God. No higher
word has ever been spoken of Christ than Paul utters
in Colossians in refuting the Gnostic error, i
XV. Paul Unfolding the Glory of Chris fs Body. —
Ephesians is the complement of Colossians. God has
summed up all in Christ. He is the fullness of God.
In a real sense we are the fullness of Christ, that is
"we all," the church general or the kingdom. Christ

36 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
is the head as is shown in Colossians. The body of
the head is the church, the spiritual church. We are
made alive in Christ, created in Him for good works.
Nowhere is the dignity of human nature so well
brought out as in Ephesians. We are to grow up into
Christ, to become one new man, one full man in Him,
in some sense worthy of Him, our Head. We are
one in Him, both Jew and Gentile. The middle wall
of partition is broken down. Peace and love have come
instead. He is the chief cornerstone and we are built
into the great temple of God's redeemed humanity.
The riches of Christ are unsearchable and His love
past all comprehension and all telling. But we are
destined to sit in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus.
XVI. Paul Trusting in Christ Jesus, His Hope. —
The Pastoral Epistles show the tender side of Paul's
nature. He is an old man. Christ put him into the
ministry, counting him worthy. It is still a marvel
to Paul how He came to do it. But he is deeply
grateful. The lesson of it all is that Jesus is the
Saviour of sinners. He is the Mediator between God
and man, the ransom for all, the one Potentate, King
of kings, and Lord of lords, our great God and Saviour
Jesus Christ. He abolished death and brought life
and immortality to light. He has helped Paul all the
way. He stood by him in his last trial when all others
were absent. And Paul is ready for the glorious end.
He has finished his course, he has kept the faith, he
sees the martyr's crown ready for him. He is willing
to be offered up for Jesus' sake. Christ is all and in
all to Paul. This is his own heart's experience. ! This

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 37
is his testimony in his Epistles. He has tested Christ
all over the Roman Empire, by land and sea, with
friend and foe. Christ has never failed him.}' Paul
is qualified to interpret Christ out of the wealth of his
experience of Christ. The best tribute to Paul is for
us to learn to know Christ and the power of His resur
rection. Paul was able to say at the end of the day:
"I know him whom I have believed and I am persuaded
that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day." He had committed
(vapadriKii) his all to Christ. Soon he would see
Him again face to face. He will know even as Christ
has known him through all the years.
The address, given above, was delivered in 191 1.
In the same year appeared the third edition of Knowl-
ing's "Testimony of St. Paul and Christ." The stream
of criticism concerning Paul continues. Early in 191 2
Schweitzer's Paul and His Interpreters (translated by
Montgomery) appeared with trenchant criticism of
previous efforts to understand Paul. The Reforma
tion of Luther fought and conquered in the name of
Paul, but did not advance the historical knowledge of
Paul (p. 2). His summary is that "the study of Paul
inism has nothing very brilliant to show for itself in
the way of scientific achievement" (p. 237). He
brushes aside the efforts to explain away Paul as un
historical and the Epistles as not genuine (Steck, Van
Manen). He sees good in the Tubingen criticism in
that it compelled the study of the sources of our knowl
edge, but it failed to understand Paul who is more than
a narrow Jew. He is not a mere sacramentarian as will
be shown and was little influenced by the Mystery-Re-

38 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
ligions save in the use of some technical terms (Ken
nedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions (1913). But
Schweitzer finds in Paul's eschatology the key to
his life and teaching which he took over from the
Baptist and Jesus (p. 243). This view that Paul took
a false line from eschatology and the sacraments and
the Mystery-Religions is presented by Morgan in
his able volume, The Religion and the Theology of
St. Paul (1917). Prof. H. A. A. Kennedy has a
keen criticism of it in The Expositor (September,
1 91 7). M. Jones has no doubt that the new attack
on Paul from the side of comparative religion will be
successfully repelled with a great increase of our knowl
edge of the Graeco-Roman world in which Paul labored
(Pauline Criticisms in the Present Day, The Expos
itor, July, 19 1 7, p. 31). Jones thinks that recent
years have seen a striking and a gratifying change in
the study of Paul (p. 16). Progress has been made
in the knowledge of the chronological data in Paul's
life as M. Jones has shown in his discussion of Plooij's
conclusions on that subject (The Expositor, May,
June, August, 191 9). Deissmann thinks that Paul has
been doubly misunderstood as a man of culture instead
of a tentmaker like Amos the herdsman of Tekoa
(St. Paul, 191 1, p. 6), in which view he greatly under
estimates Paul. As a result he holds that his letters
have been misunderstood as literary Epistles (p. 8)
to the obscuration of their purpose and meaning. Here
again a truth has been overstated by Deissmann. Paul
was both a man of the schools and a workman. He
wrote personal Letters, but at times with the literary
grace and dignity of Epistles. David Smith has pro-

PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST 39
duced a great study of the Apostle, The Life and Let
ters of St. Paul (1920), on the scale of Conybeare
and* Howson, in which he surveys with breadth of
scholarship the old and the new knowledge of Paul, but
with a touch of condescension at times out of keeping
with the facts. Hayes does not call Paul the greatest
theologian. He reserves that honor for John (Paul
and His Epistles, 191 5, p. 487). That is a matter of
judgment, but Hayes admits that Paul's influence as
an interpreter of Christ has been greater than that of
John. Perhaps the truth is that John saw deeper into
the mind and heart of Christ by the singleness of his
gaze arid the length of his fellowship with Christ. Paul
is a man of more genius and more variety and of a
wider culture and of a more practical turn of mind.
He has seen more sides of Christ and of Christianity
than John and has interpreted more aspects of Christ
for more kinds of men. However, Paul remains to
day, as of old, the chief Interpreter of Jesus Christ
for modern men. He cannot be gotten rid of. His
grip on the mind of modern Christians is unshaken
in spite of all criticism and progress. We must go
back to Christ, but we must go by way of Paul. John
shows Paul's influence as do Luke and Mark. Peter
and Barnabas felt the force of Paul's leadership. That
leadership is still dominant, for Paul knew Christ
after the Spirit of God.1

'Bacon's new volume, Jesus and Paul (1921), came into my
hands as I was correcting the proof of this volume. McNeile's
St. Paul (1920) is a masterly study.

CHAPTER II
THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL
The cry of "Back to Christ" has not disposed of
Paul. The great Apostle continues to give criticism a
busy time. He is accused of having perverted the sim
ple gospel of the kingdom as preached by Jesus into an
abstract theology foreign to the thought and purpose of
Christ. He is called the second founder of Chris
tianity, in reality the destroyer of the Christianity of
Christ. So we have had the "Jesus or Paul" con
troversy.1 The battle is still raging over the Pauline
Christology, and several recent volumes 2 treat this
topic. Paul is condemned by some for rabbinising

1 Breitenstein, Jesus et Paul, 1908; Heine, Jesus Christus und
Paulus, 1902; Goguel, L'apotre Paul et Jesus Christ, 1904;
Julicher, Paulus und Jesus, 1910; Kaftan, Jesus und Paulus,
1906; Knowling, Testimony of St. Paul to Christ, 191 1 (sec
ond ed.) ; A. Meyer, Jesus or Paul (tr.), 1909; Reid, Jesus the
Christ and Paul the Apostle in the Light of Modern Criticism,
1915 ; Resch, Paulinismius und die Logia Jesu, 1904 ; C. A. Scott,
Jesus and Paul (Cambridge Biblical Essays, 1909) ; J. Weiss,
Paul and Jesus (tr.), 1909; Bacon, Jesus and Paul, 1921.
"Allen, The Christology of St. Paul, 1912; Forsyth, The Per
son and Place of Jesus Christ, 1909; Olchewski, Die Wurzeln
der paulinischen Christologie, 1009 ; Rostron, The Christology of
St. Paul, 1912 ; Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus
Christ, 1912. See also R. H. Strachan's The Individuality of St.
Paul, 1916. 40

THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL 41
Christianity, though Montefiore1 thinks that he did
not properly understand Judaism which he denounces.
Sir W. M. Ramsay contends in his books on Paul that
he was familiar with the best things in current Hel
lenism, though he was a thorough Jew at bottom. "A
Palestinian Jew could never have grown into the Apos
tle of the Graeco-Roman world" (Ramsay, The Hel
lenism of Paul in the Teaching of Paul in Terms of
the Present Day, 1913, p. 32). But Principal A. E.
Garvie 2 disputes both the quantity and the quality of
this Greek training of Paul. "In the mind of Paul a
universalised Hellenism coalesced with a universalised
Hebraism" (Ramsay, The Cities of St. Paul, p. 73).
Indeed, the mystery-religions 3 of the Graeco-Roman
world are held by some to be the determining factor
in Paul's theology, a view ably answered by Professor
H. A. A. Kennedy,4 but still advocated by Professor
W. Morgan in his now famous volume, The Religion
and Theology of St. Paul, 191 7, clearly refuted also
by Professor Kennedy in The Expositor 5 for August
and September, 19 17. Dr. Maurice Jones 6 considers
this onslaught on the orthodox view of Paul parallel
in importance with the crisis raised by the criticism
of Baur : "I have no doubt that this attack will be as

1 Judaism and St. Paul, 1915, p. 87.
'Studies of Paul and His Gospel, 1911, p. 8; The Expositor,
May, 191 1, pp. 376 ff.
'Cf. Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterien-religionen,
1910. 'St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions, 1913.
" A New Interpretation of Paulinism.
' "Pauline Criticism in the Present Day," The Expositor, July,
1917. P- 3L

42 (PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
successfully repelled as was that of Baur, arid that
in the providence of God another Lightfoot will arise
who, with a wider knowledge of the history of religion
as a whole, and with a truer insight into the real sig
nificance of the development of Christian doctrine
than those possessed by this school of critics, will do
for the integrity and continuity of St. Paul's doctrine
what Lightfoot did for the authenticity of the Epis
tles." 1 I heartily agree with this prophecy. But even
before the new Lightfoot comes, it is possible for us
to keep our balance about Paul. Schweitzer, in his
Paul and His Interpreters (1912), is merciless in the
keenness and the force of his criticisms of ancient
and modern interpreters of Paul. One recognises the
pungency of his points till he undertakes himself to
explain Paul's theology from the standpoint of escha
tology alone.
So we go round in an endless circle or fly off at a
tangent. Now we are told that Paul is a sacramen-
tarian, this latest attempt to explain Paul by one idea.
Even the able Heinrich J. Holtzmann went over to
this view, and Professor H. T. Andrews argued in The
Expositor for November, 1916, that this was now a
settled fact with which evangelical Christians must
reckon. My brief protest against claiming Paul as
a sacramentarian was followed by an extended and
adequate defence 2 of the spiritual nature of Paul's
message by Professor W. H. Griffith-Thomas, of

1 The Expositor, February, 1917.
* The Expositor, May, 1917, "The Place of the Sacraments in
the Teaching of St. Paul."

THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL 43
Toronto.1 Professor G. G. Findlay has sounded a
needed note in his able article on "The Unity of St.
Paul's Teaching," in the July London Quarterly
Review. The apparently contradictory elements in
Paul's teaching admit of easy and natural synthesis if
once we let Paul be his own interpreter. This Dr.
Findlay shows with characteristic ability. Paul was
not an intellectual and theological chameleon, a mere
jellyfish. He was "all things to all men," not
because of mental flabbiness, but "that I may by all
means save some" (i Cor. ix. ,22). This dominant
purpose runs through all of Paul's thinking and work
ing. He was not drifting about picking up scraps of
wisdom in the Agora of Athens, as the Epicurean
and Stoic philosophers sneered (Acts xvii. 18), but a
great constructive thinker with a true philosophy of
history and of life. He was not grasping at straws
to save himself, but he was projecting a great cam
paign to evangelise the Roman world for Christ. He
lived among men, to be sure, and was no scholastic re
cluse out of touch with men, though not a mere artisan
as Deissmann argues in his St. Paul. We shall never
understand Paul's gospel till we understand "the Indi
viduality of St. Paul" (R. H. Strachan, 1916). The
notion that Paul was a borrower and made a patch
work of his theology, a kind of ill-assorted crazy-quilt,
is not new. Lightfoot treated with great lucidity and
force the alleged relations between Paul and Seneca in
his commentary on Philippians. It is idle to assert
that Paul was a Stoic because he shows familiarity

*Now of Philadelphia,

44 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
with the current Stoic maxims. Ramsay is fully justi
fied in terming Paul a philosopher, the greatest of
philosophers. In like manner he knew the dialect and
intellectual method of the rabbis and does not hesi
tate on occasion to adopt the rabbinic method of
argument to turn a point with his Jewish opponents
(cf. Gal. iii. 16, 20). He can use allegory with more
purpose than Philo (Gal. iv. 21-31). But it is as
foolish to call Paul a disciple of Philo as of Zeno.
"To the Jew I became as a Jew, that I might gain
Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the
law, not being myself under the law, that I might
gain them that are under the law: to them that are
without law, as without law, not being without law
to God, but under law to Christ, that I might gain
them that are without law" (1 Cor. ix. 20, 21). In
this important passage Paul has interpreted his own
method. It is still true that Paul is the best interpreter
of Paulinism — better than Baur, Pfleiderer, Wernle,
Weinel, and all the rest.
The critics of Paul confess their failure to under
stand him. Findlay * quotes Pfleiderer as finding "no
alternative but to admit that Paul kept the two differ
ent kinds of conceptions (Judaic and Hellenic) in his
consciousness side by side but unrelated, and jumped
from one to the other without being aware of the

1 London Quarterly Review, July, 1917, p. 76. Rev. E. S.
Waterhouse has a trenchant criticism of the German "tendency
to give a wholesale application of one particular fact, rule or
method to all instances" (p. 199, The Contemporary Review,
August, 1917) in an article entitled "Theology without Ger
many."

THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL 45
opposition between them." This is naive, but it mis
understands Paul and quite misses the point. Paul
was a Jew with Pharisaic training, an expert rabbi of
the schools, and lived in the Grsco-Roman world and
felt the currents of thought and life all about him; but
he was now first of all a slave of Jesus Christ. He
does not look at Christ now from the Jewish, now
from the Greek standpoint. He is interpreting Christ
now to Jews, now to Greeks. His conception of
Christ and of the gospel is not a jumble, but a single
whole. He varies his terminology to make himself
the better understood by different auditors, just as
great preachers do to-day. Paul even calls a Cretan
poet a "prophet," to add point to the quotation, with
out meaning to endorse the poet as on a par with
Christian teachers. The antitheses in Paul's language
are, like the paradoxes of Jesus, to be interpreted by
the main body of his teaching. Weinel misses the point
when he asserts that "in St. Paul's writings we have
two forms of religion — the sacramental and the purely
spiritual — standing side by side without any attempt
at co-ordination." Language is at bottom figurative,
and it is easy to ride the figures to death. It gives one
a queer feeling at the heart to read that Paul did not
know whether he was a sacramentarian or a preacher
of spiritual Christianity. It is refreshing at any rate
to find a moderate sacramentarian, like W. H. P.
Hatch,1 contending for faith as the keynote in Paul's
system: "Therefore, although the present writer be-

*The Pauline Idea of Faith in Its Relation to Jewish and
Hellenistic Religion, 1917, p. 85.

46 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
lieves that Paul thought of baptism and the Lord's
supper in a sacramental way, it seems to him in the
highest degree inaccurate and misleading to call Paul
ine Christianity a mystery-religion. It is much more
just and reasonable to say that it is a religion of
faith, belonging to the sphere of psychology and ethics
rather than to that of mystery or magic." "For faith
alone, as we have seen, is the fundamental principle
of Pauline Christianity."
We must learn how to put first things first with
Paul. He was not a faddist. He did not jump
from one extreme to another. There was one great
crisis in his life, a spiritual and intellectual revolution,
his conversion. Up to that great event, when Jesus
revealed Himself to Paul, his life ran a straight and
consistent course as the champion of Pharisaism that
came to blows with Christianity (Gal. i. 13, 14). He
was equally consistent afterwards in his zealous pur
suit x of Christ (Phil. iii. 12). This whole great
passage (Phil. iii. 1-16) is Paul's apologia for his
change from rabbinism to Christ, and his consistent
and persistent adherence to Christ as the one thing 2
worth while in life. Christ dominates Paul's whole
soul; Christ is his passion, his very life. All else
is secondary and subordinate. The man who asserted
his apostolic authority as independent and on a
par with that of Peter, James and John, the Jeru
salem pillars (Gal. i. and ii.), was not likely to be
carried away by the will-o'-the-wisps of lesser lights.

1 &w>K<a
*tv5i

THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL 47
If his grasp of Gentile freedom and the truth of the
spiritual gospel was strong enough to shake off the
tyranny of the Judaisers, the powerful Pharisaic ele
ment in Jerusalem Christianity (i Corinthians, 2 Cor
inthians, Galatians, Romans), Paul was equally clear
sighted in his detection of the sophistries of nascent
Gnosticism (Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pas
torals). If he was able to proclaim the second com
ing of Christ with sanity, and not go to the excesses
of the wild eschatological apocalyptists ( 1 and 2 Thes
salonians), he was certainly competent to fathom the
subtleties of Mithraism without becoming a victim of
its vagaries (cf. Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-
Religions) .
Paul is entitled to fair treatment at the hands of
criticism. The great majority of his epistles are now
accepted as genuine. Few scholars now dispute the
Pauline authorship of the four great epistles admitted
by Baur (1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians and
Romans), and 1 Thessalonians, Colossians and Philip
pians. These are enough to explain all the sides of
Paul's teaching, he being his own interpreter. Most
assuredly we are to welcome all the new light from
the study of eschatology, apocalyptic, Pharisaism, the
papyri, the inscriptions, the emperor-cult, Mithraism
and other mystery-religions, Stoicism and all Hellenic
culture, Philo, the apocryphal wisdom literature.
These all went to make Paul's world and Paul lived
in his world with eyes and ears wide open. But it is
utterly unjust to this many-sided man, this versatile
genius, who made use of all forms of language that
gave promise of helping him to interpret "the un-

48 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
searchable riches of Christ" (Eph. iii. 8), if we seek
the key to his message and life in one of these subor
dinate and contributory streams of influence rather
than in the main source of all. Paul was a close
student of the Old Testament, but he interpreted the
sacred scriptures in the light of the Cross of Christ.
He interpreted the circumcision of Abraham as the
seal of the faith which he already had while in un
circumcision (Rom. iv. 10, ii). He refused to make
baptism essential to salvation (i Cor. i. 14-17), but
made it the symbol of death to sin and burial of the
old life and resurrection to the new life in Christ
(Rom. vi. 3-7). It is not fair to Paul to read into
his language the sacramental ideas of current Mithra
ism when he pointedly interprets his idea in the non-
sacramental sense, especially when the sacramental
meaning contravenes Paul's repeated slogan of sal
vation by faith, not by works of the law (Rom. iii.
27, 28 ) . It is more natural to say that the critics
who make Paul give up the main thesis of his mes
sage, salvation by grace, are mistaken when they so
interpret phrases that per se are capable of a sacra
mental meaning.
It is not the first time that critics have disposed of
Paul to their own satisfaction, but he has remarkable
staying power and has weathered many a storm. One
of the reasons is the note of reality in Paul's mind.
He is absolutely sincere. He sees the main thing
all the time. His mind is quick and plays with many
a turn of expression, but this intellectual byplay is not
the key to Paul's mind. That key is Christ and Christ
alone. Paul believed that he had dealings directly

THE VERSATILITY OF PAUL 49
with the Risen Christ, the Jesus of Nazareth whom
the Jews had crucified. He claimed that he received
of the Lord, how the Lord Jesus instituted the sup
per on the night in which he was betrayed ( i Cor. xi.
23-34). In this exposition Paul gives a non-sacra
mental interpretation of the supper: "This do in re
membrance of me." To make the symbolic meaning
beyond controversy, he adds: "For as often as ye
eat this bread, and drink this cup,, ye proclaim the
Lord's death till he come" £xi. 26). There is no
"magic" here. We may set aside as irrelevant the
question whether Paul received this direct revelation
from the Lord Jesus, as I sincerely believe to be true.
The point in dispute is Paul's own interpretation of the
ordinance in the non-sacramental sense. This is as
plain as a pikestaff. It is quite beside the mark to
produce proof of what the Mithraists meant by their
baptism and by their suppers. That is eisegesis, not
exegesis. Paul is himself the most competent ex
ponent of Paulinism. He is entitled to the canons
of criticism applied to Plato or to Shakespeare. Paul
was a mystic (cf. Campbell, Paul the Mystic, 1907),
but he was no raving rhapsodist. This many-sided
ness is a peril only to those unable to understand
a real man of flesh and blood, this statesman, this
tent-maker, this rabbi, this philosopher, this scholar,
this orator, this theologian, this missionary, this pas
tor, this ecclesiastic, this humanitarian, this lover of
Jesus Christ, this great Christian freeman.

CHAPTER III
PAUL AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST
The Outlook, of New York, in a very kindly review
of my "Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of John,"
closes with these words : "The thesis to which the
Gospel thus leads him up is, 'Jesus is God.' It is
certain that Paul, in Epistles of earlier date than the
earliest Gospel, and of undisputed authorship, never
taught that."
The reviewer admits that John's Gospel does teach
that view of Jesus, but pits Paul's Epistles against
John's Gospel to the discredit of the Gospel.
Now, if the reviewer means that Paul did not say
in so many words, "Jesus is God," he is correct. But
neither does John say these words, though he evidently
says the thing in substance. John says that the Word
was God (John i :i) and that the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us (John i :i4). He makes it per
fectly evident that he considers the incarnate Son of
God, the eternal Logos. John also represents Thomas
as addressing Jesus as "My Lord and my God" (John
20:28). How is it with Paul? Luke in Acts 20:28 (correct
text, margin of Revised Version) reports Paul as
saying to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus: "Feed
the church of God which he purchased with his own
so

PAUL AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST 51
blood." The two oldest and best Greek manuscripts
of the New Testament (Codices Sinaiticus and Vati-
canus) read "God" here, not "Lord." But, it may be
replied, this is simply Luke's report of Paul's speech.
In Romans 9:5, Paul himself says: "Whose are the
fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh,
who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." This
is the text of the Revised Version. The old Greek
had no punctuation and one is at liberty to make his
own punctuation. There is no semicolon after "flesh;
he who is over all, God, be blessed for ever. Amen."
This is possible to be sure, but nothing like so natural
either in the Greek or in the English. Besides, the
phrase "Christ as concerning the flesh" clearly suggests
Christ not according to the flesh and seems to demand
"God" in apposition to complete the sense.
But this is by no means all. The Epistle to Titus
is not admitted as Pauline by all scholars, but the bal
ance of evidence still turns that way. In Titus 2:13
we read: "Looking for the blessed hope and appear
ing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus
Christ" (margin of the Revised Version). The text
(R. V.) reads "of the great God and our Saviour
Jesus Christ." The papyri and inscriptions furnish
abundant proof that the expression "Our great God
and Saviour" was a current formula in the worship of
the Roman emperor. Paul simply took this formula
and applied it to Christ (cf. my Grammar of the Greek
New Testament in the Light of Historical Research,
p. 786; Moulton's Prolegomena to New Testament
Greek, p. 84).
In Colossians 1 :isf. Paul describes Jesus as "the

52 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all crea
tion; for in him were all things created," language
that reminds one curiously of the opening verse of
John's Gospel.
Bacon ( The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate,
p. 7) says: "All of the Logos doctrine but the name
is already present in the Pauline Epistles." It is
hardly worth while to split hairs over the word "God"
when the idea is the same. Besides, as already shown,
it is not at all certain that Paul did not apply the word
"God" to Jesus. The balance of the evidence in Acts
20 128, Romans 9 :5, Titus 2:13 is in favor of that po
sition. Besides, Paul in numerous passages calls Jesus
"Lord," a common word for God in the Old Testa
ment and in the Gospels. He also places Jesus on an
equality with God in various passages, even in the
earliest Epistles, as "in God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 1:1), "peace from God the
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 1:1),
"now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our
Father" (2 Thess. 2:14), "through Jesus Christ, and
God the Father" (Gal. 1:1).
And then in that famous passage, Philippians
2 :6-i 1 , Paul expressly asserts the preincarnate state of
Christ "in the form of God" "on an equality with
God." This great passage affirms the deity of Christ
and the humanity of Jesus and the Lordship of Jesus
Christ. "No1 man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy
Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3)'. The preincarnate riches of
Christ Paul asserts in 2 Corinthians 8 :g.
This is by no means all that Paul has on this sub-

PAUL AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST 53
ject, but it is enough to controvert completely the
opinion of The Outlook reviewer that "Paul never
taught that" (the deity of Jesus Christ), as John's
Gospel has it.
The simple truth is that all the New Testament
books have the same attitude toward Jesus. Dr. Lukyn
Williams has a new and able discussion of Matthew's
Gospel under the title, The Hebrew Christian Messiah,
in which he shows conclusively that the author of the
first Gospel presents and proves the deity of Christ.
The same position appears in the so-called Logia
(the Q of criticism).
Mark does no other.
Modern criticism has shown that all the sources of
our knowledge agree that Jesas is the Christ, the Son
of God.
Thus far is my brief reply to The Outlook in The
Baptist World in 19 17. But the argument is really
stronger than I put it then. One must remember that
Paul was a Jew, a Pharisee of the straitest sort, a
trained theologian from Gamaliel's school and familiar
with all the Jewish antipathy to polytheistic language
and emperor worship so rife when he wrote. In ap
plying the term "Lord" 1 to Jesus he was fully aware
of the Jewish sensitiveness about the use of that word
in the Septuagint for God and also of the free way in
which the Romans applied it to "Lord Caesar." Paul
saw the issue clearly drawn between Caesar and Christ
for the Lordship of the world. He boldly challenged
the Cassar cult and championed the worship of Jesus
1 Kbpiot

54 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
as Lord. One must bear this in mind in measuring
the force of Paul's language. It was not a careless
slip on Paul's part, but a deliberate conviction when
he placed Jesus on a par with the God and Father
of men.
Besides, Paul's faith in Jesus as Lord was the
outgrowth of personal experience. When he surren
dered to the Risen Jesus on the Damascus road, he
asked first: "Who art thou, Lord?" (Acts 9:5, 22:8;
26:15). On learning that it was Jesus whom he was
persecuting Paul said: "What shall I do, Lord?"'
(Acts 22:10.) Paul never wavered from the convic
tion that he had seen the Risen Jesus who appeared to
him also at other times and whom he recognized as
"Lord" (Acts 9:10 in Damascus; Acts 22:19 in Jeru
salem). From the very first, after Paul's radical
conversion that made him turn his back upon all his
theological prejudices and self-interest, "he proclaimed
Jesus that he is the Son of God" (Acts 9:20), "prov
ing that this is the Christ (Messiah)" (Acts 9:22).
Paul had crossed the Rubicon. The Jews in Damascus
sought to kill him (Acts 9:23) and Jewish hate sought
his life to the end, but Paul never faltered in loyalty
to Jesus as Lord.
If it be said that Paul only believed in and taught
a practical Trinity and not a metaphysical theory of
the Godhead, several things call for remark. One is
that Paul knew rabbinical refinements concerning the
unity of God and the perils of polytheism. He also
knew something of current Greek philosophical specu
lation. He came from Tarsus which was the home
of a great university with famous teachers of philos-

PAUL AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST 55
ophy. He argued with the Stoics and Epicureans
in the agora of Athens, much to their contempt in
deed, for they counted him a mere "seedrcollector," x a
picker-up of scraps of wisdom in the marketplace
(Acts 17:18), a mere babbler in the midst of sophists
and linguistic gymnasts. But one recalls that Paul's
Epistles have so many words in common with the
philosophical language of Seneca that scholars have
seriously discussed the question whether Paul did not
borrow from the great Stoic or he from Paul (Light-
foot's Excursus in his Commentary on Philippians).
And Sir W. M. Ramsay dares to say that Paul is the
greatest philosopher of all times, greatest in insight,
in sanity, in grasp, in knowledge of truth. Besides,
Paul's later Epistles (Col., Eph., the Pastorals) reveal
a titanic struggle with a subtle phase of philosophy
that struck at the Person of Christ. Incipient Gnostic
ism in the Province of Asia had accepted Christianity,
but rejected the Deity and Lordship of Jesus. This
esoteric philosophy of the East held that matter was
inherently evil and that the good God could not touch
matter. Hence it posited a series of oeons as interme
diaries between God and matter. The Person of
Christ was solved by them in two ways. One wing
held that Jesus did not have a real human body, but
only seemed to be a man (Docetic Gnostics). The
other wing taught that Jesus was a mere man, but
that the Christ (an a on) came upon him at his bap
tism and left him in his death on the Cross (Cerinthian
Gnostics) . But in both views the Christ was considered

* VKtpiio\byos

56 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
an cson or emanation from God. The Gnostics placed
Jesus Christ at the bottom of a series of ceons or emana
tions of God. Paul challenged this degrading Christol
ogy in a masterly argument in which he holds to the
unity of Jesus and Christ, "Christ Jesus the Lord" (Col.
2 :6), the actual humanity of Jesus Christ "through the
blood of the Cross" (Col. 1 :20), the real deity of
Jesus Christ as the Incarnate Son of God, as "the
Son of his love" (Col. i :i3), "the image of the in
visible God" (1:15), "for in him dwelleth all the ful
ness of the Godhead bodily" (2 :g), and Christ is now
"seated on the right hand of God" (3 :i). Paul fear
lessly claimed primacy for Jesus Christ as "the first
born of all creation" (1 :is), not the end of a series of
aons, as the Creator and Sustainer of the material uni
verse (1 :i6-i7), as the head of the spiritual universe
(1:18), "that in all things he might have the pre
eminence." The same line of argument is carried out
in Ephesians and in the Pastoral Epistles.
It is impossible to say, therefore, that Paul did not
grapple with the philosophical and metaphysical
aspects of the Trinity and that for him Jesus had only
the "value- judgment" of God without any acute reflec
tion of the force of his words. He met and conquered
as subtle a form of Christological heresy as Chris
tianity has ever had to meet. He rose in this contro
versy to the highest heights of appreciation and adora
tion of Jesus the Son of God, the Preincarnate Son of
God (2 Cor. 8:9; Phil. 2:6). He used language of
Jesus that is not fit to apply to any mere man, even
the noblest of men. He gave Jesus Christ the attri
butes of God and, in all probability (Acts 20 :28 ; Rom.

PAUL AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST 57
9:5; Tit. 2:13), like John's Gospel (1:1), applied the
very word "God" to Jesus, whom he certainly called
repeatedly "the Son of God."
A vast literature has grown up around the famous
passage in Phil. 2:5-11. Here Paul definitely asserts
that in Christ's Preincarnate state He was "exist
ing in the form of God." 1 In this state Christ
Jesus "counted the being on an equality with God" 2
as a fact. First get that clearly. It was a fact, a con
scious fact to Christ Jesus before his Incarnation, just
as we have it in John 1:1. We need not split hairs
over the distinctions between "form" 3 of God (see
also "form of a servant"), "likeness of men,"* "in
fashion as a man." 5 These refinements do not affect
the broad statement in the sentence that Jesus in his
Preincarnate state was on a par with God just as the
Jews accused him of claiming, "making himself equal
with God" 6 (John 5 :i8). The deity which Christ had
was just as actual as the humanity which he took upon
himself. Whatever is meant by "emptied himself" 7
Paul cannot mean to say that Jesus divested himself
of his divine nature and Sonship. That he could not
do as no earthly son can rid himself of his father's
nature. The thing to which Jesus did not "cling" 8
was his place in heaven beside the Father and on the

1 b> itofxpv Beov iTr&pxw
• iiy^aaro to tlvai loa. 8t
8 iu>p$l\
4 biUH&nari. avBpSirav
1 oyyiV-o-r*- "s ttvBpoicot
8 taov iavr&v ironic tQ 6
7 iavr&v inivwoev
8 iprayiibv

58 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Throne of God. He gave up the habiliments of Deity,
but not the reality and not the power, though the
Incarnation inevitably imposed limitations of time and
place and knowledge, and human weariness and weak
ness to which the Gospels bear ample witness. But in
this great passage Paul sets forth in masterly fashion
the Deity and the Humanity of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God and the Son of Man, with the added glory
and honor which came after the Humiliation. The
supreme exaltation will be "that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father."
Denney (Letters of Principal Denney to Sir W,
Robertson Nicoll, p. 124) objects to the sentence,
"Jesus is God," on the ground that in English the
word "God" is a personal proper name and does not
connote the Greek theos. "God" (as Father and Holy
Spirit) is more than Jesus and Jesus is human as well
as divine. There is point in this linguistic difficulty
in the English.
Paul not only took Jesus to be the Son of God and
Lord of his own life, but he gloried in the worship
and service of Jesus that has been surpassed by no
Christian Mystic in all time. Paul sank his very
self into the will of Christ: "I have been crucified with
Christ ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth
in me" (Gal. 2:20).

CHAPTER IV
PAUL NOT A SACRAMENTARIAN
In the very able article of Professor H. T. Andrews
in the November Expositor on "The Place of the Sac
raments in the Teaching of St. Paul" the . learned
writer, it seems to me, makes the fatal mistake of read
ing into Paul's language about baptism the ideas of
the Mithraists and of the later sacramentarian Chris
tians. This is precisely the vice of the historico-
critical method that Professor H. A. A. Kennedy has
so skilfully refuted in his St. Paul and the Mystery-
Religions. Paul's keen mind was all alert for points
of contact with the thought of his time, but he was
not a mere blunderer with no coherent theology. Pro
fessor Andrews surely overstates the matter when he
claims that scientific exegesis has given the victory to
the sacramentarians against the symbolists and that
theologians must find some way to rescue modern
Christianity from this blight or throw Paul overboard
as a reliable interpreter of Christianity. He holds
rightly that modern Christians as a whole are not go
ing to accept sacramentarian Christianity. Professor
Andrews admits that Paul has his evangelical side, but
he holds that the inconsistency in his attitude toward
baptism is incapable of solution. I venture to reply
59

60 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
that the Professor has himself gotten into the fog in
stead of Paul,
If one interprets Paul's language about the baptism
symbolically there is no inconsistency. The bugle
blast of liberty in Galatians against the Judaizing
ceremonialists is thus entirely in place when we come
to Paul's teaching on baptism. Now there are two
passages in Paul's Epistles that to my mind are de
cisive on this point and render it impossible to class
Paul with the sacramentarians on the subject of bap
tism. The first one is I Corinthians 1 : 14-17. Here
Paul expresses gratitude1 that he baptized none of
the Corinthian Christians save Crispus and Gaius.
Then he recalls the household of Stephanas and
beyond that he cannot recall whether he baptized
any others. Certainly this attitude, almost of indiffer
ence, is not that of a man who attached saving efficacy
to the ordinance of baptism. But verse 17 settles the
matter. "For Christ sent me not to baptize z
but to evangelize,3 not in wisdom of speech, that the
cross of Christ should not be made empty." Here
Paul deliberately interprets his permanent mission as
an apostle* of Christ in language that leaves baptism
to one side, and in contrast with his real work of
preaching the gospel. I do not see how it is possible
to understand that Paul could write thus if he held
to baptismal regeneration. Certainly Paul was not

1 eixapuTToi
* Patrrltea)
¦ cvayye\l{to0ai
* a-rtoreiXtr

PAUL NOT A SACRAMENTARIAN 61
making light of baptism, but he did not consider it
his task.
I do not press the last clause where the fear is im
plied that the cross of Christ may be rendered null
and void, emptied 1 of real value. It is possible to
confine this clause to the "wisdom of speech," though
it naturally points back also to the previous contrast.
The other passage is Romans vi :3-6, where Paul
explains the symbolism of baptism in terms of burial
and resurrection. Certainly Paul here is a symbolist,
as is so beautifully brought out by Sanday and Head-
lane on this passage.
There are passages in Paul's writings which are
capable of the sacramentarian interpretation given to
them by Professor Andrews. My contention is that
these ambiguous passages should be expounded in the
light of Paul's real spirit and not from the standpoint
of Mithraism and later sacramentarian Christianity.
To do that is not in my opinion scientific exegesis. It
rather makes a jumble of Paul, whose insight into the
mind of Christ has never been surpassed. It is not
necessary to throw Paul overboard.

CHAPTER V
RAUL AS CHURCH ARCHITECT IN CORINTH
Paul is on the defensive in the first four chapters of
First Corinthians. The household of Chloe have
come to Ephesus (i Cor. 1:11) with full reports of
the strife in the church in Corinth. There was schism
and partisanship. Some stood for Paul, some for
Apollos, some for Cephas, and some for Christ (mak
ing a partisan use of Christ's name). It was all very
humiliating to Paul. It is not certain that Peter had
been to Corinth though it is possible. At any rate
the Judaizers made use of Peter's name as they had
done with that of James, the Lord's brother (Gal.
2:12), in opposition to Paul. Apollos himself had left
Corinth because of the disturbance and refused Paul's
urgent entreaty to return (1 Cor. 16:12). He had
had enough of Corinth. He had gone with cordial
recommendations from Aquila and Priscilla in
Ephesus (Acts 18:27) and his eloquence and learn
ing had made a great impression. He had clearly not
meant to cause a schism. But once factions arise
in a church over preachers, it is not easy to end the
turmoil. The situation in Corinth must have been very bad,
judging from Paul's own language in these chapters
and from 2 Corinthians where the climax is reached.
62

PAUL AS CHURCH ARCHITECT 63
Paul is seeking to show that neither he nor Apollos
is to blame for the divisions that have come, but the
conceit and jealousy of the members themselves who
have not acted in the spirit of Christ (i Cor. 3:1-9;
4:6-21). Paul planted the seed, and Apollos watered
the plant, but God gave the increase (3:6), and God
deserves all the glory. Besides, it is "God's field or
husbandry" and "God's building" and Paul and
Apollos are merely fellow-workers with God in build
ing the house of God (3.9).
It is this figure of "building" that Paul takes up
and develops in 3:11-17. In doing so Paul has to
justify his work in Corinth, but it makes him feel
like a fool for Christ's sake to have to do it (4:10) as
he says with the keenest irony: "We are fools for
Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ."
The word translated "master-builder" is really our
word "architect." x Dr. Walter Lock, Lady Margaret
Professor of Divinity in Oxford University, has an
excellent monograph on "St. Paul the Master builder"
in which he applies the figure to Paul's whole career.
But Paul is here thinking primarily of his work in
Corinth as founder and builder of the church there.
The pastor is a church architect if he does his work
properly. He does not, indeed, build the edifice in
which the church meets, though often it is a pity that
the preacher has had such a small part in the con
struction of the house of worship. Church architec
ture is a fascinating subject. The early Christians
had no separate houses of worship. Present church
1 apxirkKTuv

64 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
architecture has developed from the Jewish synagogue
and the Greek temple and the Roman basilica. The
building is meant for worship and preaching and teach
ing. The medieval cathedrals were for worship and
for impressing the senses, not for preaching. Gothic
architecture seems to be an invention of the devil for
the prevention of preaching and as such it is a great
success. In it one does not get air, heat, or light,
and one cannot hear the sermon. The dim religious
light suits the deacon's nap and one's aesthetic taste
for beauty.
The Greek word for "carpenter" 1 has a wider
meaning than our English word. It was applied to
workers in stone and brick also. Prof. W. A.
Granger 2 argues that we should say "Jesus the Work
man" and that Jesus was in actual touch with the wide
industrial life of his time. Be that as it may, the word
here for "architect" was used for engineers, a director
of workmen, any one whose force of intellect is master
of an enterprise (cf. our captains of industry). In a
papyrus 3 of the third century B. C. we read that
"Cleon the architect" had as successor one who had
worked under him and he is called "Theodorus the
sub-architect." *
It is plain that Paul conceives that the pastor of a
church is the head builder. He is the leader of the
force, the man of vision with plans for the future,
who looks at the work as a whole, and ptrts it through.

1 TiKTOlV
2 The Expositor.
aP. Petr. II, 42 (a). See Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary.
* Oe6So>pov top VTapxirknTova

PAUL AS CHURCH ARCHITECT 65
But it is equally clear that Paul did not try to do
all the work. He is the chief workman, the master-*
workman, the leader of workmen, but he is not the
only workman. Some churches have actually regarded
the pastor as a hired man to do all the jobs in the
church from sexton to sermon,, ever to raising his
own salary. The pastor who does all the work in
the church has done the church a great injury. The
wise pastor finds work for every member of the church
to do. He sees the angel in the stone and he trains
young workmen who can carve the angel out of the
stone and who will themselves see angels. The true
pastor is a Christian statesman with plans for the
Kingdom of God of which his church is a part, a
fighting division in the army that is storming the
trenches of the enemy.
And Paul is architect of the whole church life. All
departments of the church's activities head up in him.
There should be no cross-currents, no cross-purposes,
no rivals to his leadership. A country can have but
one governor at a time. A railroad can have only
one president. The local church is a great business
enterprise for the spread of the Kingdom of God in a
given community and in the whole world. The pastor
is leader, but not autocrat. The church is a democ
racy, a flock, with a -leader. They must play the game
of follow your leader if they are to' win. There
should be no organization connected with the church
life that regards the pastor as an outsider or as an
interloper. The choir centers around the preacher.
The committees all head up in him as head of the
church work. The deacons work under and with the

66 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
pastor. They are his cabinet. The Sunday School
is, or should be, merely the church engaged in the
work of teaching the Bible and evangelizing the young.
The pastor should be chief of the Sunday School
as of the Sunday services and of the prayer meeting.
The Sunday School has not yet been properly corre
lated to the church work in all churches. It began
as a parasite outside of the life of the church and a
certain amount of suspicion and of independence
still exists. The workers in the Sunday School some
times resent any kind of control by the church or pas
tor. Many feel that the Sunday School takes the
place of the church services. It is a common and a
very sad sight to see two-thirds of the Sunday School
pupils and teachers go away from church. It is well
known that in the " 'teen age" a large proportion of
the children drop out of the Sunday School. They
have not learned the habit of going to church, of
public worship of God in the sanctuary. As a result
they are a dead loss to the cause of Christ. The day
is coming when the pastor may need to be the superin
tendent of the Sunday School, the Sunday School
specialist, and do away with the second morning serv
ice, and preach to the young people while he has
them together so as to win them to Christ. It is a
local problem that each church has to solve in its
own way, but the average pastor is not now the archi
tect of the whole church life. The young people often
take their meeting in place of the evening church
service. Every organization in the church should
consider the pastor as actual head and should co
operate with him as leader. The Sunday School

PAUL AS CHURCH ARCHITECT 67
teachers, like the deacons, are part of the pastor's
cabinet. The Sunday School should function in har
mony with the church and not against it. The young
people should work under the pastor's leadership.
Once more, the pastor must build on the right foun
dation if he is to be a wise architect as Paul claims
that he was. Paul had no room for any other foun
dation x than the one on which he built in Corinth and
which Apollos added to in his work. Indeed, the
Christian can have no other: "For other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ" (i Cor. 3 :ii). The architect who tries it will
find that he has built his house upon the sand instead
of upon the rock. It will not stand. One may build
an attractive edifice upon the wrong foundation, but
it will topple and fall. Nominal Christians have been
found who seem ashamed of Christ as the founda
tion. They find the Cross a stumbling block like the
Jews or foolishness like the Greeks. The Sanhedrin
rejected this Stone which God made the head of the
corner. Jesus called obedience to his words building
on the rock. The architect must see to it that Christ
is under the life of the church and of each life in the
church. The wise architect, says Paul, will build with the
right materials.1 One may build a poor-house on the
right foundation. The house may fall though the
foundation stands. Paul warns each one in Corinth
how he builds 2 on the foundation of Christ. The day

1 eeitiXwv iB-qua (3:10). Same root in both words.
* tvotdoptl irl t&v 8enh\wv. Note double use of hrl.

68 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
of testing comes for every house, even fire-proof
buildings. The fire comes and then it will be shown
of what sort the house is, whether wood, hay, stubble,
gold, silver, precious stones. "Inflammable" is writ
ten on some of the freight cars that one sees. Paul
has in mind the life-work of the Christian teacher or
preacher. It may go up in smoke like chaff while the
man himself will be saved, but so as by fire (3:15)-
This does not mean purgatory for the preacher, but
Paul means that the preacher or teacher himself may
get to heaven, but empty-handed. He bears no sheaves
with him. His work has been for naught. Some
teaching, not to say preaching, is dry enough to burn
with ease, almost by spontaneous combustion. But
such a ministry is a tragedy of failure.
But Paul pictures something still worse. He warns
the schismatics in Corinth against the peril of destroy
ing a church of God (3:16-17). That is a terrible
thing to do, to be a church-wrecker. For the church,
like the individual soul, is the real temple of God.
The Spirit of God dwells in the hearts of his people.
The preacher who wrecks churches like a tornado is a
terror, but God will destroy him. It is not clear
what Paul means by "destroy." 1 He uses the same
word for the church that he destroys and for his own
destruction. Tiie church of God's people in any place
is a holy thing and God's wrath rests upon him who
ruins it.
Paul did not succeed in Corinth without difficulty.
He began his work there with no support save the
1 <j>9tlpii>

PAUL AS CHURCH ARCHITECT 69
fellowship of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:1-4). He
supported himself by his trade and received occasional
\aid from Philippi and Thessalonica (Acts 18:5; 1
Thess. 3:6; Phil. 4:15). In fact, Paul refused help
from Corinth and "robbed other churches, taking
wages of them that I might minister unto you" (2
Cor. 1 1 :8) and kept himself thus from being a burden
to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 1 1 :g) because of the criti
cal spirit of some of them who actually accused Paul
of preaching for money (2 Cor. 12:14). After Paul
left Corinth every conceivable charge that malignant
hate could contrive was raised against him by the
hostile minority there. Paul answers their charges
seriatim and with biting sarcasm and withering scorn
in 2 Cor. 10:1-13:10. He had written several letters
to the church. He had sent Timothy who was ap
parently ineffective against the rampant Judaizers (1
Cor. 4:17; 16:10-11); they had scouted his youth and
inexperience and frightened him back to Ephesus (Acts
19:22). Paul had sent Titus who had a stouter spirit
and who brought him in Macedonia a glorious report
of victory by the majority in Corinth that deeply stirred
Paul to appreciation (2 Cor. 1:12-3:3; 6:11-7:16).
Titus had filled Paul's heart with praise, but Paul now
attempts to win the stubborn minority by a powerful
rebuttal of their charges (2 Cor. 10-13). He calls
these Judaizers in Corinth "false apostles, deceitful
workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of
Christ," ministers of Satan (2 Cor. 11:13-14) who
"desire an occasion" and so manufacture slanders
against Paul to carry their point against him (2 Cor.
11 :i2). Paul sent Titus back with this great apology

70 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
and to finish the collection there (2 Cor. 8-9) and
waited awhile for the work to be done, apparently
going round about to Illyricum (Rom. 15 :ig) . When
he came again to Corinth, the opposition had disap
peared and the Judaizers had left the field to Paul
(Acts 20:1-3). He met trouble again from the Jews
in Corinth as at the first (Acts 18). Paul did not
always fight trouble to a finish. Sometimes he left
when no issue was at stake or when it seemed best
all round as in Antioch in Pisidia, in Lystra, in Phi
lippi, in Thessalonica, in Athens. But in Corinth he
carried on the fight because the very essence of the
gospel was at stake as in Galatia. The Judaizers were
subverting the freedom of the gospel of grace in
Christ. Paul kept away from Corinth till peace had
come, but he fought the fight for spiritual liberty to
victory, not for personal vindication. He cared naught
for a personal triumph. So he was a wise church
architect in Corinth and a model for ministers to-day
who have to build a church of God in worldly and
wicked cities like Corinth where luxury and vice com
bine with worldliness and heresy to set at naught
the message of Christ and the ministers of God.

CHAPTER VI
PAUL'S ECCLESIASTICAL INDEPENDENCE
It may seem a bit ungracious and unsympathetic
with the rather strenuous efforts to bring about
organic union to-day to cite the conduct of Paul in
defence of his own ecclesiastical independence. But
the time has come, I think, for looking at facts as they
are with calmness and balanced judgment. Every
right-minded Christian would prefer union as well
as unity in the body of Christ (both the local church
and the Kingdom of God). Unity does not always
exist where there is union. Many a local church is
torn by dissension that does not lead to actual schism.
Sometimes in such cases the actual schism seems to
be the only way to secure unity of spirit that does
come later.
Certainly disunion is not to be sought as an end in
itself, unless it is the expression of normal diversity
and growth. The simplest form of reproduction is
by cellular fissure. Paul justified diversities of gifts
in the body of Christ as seen in the church in Corinth
(i Cor. 12:4-11). The same Spirit bestowed these
varied gifts for the development of the body as a
whole and for the richer functioning of the body.
Diversity is a sign of life. Only no one part must
try to lord it over the rest, "that there should be no
7i

72 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
schism in the body" (12:25). This is precisely the
peril in a democracy like a local church. It is the
glory of the democracy that each member can be
heard as in the assembly in Athens. But the peril
of the democracy is the demagogue. The religious
demagogue is, if possible, the worst of all. So Paul
proceeds to warn the church in Corinth against dis
order and disaster (1 Cor. 14) after the wondrous
picture of the working of love that tempers the spirit
and brings harmony out of chaos (1 Cor. 13).
Now, when Jesus made his Intercessory Prayer in
which he prayed earnestly for oneness among the
apostles and among all future disciples (John 17), he
had that very night previously rebuked the apostles
for unseemly strife in struggling like heathen for the
posts of honor at the table (Luke 22:24-30). The
strife continued after the Passover meal had begun
so that Jesus had to rebuke the apostles by the object
lesson of washing their feet with a pointed interpre
tation (John 13:1-16). On two previous occasions
the apostles had caused anguish of heart to Christ by
their disputes as to which of them was the greatest:
It is clear, therefore, that Jesus had this unseemly
lack of unity in mind most of all in his prayer. There
was already organic union, but a lamentable want of
unity. Certainly Christ desired and desires the full
est harmony and unity among his followers. That
goal is only possible by complete conformity to the
will of Christ.
Already in the New Testament we discern types of
teaching that come into conflict. These differences
in doctrine vary in degree and in value. Each of the

PAUL'S ECCLESIASTICAL INDEPENDENCE 73
great writers has his own standpoint and the world
is the richer for the interpretation of Christ by a Peter,
a Mark, a Matthew, a Luke, a John, a James, a Paul, a
Jude, an Apollos. At times these men did not see every
thing alike as at Antioch where Peter and Barnabas
left Paul alone for a while. But the theological differ
ences were fought out and reconciliation came as the
result of frank discussion and mutual understanding.
No actual cleavage in doctrine came, no schism in the
body of Christ.
But it was different in Paul's controversy with the
Judaizers and later with the Gnostics. In both these
instances Paul cared more for loyalty to Christ and to
truth than for organic union. In the case of the Ju
daizers Paul felt that the very heart of the gospel was
at stake. This party of the circumcision, more Phar
isaic than Christian, had its headquarters at Jerusa
lem. They were unwilling for the Gentiles to become
Christians unless they also became Jews. Peter was
actually brought by them before the church in Jerusa
lem for his conduct in Caesarea when he entered into
the house of Cornelius and had the household bap
tized on their conversion without making them Jews
(Acts 10:1-11:18). The formal campaign of Paul
and Barnabas to win the Gentiles stirred the Pharisaic
party, the Judaizers, to challenge this whole program.
They insisted in Antioch and later in Jerusalem that
the Gentiles must become Jews (Acts 15:1-5). But
Paul fought this heresy vehemently and in the end,
successfully. He called it "no gospel at all" and pro
nounced an anathema on all who preached it (Gal.
1 :6-io). He argued for freedom of the Gentiles from

74 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
this yoke of bondage (Gal. 5:1-15). Paul defied these
"false apostles" who preached "another Jesus" and
"a different gospel" (2 Cor. 11:1-15). He will not
surrender one whit to "the false brethren" "who came
in to spy out our liberty in Christ" in the case of
Titus in Jerusalem at the Conference "that the truth
of the gospel might continue with you" (Gal. 2:3-5).
He will not surrender to the Judaizers in Corinth, but
threatens them with excommunication unless they sub
mit (2 Cor. 13).
Paul is equally as positive in his opposition to the
Gnostics, both Docetic and Cerinthian, who offered a
degrading view of Christ as a subordinate ceon or
emanation from God and not on a par with God in
nature and power. If Galatians is a trumpet blast
against the Judaizers, Colossians is a thunderbolt
against the Gnostics. Paul boldly asserts the equality
of Christ with God as his Son in his image, as supreme
in the work of the creation of the material universe
and in the spiritual realm (Col. 1:13-18), "for in
him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"
(Col. 2 :g). "This I say, that no one may delude you
with persuasiveness of speech" (Col. 2:4). The Pas
toral Epistles show the same concern against the
heresy. Paul did not fight in vain for the Supremacy
of Christ. In time the Gnostics sloughed off. "They
went out from us, but they were not of us: for if
they had been of us, they would have continued with
us : but they went out, that they might be made mani
fest that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19). This
is the verdict of John and the verdict of history.
It is plain, therefore, that Paul did not consider

PAUL'S ECCLESIASTICAL INDEPENDENCE 78
peace the most important thing. He was not for peace
at any price, not at the price of loyalty to Christ and
to truth. He would not cover up vital error for the
sake of apparent harmony. He would not compromise
essential truth with real heresy for the sake of mere
formal union. Least of all would he submit to com
pulsory conformity to what he considered error. He
gloried in his freedom in Christ. And Paul wanted
all to enjoy the same liberty in Christ that he claimed
for himself. Paul is the great protagonist of religious
liberty for all races, sexes, classes. "There can be
neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor
free, there can be no male and female; for ye are all
one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
But Paul's ecclesiastical independence has a wider
reach than the struggle with heretics like the Judaizers
and the Gnostics. Paul asserted and gloried in his
independence of the Twelve Apostles. The Judaizers
charged that Paul was not one of the Twelve and
was not on a par with them. This they did to flout
his influence with the Gentile Christians and to wean
them away from Paul. Their argument assumed that
the Twelve agreed with them and not with Paul. We
have Paul's own defense in Galatians 1 and 2. Not
only is the fact admitted there he is not one of the
Twelve, but he glories in his ecclesiastical independ
ence of any man or group of men (Gal. 1 :i, 11-12) :
"Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through
man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father,
who raised him from the dead) :" "For neither did I
receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came
to me through revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul did

76 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
not obtain his apostolic commission or message from
the Twelve or from any man. In fact, there is not
the slightest evidence that Paul received ordination at
all. The incident in Acts 13 :i-3 comes after Paul had
been long at work in the ministry and is apparently
only a farewell service for the missionaries, Barnabas
and Saul, before they start. Paul goes on to show that
after his conversion and call he did not go to Jerusa
lem to consult the apostles before him, but to Arabia
(Gal. 1:16-17). After three years he did make a
visit of fifteen days to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and
also James the Lord's brother (Gal. 1 : 18-19). It was
fourteen years before he again came in touch with the
Jerusalem apostles in a private conference in Jerusa
lem (Gal. 2 :i-io), probably in between the first explo
sion at Jerusalem (Acts 15:5) and the gathering next
day when the victory of Paul and Barnabas was won
(Acts 15 :6-29)t Scholars are not agreed as to the
time of the visit in Gal. 2 :i-io and it is not pertinent
to the argument here. The point is that the inter
view of which Paul tells in Gal. 2:1-10, apparently
first in public "before them" (2 -.2) and then "privately
before them who were of repute," led to the frank and
full recognition by Cephas, James, and John, the Jeru
salem "pillars," that Paul and Barnabas were their
equals in rank and authority and power. The Jeru
salem apostles were to be leaders in the work among
the Jews while Paul and Barnabas were to be leaders
in the work among the Gentiles. But Paul bluntly
says: "They, I say, who were of repute imparted
nothing to me" ( Gal. 2 :6) .
In the face of the strong language employed by Paul

PAUL'S ECCLESIASTICAL INDEPENDENCE 77
it is impossible to find the slightest ecclesiastical tie
between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles. There was
agreement and spiritual unity, but absolute independ
ence. The Jerusalem pillars lined up with Paul and
Barnabas and not with the Judaizers. But Paul
claimed victory for the Gentile Christians as well as
the maintenance of his own ecclesiastical independ
ence. That victory is rendered all the more complete
if the words "and from things strangled" (Acts
15 :29) are not genuine. The example of Paul should
make us all pause before we push matters to an
extreme in efforts to< bring about compulsory union.
For one thing, it is sure to fail. The Roman Catholic
Pontiff has already firmly announced that he will dis
cuss the reunion of Christendom on only one basis,
absolute surrender to Rome. We know, then, of a cer
tainty, that organic union cannot come to pass on
that platform. The whole thing becomes chimerical.
The matter resolves itself to this. Those who prefer
union to anything else can have it for themselves
by following Newman to Rome. But they must know
that they cannot carry the non-Roman world with
them. No amount of persuasion or of pressure can
turn the clock back to the pre-Re formation period.
And among non-Roman Christians differences exist
of too great a nature to' force, conformity.
The episcopacy is one of them. Bishop Lightfoot
proved that in the New Testament the terms bishop
and elder were employed in the same sense. The mod
ern use of "bishop" appears in the Epistles of Ignatius,
but not in the New Testament. One has only to look
at Acts 20:17, 2& where "elders" and "bishops"

78 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
describe the same persons to see the point. We see the
same thing in Tit. i :5, 7. Dean Headlam has recently
come to the same conclusion as Lightfoot. The only
way to reunite the non-Roman world on the basis
of the historic episcopate is to convince the non-episco
pal bodies that the New Testament ministry is not
adequate for present-day needs. One may pursue that
line of argument, if he will, but he will make no head
way denouncing those who are satisfied with the sim
plicity and sufficiency of the New Testament ministry.
Progress can only be made here by frank recognition
of the liberties of all and the rights of those who
do not desire ecclesiastical overlords. If organic
union were ever again achieved on this basis, how long
would it last? Who can guarantee that the New Tes
tament itself may not keep on reproducing the very
type of ecclesiastical independence of which Paul is
so powerful an exponent?
Another line of cleavage is concerned with sacra
mental salvation. The effort of sacramentalists to
compel non-sacramentalists to give up the purely spirit
ual interpretation of salvation by grace apart from
ceremonialism is doomed to failure. Justification by
faith cannot be killed so long as the New Testament
is open. On the other hand the non-ceremonialists
seem equally unable to convince the sacramentalists
to give up insistence upon the ordinances as means of
salvation and to accept them as symbols of saving
grace already experienced.
Let Paul teach us all patience and forbearance and
the meaning of real freedom in Christ. There is

PAUL'S ECCLESIASTICAL INDEPENDENCE 79
variety in nature and in grace. We can learn to live
and to let live. Any effort by any type of Christianity
to force its view on the others is resented. This does
not mean that one view is as good as another. But it
does mean that, the human mind being as it is, we must
be content for some men to see things differently.
It has been a hard fight to keep the Bible open and
free. It is hard also to keep the mind open to the
truth. It is still harder to keep the conscience in good
working order. But, given the open Bible, the open
mind, and the honest conscience, then the result must
be left to God and to the individual. Each has the
right to preach and to propagate his view of God and
Christ. History, heredity, environment, the personal
equation, the experience of grace, and the guidance
of the Spirit of God determine the outcome. Mean
while we can learn to love each other heartily in spite
of our differences, even because of them. What a dull
world it would be if we were all precisely alike !

CHAPTER VII
PAUL AND PATRIOTISM

I
Patriotism and piety are apparently placed in oppo
sition in some countries by the issues of the present
world-war. One of the first fulminations was the
declaration of a large group of the foremost scholars
and theologians of Germany justifying the conduct of
the Fatherland in Belgium and in France. British
scholars and theologians were quick to reply in a spirit
of holy horror at the apparent blindness of the German
group to the moral and spiritual issues of the war.
The republic of letters was torn asunder, and the king
dom of God seemed rent in twain. Protestants have
risen against Protestants, Roman Catholics against
Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics against Greek Cath
olics, Mohammedans against Mohammedans, Jews
against Jews. Kings have dragged their peoples into
war. Neutral nations have been driven into the war
in self-defense. In each case citizenship rises above
religion, or at any rate the Christian citizen is com
pelled to be loyal to the position of his own country
or be guilty of treason. The issue raised is one of
tremendous import, and is intensely vital now in the
United States, as our own country has entered upon
80

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 81
war with Germany. We have millions of men of Ger
man birth or descent who must decide what they are
to do. There is but one thing to do: to be loyal to
the land of adoption. So real Americans all feel. So
the great mass of the German-Americans feel, and
will act. They are now Americans, not German-
Americans. The case of Paul is worth our study in the present
situation. He was caught in the maelstrom of world
politics; for Rome, like the United States, was the
melting-pot of the nations, though not in quite the
same sense. Racial and national characteristics per
sisted with considerable tenacity in the various prov
inces of the Roman Empire, which in Asia Minor paid
little attention to the old boundaries. The old names
for the peoples held on, so that Galatia, for instance,
meant either the great Roman province or the old
Celtic people in North Galatia. Paul was at once a
Jew, a Tarsian, a Greek, a Roman, and soon a Chris
tian. He was true to the best things in these elements,
however contradictory they seemed at times. The
terms and the concepts designated by them overlapped
in various ways, and were not mutually exclusive.
n
Paul appears first as a brilliant young Jewish rabbi,
a graduate of the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem,
pleased at the stoning of Stephen by the Sanhedrin,
and soon the leader in the first general persecution of
the Christians by the Jews. Racial and religious mo
tives are undoubtedly mixed in him, as he presses the

82 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
persecution with zeal and success, dragging men and
women from their homes to prison and to death with
shameless ruthlessness, for no other crime than that
of believing in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Paul's
very breath came to be threat and slaughter, his taste
for blood, as always, growing by what it fed on. His
conversion stopped his career as a persecutor; but
he was always a Jew, was proud of his people and
his tribe, gloried in their wonderful history, and cher
ished their noblest hopes and aspirations (cf. Acts
22:3; 26:3-7; 2 Cor. 11:22; Gal. 1:131.; Rom. 9:1-5;
Phil. 3 :4-6) . To be sure, relatively in comparison
with Christ all this pride of race seemed mere refuse
(Phil. 3:7ff.). With Paul, Christ is supreme, and
rules even in the sphere of race and politics. Paul
had been "exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my
fathers" (Gal. 1 :i4), and never ceased to love the
Jews, even when they persecuted him bitterly. As a
Pharisee he shared their political conception of the
Messianic kingdom as a great Jewish empire which
was to drive Rome out of Palestine and dominate the
earth, a Pan-Jewish propaganda. Paul remained a
Pharisee in many things, particularly in the belief in
the bodily resurrection (Acts 23:6), though, as a
Christian, he perceived the spiritual nature of the king
dom of God in Christ. This he conceived to be the
true Israel, the spiritual Israel, the children of faith,
both Jews and Gentiles, gathered from every land on
earth (Rom. 3:6, 28; g:6ff.). Paul held that he was
interpreting the true Judaism to the Jews in the cos
mopolitan view of the promise to Abraham and the
destiny of his people. He rises to the very height of

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 83
patriotism in these words: "For I could wish that I
myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's
sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh; who are
Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and
the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the
service of God, and the promises; whose are the
fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh,
who is over all, God blessed forever" (Rom. 9:3-5).
It is not easy to define patriotism, for it is more
than mere love of the land of one's birth or of his
citizenship. It is that, but it broadens out into the
love of one's people wherever found, as Japanese love
Japanese ; Chinese, Chinese ; Germans, Germans ; Jews,
Jews. The Jews had at this time lost their independ
ence, though many of them still lived in Palestine
under Roman rule. But many millions more dwelt
in the Diaspora. Some of these fell much under
the spell of the Graeco-Roman civilization, and gave
up many of their Jewish customs and views. But Paul
was not Hellenized, though a Hellenistic Jew with
Aramaean traditions. We see in Paul the struggle of
the cultured Jew, loyal to his faith and people, to adapt
himself to the world conditions in which he found
himself, and to be a loyal Roman citizen.
But Paul was "born in Tarsus of Cilicia," "a citi
zen of no mean city" (Acts 21 :39; 22 :¦$). He had a
modern man's pride in the city of his birth and resi
dence. In his "Cities of St. Paul," Ramsay gives
ample reasons that justify Paul's praise of Tarsus:
It was one of the great cities of the Roman world, a Greek
city where the Orient met the West, the seat of a great uni
versity, the home of philosophy, the meeting place of many cults,

84 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
a town where Jews had a strong foothold. He was glad to be
known as Saul of Tarsus, a Jewish citizen of this great city.
Paul never forgot that he was a Jew, though always the edu
cated Jew, trained to life as a Roman citizen in the most aris
tocratic position among the population of the great Hellenized,
yet more than half Asiatic, city of Tarsus.1
Paul "was brought up to a certain stage at Tarsus in
the fashion needed for a Jewish boy who was born
in the local aristocracy as a Roman citizen and a bur
gess of Tarsus." 2 He may have attended the Univer
sity of Tarsus, and, after entering Gamaliel's school
in Jerusalem, he probably spent his holidays at home
like a modern college-student. Tarsus undoubtedly
left its impress on Paul, and made him more than
a narrow Palestinian Jew. Probably most men to-day
love the towns where they live, whatever their race
may be. This is the least of the problems of
patriotism. But Paul was a Hellenist, though not a Hellene or
a Hellenizer. Being a Jew, he could not be. a Greek
by birth. Being a loyal Jew, a Hebrew of the He
brews, he would not be a Greek in religion and cus
tom. And yet nothing is more certain than that Hel
lenism made its appeal to Paul's intellectual nature.
He spoke and wrote the Koine, the current Greek, with
power, as well as the Aramaic (called "Hebrew" in
Acts 22:2). He shows points of contact with Greek
thought in various ways. He was able to speak with
the Stoics and the Epicureans in Athens, and used
many of the Stoic terms in his Epistles, and quoted
1 Ramsay, Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day,
page 48.
'Ibid., page 43.

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 85
from three of the Greek writers. "Previous com
parisons have not sufficiently appreciated that which
may be stated in one word as Paul's Hellenism." x
Indeed, one of the modern interpretations of Paul's
theology is that he derived much of it from the Greek
Mystery-Religions. That is not true, but Paul cer
tainly knew the dialect of the initiates in those mystic
cults, and knew how to answer them, and to turn
their terms to the service of Christ.2

m
Beyond a doubt, Paul is a citizen of the world, a
true cosmopolite, and not a narrow Palestinian Jew
or a mere provincial Cilician. His patriotism must be
interpreted in terms of world-sympathy, not of
world-power. He does not wish the Jews to conquer
Rome as they tried to do in 66-70 A.D. and failed.
But Paul is a Roman citizen with full privileges
and prerogatives. Roman citizenship was a prize
that was not open to all. There were more non-
citizens than citizens in the Roman Empire; probably
more slaves than citizens. Claudius Lysias bought
it "with a great sum" (Acts 22 :2&) ; but Paul proudly
said: "But I am a Roman born." The man who
could say Sum Romanus felt an instinctive superior
ity over others who did not possess this advantage.
We know that Paul appealed to his rights as a Roman
citizen !in other emergencies, as in Philippi (Acts

1 Johannes Weiss, Paul and Jesus, pages S9f.
'Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions.

86 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
16:37) and in Caesarea (25:nf.). What was Paul's
attitude toward the Roman government after Roman
magistrates and officers, finally including the Emperor
himself, became hostile to him? It is as a Roman
citizen that we touch the side of Paul's life that is
more nearly parallel to our modern idea of patriotism
in an American, British, or German citizen. Roman
officers were not all unkind to Paul. Gallic practically
gave a decision in Paul's favor, and recognized Chris
tianity as a form of Judaism and so a religio licita
(Acts 18:14-16). The Asiarchs of Ephesus were
friendly to Paul (19:31). Sergius Paulus, Proconsul
of Cyprus, was a convert under Paul's preaching
(13:12). Julius the Centurion treated Paul kindly
(27:3). Even Nero, during Paul's first Roman im
prisonment, probably finally dismissed the case for lack
of evidence without a formal trial. Certainly the Pre
fect Burrhus or the Stratopedarch to whom Paul was
delivered in Rome gave him a great deal of liberty
(28 :3of.) . But Paul was mistreated by the city officials
in Antioch in Pisidia (Act 13:50), in Iconium (14:5),
in Philippi (16:22), in Thessalonica (17:6-9), where
Paul and his followers were accused of acting contrary
to the decrees of Caesar, as in Philippi he was charged
with introducing Jewish customs which Romans were
not allowed to receive. The duplicity of Felix and
Festus was hard to bear (Acts 24-26). Thus early in
Paul's ministry he saw the shadow of the Man of Sin
who set himself up as God to be worshiped (2 Thess.
2 :3f.). The Emperor-cult was the chief religion of the
Roman Empire, and Paul was bound as a preacher of
the gospel to meet it in an acute form. But the point

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 87
to note just here is that Paul did not allow the
injustice done him and Christianity as represented by
him to pervert his views of government as an ordinance
of God, or to make an anarchist out of him. Paul
was a rebel against all wrong. He hesitated not to
show the injustice of rulers when it was necessary
(Acts 16:37; 2S :iof.). No abler champion of human
liberty has ever lived than Paul. "For freedom did
Christ set us free" (Gal. 5:1). "For ye, brethren,
were called for freedom" (5:13). These words are
as pertinent for political freedom in Russia and Ger
many as for religious liberty. It is sometimes said
that Paul's words in Roman 13 : 1-7 were written dur
ing the Golden Quinquennium of Nero. That is true,
but Paul's words here are quite independent of the
personal character of Nero. "The powers that be
are ordained of God." They derive their power from
God, but not by "divine right of kings." Vox populi
vox dei in this case. The people have the right to
rule from God. "Rulers are not a terror to the good
work, but to the evil." This is the ideal, and is not
a picture of Romanoffs, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, or
police grafters in New York or Chicago. "He is a
minister of God to thee for good." "They are min
isters of God's service, attending continually upon
this very thing." Here Paul sketches in broad out
line the functions of civic rulers, whether mayors,
governors, presidents, or kings. If they had always
lived up to this ideal, there would certainly have been
fewer wars between nations and rebellions against
rulers. Nations, as a rule, do not rush into wars
of conquest. They are led on or driven on by rapacious

88 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
rulers who misuse their power for personal aggran
dizement or wild schemes of empire. Paul is a staunch
supporter of law and order, including taxes. To be
sure, he is no blind standpatter or reactionary. He
is not, like Seneca, the apologist of Nero. He was
the first champion of the emancipation of slaves, and
urged Philemon to set free and treat as a brother
in Christ Onesimus, his converted runaway slave whom
Paul returned to him (Philemon 14-21). He urged
the Christian slaves to bear their lot with Christian
fortitude, but announced a doctrine which was the
death knell of human slavery : "There can be neither
Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free,
there can be no male and female; for ye are all one
man in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). Paul preached
the brotherhood of man to a world of slaves. He,
more than Tom Paine and Voltaire, proclaimed the
rights of man and the world as his country.
But did not Paul become embittered toward Nero
and the Roman government after Nero began his fierce
persecution of the Christians? Unless we follow the
Pastoral Epistles, we have little to guide us in an
swering this query. I think that they are genuine,
and so have no hesitation in appealing to them for
witness. After Nero had charged Christians with
burning Rome, and was burning them and feeding
them to the lions and tigers, Paul wrote: "I exhort
therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, in
tercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for
kings and all men that are in high place; that we
may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness
and gravity" (1 Tim. 2:if.). Here the purpose of

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 89
government is clearly presented. Paul is still a loyal
Roman citizen, in spite of Nero. At the end, when
the first stage of the last trial made it plain what the
outcome would be, Paul has no bitter word for Nero,
unless he called him "the lion" (2 Tim. 4:17), as is
not likely. He probably refers to Nero's failure to give
him to the lions, which he had escaped as a Roman
citizen. Would Paul have responded to the call of
Rome to fight? That would depend on the issue. He
would have opposed a war of conquest and pillage.
Most of the soldiers were mercenaries anyhow. They
were hired to fight, and did not always express na
tional convictions or the will of the people. In a war
of defense, Paul would have been ready to "do< his
bit," I believe. He spoke kindly of soldiers, and used
them as illustrations of service for Christ. "Suffer
hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs
of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him
as a soldier" (2 Tifn. 2:3f.). IV
And Paul was most of all a Christian. We may be
sure that with Paul Christ was Lord and Master. He
would not subordinate service to Christ to Caesar, let
alone to Greek philosophy, to Tarsus, or to Judaism.
Paul saw the issue coming between Christ and Caesar.
The papyri and inscriptions give abundant evidence of
the use of the phrase "Lord Caesar." We know that
the offer of life was made to Polycarp if he would
only say, "Lord Caesar" ; but he steadily refused, and
said, "Lord Jesus." So he went to death rather

90 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
than recant. We know how Paul felt about it. "No
one can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit"
(i Cor. 12:3). This was the spirit of the martyrs
who were slain for the word of God (Rev. 6:9) at
the hand of Roman emperors. Paul met that fate at
the hand of Nero rather than renounce the Lord Jesus.
Ten thousand Chinese Christians laid down their lives
at the feet of Jesus rather than renounce him at the
demand of the Boxer leaders and the Empress Dow
ager. So then, with Paul patriotism is not the highest
virtue, though it is very high. Loyalty to one's land
is secondary to loyalty to one's God. To be sure,
it is high treason or rebellion to refuse to obey the
command of one's government. One who takes that
position must be willing to pay the price. That price
is one's life. But the price is not too high when the
alternative is to disobey the clear will of God. "But
Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether
it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
rather than unto God, judge ye: for we cannot but
speak the things which we saw and heard" (Acts
4:i9f.). No Christian should have blind patriotism.
Christ is above Caesar. This does not mean that the
Church is above the State. Christ is more than the
State, more than the Church. One of the blessings
of free government, of the people, by the people, for
the people, is precisely this: that the alternative be
tween Christ and the State is avoided. Certainly,
if there is a solid body of Christian citizens in a free
commonwealth, it will be avoided. The men who are
citizens of heaven, a colony of heaven on earth (Phil.
3:20), will not so far forget themselves as to rush

PAUL AND PATRIOTISM 91
into war contrary to the clear spirit of Christ. Chris
tian citizens, if allowed to rule, wish peace if it is
possible to have it and be true to other high obligations
(Rom. 12:18). But Paul was not a peace-at-any-
price man. His teaching justifies the "League to
Enforce Peace." His gospel is the gospel of courage
that calls upon all soldiers of Christ to put on the
panoply of God, and to withstand in the evil day
against the world-rulers of this darkness (Eph.
6:10-16).

CHAPTER VIII
PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP
The marvel of Paul is that, after these nineteen
centuries of Christian history, he is still pre-eminent,
next to the Lord Jesus himself, in all matters con
cerning the principles of Christianity. Aristotle still
reigns in the rules of thought, for he practised both
the inductive and the deductive methods of reasoning.
Ramsay has a masterful chapter on "The Statesman
ship of Paul" (pp. 49-100) in his Pauline and Other
Studies in which he concentrates "attention on the
work of Paul as a social influence on the Roman
world" (p. 50). Paul was a negligible quantity in
the imperial policy of the Caesars and in the social
philosophy of Seneca. But influence is not a matter
of reputation. Power is gauged by the forces re
leased that energize life and mould destiny whatever
the superficial opinion of the moment may be. We are
not to think that Paul deliberately planned to co
operate with Caesar and Seneca in the social rejuvena
tion of the Empire. But one can get the right per
spective at this distance. Ramsay has a pertinent
paragraph: "Of all the men of the first century, in
comparably the most influential was the apostle Paul.
No other man exercised anything like so much power
as he did in moulding the future of the Empire.
92

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 93
Among the Imperial ministers of the period there
appeared none that had any claim to the name of
statesman except Seneca; and Seneca fell as far short
of Paul in practical influence and intellectual insight
as he did in moral character."
A good deal can be said for the position of Paul
as a great reconstructive force in the life of the Roman
Empire. He worked along the lines that tended toward
the uplift of the masses and the unity of sentiment
that made for strength and the highest development
of the Empire. Paul stood for the spiritual principle
in religion and showed how Jew and Greek could
work together in one spiritual commonwealth of free
dom and progress. This spiritual commonwealth of
Paul gave hope to Roman life. He combined in him
self Jew, Greek, and Christian. He gave the Roman
Empire the religious bond that held it together. So
Ramsay sums up his case for the supreme statesman
ship of Paul. "Had it not been for Paul — if one
may guess at what might have been — no man would
now remember Roman and Greek civilization. Bar
barism proved too powerful for the Graeco-Roman
civilization unaided by the new religious bond; and
every channel through which that civilization was pre
served, or interest in it maintained, either is now or
has been in some essential part of its course Chris
tian after the Pauline form." Startling as this con
clusion is one must admit the force of its appeal to
facts. But all that lay rather in the realm of the uncon
scious greatness of Paul's career. He was not by
profession a statesman in the political sphere, though

94 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Paul was proud of his Roman citizenship and taught
obedience to the laws of the Empire (Rom. 13:1-7).
Paul was at times apprehensive of a conflict between
the Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of Caesar,
for he saw in the Emperor worship the worship of a
man in the place of God (2 Thess. 2 :3-io). In Thes
salonica he had probably drawn the picture of the
man of sin who set himself up in the place of God and
as a rival to Jesus as Lord. In Thessalonica Paul
was accused by the Jews of "saying that there is an
other king, one Jesus" (Acts 17:7). What is cer
tain is that Paul longed to spread the Kingdom of
Christ throughout the Roman Empire. The imperial
ism of Rome gave Paul a vision of the imperialism of
Christ. So he early began to plan to capture the
Empire for Christ, province by province. By and by
Rome enters into his definite plans: "Paul purposed
in spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and
Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, "After I have
been there, I must also see Rome" (Acts 19:21).
This is while Paul is in Ephesus where he spent three
years during the third missionary campaign. The
work in Ephesus was heavy and spread through the
province of Asia (Acts 19:14). There were troubles
in Corinth with which church Paul was in constant
communication by messenger and letter. Timothy had
just returned and had been sent on to Macedonia while
Titus was still absent in Corinth. But Paul is con
ducting a great collection for the poor saints in Jeru
salem from the churches in Asia, Galatia, Achaia, and
Macedonia. The shadow of a schism between Jewish
and Gentile Christianity was on the horizon because

PAUL'S MISSIONARY" STATESMANSHIP 95
of the activity of the Judaizers. Paul hoped to avert
this peril to the cause of Christ by the mollifying
influence of the collection and by the effect of his
presence in Jerusalem with James as the Jerusalem
Conference had averted it once before. But Paul's eye
is on Rome at the same time. He wishes to use Rome
as a platform for proclaiming the gospel to all the
world. He had often planned to go to Rome (Rom.
i :i3). But Paul sees Spain beyond Rome as a goal
for the gospel ( Rom. 1 5 :24, 28) . The plan to go to
Rome became a master passion of his life. It was
carried out as part of Christ's plan for Paul in spite
of every obstacle (Acts 23:11; 27:24; 28:14). So
then we see that Paul was a missionary statesman with
a statesman's grasp of his problem. He worked, each
field as if that were all that was to be done, and yet
all the time he kept his eye on the wider outlook of
the Kingdom of God and related the particular to the
general, the part to the whole.
Paul had a high opinion of the dignity of his task.
He felt himself an apostle on a par with the Twelve
Apostles. He had received his commission directly
from Jesus and not from any man. He was the chosen
vessel of Christ to carry the gospel to the Gentiles
(Acts 9:15; 26:17-20). Paul was proud of this spe
cial charge to win the Gentiles to Christ ( Gal. 2 :g ;
Eph. 3 :i) : "Unto me, who am less than the least of
all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the
Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph.
3 :8). This was Paul's special sphere of service (Rom.
15:16-18), "making it my aim so' to preach the gos
pel, not where Christ was already named, that I might

96 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
not build upon another man's foundation" (Rom.
15:20). Paul looked upon himself as the ambassador
of God to the world in behalf of Christ (2 Cor. 5 :2o).
He was heaven's commissioner to earth to treat of
peace. He was on a par with kings and potentates.
Paul was afraid of no man. The ambassador must
be persona grata in two circles, the government that
he represented and that to which he goes. Paul had
power with Christ at the throne of God. He won
power for Christ wherever he went. He did not, when
in Rome, do as Rome did. The rather in Rome he
felt himself a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven whence
he waited for the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3 :2o). But
Paul had no apology to offer anywhere for his service
for Jesus Christ.
Paul had passionate loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord
and Saviour. We do not here give the proof that
Paul worshipped Jesus as the Second Person in the
Trinity. But no one can understand Paul who fails
to see that he went far beyond a metaphysical theory
of the Trinity. Jesus was the passion of his life
(Phil. 1:21) and to know Christ in his power and
glory was the goal of his ambition (Phil. 3:10-14).
He had no doubt about the correctness of his "under
standing in the mystery of Christ" (Eph. 3:4),
though the love of Christ passes all knowledge (Eph.
3 :i8). Paul had small patience with the shallow mind
that imagined it had pierced the depths of the wis
dom and the knowledge of God (Rom. 11:33-36).
But he could not doubt the reality of the mastery of
his own life by Christ that made his will subservient
to that of Christ (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 10:5). It is

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 97
clear that Paul made Christ central in his theology
and in his, preaching as Lord of all creation, of life
and death, the hope of eternal life, the Saviour from
sin, the Crucified and Risen Lord (i Cor. i :i7; 2:2;
Gal. 6:14; Col. 1:13-22; 1 Cor. 15:3-9; 2 Cor.
5:14-19; 1 Tim. 2:5). Paul could not have written
of a mere man what he has written in Phil. 2:85-11.
The love that Christ has for Paul and for all men is
the regulating force of his life. It holds him to
gether 1 (2 Cor. 5 :i4) and keeps him to his task
when tempted to give it up. Every missionary needs
this overpowering experience of Christ's love for sin
ners that will keep him on the track in the midst of
an unsympathetic environment when men clamor for
philosophy, culture, new thought, the old ethnic faiths,
social service as a substitute for Christ. Nowhere is
the Cross of Christ so imperative as in the mission
ary's life and preaching. Without this he will have
no message and no mission. He will have no power
and his ministry will be barren of results. With
Paul Christianity was not a mere phase of religious
thought in the current thought-forms of the first cen
tury A. D. to give way ere long to other developments
of the religious interest or to new discoveries in
science and philosophy. With Paul Jesus Christ is
the mystery of God revealed at last in the Incarnation
and the Cross and the Resurrection and the climax
of God's own wisdom, the perpetual challenge of the
human intellect and the joy of the soul of man (1 Cor.
2:6-10; Rom. 16:25-27).
* avv't\u

98 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Paul has a passionate love for his own people.1
In writing for the Gentiles Paul had not come to
hate the Jews. They misunderstood him and perse
cuted him as a turncoat and a renegade as a perverter
of the customs of the Jewish fathers. Paul knew the
"price that he would have to pay for his zeal for Christ
and for the Gentiles. They tried to kill him in Damas
cus when he proved that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah
(Acts 9:23). Christians and Jews alike in Jerusalem
held aloof from Paul at first after his conversion (Acts
9:26-30; 22:17-21). The Jews dogged his steps in
Paphos (Acts 13:6), in Antioch in Pisidia (13:45), in
Iconium (14.5), in Lystra (14-19), in Thessalonica
(17:5), in Corinth (18:6, 12), in Jerusalem (21:20,
27, etc.). They tried to kill Paul time after time,
but he loved them as his very life and was willing, if
it were proper, to be anathema from ,Christ for the
sake of his Jewish people (Rom. 9:1-5). The rejec
tion of Christ by the Jews broke Paul's heart, but
not his love for them nor his faith in God's love for
them nor his hope in good for them somehow in the
end (Rom. 9:-n). And Paul claimed the Gentile
converts as part of the spiritual Israel, the children of
Abraham by faith (Rom. 9:6; Gal. 3:7). So Paul
prayed for the Jews at the very time that they were
turning away from Christ, their only hope (Rom.
10:1-4). The pathos of Paul's love for the Jews is
shown in his warning of Gentile Christians by the
parable of the wild olive branch stuck into the spiritual
stock of true Israel contrary to nature (Rom. 11 :u-

1 See Chapter VII, Paul and Patriotism.

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 99
24). And yet Paul's love for the Jews did not shut his
eyes to the stubborn fact of their refusal to follow
Christ. But Paul made a plea for forbearance with the
Jew and for not giving them up. It would have broken
Paul's heart beyond measure if he could have known
how the middle wall of hatred between Jew and Gen
tile that Christ had broken down by the blood of his
Cross by making both Jew and Gentile love each other
by loving God in Christ (Eph. 2) would rise again
between Jew and Christian. The medieval misunder
standing in Europe between Christian and Jew lives
on to-day in many parts of the world. Paul's passion
for the Jews should reenforce the tears of Jesus over
Jerusalem as a protest against present-day hatred be
tween Christian and Jew.
Paul was not always understood by the Jewish
Christians. Some of them, the Judaizers, charged that
Paul was trying to make the Jews become Gentiles be
cause he refused to make Gentiles become Jews.
Against them Paul set himself with tremendous power
and saved Christianity from becoming merely a form
of Pharisaic Judaism instead of the true Judaism, that
of the heart, the spiritual Israel. Paul was in the posi
tion of a missionary who is misunderstood by many of
the people at home, who fail to sympathize with his
mission abroad, who do not help his work, and who
actually try to hinder his work (Gal. 1 :6-io; 4:12-20;
5 :y; 6:10; 2 Cor. 11 :i-29). But he kept to his work.
He always preached to the Jews in their synagogues as
long as they would allow him to do so. These Jewish
synagogues scattered over the world were nuclei for
the spread of the gospel. There were numerous God-

100 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
fearers from among the Gentiles, like Cornelius in
Caesarea, who were predisposed to hear the gospel of
grace. These Gentiles whom the Jews had already in
terested in the worship of God were a bridge by which
Paul crossed over to the real heathen. One must bear
in mind that the hard words of Jesus about proselytes
and Pharisaism ( Matt. 23:15) do not apply to all the
converts to Judaism itself.
But Paul had a deep and commanding love for the
whole race. Christ had broken down the middle wall
of partition for him. He was debtor both to the Greeks
and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the fool
ish (Rom. 1 :i4). He recognized that the gospel came
to the Jew first (Rom. 1:16; 2:10), but it did not
stop with the Jew. The penalty came to the Jew first
also (Rom. 2:9) as well as the privilege. That is
always the peril of privilege. But the door of grace
and of faith stood wide open to the Gentiles (Acts
14 :27). That door has never been closed and it never
will be. It is not easy for us to-day to understand the
courage that Paul displayed, when in the midst of the
Areopagus of Athens, Paul put Gentile and Jew on a
par as alike the offspring of God (Acts 17:28). The
prophets had included the Gentiles in the promises of
God (Rom. 9 :24~3o). The Jews had overlooked Hosea
and Isaiah, but it is all there. Race prejudice in Paul
was slain by Christ: "There can be neither Jew nor
Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can
be no male and female : for ye are all one man in Christ
Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). That was the ideal of humanity
in Christ as Paul saw it. It is still the goal of Chris
tianity, but the battle with race prejudice, with class

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 101
prejudice, and with sex prejudice is not so nearly over
as I thought in The New Citizenship (1918). But it
will come. Paul fought for the freedom of the race
in Christ (Gal. 5). "For freedom did Christ set us
free." So Paul answered the Macedonian cry and the
world cry. The nations had turned away from God
and deserved the abandonment that had come to them
(Rom. 1:2), the terrible tragedy of sin that meets
one in China or Japan or India to-day. But these
very nations are groping in the dark after God if haply
they may feel after him and find him (Acts 17:27).
And Paul went out to bear the torch to those that sit
in darkness and that yearn for the dawn of the day
that is so long in coming.
But with all of Paul's love for men he was not
willing to compromise the gospel of grace to win easy
converts.1 It is easy to follow the currents of thought
and of prejudice, to go with the tide. Paul found
that the preaching of the Cross was a stumbling-block
to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks (1 Cor.
1:17-31). The Jews had no room for the Cross in
their system of rites and ceremonies. The Athenian
philosophers had laughed Paul out of Athens (Acts
17). But all the same in Corinth he was going to stick
to the Cross of Christ as the only hope of men ( 1 Cor.
2:1-5). The Corinthians would like a dash of phil-(
osophic new thought without the spiritual and ethical
agony involved in the life of the Cross. Paul had not
had an easy time. The Judaizers hounded his steps
and beclouded his message and befogged his converts.

1 See Chapter VI, PauVs Ecclesiastical Independence.

102 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Paul had to fight off these enemies of the Cross among
the preachers of so-called Christianity. Gnostics came
to complicate matters still more by subtle philosophiz
ing and the veneer of learning. These won many con
verts and did much to imperil the gospel of grace as is
shown by Paul's Epistles to the Colossians, the
Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles. But at the risk
of schism Paul opposed both Judaizers and Gnostics
as false brethren who were overturning the faith of
their followers. With Paul loyalty to Christ was more
important than outward union. Paul's attitude is in
contrast to much sentimental talk to-day. Disunion is
not an advantage per se, but organic union is a curse
if it can only come at the cost of loyalty to the Cross
of Christ. We should all search our hearts and be
sure that we have the mind of Christ in what we
teach. If we are sure of that, like Paul and like
Luther, we can do no other. And we ought to do no
other till we see differently, else we commit intellectual
and moral harikari. There is an element of truth in
the so-called indigenous Christianity, provided it is
real Christianity. If one does not know what Chris
tianity is, he is not fit to teach abroad or at home,
certainly not as a missionary.
But Paul was in matters of detail the most yield
ing of men. "I am become all things to all men, that
I may by all means save some" (i Cor. 9:22). He
was suaviter in modo, fortiter in re. Many a man
has been fortiter in modo as well as in re and, as a
result, he has lost in re. To be suaviter in re may
mean, likewise, to lose in re by giving up the heart of
the matter. Paul walked softly, as Roosevelt urged,.

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 103
and carried a big stick in matters of principle. One
has to know when to give in and when to stand firm.
The same man who stood like a rock against the cir-
cumcism of Titus, a Greek, had Timothy, half Jew and
half Greek, circumcized to allay Jewish prejudices and
to open the door for his ministry. Paul fought the
Judaizers to a finish for Gentile liberty and yet him
self offered sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem to
allay Jewish distrust. He battled ever against the
ceremonial and the moral law as a means of salvation
and yet was perfectly willing for Jewish Christians to
observe the Mosaic ritual if they wished to do so.
He knew that the meat offered to idols was not ac
tually contaminated thereby and yet he was willing
to abstain from eating it if Jewish and Gentile breth
ren were made to stumble thereby (i Cor. 8-10). He
claimed the right to pay for his services as preacher,
but refused to receive money from those who would
misunderstand his doing so ( 1 Cor. 9 and 2 Cor. 11).
He spoke in sympathy with Greek culture in the Are
opagus (Acts 17), but did not scruple to claim his
Pharisaic affiliations before the Sanhedrin (Acts 23).
He would go as far to win Greeks, Romans, or Jews
aS he could without sacrifice of principle. Paul un
derstood the standpoint of his hearers, but he was not
afraid to make Felix tremble for his sins (Acts
24:25). One must know how to give and take if he
is to get things done.
Paul planted the gospel in strategic centers in the
Roman Empire, the great cities of the leading prov
inces. He tapped the great avenues of travel, the
highways of civilization, the wonderful Roman roads

104 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
that ran east and west, north and south. These cities
were linked together by the arteries along which com
merce flowed. It is small wonder that Ramsay calls
one of his books St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman
Citizen. He was a drummer for Christ who knew
where to go and how to present his cause. He would
begin where he could get a foothold, where there was
a chance to put in an entering wedge as in Cyprus with
the influence of Barnabas. He used the Jews when
ever he could as a starting-point. He would win men
and women of influence, if he could, as Sergius Paulus
at Salamis in Cyprus and "the chief women" in Thes
salonica. But he had most success with the common
people in Corinth ( i Cor. i :26-3 1 ) as elsewhere. Paul
was not ashamed to win slaves to Christ and to call
himself a slave of Jesus Christ. In his letters he ad
dressed special paragraphs to< the Christian slaves who
found in Christianity the one ray of hope in a dark
ened world.
Paul would push on to harder fields, but he held
what he had won. He was thoroughly evangelistic,
but he sought to establish firmly the work before he
left it. He was not afraid of Perga in Pamphylia with
its pirates and mosquitoes nor of Pisidia with its perils
of rivers and of robbers. Paul knew when to leave a
field and when to make a stand. Sometimes he left
under compulsion as from Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium,
Lystra, Philippi, Thessalonica. Sometimes he left un
der the impulse of a call elsewhere as from Troas to
Macedonia. But Paul always had the whole field on
his heart, the anxiety for all the churches (2 Cor.
1 1 :28) , wherever he was. So he had native pastors

PAUL'S MISSIONARY STATESMANSHIP 105
appointed to carry on the work when he was gone. He
sent messengers with letters of instruction and en
couragement. He tried to build up the character of
those already saved as he pushed the work on to harder
and wider fields. Timothy and Titus are but two of
many who helped Paul lengthen the cords and
strengthen the stakes for Christ all over the Roman
Empire. When he was in prison, he was still the
leader of the hosts of God. His energy was unceas
ing. Paul met persecution with wisdom and with cour
age. He did not court opposition. He was not seek
ing the martyr's crown. He left Antioch in Pisidia
before attack was made, but in Lystra he waited for
the actual onset. But Paul pushed his propaganda
for Christ with the vision of victory. He would lose
a battle and win a campaign. He had no thought of
surrender or of ceasing his work. He was helped by
some, hindered by others, left alone by still more. It
mattered not. The Lord Jesus always stood by his
side. He was always sure of that. Sometimes at
critical moments he had a vision of the Lord who
cheered him on to fidelity. At the very end the Lord
Jesus stood by Paul and strengthened him (2 Tim.
4:17) so that he despised Nero and his lions. Undis
mayed, he looked on suffering for Christ as a gift of
grace and a mark of glory. Death to him was but the
ushering in of Christ with whom he would forever
more be at home. That is the spirit of Jesus that
mastered Paul and that will conquer the world if mis
sionaries at home and abroad carry on as Paul did,
Paul the Master Missionary Statesman of the Ages.

CHAPTER IX
PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS
Paul was converted when a young rabbi, a grad
uate of the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, and he
knew by bitter experience what it was to be a young
minister in a hostile environment. The call to preach
and to work among the Gentiles came at the time of
his conversion or at least was made plain to Paul a
few days afterwards in Damascus. We do not know
the age of Paul at this time, but it was not long after
the death of Stephen when he was called "a young man
named Saul" (Acts 7:58). He was almost certainly
not over thirty-five, probably several years younger.
He was a man of parts and of the schools and already
the leader of current Judaism when he suddenly en
listed under the banner of Jesus Christ whose cause
he had sought to destroy. On Paul's return from
Arabia and Damascus to Jerusalem, he was the ob
ject of suspicion and distrust by the disciples there till
Barnabas stood sponsor for the sincerity of the new
convert, the quondam wolf that now appeared as a
sheep in the fold (Acts 9:26-28). It is clear that
Paul never forgot this generous act on the part of
Barnabas and it made him only too glad to join
hands with him at a later time in the work in Antioch
106

PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS 107
(Acts 11:25) that led to the great campaign among
the Gentiles (13:1-3). It is undoubtedly true that
Paul's keen interest in younger preachers had this
touch of personal experience. Barnabas had be
friended Paul. In his turn Paul gave the helping hand
to other younger servants of Christ. To be sure, when
he was Paul the aged, he saw in the younger min
istry the hope of the future. His plans and his pur
poses centered largely in their training as is plain in
the Pastoral Epistles. Looked at from this standpoint
much of the criticism of the genuineness of the Pas
toral Epistles is beside the point.
But Paul's interest is at first personal, not ecclesias
tical and doctrinal. He soon began a search for young
men who showed signs of usefulness in the work for
Christ. There is no phase of the minister's work that
offers a richer reward than the discovery of young
men whom the Lord can use in the Kingdom. Many
of them are diamonds in the rough, but they will
take polish and gain lustre and retain hardness if the
real diamond. One must be on his guard not to do
the calling himself instead of God. It requires wis
dom and insight to be able to see the marks of the
Spirit of God in the raw and callous young man who
is struggling with his destiny. Paul had the gift in
marvellous fashion. He was not equally fortunate in
all his "finds," for men differ and always will. But-
it is a rich vein to work in Paul's career to search
for his points of contact with the multitude of fellow-
workers who co-operated with him. The evidence is
very slight in many cases, but in some we can trace
Paul's steps a good deal of the way. It will pay us

108 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
to see Paul at work with the young ministers whom
he gathered round him from time to time.
In the case of John Mark it seems clear that he
was a protege of Barnabas, his cousin, who per
suaded Paul to let him go along in the first tour "as
their attendant" (Acts 13 :5), whatever that may mean
(see my "Making Good in the Ministry: A Sketch"
of John Mark"). Paul figures in the life of this
young preacher as the candid critic who will not con
done his grievous blunder at Perga when he refused
to go on with the mission and went back to Jerusalem
(Acts 13 :i3). Paul utterly refused to have Mark go
again with them in the second tour even though the
refusal led to a break with Barnabas (Acts 15 :36-4i).
At first Paul seems to appear in an unfavorable light
in this stern refusal to give Mark a second chance.
But the time came when Paul saw that Mark had made
good. Then Paul rejoiced in his success and in the
end found Mark useful to him for ministering (2 Tim.
4:11), possibly while a prisoner in Rome for the first
time (Col. 4:10) when he may even have read Mark's
Gospel. At any rate Paul wished Timothy to bring
Mark with him to be with Paul in the last days of his
life on earth. Some young ministers cannot stand
criticism, however just it may be and however need
ful. Time vindicated the wisdom of Paul's stand
about Mark. It brought Mark face to face with his
crisis and he responded to the wise guidance of Barna
bas and came to be Peter's interpreter. His Gospel re
veals the marks of his life with Peter (see my Studies
in Mark's Gospel) and shows that Mark had in him
the making of a man that was worth while. It is not

PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS 109
saying too much to add that P'aul did Mark a good
turn when he was unwilling to gloss over his conduct
at Perga. Mark learned the lesson of Perga as many
a minister who has made a mistake and has come
back. Peter could cheer Mark by his own experience.
Certainly Mark's final success gladdened Paul's heart.
Nothing brightens a teacher's heart more than to' see
a young man learn from his mistakes to correct them
and to make them stepping stones to service and to
greatness of character.
Titus was Paul's own discovery and one of the
jewels found in the first campaign, if not in Antioch
before. He was a pure Greek, but we do not know
the place of his abode. There is some likelihood that
he was a brother of Luke (2 Cor. 8:16; 12:18) and
for this reason he is not mentioned by name in the
Acts as Luke himself is not. Paul apparently had
him with him before the Jerusalem Conference, for
he took him along and his presence gave great offence
to the Judaizers there. Paul refused to allow Titus
to be circumcised at the demand of the Judaizers for
the sake of harmony (Gal. 2:3). If Paul surrendered
about Titus, it was useless to pass resolutions of free
dom for the other Gentiles. Titus summed up the
whole issue. Titus himself proved to be a man of
great ability, resourcefulness and courage and fully
justified the fight for his spiritual freedom made by
Paul. At the height of the troubles in Corinth Paul
sent Titus who brought the majority of the church
to Paul's view of things. As a result Paul called Titus
"my partner and my fellow-worker" (2 Cor. 8:23).
Titus "comforted" Paul greatly about Corinth (2 Cor.

110 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
7:6) and Paul sent him back to finish the collection
and the work of readjustment. Titus was a strong
staff of support for Paul in his old age. Paul left
him in Crete "to set in order the things that were
wanting" there (Titus 1:5) and then wrote him a
brief Epistle that is full of nuggets of wisdom for the
preacher. The advice given to Titus applies to the
problems of the preacher to-day. The only solvent
for social ills is the gospel of Christ and the preacher
plays a great part in all social reconstruction. Paul
was proud of "Titus, my true child after a common
faith" (Tit. 1 14.). The minister who has spiritual
"sons in the gospel" is rich beyond measure. Titus
was with Paul near the end, but was sent to Dalmatia
(2 Tim. 4:10). Paul found delight in the prowess of
this gifted young preacher.
Timothy was apparently one of Paul's converts on
the first tour and was already at work in Lystra when
Paul came back on the second tour. He had a good
reputation among the brethren in Lystra and Iconium.
Paul had lost Mark. Silas took the place of Bar
nabas. So Paul picked out Timothy to go forth with
him (Acts 16:1-3). He caught Paul's eye and won
his heart. Unfortunately he was half Greek and half
Jew and would be continually provoking controversy
as to whether he was Jew or Greek. So as a matter
of prudence Paul had him circumcised. Timothy was
with Paul during this second tour and shared Paul's
travels and difficulties with courage and loyalty. He
was ready to fit into Paul's plans in whatever way Paul
desired. He was left behind with Luke in Philippi
and then reappeared in Bercea (Acts 17:14) and prob-

PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS 111
ably in Thessalonica (Phil. 4:15-16). He went to
Athens to see Paul and was sent back to Thessalonica
(Acts 17:15; 1 Thess. 3:1-2). He later came with
Silas to Corinth with news and gifts from Thessalonica
and Philippi (Acts 18:5; 2 Cor. 11:9). He was
with Paul in Ephesus in the third tour and was sent
by him to Corinth to settle the trouble there, but the
Judaziers seem to have overawed him (1 Cor. 4:17;
16:10-11). So Timothy returned to Ephesus and was
sent on to Macedonia (Acts 19:22) while Titus went
to Corinth to grapple with the Judaizers. Timothy
was with Paul later in Macedonia (2 Cor. 1:1) and
in Corinth and on the journey to Asia (Acts 20:4).
He was Paul's chief reliance during the first Roman
imprisonment, second only to Luke, and apparently
present more constantly than Luke (Phil. 2:19-23).
Timothy stood the test of time and nothing seemed
ever to mar Paul's love for him. He was not always
in vigorous health ( 1 Tim. 5 123 ) . Paul gave him
particular advice about exercise and health and diet.
"Let no man despise thy youth" (1 Tim. 4:12). The
two Epistles that Paul wrote to Timothy while he
was in charge of the work in Ephesus cover almost
every aspect of the young minister's life and work.
Paul touches on Timothy's pious ancestry and prophe
cies made concerning his future usefulness. He must
not disappoint these hopes. He must pay attention to
reading and the scholarly side of his work. He must
exercise leadership in the church work. He must
train teachers who will carry on the work with suc
cess and power. He must preserve the pure gospel at
a time when men had itching ears for heresy. He

112 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
must be faithful to all classes and not fear to speak
plainly to the rich. He must be careful for his own
spiritual growth and not fall into any of the many
snares that the devil had set for young preachers
(money, conceit, flattery, women, idleness). Paul
called Timothy "true child in the faith" (Tim. 1 :2) and
he wanted him by his side when the end came (2 Tim.
4:11, 21). He apparently came and got arrested for
doing so, for he was afterwards released (Heb.
13:23). Timothy loved Paul and proved worthy of
his trust. "O Timothy, guard the deposit" (1 Tim.
6:20) which God had put into his care and keeping.
In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus Paul proves him
self to be the greatest teacher of preachers of all
time, after Christ himself. The fiery ardor of 2 Cor
inthians and Galatians has burned lower as is natural
with age, but the Pauline wisdom is here. The style
is more discursive and circumstantial details concern
the great master of principles, but they do not con
ceal the great heart of Paul the aged preacher in his
deep concern for the progress of his younger brethren,
that this progress may be manifest to all (1 Tim.
4:15). What a joy it was to Paul to see the prowess
of Timothy under the tutelage of the Spirit of God.
Apollos cannot be called one of Paul's sons in the
gospel, but he touched Paul's life and work in im
portant ways and he drew forth Paul's sincere admi
ration and love at a time when some expected him to
show jealousy and resentment. Apollos was a bril
liant specimen of Alexandrian training in philosophy
and general Greek culture who at first knew Jesus
only as the Baptist did, but he was a powerful preacher

PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS 113
even with this serious handicap (Acts 18:24-28). He
responded quickly to the tutelage of Priscilla and
Aquila and went with letters of commendation to Cor
inth where Paul had labored for two years. The con
trast between Apollos and Paul was quite marked and
soon each had his partisans, though neither desired
such a situation. Finally partisanship went to such a
pitch that Apollos left and would not return (1 Cor.
16:12). Paul discusses the whole unfortunate situ
ation in a masterly passage that is a model for min
isters over whom a church has become divided ( 1 Cor.
1-4). Paul exonerates Apollos from any blame and
glories in the great gifts of this brilliant young min
ister and shows how each has his gifts from God
to whom all the glory belongs. Paul is sensitive lest
the Corinthians may think that he is courting their
favor and makes it plain that the minister is the
steward of the mysteries of God who< alone can give
the praise that really matters (1 Cor. 4:1-5). So
Paul uses Apollos and himself as a foil to reveal the
narrow partisanship of the Corinthians and to shame
them out of it all (1 Cor. 4:6-13). No man ever re
joiced more in the great gifts of other preachers than
did Paul. Certain it is that Apollos learned much
from Paul, especially if he is the author of the won
derful Epistle to the Hebrews which contains so much
that is Pauline in conception, although almost cer
tainly not from the pen of Paul himself. Paul later
alludes to Apollos in a way that shows the utmost
cordiality, if not the fact that Apollos was one of
Paul's messengers to Titus in Crete (Tit. 3:13).
Silas was Paul's chosen companion for the second

114 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
tour after the break with Barnabas (Acts 15 40). He
was a prophet (15:32) and one of the bearers of the
Jerusalem Epistle to Ephesus to the Gentile Christians
concerning their freedom from Jewish ceremonialism
(15:27). He was loyal to Paul through this tour,
shared Paul's imprisonment in Philippi and was in
Thessalonica and Bercea with him and came with
Timothy to Paul in Corinth. And then he drops out
from Paul's company so far as we know. The reason
is all conjecture. Silas was probably older than Tim
othy and Titus and nearer Paul's own age. It is
probable that he reappears with Peter as the amanuen
sis of Peter in writing the First Epistle (1 Pet. 5 :i2).
If so, he is in company with Peter and Mark. It may
be suggested that Paul and Silas had a difference as
was true of Barnabas and Paul. That, of course, is
possible, but hardly likely. It is more probable that
Paul in the third tour simply preferred younger men
who more readily did the subordinate work and did
not really need Silas who had other work of his own
to do.
We may group together a bunch of Paul's helpers
and co-workers of whom we catch only glimpses as
they pass, snapshots taken in action. One of these is
Trophimus of Asia (Acts 20:4), one of the mes
sengers sent along with Paul to Jerusalem to bear the
collection for the poor saints there. He was the inno
cent occasion of bringing great misfortune on Paul.
Like Titus, he was a Greek. Some of the Jews of
Asia saw Paul walking with Trophimus in Jerusalem
(Acts 21 :29) and "supposed" that he had also taken
Trophimus with him into the temple beyond the court

PAUL'S INTEREST IN YOUNG MINISTERS 115
of the Gentiles, for they saw Paul there. They raised
a hue and cry and accused Paul of all sorts of crimes
that kept him a prisoner in Caesarea and Rome for
five years before freedom came. Hate and a heated
imagination do not require facts, but only an occa
sion. But Trophimus was in no way responsible for
it all. Much later Paul left him at Miletus sick (2
Tim. 4 :2o) and Paul was concerned about him at the
end. Tychicus was another messenger from Asia with
Trophimus (Acts 21:4), but it is not certain that he
went on to Jerusalem. However, he was in Rome and
was one of the bearers of the Epistle to the Colossians
(4:7) and that to the Ephesians (6:21). He was
with Paul again in the second Roman imprisonment
and was sent by Paul to Ephesus on some errand of
importance (2 Tim. 4:12).
Aristarchus had been seized along with Gaius by
the mob in Ephesus as a companion of Paul (Acts
19:29). He was one of the Thessalonian messengers
with Paul to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4). Later he was
Paul's companion with Luke on the voyage to Rome
(Acts 27:2), possibly, as Ramsay suggests, enrolling
as Paul's slave so as to get on the ship. He was with
Paul in Rome when he wrote to Philemon (23) and
Paul calls him his "fellow-prisoner" (Col. 4:10).
There are others, like Erastus (Acts 19:22; 2 Tim.
4:20) who are more like silhouettes on the horizon.
We cannot say that these counted for little or for
nothing in Paul's life because of the bare mention of
their names in the long and honorable list in Romans
16. And even in that list there are many whose

116 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
names are not given. They figure only as "the breth
ren." History is whimsical in its preservation of
names and even of facts. It is certainly likely that
Paul had many fellow workers who wrought as nobly
as some of those whose names and deeds are pre
served to us. They won Paul's love and that of Paul's
Lord and they have received their due reward. But
it is hard to think of one who ever gathered round
him a nobler group of fellow-workers, both men and
women, like Priscilla and Aquila with whom Paul
dwelt in Corinth (Acts 18:2) and who risked their
very lives for Paul (Rom. 16:4) as did Epaphroditus
(Phil. 2:30). Paul had the keenest interest in people
and had no lack of friends who were ready to share
with him suffering and even death like Onesiphorus
(2 Tim. 1:16-18).
But there were false friends who left Paul in a
pinch like Demas who "loved this present world" (2
Tim. 4:10) and Alexander the coppersmith who did
him much evil (4:14). And there were some like
Phygelus and Hermogenes who turned away from
Paul now a prisoner in Rome (2 Tim. 1:15). Paul
knew the bitterness of "false brethren" (2 Cor. 11 :26)
as well as the joy of devotion to the death.

CHAPTER X
PAUL'S PREACHING IN THESSALONICA
It is not always proper for a preacher to speak
frankly about his own preaching. He is almost cer
tain to be accused of egotism. Even a teacher of
young preachers has to be chary of personal allusions,
rich as his experiences are and helpful to them. When
a preacher is under fire he may sometimes explain his
methods and motives to those who have been influenced
by the attacks. But even then the minister feels a
natural embarrassment and is open to counter-attack.
As a rule, silence and right living is the best answer
to traducers, "that by well-doing ye should put to
silence the ignorance of foolish men" (i Pet. 2:15).
Paul broke his silence under the attacks in Corinth
in order to show that he and Apollos were both free
from blame in the schism and strife that had come
to that church (1 Cor. 1-4). In doing this needed
service Paul takes occasion to set forth the character
of his own preaching of Christ crucified. But Paul
did hold the Judaizers responsible for the trouble in
Corinth and they made serious and specific charges
against Paul's ministerial integrity that he disproves in
detail (2 Cor. 10-13). But in defending himself thus
pointedly Paul felt like a fool and can only do it at all
by a touch of irony to relieve the tension (2 Cor.
117

118 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
11:14-20). But one can almost thank the Judaizers
for indirectly being responsible for Paul's wonderful
panegyric on preaching in 2 Cor. 2:12-6:10 (ex
pounded in my "Glory of the Ministry").
Another bit of autobiography occurs in 1 Thess.
1 and 2 which can be compared with Acts 17:1-9.
The account in Acts mentions only three Sabbath days
on which Paul preached in Thessalonica, but it seems
clear from 1 Thess. .1 and 2 and 2 Thess. 2 and Phil.
4:16 that Paul labored in Thessalonica some months,
probably no longer in the synagogue (cf. Corinth),
Luke probably did not mean to be exhaustive in his
report. But it is extremely interesting to be able to
compare the historical narrative in Acts 1 7 with Paul's
discussion in 1 Thess. 1 and 2. We have a similar
parallel in Luke's account of the work in Corinth
(Acts 18) and Paul's own interpretation of his work
there in 1 Cor. 1-4. In Thessalonica, as in Corinth,
Paul was misunderstood by some. The misunder
standing related to Paul's remarks on the Second Com
ing of Christ. After Paul's departure the misunder
standing grew until Paul was quoted as saying that
Jesus was going to come right away. This Paul
specifically denies. Some one had even tried to palm
off an "epistle" as from Paul supporting this view (2
Thess. 2:1-4). So he gives the token for a genuine
Epistle of his (2 Thess. 3:17). There was really no
excuse for misunderstanding Paul's preaching on this
point. "Remember ye not, that when I was yet with
you, I told you these things?" (2 Thess. 2:5). The
struggle with the Man of Sin was first to come. And
when Jesus does come, he will come as a thief in the

PAUL'S PREACHING IN THESSALONICA 119
night as the Thessalonians knew perfectly well (i
Thess. 5 :2 ) , for he had told them so. Some had be
come so excited that they had quit work and were
mere busy bodies. Here again they were without ex
cuse, for, when Paul was with them, he had com
manded them : "If any will not work, neither let him
eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). It is a poor preacher who is
never misunderstood. Jesus and Paul used plain and
vigorous language, but they were often misunderstood.
People hear only fragments of what we say to them
and that is understood in the light of scraps of other
ideas floating in their heads. So Paul writes two
Epistles to the Thessalonians to make plainer what he
had taught while with them. Thus we get his
biographical remarks on his own preaching in Thessa
lonica that are so rich in suggestion for us to-day. Paul
was the greatest of all preachers 1 and we could wish
that we had more specimens of his preaching like those
fragments preserved in Acts 13, 14, 17, 20, 28, and the
apologies in 22 and 26. But he was able also to give
the elements of great preaching in an incidental way
as we find in 1 Thess. 1 and 2.
Luke tells that Paul's preaching was grounded on
Scripture. In the synagogue "for three Sabbaths"
Paul "reasoned with them from the Scriptures" (Acts
17:2). This was his custom, Luke adds, and he
"opened" the Scriptures as a skilled interpreter
"alleging" three affirmations in regular homiletical
style: (1) "That it behooved the Christ (the Mes
siah) to suffer." This Jesus himself had taught (Luke

1 Cf . Rosser, Paul the Preacher.

120 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
24 :26, 46). (2) That it behooved the Christ "to rise
again from the dead." This great fact Paul knew
by personal experience. He had seen the Risen Jesus.
(3) "And that this Jesus, whom I proclaim unto you,
is the Christ" (the Messiah). This was Paul's funda
mental thesis in his preaching from his conversion. In
Damascus "straightway in the synagogues he pro
claimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God" (Acts 9 :2o).
After his return from Arabia (Gal. 1:17) he "con
founded the Jews that dwelt in Damascus, proving
that this is the Christ" (Acts 9:22). Luke preserves
one of Paul's sermons, that at Antioch in Pisidia, in
which we see the line of argument and the skilful
use of Scripture made by Paul (Acts 13:16-41). It
was so convincing that the multitudes asked that it
be repeated the next Sabbath, when the whole city
came out. Paul was entirely too popular for the en
vious rabbis who interrupted the service (Acts 13:44-
46). Paul's training as a student under Gamaliel stood
him in good stead in his use of Scripture and in meet
ing rabbinical refinements. The points given by Luke
for the discourses at Thessalonica are logical and were
certainly effective, for some of the Jews were won
to Christ and a great multitude of the devout Greeks
(the God-fearers who attended the synagogue) and of
the chief women not a few (Acts 17:4). The result
was inevitable. The rabbis were moved with jealousy
and sought a league with the rabble to put a stop to
Paul's power by raising a riot and getting a political
charge against Paul for preaching Jesus as a rival king
against Caesar (Acts 17:5-9), a curious parallel to the
final charge against Jesus before Pilate. Paul probably

PAUL'S PREACHING IN THESSALONICA 121
did preach Jesus as King and Lord of all and the rabbis
were quick to distort his language. So in Thessalonica
Paul came up sharply against the Man of Sin who set
himself in the place of God (2 Thess. 2). The Roman
Emperor was worshipped here as elsewhere and Paul
proclaimed Jesus as Lord, not Caesar (1 Cor. 12:1-3).
There was this much of truth in the specious charge
which the rabbis knew was not true. They them
selves opposed Caesar worship, but they did not say so.
At any rate Paul had to leave Thessalonica and he
already saw the coming conflict between Christ and
Caesar for the mastery of the world. Ramsay notes
that Paul grew in grasp and prowess as a preacher as
he faced at close quarters the imperial power of Rome.
The thing that Paul emphasizes chiefly about his
preaching in Thessalonica is that he interpreted the
will of God to them in all his messages. It is easy to
make frequent use of the name of God and the will of
God and for it to be mere cant. But that is not true
of Paul. He knew what it is to be in touch with
God. He is conscious that God has made known his
Word to him. Here are some of his expressions about
this matter. "We waxed bold in our God to speak
unto you the gospel of God in much conflict" (1:2).
"But even as we have been approved of God to be
intrusted with the gospel, so we speak" (1:4). "We
preached unto you the gospel of God" (1:9). "But,
as it is in truth, the word of God" (1 :i3). Paul had
a high conception of his own message and offers an
example for the preacher of to-day. He was miles
away from being a mere entertainer or even just a
social reformer. Every vestige of pretense is gone.

122 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
There is no dress parade about Paul and no pious af
fectation. He stands forth as the prophet of God with
a burning message from God that he must deliver. He
will be heard whatever the result. If it be replied that
the modern preacher can lay no claim to direct revela
tion from God, one must remember that Paul searched
the Scriptures as we can do. We have the New Testa
ment, Paul's own writings included, in addition to the
Scriptures that Paul had. We have, besides, the long
course of human history under the influence of the
Christianity proclaimed by Paul. We have also the
promises of the Holy Spirit who helped Paul. We
need not claim new revelation as Paul had, but we have
new light from conscience, scholarly research, history
and science. Certainly no preacher need be in the
dark concerning the will of God concerning the re
demption of man. If the Gospel of God was plain to
Paul, it ought to be plainer to us. The preacher to-day
should have a clear message from God and he should
speak it with a prophetic courage.
Paul makes it plain, as Luke does in Acts, that
Christ is the central theme in "the gospel of God."
"For God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the
obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep we
should live together with him" (i Thess. 5:9-10).
"We believe that Jesus died and rose again" (4:14).
The Thessalonians were "to wait for his Son from
heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus,
who delivereth us from the wrath to come" (1 :io).
This from Paul we take as a matter of course. He
was, as we know, a Christ-intoxicated man. He cared

PAUL'S PREACHING IN THESSALONICA 123
not whether people thought him beside himself for
Christ or not (2 Cor. 5 :i3). There is no "gospel" for
Paul apart from Christ. There were those who
preached other doctrines, but Paul refused to call their
messages a real gospel of grace (Gal. 1:6-7; 2 Cor.
11:4). And the world will never get away from its
need of Christ. There was never such a heart hunger
for Christ as there is to-day all over the world.
Paul claimed that his preaching was with the power
of the Holy Spirit. "Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy
Spirit, and in much assurance" (1 Thess. 1:5). The
Thessalonians "received the word in much affliction,
with the joy of the Holy Spirit" (1:6). Paul ex
pected the Holy Spirit to bless his message, because
it was about Christ and because it was the gospel of
God. Had not God promised the power of the Holy
Spirit to accompany preaching like that ? It is at least
worth while for every preacher to-day to search his
own heart and see if he has really preached the full
gospel of God and with "assurance" of God's blessing.
He has said that his word will not return unto him
void. It will be like bread cast upon the waters. It
will come back after many days. Paul was not equally
successful everywhere and not wholly so in Thessa
lonica. But the preacher can at least have a clear con
science if he preaches God's word and in the power of
the Holy Spirit.
Paul's purpose was to please God and not men.
Every preacher likes to please men. Praise is sweet to
any preacher, too sweet sometimes. But the preacher
is a man under orders. His real praise must come from

124 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
God. He must tell the truth as God gives it to him to
see it. "For our exhortation is not of error, nor of
uncleanness nor in guile" (2:3). He must not tone
down the message to suit the audience, "not as pleas
ing men, but God who proveth our hearts" (2:4).
"For neither at any time were we found using words
of flattery, as ye know" (2:5), "nor seeking glory of
men, neither from you nor from others" (2:6). It
is plain from these vigorous denials that Paul had
been accused by some of this very thing, of being a
timeserver who truckled to the foibles and fancies of
the crowd.
Once more Paul scouts the charge of preaching for
money, "nor a cloak of covetousness, God is witness"
(2:5). "For ye remember, brethren, our labor and
travail: working night and day, that we might not
burden any of you, we preached unto you the gospel
of God" (2:9). If ever there was a manly preacher
Paul was that man. To-day we do not let preachers
work at a trade nor do we pay them enough to live on.
But Paul loved the people and dealt gently with
them with all his fidelity to truth. He had the shep
herd heart, the father heart, the mother heart. "But
we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a nurse
cherisheth her own children : even so, being affection
ately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart
unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own
souls, because ye were become very dear to us" (2 :8).
Could a pastor speak more tenderly of the flock? "As
ye know how we dealt with each one of you, as a
father with his own children, exhorting you, and en
couraging you, and testifying, to the end that ye

PAUL'S PREACHING IN THESSALONICA 125
should walk worthily of God" (2:11). "Ye are our
glory and our joy" (2:20). Paul "endeavored the
more exceedingly to see your face with great desire"
.(2:17). There is no resisting a love like that. Paul
literally loved people into loving Christ. He had the
passion for souls in his preaching that yearned after
them in Christ. He imparted "his own soul" when he
preached and he won souls in giving his. There is no
other way. Even Christ felt power go out of him.
And Paul was willing to spend and be spent for their
souls (2 Cor. 12:15).
These elements in Paul's preaching at Thessalonica
may seem commonplace and even prosaic, but they
are vital to all real preaching. One may read an essay
without these elements of power, but no souls will be
converted. He may preside over a pink tea with no
passion for the lost. But the world waits to hear the
prophet with a live coal from the altar of God on his
lips. The tongue of flame will set other souls on fire.
Beecher was right. Wake up the man in the pulpit if
you want to wake up the man in the pew. The way
to wake up the man in the pulpit is to put one there
who is in touch with God. Then the Lord will make
bare his arm in the day of his power. God had poured
power into Paul and so he could do all things through
Christ (Phil. 4:13).

CHAPTER XI
PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS
It is probable that Paul remained longer in Ephesus
than in any of the cities where he founded churches.
He was in Corinth about a year (Acts 18:11, 18), but
three years in Ephesus (Acts 20:31). It so happens
that Luke has preserved Paul's own epitome of his
work in Ephesus in the address to the elders at Miletus
(Acts 20:17-38). Luke heard this wonderful heart to
heart talk to the ministers and he has preserved it with
faithfulness. In this address Paul refers repeatedly to
his conduct as pastor in Ephesus in a way that runs
parallel to the historical narrative in Acts 19:1-20:1.
By combining the two accounts we can form an in
telligent conception of Paul's work in Ephesus in spite
of the absence of any personal experience in the
Epistle to the Ephesians. It is almost certain that this
is a circular letter that went to Laodicea and Colossae
(Col. 4:16) as well as to Ephesus.
Paul is the foremost evangelist, preacher, theo
logian, and missionary statesman of Christian history.
But he is great, also, as pastor. He had the shepherd
heart. He loved the members of the flock and gave
himself unreservedly to them. Probably these
"elders" of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20:17) w^°
came to Miletus to meet Paul on his way to Rome had
126

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 127
been picket! out by Paul while in Ephesus and elected
by the church as "bishops" (20:28). It is interesting
to note the plurality of pastors in the new great church
at Ephesus as in Philippi (Phil. 1:1). The same men
are termed indifferently "elders" or "bishops" and
they were "to shepherd the church of God which he
purchased with his own blood." This verb to "shep
herd" 1 is the same root as the substantive "shep
herd" 2 like our "pastor." Here we have a three
fold conception of the ministry for the same men.
They were "elders" like the synagogue officers or
the village rulers in the papyri of Egypt (our "alder
men") and the Japanese "Elder Statesmen," men
of experience. They were "bishops" or "over
seers" who watched over the welfare of all under their
care. And they were also "shepherds" whose duty it
was to feed the flock and to keep a sharp eye for the
weak and the sick. "Take heed unto yourselves and
to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made
you bishops." Paul believed that each of these men
had been set apart to this task by the Holy Spirit.
They had been called of God as Paul was called of
God. And yet Paul took the liveliest interest in hunt
ing for ministers of the gospel. Dr. W. E. Hatcher,
of Richmond, Virginia, had an interesting address on
"the Human Element in the Call to the Ministry."
Paul is here speaking face to face with the men whom
he left in charge of the great work in Ephesus when
he departed hurriedly after the uproar created by

1 woi/ialvtuf
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128 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
Demetrius (Acts 20:1). It is a great privilege for a
minister of experience and power to speak frankly
to a body of fellow ministers. Paul does it with'
consummate skill. The whole address is designed to
equip them for better service in Ephesus. For that
purpose he draws freely upon his own work there
with these very men.
His life among them was an open book. "Ye your
selves know, from the first day that I set foot in
Asia, after what manner I was with you all the time
(Acts 20:18). This is only what every pastor should
be able to say. The preacher who leads a double life
is shorn of power on exposure and that is sure to
come sooner or later. He had served "the Lord with
all lowliness of mind" (20:19). The minister's mes
sage is measured by his life and by his spirit. This
Paul fully recognized and frankly faced. Indeed, the
preacher cannot escape it. The sermon that counts in
the end is the life that either confirms or contradicts
the eloquent words on Sunday. I sincerely believe
that ministers on the whole are the noblest men in all
the world. There are exceptions, beyond a doubt, and
the downfall of a preacher gives every preacher a pang
in his heart. The only way for the pastor to make
his life preach is the path of sheer straightforward
ness and open honesty.
The question of salary confronted Paul in Ephesus
as in Corinth (1 Cor. 9; 2 Cor. 11). Ephesus was a
mission field where many sophists and other peripa
tetic teachers taught wisdom for pay. There was no
mission board to take care of Paul till the church
could support him and understand that he was not a

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 129
financial adventurer. There is no evidence that Phi
lippi and Thessalonica helped Paul in Ephesus as they
did while he was in Corinth (2 Cor. 11:8-9; Phu\
4:15-16). What did Paul do? He was independent
as he was in Thessalonica (2 Thess. 3 :8) and in
Corinth (2 Cor. 11:9). "I coveted no man's silver,
or gold, or apparel" (Acts 20:33). The pastor ought
to be paid a decent salary or be allowed to make his
own living as Paul did. Paul had no need for minis
terial discounts. He made his own living by his trade.
"Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto
my necessities, and to them that were with me"
(20:34). He was not ashamed to show his rough,
horny hands, used to manual toil. He labored for
himself and for Priscilla and Aquila, apparently, as in
Corinth (Acts 18:1-3). "In all things I gave you an
example, that so laboring ye ought to help the weak,
and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that
he himself said, it is more blessed to' give than to
receive" (20:35). Patu offered himself as an exam
ple to these ministers from Ephesus in the matter of
independence and simple duty to those dependent on
one. The modern preacher is not allowed by public
opinion to engage in secular pursuits as Paul did and
yet he is paid, as a rule, too little to support his family
in the decent comforts of life. Money is a peril to
the preacher and Paul warned Timothy repeatedly
against this snare (1 Tim. 6:3-10). But a man who
will not provide for his own household is worse than
an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). To enforce this lesson
of simple manliness Paul appeals to an otherwise
unknown saying of Jesus that makes us hunger for all

130 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
those thait have perished and to prize more highly
those in the Gospels. The followers of Pythagoras
referred to their master as "he himself" 1 as Paul
does here.
Paul was a man of great tenderness. He speaks
of his "tears" twice in this address (20:19, 31). He
had written unto the Corinthians an epistle with an
guish of heart and "with many tears" (2 Cor. 2:4).
He remembered Timothy's tears (2 Tim. 1:4).
Adolphe Monod has a sermon on the Tears of Paul
(Tears of Sorrow, Charity, Tenderness) in his "Five
Discourses of Paul." The emotional side of a
preacher's life is a point of contact with the hearts
of his hearers. Certainly Paul was intellectual and
practical if ever a preacher was. He was not merely
emotional without conviction and vigor. But it may
be questioned if modern ministers have not gone too
far in restraining natural emotion. It is so easy to
be purely professional. Tears then are unnatural if
not like the crocodile's tears. Sympathy must be
genuine and sincere, else the profession of it is offen
sive. Jesus wept with Mary and Martha before he
raised Lazarus from the grave. Jesus wept over Jeru
salem before he pronounced woes upon it. The
preacher whose heart is deeply stirred even to tears,
is the man whose message will grip the hearts of
others. Paul's tears were not simply tears while
preaching. They were in secret often as he served
the Lord with tears (Acts 20:19). They were in the
admonishing that Paul gave the Ephesians in private
1 airds

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 131
as in public, "night and day with tears" (20:31).
There is no resisting a pastor like that whose passion
ate sympathy touches every life.
Paul was far more than a pulpiteer, though he was
the greatest of preachers. He had the note of reality
in all his work and so he taught "from house to house"
as well as "publicly" (20:20). This private ministry
is where many ministers fail. One is reminded of the
woman who said that when her pastor was in the
pulpit she wished he would never leave it and when
he was out of it she wished he would never enter it.
There are two extremes among preachers in their
private conversations and visitations. One is that of
lightness and levity with no interest in the spiritual
life. The other is that of zeal without knowledge that
does not know how to seize incidental things and to
use them skilfully for winning the unsaved. In both
cases the preacher repels either by carelessness or by
awkwardness and more harm than good is done. The
picture of Paul in the homes of Ephesus is presented
by the house to house ministry. Pastoral visiting
can be a bore or at best perfunctory. In these days
the pastor has to learn how to go to the office and the
store or the shop and to put in a wise word quickly
and briefly so as to get a grip on the men. It is not
enough to visit the women in the homes. The men
must be reached as well as the children. Paul "went
about preaching the kingdom" (Acts 20:25). That
was his business. He knew how to be congenial and
to make friends, but he never forgot the main thing,
"testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ"

132 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
(20:21). He had the same message for all classes
and at all times both in public and in private.
The pastor is constantly tempted to tone down the
message because of peculiar conditions or to over
emphasize one doctrine because of resentment at cer
tain situations. It requires wisdom to keep the balance
and to be faithful all round. Paul reminds the elders
"how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything
that was profitable" (20:20). Preaching to be effec
tive must be pertinent and make a hit. It is so easy
to grow eloquent in the denunciation of the sins of
people elsewhere. Paul took his work seriously and
felt his responsibility for the spiritual welfare of the
church in Ephesus. As he looks back upon it all now
he is able to say what every pastor wishes he can
say: "Wherefore I testify unto you this day that I
am pure from the blood of all men" (20:26). That
is a great thing to be able to say. It can only be
true when the pastor has done his full duty to all
classes in public and in private. The reason that
Paul feels constrained to say it is this: "For I shrank
not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of
God" (20:27). It is worth while to note his words,
"the whole counsel of God." One may be loyal in
all that he says and does and yet may omit something
vital by his silence. It is a wise pastor who knows
when to speak and when to be silent without dis
loyalty to the truth of God. But Paul keeps his eye
on "the whole counsel of God," not on the fear of
men. Paul had his "trials which befell me by the plots
of the Jews" (20:19). Some of these are narrated

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 133
by Luke in Acts 19. Paul, as was his custom, "entered
into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of
three months, reasoning and persuading as to the
things concerning the kingdom of God" (19:8).
Soon he was compelled to leave the Jewish synagogue
in Ephesus for the school of Tyrannus where he rea
soned daily for the space of two years (19:9-10). It
was a beautiful combination of church and school and
such an intensive campaign over so long a period
was bound to have results. All the province of Asia
felt the force of Paul's work in Ephesus (19:10).
The school of Tyrannus became the spiritual dynamo
for all the province and it has left its mark upon the
world. Luke narrates three striking incidents connected
with Paul's work in Ephesus. One is the unusual type
of miracles that occurred. In some cases the handker
chiefs of Paul were carried away to the sick so that
disease left them. One is reminded of the woman
who touched the hem of Christ's garment. We may
readily admit the superstition connected with this
faith. But, after all, is there no superstition to-day
in the faith of this or that belief ? God honors not the
superstition, but the faith. Many of us are blessed in
spite of ignorance and narrowness of view. Certainly
there was no magic in Paul's handkerchiefs. Some
would say that Luke was merely recording legends
connected with Paul's work.
The next incident concerns the seven sons of Sceva,
a strolling Jewish exorcist who came to Ephesus. He
had his incantations by which he claimed to cast out
demons without doing it. He thought that he would

134 .PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
try the new "spell" that Paul employed. So he said
to a demoniac : "I adjure thee by the Jesus whom Paul
preaches" (19:13). It was like a boomerang. The
demon retorted: "Jesus I know and Paul I know: but
who are ye ?" (19:15). The demon came out all right,
but leaped on the seven sons of Sceva, probably all of
them ("both" in the papyri occurs in this sense), and
mastered them so that, naked and wounded, they fled
out of the city. The outcome of this encounter stirred
all Ephesus, which was the center of a vast literature
concerning charms and incantations. Some of the
magicians themselves brought their magical books and
burned them in a big pile. If all the bad books and
magazines of our cities could be burned, it would be
a huge and a holy holocaust. And then if the vicious
and vile vampire and bandit movie pictures could be
burned, we should see a new and powerful peril
removed from our public life. "So mightily grew the
word of the Lord and prevailed" (19:20). Paul was
a prophet in Ephesus in his denunciation of the perils
of that city. He touched the life of Ephesus in its
very center.
The other incident relates to the worship of Diana
whose great temple was the pride of the city. The
people boasted that their city was the temple-keeper
of the great Diana (19:35). The temple was one
of the seven wonders of the ancient world. One of
the enterprises of the city was the manufacture of
little silver shrines of the goddess Diana which
"brought no little business unto the craftsmen"
(19:24). Demetrius was the head of one of these
"god-factories" in Ephesus. It is not clear that Paul

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 135
ever attacked Demetrius or his business by name.
But the success of Paul's work meant decrease in
business for Demetrius, who was quick to see the
peril to his own pocket. The saloon men saw what
Christianity meant for their business and long ago
began to fight the preachers who attacked their vested
rights strongly entrenched in government and law.
So the movies to-day are resisting real control by the
public. Demetrius did a shrewd thing. He called
together the fellow-craftsmen, the guild or union of
shrine makers, and frankly appealed to their self-
interest : "Sirs, ye know that by this business we have
our wealth" (19:25). Then he recounted how "this
Paul" preached that "they are no gods that are made
with hands" (19:26), as if they did not make the best
brand of gods in all Asia ! So then there was "danger
that this our trade come into disrepute" (19:27).
This is the meat in the cocoanut and it is a tremen
dous tribute to the power of Paul's work in Ephesus.
The preacher of righteousness cannot wink at busi
ness that is tainted with idolatry, licentiousness, graft,
oppression of the poor, the ruin of girls. Now, as
then, such business men will strike back under expo
sure. Let them do it. Public opinion will vindicate
righteousness in the end even though the preacher
fail at first. Demetrius mentions also that the worship
of Diana was in peril, which was true. So he gives
the crafty craftsmen a slogan which they shout on the
streets of Ephesus : "Great is Diana of the Ephesians"
(19:28), with never a word about their private pelf
and selfish concern. Thus the mob is roused against
Paul on patriotic grounds as a Jewish interloper who

136 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
threatened the glory of Ephesus, the temple of Diana.
The mob got two of Paul's companions in travel,
Gaius and Aristarchus of Macedonia (19:29). Paul
was not a man to let others suffer for him and to hold
off himself (19:30), but the Asiarchs, men of promi
nence in the city who liked Paul, simply would not
let him go to be consumed by that mob of wild beasts
(19:31). Paul says that he "fought with the wild
beasts at Ephesus" (1 Cor. 15:32). Does he refer
to the yells of these human wolves beneath his win
dow? Or does he refer to another incident when he,
as a prisoner in Ephesus, may have been thrown into
the arena with actual wild animals and somehow
escaped? Probably the first, though we do not know.
It seems likely that Paul was very ill either at this very
time or at another time, for he felt that he had the
sentence (answer) of death at that time in Ephesus
(2 Cor. 1:8-11), but God heard his cry and lifted
him up. It is possible that Paul lay sick in his bed
as he heard the mob in Ephesus howling for his blood,
led on by Demetrius. At any rate we know that, after
the town-clerk at Ephesus dismissed the riotous mob
in the amphitheater, Paul left Ephesus sooner than
he had planned to do (Acts 20:1-3). His work in
Ephesus had been too successful in a way. He had
certainly stirred the city, but it was not prudent to
stay longer now. How many a pastor since Paul left
Ephesus has had to follow in his wake? But the
world is wide and the pastor whose courage has
brought a crisis in one city can go on to another. Far
better this than a sleepy quiescent pastorate of many
years with no results.

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 137
Paul now has his face set to go to Jerusalem and
is on his way. While in Ephesus Paul had his plans
laid to go to Macedonia, Achaia, Jerusalem, and on
to Rome (Acts 19:21-22). He said: "I must also
see Rome." And now he has been to Macedonia and
Achaia and is en route to Jerusalem with the collec
tion for the poor saints at Jerusalem from Asia, Ga
latia, Macedonia, Achaia. The messengers of the
churches are with Paul on the trip (Acts 20:4). He
had premonitions of trouble in Jerusalem on the occa
sion of this visit as far back as in Corinth when he
wrote to Rome (Rom. 15:31). The Judaizers had
given Paul trouble in Antioch and in Galatia and in
Corinth and he fears their influence on the Jerusalem
church. "And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit
unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there: save that the Holy Spirit testifieth
unto me in every city, saying bonds and afflictions
abide me" (Acts 20:22-23). For some men such
warnings would have been enough to change their
course, but not so for Paul. Duty was not to be set
aside by danger. "But I hold not my life of any
account as dear unto myself, so that I may accom
plish my course, and the ministry which I received
from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace
of God" (20:24). That is the spirit of the hero. It
is not the language of a braggart and of a coward, but
of the true soldier who sees the peril and faces it
fearlessly. This is the man who left Ephesus, Phi
lippi, Corinth and many another city when it was best
for the cause of Christ for him to go. But now he
walks calmly into supreme danger for the sake of that

138 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
same cause. He is "bound in the spirit" to go to try
to prevent a schism in Jerusalem. This he did, though
he ran into peril from the Jews in pacifying the
Judaizers. He did stick to his course till he finished
it (2 Tim. 4:7). After leaving Ephesus Paul was
warned at Tyre (21:4) and even at Caesarea in most
dramatic fashion by Agabus against going on to Jeru
salem (21:10-11). But Paul could only say: "What
do ye, weeping and breaking my heart ? for I am ready
not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem
for the name of the Lord Jesus" (20:13).
But Paul is concerned about the future of the flock
in Ephesus. "I know that after my departing grievous
wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock"
(20:29). There were probably already signs of the
Gnostic movement that swept over the Asian churches
(see Colossians, 1 Timothy, 1 and 2 Peter, the Epistles
of John). Paul could not be content to see these slick-
tongued deceivers undo the work of grace that he had
wrought during the three years in Ephesus. That fear
grips every true pastor's heart. He can leave the
town with a glad heart if the work goes on and well.
But if it is pulled down and the sheep are scattered by
the wolves, he has a heavy heart. And even among
the elders of Ephesus Paul sees signs of apostasy.
"And from among your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples
after them" (20:30). Jesus had his Judas and Paul
at Ephesus had some whom he distrusted with reason.
It is sometimes said that the Pastoral Epistles are not
Pauline because they betray an un-Pauline concern

PAUL AS PASTOR IN EPHESUS 139
about the future of Christianity. But here in the
speech to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus Paul sees
the cloud arising in Asia where Timothy was to labor
and to grapple with the wolves whom Paul saw in
the distance.
Paul felt confident that this group of ministers
would see his face no more (20:25). This foreboding
added greatly to the sorrow of the parting as they
knelt down and prayed and wept sore and fell on
Paul's neck and kissed him (20:36-38). It was a
tender time as the preachers from Ephesus stood on
the shore and saw the ship put out to sea with their
great master on board. His words about himself
and about them had been solemn enough, but his own
courage put strength into their hearts as they turned
their way back to Ephesus to tell the church the great
message that they had received from Paul. It seems
probable that Paul on»his return from the first Roman
imprisonment did come to Ephesus again (1 Tim.
1 :3). Certainly he was at Miletus when he left
Trophimus sick (2 Tim. 4:20). Even so it is doubt
ful if all the elders were alive, though Paul only gave
his own apprehension about not seeing them again.
It was a great experience, those three years at Ephesus,
and the story of them will richly repay the study of
any modern preacher.
Paul's last words in his address may serve as Paul's
benediction on all preachers: "And now I commend
you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is
able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance
among all them which are sanctified" (20:32). Cer-

140 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
tainly preachers most of all should be built up by the
word of God's grace which they proclaim. If it is
food for the saints, it should first feed the shepherd
of the flock.

CHAPTER XII
PAUL IN THE CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE
The presence of Paul in Athens was due to accident
according to the narrative in Acts 17:15. The Jewish
rabbis who ran Paul and Silas out of Thessalonica fol
lowed them to Bercea. This time they sent forth
Paul as far as the sea while Silas and Timothy
remained still in Bercea. Evidently Paul was the
chief object of Jewish jealousy and hatred. But
Paul's companions went with him as far as Athens
and took back "a commandment unto Silas and Timo
thy that they should come to him with all speed"
(Acts 17:15). It seems that Timothy did come to
Paul in Athens from Bercea, but was almost immedi
ately sent by Paul to Thessalonica because of distress
ing news of misapprehension there. "Wherefore
when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good
to be left behind at Athens alone; and sent Timothy,
our brother and God's minister in the gospel of Christ,
to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your
faith" (1 Thess. 3:1-2). Luke does not narrate this
brief visit of Timothy to Athens, but states that, after
Paul has gone on to Corinth, Silas and Timothy came
down from Macedonia (Acts 18:5). Evidently Tim
othy played a very small part in the work in Athens.
It would seem from Acts 18:16 that Timothy did not
141

142 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
come till after the first events at Athens, "while Paul
waited for them at Athens." He may not have come
till shortly before Paul left Athens (Acts 18:1), but
the point is immaterial. To all intents and purposes
Paul was alone in Athens and apparently was planning
to go on elsewhere, but could not resist the appeal of
this center of intellectual life for the message of the
Cross of Christ.
Athens was still the intellectual capital of the world.
There were universities at Pergamus, Tarsus, and,
Alexandria, but Athens had the prestige of age and
the eclat of great names in philosophy and letters.
The names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, ^Eschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Thucydides,
Lysias, Demosthenes, to go no further, still shed a
halo around the temples, groves, and walks of Athens.
There are those who think that Paul was not respon
sive to the intellectual and artistic atmosphere of
Athens, that he was wholly out of touch with the
Greek love of beauty and art for art's sake, that Greek
literature and philosophy, like Greek mythology,
repelled Paul, that he was distinctly out of his element
in Athens and did not know how to present the gospel
of Christ to the intellectuals of Athens, that Paul
was un-Hellenic and not a university man. Others
affirm that Paul was a university man, a product of
the University of Tarsus as well as of the rabbinical
school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, that he had a wide
acquaintance with literature and philosophy as is
shown by the fine literary finish of the Greek style
in the address in Athens (allowing for Luke's influ
ence in the report) and by the literary allusions in the

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 143
address to Aratus, Cleanthes, and Epimenides. They
even affirm that Paul made something of a compromise
of the Christian message in the scholastic environment
of Athens and went as far as he could, possibly too
far, to reach the philosophic minds in his audience, an
effort that resulted in failure, and that Paul vowed
never to repeat this experiment (i Cor. 2 :i-5). There
is an element of truth in both of these extreme views
as is shown in the narrative in Acts. Paul's "spirit
was provoked within him as he saw the city full of
idols" (Acts 17:16). This is the outstanding fact of
Paul's reaction to the pagan splendor all around him.
He was a man of genius and of intellectual training.
He did have a point of contact with the cultural side
of Athens. He knew some of the Greek poets whom
he quotes in his address. He shows so much acquain
tance with Stoicism in his Epistles that Lightfoot
gravely discusses the question whether Paul knew the
writings of Seneca. Sir W. M. Ramsay even calls
Paul the greatest philosopher of the ages. He dares
to present his philosophy of the universe in opposition
to that of the Epicureans and of the Stoics in Athens.
Clearly, then, Paul's conduct in Athens raises the
whole question of Christianity and culture to-day. In
a brilliant article on "Christianity and Learning" in
the January, 1921, Biblical Review Dr. E. M. Poteat
affirms that we have not yet brought learning in
captivity to Christ, that a pagan atmosphere still rules
in many of our schools of learning. In The Metho
dist Review (New York) for Jan.-Feb., 192 1, Dr.
H. P. Sloan seriously argues whether a "University
Can Be Christian." Certainly some teachers in our

144 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
modern schools are frankly anti-Christian and laugh
Christianity out of court as some of the Athenians
laughed at Paul in Athens.
The result is a widening breach between learning
and faith that is to be deplored. It is a sad thing to
see young people, reared in homes of piety and faith,
come back from college with intellectual pride and
with scorn for the Bible and the Christ of the Bible.
Part of this result is due to the sudden clash between
the new and the old that is overcome in time. Part
of it is due to what Chesterton calls "the ignorance
of the educated," the one-sided knowledge of special
ists who dogmatise in realms outside of their specialty.
There is no intolerance greater than intellectual
bigotry which assumes infallibility in all things because
of special knowledge in one sphere of learning. Chris
tians retort with indignation against the harm to their
own boys and girls by sceptical, even infidel, profes
sors. So the breach widens. But Christ is not hostile
to learning. He calls himself "the truth." No real
discovery in nature or in grace is really outside of the
sphere of Christ's interest. Every lover of Jesus
Christ should be a friend of all real progress in human
knowledge. The Greek word for truth means to be
unconcealed, to have the lid off. There is nothing in
the works of God to make one fear for the Word
of God.
It is extremely interesting to observe how Paul bore
himself in the midst of beautiful, artistic, intellectual,
idolatrous Athens. There is no cringing, no faltering,
no flattery. He is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ
in the University seat of the world. Unfortunately

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 145
the address was interrupted so that we can only infer
what he meant to add, but what he did speak shows his
purpose. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus out
lined the relation of Christianity to Judaism. Here
Paul presents the contrast between Christianity and
Paganism. To be sure, in Athens he had found the
Jews also and "the devout persons" from among the
Gentiles who came to the synagogue. With them
Paul "reasoned in the synagogue" (Acts 17:17)
according to his custom in every city. And in the
market-place (the agora) he spoke every day with
the chance-comers (17:17), as was the custom in
Athens. Paul was, in fact, a street preacher, but with
this difference, that in the agora every one had open
access to every one else. Hyde Park in London is a
modern parallel on a small scale. Socrates had not
been above talking in the agora with the sophists or
with any who wished to discuss philosophy with him.
It is not strange, therefore, that in the agora Paul
came in touch with exponents of Epicureanism and of
Stoicism, the two leading philosophies of the day.
They challenged Paul and compared notes x with him,
much to the discredit of Paul. Philosophers are none
too considerate of each other when they clash, though
usually technical verbiage conceals some of their
scorn. Undoubtedly Paul attacked some of the sophis
tries of both the Epicureans and the Stoics, for these
rival schools joined in derision of Paul. He did not
use the lingo of the initiated and so they sneered at
him, "Whatwouldthisbabbler say?" (17:18.) The
\ vwtpdKKov

146 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
word for "babbler" means literally a picker-up of seeds
like the birds that hopped about in the agora. It was
an expression of supreme contempt such as many
another preacher of Christ has encountered in a scho
lastic center where religion has been held up to ridicule
as a superstition of the ignorant that the university
man has shaken off. There were others who in a more
apologetic mind, but with equal intellectual supercil
iousness, interpreted Paul as "a setter forth (pro-
claimer) of strange deities (demons)" (17:18). The
tone is unmistakable, but the charge that Paul is a
preacher of polytheism reveals the dense ignorance of
these learned wiseacres. They took the "resurrection"
to be a deity on a par with Jesus. But it is at least
clear that in his tilt with the philosophers in the agora
Paul preached (as an evangel) both Jesus and the
resurrection. Evidently the cross came in also for
that is what gives meaning to the resurrection. So
we see Paul as the evangelist to the philosophers and
the university circle of Athens. He won a hearing for
the moment if no more. One is reminded of D. L.
Moody at Oxford University and of the profound
impression made upon the student life of that genera
tion in Britain. It is possible for the preacher of the
gospel to get a grip on the intellectual life of the time.
Henry Drummond did it, John A. Broadus did it,
and Robert E. Speer has done it.
It is not clear what was the purpose of those who
finally took hold of Paul and brought him before the
Areopagus. It is not even certain whether by "the
Areopagus" is meant the hill or the court of that name.
It could be the council that met on the famous hill

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 147
near the Acropolis. In later times the council met on
the hill for murder cases and other extreme criminal
cases, but in the stoa basileios x for religious questions
as in the case of Socrates who was arraigned for in
troducing strange divinities. On the whole the idea
of the council rather than the place has the best of
argument at the present. But the further question
remains whether Paul was formally on trial before the
court as a wrong-doer or was merely rushed by the
philosophers before the council to see if he should be
allowed to continue his popular harangue in the agora.
Paul had no standing as a university lecturer, but it
would be interesting to see what the council thought
of his views. Their motive may have been hostile
or merely friendly zeal to press him to go on as a
form of popular entertainment. The language is
polite and yet there is point enough to catch the atten
tion of the council (17:19-20). In any case a crowd
of hangers-on gathered round the council to hear the
outcome concerning the new teacher who had aroused
the interest of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
The flippant curiosity of the Athenians is attested by
Demosthenes and Thucydides. They wanted, not
merely the new thing (the news), but the "newer"
than the "new," the very latest bit of gossip, the
freshest tidbit of philosophic speculation, the very
last "extra." So Paul stood in the midst of the Areop
agus with his chance to put the cause of Christ before
the council, the philosophers, and the crowd, if they
would listen to him. They would for a while at

1 aroa tiaoih.tu>s

148 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
any rate. It was his great opportunity in Athens.
The introduction is conciliatory and winning. Paul
must catch the ear of this critical audience. For this
reason it seems impossible to think that Paul used the
sense of "superstitious" rather than "religious." The
word is employed in both senses by the Greeks, but
Paul desires to win favor for his message, not to drive
away the sympathy of his audience. His spirit had
been provoked as he saw the many idols in the city
and that the intellectual center of the world. Cer
tainly they were more religious than usual and more
superstitious also. It is even possible that the double
sense of this adjective piqued the interest of the audi
ence to see in which sense Paul used it. Josephus
says that the Athenians were the most devout of all the
Greeks. There were said to be thirty thousand statues
in Athens to various divinities. Pausanias states that
the Athenians were very pious.
Paul's theme is happily introduced. He cites an
incident from his own observation in Athens. Instead
of saying "idols" (cf. 17:14) he spoke of "the objects
of your worship." He wishes to turn the instinct
and habit of worship in the right direction. So eager
were the Athenians to worship all the gods that they
set up an altar "To an Unknown God" (17 :23). This
inscription shows that the Athenians recognized that
there might be a god of whom they had not heard.
Pausanias, Philostratus, and Diogenes Laertes speak
of altars to unknown gods. So Paul took advantage
of this opening to introduce his theme and to correct
also the misapprehension that he was a polytheist.
Besides, Paul avoided the charge of illegality in intro-

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 149
ducing "strange gods" by showing that he was really
proclaiming the God whom they were trying to wor
ship without understanding his real nature. He at
once is more skilful than Socrates was. "What there
fore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto
you" (17:23). He has called no name as yet, but his
theme is "The Unknown God." It is striking and
catches their attention and it opens the door wide for
his message without any legal complications. He has
increased the natural curiosity of the Athenians for
discovery. The argument of Paul is clear and logical and pro
gressive. He at once proceeds to tell who this God is,
"the God that made the world and all things therein,"
"Lord of heaven and earth" (17:24). He says noth
ing about other gods at this point, but he leaves no
room for them. This picture of God as the Creator of
all things would appeal to the imagination of the Athe
nians whether they accepted it or not. They had gods
for almost every virtue and vice (alas), for every
phase of life. They were used to the idea of a limited
God and even Zeus was only primus inter pares and
had decided limitations to his power on earth and
on Mount Olympus.
But Paul's next point draws the line of cleavage
sharply between this "Unknown God" and all other
gods. "He dwells not in temples made with hands"
(17:24). The Parthenon, the most beautiful temple
in the world and even now in its ruins the wonder
of our modern time, was probably in full sight as
Paul spoke. It was believed to be the home of Athene
(Minerva), the patron goddess of wisdom and the arts

150 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
and of Athens. There were other glorious temples in
full view. Paul has now struck at one of the tap
roots of pagan mythology, its belief in local gods
that had local habitations. Jesus had taught that God
was a spirit and could be worshipped anywhere as well
as in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim. Stephen was
stoned by the Jews for saying and proving from the
Old Testament (Isa. 66:1-2) that Jesus was right
and can be worshipped by Gentile or Jew anywhere.
It was not a national deity, Jewish or Greek or Ger
man, that Paul proclaimed, but the God of all men.
Paul next demolishes another pagan error that God
"is served by men's hands, as though he needed any
thing" (17:25). In its crudest form the heathen held
that the deity was to be fed by the food in the sacri
fices. Others wished to appease the god from his
wrath by votive offerings. The Old Testament had
already refuted the fallacy of this notion (Isa. 66:1-2;
Ps. 5:8-12). Paul shows the crudity of that idea
since God "himself gives to all life, and breath, and
all things" (Acts 17:25). This "Unknown God" is
both Creator and Preserver of all things. He is him
self the Life of the Universe. Probably only the more
intelligent could follow Paul in the greatness of this
thought, the true philosophy of the universe. The
Epicureans were practical atheists while the Stoics
were really pantheists. But Paul proclaims one per
sonal God whose will dominates the universe. Socra
tes and Plato had glimmerings of such a view, but not
consistently as they allowed other gods beside the one
supreme God. Jesus had taught that, since God is
spirit, he must be worshipped in spirit. So Stephen

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 151
taught when Paul consented to his death. But now
Paul is the true successor of Stephen in the spiritual
interpretation of worship.
Paul now proceeds to prove that Greeks as well as
Jews should worship the "Unknown God" (17:26-
28). He is the God of all men and not of any one
race or nation. "He made of one every nation of
men to dwell on all the face of the earth." It is
worth noting that it is a Jew who is here proclaim
ing the unity of the race, a Jew who has seen the
middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile
broken down on the Cross by the blood of Christ and
the enmity slain thereby (Eph. 2). Whether or not
evolution be the process by which God brought man's
body to be ready for the spirit of man in the image
of God, it remains true that we are God's offspring
as Aratus and Cleanthes had said of Zeus. Paul
boldly applies these words of the Greek poets to the
"Unknown God" whom he now makes known to them.
He quotes also a line from Epimenides, as Dr. J. Ren-
del Harris has shown, "for in him we live and move
and have our being." The Greek poets thus had
glimpses of the truth about our relation to the Father
of all men. God is thus pictured by Paul as the
Father of the whole race, not meaning at all that all
men are saved, but that God as Creator is the Father
of their bodies and spirits. The whole race is thus
bound to God and to each other, sinful and erring
and disobedient though they are. God's providential
hand is seen in the history of nations whose "appointed
seasons" are determined by him as well as "the bounds
of their habitations." God is not an absentee God

152 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
with no interest in the race, but he is actively at work
with his redemptive purpose (cf. John 3:16). Paul
is not unmindful of the fearful plight of the heathen
nations as described in Romans 1 and 2, but it is the
will of God "that they should seek God, if haply they
might feel after him and find him," yes, and come
back to him as Jesus made plain in the Parable of the
Prodigal Son, come back with repentant hearts and
find forgiveness and pardon if they come thus because
of what Jesus has done to save them. Paul's language
describes a man groping in the dark by feeling with his
hands, like Helen Kellar, in order to reach out after
God, like the tendrils of the plant turning toward the
light. The heathen are "without excuse" (Rom.
1 :2o), but the yearning heart of God the Father has
not been far from them all the time, "though he is not
far from each one of us," if we only knew it and
heard his voice of appeal to come back to him. It
was a wonderful message of grace with the very heart
of the gospel that Paul was giving to the Athenians.
Surely some of them would hear and heed.
Paul is now ready to take up definite items that
are involved in God's plan of redemption for all men.
The first one that he mentions is refusal to worship
idols. Noblesse oblige. The "offspring" of such a
God as this one whom Paul proclaims should not
degrade themselves or him by thinking "that the God
head is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by
art and device of man" ( 17 129). We are not of wood
or stone or silver or gold. Why should our Father
be? How can he be? It is a powerful thrust at the
heart of idolatry. Paul is not deterred by the beau-

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 153
tiful statues of gods and goddesses at every turn from
declaring this fundamental truth. The intellectual
leaders of men at that time lived in an atmosphere
of idolatry that stultified the human reason. Man is
above the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral king
doms. He reaches up toward God and in his spirit
bears the stamp of God's own image, though now
marred by sin.
Paul calls for action on the part of his hearers.
"The times of ignorance God overlooked" (17:30),
not with complacency, but with patient forbearance
and longsuffering. The race was not destroyed, but
allowed to live. "But now he commands men that
they should all everywhere repent" (17:30), even the
philosophers in Athens. Jesus has come and has
brought life and immortality to light. The day has
come after the long night. Paul uses the word
"repent" before the Council of the Areopagus as John
the Baptist did to the Pharisees and Sadducees, as
Jesus did to all, as Peter did to the Sanhedrin. It is
not just to Paul to say, in the light of all this, that
he cringed before the Areopagus and the culture of
Athens and failed to declare the real gospel of repen
tance for sin.
Besides, Paul warned the Council of the Areopagus
and, all the Athenians that God "has appointed a day
in which he will judge the world of righteousness"
(17:31). This of itself was a bold declaration, for
Socrates had been condemned by the Court of Areop
agus in unrighteousness. But Paul goes on to say
that the whole world will be judged on that day "by
the man whom he hath ordained" (17:31). It has

154 PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF CHRIST
been observed by many that up to this point Paul has
not mentioned Jesus. He has even been accused of
going off into philosophy and avoiding mention of
Jesus. But that is to misunderstand Paul utterly. He
had preached Jesus and the resurrection boldly in the
market-place (17:18) and had been misunderstood by
the philosophers who asked for further light from
Paul on the subject. Paul evidently felt that he must
give the historical, philosophical, and theological back
ground for the gospel of Jesus so that he could explain
how and where the resurrection of Jesus came in.
This he did in masterful fashion. He now shows the
reason for the resurrection of Jesus which they had
not understood: "whereof he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he has raised him from the
dead" (17:31). God has set his mark of approval
on Jesus as the Judge of all by raising him from
the dead. If Paul had been preaching to Jews, he
would have said "Messiah" instead of "Judge." But
the Athenians would not understand "Messiah." Paul
has interpreted the Mission and Message of Jesus as
Saviour and Judge in language that the Athenians
can comprehend. He probably had much more to <
say, but one must note that Paul did not flinch at the
mention of sin, repentance, judgment, resurrection.
In the classic university atmosphere of Athens he was
true to the heart of the gospel.
The reason that Paul did not say more is that his
audience left him. "The resurrection of the dead"
broke the spell of interest. Some openly mocked him
aloud and left in disgust. Others who were more
polite said: "We will hear thee concerning this yet

PAUL IN CENTER OF GREEK CULTURE 155
again" (17:32). But they had heard all that they
cared to hear then. Their eager curiosity was more
than satisfied. Paul had gone beyond their depth.
The Council evidently concluded that Paul was a
harmless teacher and let it pass. Was Paul a disap
pointed preacher? Probably so, but he was not an
unfaithful one. He had been loyal to the Lord Jesus
in a difficult situation. He had at least borne his
witness to Christ. And there was some result.
Dionysius, a member of the Council, was converted.
A woman named Damaris also took her stand for
Christ. There were some others whose names are not
given. The outcome was not brilliant as in Thessa
lonica, but it was worth while. A preacher's message
always receives a varied reception. The seed falls
on different kinds of soil as Jesus shows in his Para
ble of the Sower. Paul had not failed. He had
preached Christ crucified and risen. He will stick to
it. The Athenians may run after the latest fads in
philosophy, if they will, but nothing but the Cross
of Christ can save sinners in Athens or anywhere else.

THE END

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