The Passion of Paul

I recently watched the show A.D. The Bible Continues. After Jesus ascends into Heaven, the show becomes a political drama with biblical overtones. Still, it’s a decent political drama. Its most interesting biblical character for me was Paul.

Not many people, it seems, are fond of Paul. He’s seen as sexist, elitist, or just plain hard to get along with. He’s often portrayed as your basic thug or, as in this show, a self-important jerk before he changes his ways (and still somewhat afterwards). As Jesus appears to him on the Damascus road, he’s angry; he refuses to believe until eventually his blindness frightens or humbles him into acceptance.

Paul, though, is one of my favorite New Testament characters. I identify with Paul a lot, so maybe I’m biased, but let’s go back to the text, and I’ll explain who I think Paul was and how such a radical change came about.

He heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

And he said, “Who are you, Lord?”

And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

Paul doesn’t challenge Jesus suspiciously and then refuse to believe the answer. He doesn’t get angry and shout “No! Get away!” He uses the word “Lord” before the blinding. He was praying before Ananias was sent to meet him. Paul was no fool; he knew who he’d seen, and he knew what it meant.

What sort of person do I think Paul was? Paul was all in for God. He beat himself up trying to keep all the law, to be “a Hebrew among Hebrews.” When he thought the Christians were blasphemers, he went after them with all he had. And as soon as he figured out he’d been wrong, he did a 180 and started hard-charging the other way with just as much intensity. Acts 9 tells us that “immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’” There was nothing halfway about Paul.

Part of what I love about Paul is that things were so clear to him. He can see not only how Christianity fulfills Judaism, but also how it fulfills paganism. He knows how to connect with different groups of people and use their own cultures and stories to help them understand. His letters are the bread and butter of most theology classes; even Peter admits “some parts of his letters are hard to understand.”

Another thing I love about Paul is his prudence. He’s as fearless as Peter, but he isn’t as hotheaded. He isn’t afraid to speak truth, but he’s also a man of political acumen who knows how to use his Roman citizenship to advantage and not tell everything he knows. He knows how to speak well and how to turn his opponents’ points against them. He’s brilliant and street-smart; it’s a rare combination.

But the thing I love most about Paul is his passion. Without fail, he’s all in. One he started, he never looked back. He’s relentless; no matter how many times he gets beaten down, he remains “pressed, but not crushed.” Where he goes, riots and radical change follow; he simply cannot be contained. When he’s waiting for his next presentation, he starts talking to all those who happened to be in the marketplace, because he just can’t be silent when he sees people in darkness. He can’t be stopped.

Imagine if every Christian was so relentless, if we started talking to anyone who happened to be there, whether at a planned event or not, because we couldn’t keep silent. If we impacted every environment, community, and group we were in, not just the ones we set aside to witness to. What if it wasn’t just church and home? What if it was the Uber driver in between them? The couple at the dog park? The lady at the grocery store? The person at the next desk or next office or next door down? Those who happened to be there. What would our lives look like? What would the world look like?

I’ll leave you with one last thought. Acts tell us when a couple of charlatans tried to cast out an evil spirit in Ephesus, they commanded him to leave “in the name of Jesus that Paul preaches.”

“And the evil spirit answered and said, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’”

The evil spirits in Ephesus knew Paul. Do the evil spirits around you know you? How fast would Satan panic if we all had the passion of Paul?