To Live is Christ

30 Days with God's Servant Paul

Joshua Nickel

To Live is Christ: 30 Days with God's Servant Paul

Copyright  © 2014 Joshua Nickel

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Contents

Introduction

1. “For to me, to live is Christ...”

2. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

3. “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ”

4. “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”

5. “I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood”

6. “...they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.”

7. “I know a man in Christ…”

8. “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

9. “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.”

10. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

11. “…if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing”

12. “As a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.”

13. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

14. “We were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.”

15. “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.”

16. “Now I trust that you will understand, even to the end (as also you have understood us in part)...”

17. “…reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.”

18. “For the form of this world is passing away.”

19. “...as dying, and behold, we live!”

20. “...providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”

21. “The Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.”

22. “...but the word of God is not chained.”

23. “God has granted you all those who sail with you.”

24. “Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.”

25. “After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”

26. “But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.”

27. “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

28. “All those in Asia have turned away from me”

29. “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”

30. “...and to die is gain.”

From the Author

Introduction

In Romans 1:14, Paul spoke of his obligation to proclaim the gospel to all Gentiles, whatever their background: “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.” These words are precious to me because my ancestors, about fifty generations ago, were barbarians. When Paul wrote these words they were about 1,500 miles northwest of him, doing whatever it is that barbarians do.

I don't really know that much about them. I spend much more time thinking about my spiritual forefathers, people like Abraham, Moses, David, and Paul himself. I can confidently claim these men as my ancestors even though I am, and will always be, a Gentile, a descendant of barbarians, also known as the “unwise.”

Paul was a debtor to my ancestors. He lived his life for their sake. And, while they themselves didn't get to hear Paul preach in person, his message, the gospel for the Gentiles, reached them eventually, and they passed it down to me.

This is a study of Paul's life. It is intended to be read one chapter per day for thirty days, but I know that you will read it however you want to, and that is as it should be.

When I refer to Paul's life, I mean life in this sense of the word: his energy, his motivation, his values, his behavior. Paul once wrote to Timothy, saying, “you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance...” (2 Timothy 3:10). This book is a study of Paul's manner of life, and the underlying purpose behind everything he did. It's a study of the way that Christ manifested His character through Paul.

This book is also about the life of Paul in another sense: a series of significant events in which he was involved. Reading through this book will give you a sense of Paul's life according to that definition as well. But only a general sense. I have broadly followed the outline of Paul's life according to the consensus of conservative scholars. However, there are disagreements among scholars on specific issues, for example, when he wrote certain of his letters. So on some points I have not stressed the details. This book is not primarily about deciding chronological questions, but about seeing the kind of man Paul was.

There may be parts of Paul's life that you feel should have received more attention, and you may be right. Personally, I feel that I have shortchanged the letters of Romans and Philemon. But what I have written, I have written. So here are thirty meditations, in roughly chronological order, about the least of the apostles of Christ.

1.  “For to me, to live is Christ...”

1,970 years ago a man sat in prison and wrote a letter to his friends. Actually, he probably dictated it, and they were more than just his friends, as the letter would reveal. For it was more than just a letter.

The man was Paul, also called Saul of Tarsus, and the letter was written to people he called his beloved holy ones is Christ Jesus. Since they lived in Philippi, we call it the letter to the Philippians.

Here are a few of the many profound words from that letter: “For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:19-21)

Consider this part again: “For me to live is Christ.” Is is a small word. It's so small that in this case Paul didn’t even say it. It's not in the Greek text. It’s implied. When translated into English, the word is used. But still it's so small that it can be easily overlooked.

Is is a small word but it can have a big meaning, and when strategically placed between to live and Christ, it becomes enormous. It means so much that it's hard to comprehend. To live for Christ is great. To live with Christ is also wonderful. But it means more to say that to live is Christ.

The best way to understand what it means is to study the life of the man who said it. As I said, Paul was in prison when he made this statement. And it seemed very possible, but not certain, that he was about to die. When he thought of what might be left of his life, he thought not in terms of days or months or years, but in terms of a person. That person, Jesus Christ, was his life. Therefore, any study of Paul's life, if done right, will be more about Christ than about Paul.

As for Paul, he would welcome the idea of us examining his life. He considered himself well worth studying, not to understand who he was, but to understand who Christ was to him. The goal in studying a man like Paul is get to know him so well that you don’t see him anymore. For when you see through him to the One whom he was looking at all the time, then you realize that Paul really was nobody, and that Christ can be everything to you that He was to Paul.

Your purpose on this earth is to live a life that reveals Christ. Paul, therefore, is a great role model for you. If you take to heart the lessons that can be learned from Paul’s life, and if you put them into practice, people will see that you are different. They may love you or they may hate you but they will not accuse you of being a conformist. And perhaps someday people will study your life to see what makes you tick. Or perhaps they already are studying you—more than you realize.

2.  “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Jesus always had a way with words, and we can see this in the way He introduced Himself to Paul. Acts 9:3-6 summarizes their initial conversation: “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?' And he said to Him, 'Who are You, Lord?' Then the Lord said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.' So he, trembling and astonished, said, 'Lord, what do You want me to do?' Then the Lord said to him, 'Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.'”

Paul’s encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus happened at a time when he was vehemently opposed to Jesus Christ and everything He stood for. This is one of the reasons why his conversion was so sudden and dramatic. In one day he went from being as anti-Jesus as he could possibly be to being even more extremely pro-Jesus.

If only we all could realize that we were just as anti-Jesus as Paul was. Instead we think that we were sinners of a different kind. But we're all the same. The root cause of our sin is the same. All sin is against God, and is a rejection of Jesus.

Paul called himself the chief of sinners in 1 Timothy 1:15, not just because his sin was worse than others or because he sinned more often. He was our chief because he was doing deliberately what all sinners are doing even if they don’t realize it: opposing Jesus.

You may admit that you were a sinner but deny that you were ever really opposed to Jesus. You may have always tried to make a place in your life for Him. You may have only just recently heard of Him. You may not have been as blatantly anti-Jesus as Paul was, but the fact remains: you didn’t want Him. He is not what any of us wanted. That is a fact of human nature; it’s what it means to be a sinner.

It is at the very heart of sin to not want Jesus, to want something else. We are like the people in one of the parables of Jesus who complained about a certain man, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). That's the common root of all of our sin, the rejection of God's will and purpose, which is summed up in Jesus Christ. It’s because we don’t want Him to rule us that we are messed up and do all kinds of bad things.

It is our sin—our rejection of Jesus—that killed Him. Even those of us who have loved Him all of our lives are also sinners who rejected Him. Even the beloved disciple John, who lingered at the cross and cared for Jesus’ mother, did so while his own sins were killing Jesus.

This is a hard but necessary thing to recognize about yourself as a sinner. Jesus is the most desirable person in the universe and you did not desire Him. He is utterly satisfying and delightful but you wanted something else.

Sure, you love Him now, but that’s because He won and you lost. He overcame your opposition to Him. That's why you love Him now. You tried to get rid of Him and failed, just like Paul.

No matter how much you love Him now, it is good to remember that He isn’t what you wanted. It's a good thing to remember, that is, not about Him, but about yourself.

Living with the Holy Spirit means living with the Person you tried to kill. His love is a reminder of the hate He saved you from. His presence is a reminder not just that you opposed Him, but that He chose you anyway, and overcame your opposition.

3.  “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ”

In his letter to the Philippians Paul looks back on his conversion and subsequent life in Christ. He explains what he thought he had going for him before he met Jesus, and why he gave it all up.

If we were to read this account not knowing about Paul’s history we could misunderstand what he is saying. This is because he says he has counted as loss the things that were to his advantage, and he continues to count all things as loss.

“If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…” (Philippians 3:4-8 emphasis added)

He talks about counting all things loss as if he had a choice. It sounds like he has deliberately evaluated everything in his life and decided that Christ is worth more than all of it. It sounds as if he was in control all along, coming to his own decision.

But we know what really happened to Paul. He was on his way to Damascus to persecute the church. He was counting these aspects of his life as very precious and he had no intention of giving them up. Jesus Christ appeared to him, changing the course of his life in a moment of overwhelming glory.

Paul has not forgotten this, for as we continue reading his account in Philippians, the next words he says are more in keeping with what we know about his conversion: “…for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” (Philippians 3:8-9 emphasis added)

Indeed he suffered the loss of all things. That sounds like a more accurate description of what happened to him. It is a passive verb; something was done to him. And it was instantaneous. The tense of the verb he uses indicates that it is something that happened to him at once, not over an extended period of time.

But his language about counting all things loss shows us how he viewed his own conversion. It was important for Paul to point out that his conversion was not just something that was forced on him, but something that he was in agreement with, if only after the fact. Before saying what happened to him—what he suffered—he says two times what his own consideration was about the matter. Then he says a third time: he counted all things not only loss, but rubbish.

Before he met Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul counted these things as precious. It wasn’t his own spiritual quest or seeking after God that led him to count all things loss. No doubt Christ took the initiative and came to him, striking him blind and giving him little choice but to obey. But once he saw Christ’s glory, Paul did, immediately and for the rest of his life, see everything else as rubbish. He decided to let go of everything in his past, and he owned that decision for the rest of his life.

There are some things that we can't see as garbage until they are taken away from us. While we cling to them they seem precious. We all need to encounter the glory that renders everything else worthless, so that we can see things for what they really are, and count them as loss.

Did Paul really have a choice but to count all things as loss? After seeing the risen Lord could he have persisted stubbornly in his former way of life? Could he have lived the rest of his life with scales over his eyes?

Yes, he could have spent his life running from Jesus. Paul was not forced against his own will, he was given a new will.

We can always say no to God. We were born saying no to God. That is not the point. It is the power of His resurrection that gives us the grace to say yes. We can’t say yes without Him. Our ability to say no is part of the garbage that we count as precious until we see it in the light of our God-given freedom to say yes. “Can we still hang on to the garbage if we want to?” is a silly question. When the glory of Christ is revealed in our lives, we never ask if we can hang on to our garbage. The only thing that matters is that we can finally let it go.

When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, I don’t know what the first thing he said was. But it certainly wasn’t this: “But I can stay in this tomb if I want to, right?”

4.  “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”

When Paul met Christ he was struck blind. Jesus sent a disciple named Ananias to pray for Paul to regain his sight. Ananias was reluctant to go, but Jesus said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” (Acts 9:15-16)

Jesus showed Paul how much he was going to suffer. I don’t know how specific He was, but if He went into the details, it would have been a long conversation. In 2 Corinthians 10 Paul gives a partial list of his sufferings up to that time. Several times he endured beatings that could very easily have killed him. Rocks were hurled at him until he was dragged out of the city and left for dead. In addition to the beatings he endured, the hardships of travel nearly killed him more than once.

It would have been hard to go through all of that. Maybe it would have been even harder to know ahead of time that all of that was coming.

Paul spoke in Romans 9:2 of great sorrow and continual grief in his heart. Did Jesus tell him, “You will have great sorrow and continual grief in your heart”? Perhaps Jesus didn't go into great detail. Perhaps it was enough for Paul to know the degree to which his message would be resisted.

However Jesus did it, we know that He prepared Paul for what was coming. He was upfront with Paul about the cost and the pain. He didn’t just tell Him to good stuff first and save the hard news for later.

Paul followed the same example. Jesus was upfront with him, and he was upfront with others. He told the churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts14:22). He reminded the Thessalonians “we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation…” (1 Thessalonians 3:4). He told the Philippians, “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).

Whenever Paul came to a city he brought pain and suffering with him. He never shied away from it or downplayed it. He knew, and had to always remember, that the treasure he brought to the city—Christ Himself—was so much greater than any suffering this world can threaten a person with. Such suffering was not worthy to be compared to the glory of Christ. It was momentary and light.

Jesus is real to you to the degree that He is greater than all of your problems. When Christ is your life, everything else is put in perspective.

Jesus didn’t only tell Paul how much he would suffer, He told him how much he would accomplish. He would stand before kings and bring light to the Gentiles. When he was still a church-persecuting Pharisee, Paul was an extremely ambitious young man. But now Jesus had work for him to do that was even bigger than his own ambition and ego.

Paul was called to do a great work. But just as Paul’s sufferings were not worthy to be compared to Christ, neither were his achievements. That’s another thing he had to always remember.

Jesus is real to you to the degree that He is greater than all of your accomplishments. If success is your life, you will measure your life in terms of your successes. If Christ is your life, your successes—and your sufferings—are not your life. They are much too transient, unworthy to measure a life lived in the glory of Christ.

5.  “I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood”

When Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus his life changed and he began a new career. He had a mission to accomplish, to proclaim the resurrected Christ whom he had seen. He not only had to get people to believe that he had seen Jesus, but he had to get them to see the same Jesus with their hearts as he saw with his eyes.

Paul’s dramatic conversion was the result of a personal visit from Jesus Christ. He had to make the same thing happen to other people through the preaching of the gospel. His goal was that his preaching of Christ would have the same effect on people as if Jesus Himself was standing before them in His resurrection glory.

That's not to say that God left him on his own. God backed up Paul’s preaching with a great variety and abundance of signs and wonders. But Paul couldn’t just flip a switch and make it happen. He proclaimed the message and the Spirit moved. He couldn’t wait for the miracles to happen first. He had to begin; and he began in weakness.

In 1Corinthians 2:1-5 Paul describes this strange combination of weakness and power: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Weakness, fear, trembling, demonstrations of the Spirit and power. All together.

And Paul wrote these words some twenty years after his conversion. This is not the weakness and trembling of a beginner, for that goes away with time and experience. This kind of weakness doesn’t go away.

Paul and Christ could not both be strong at the same time, for they each had different kinds of strengths that couldn’t coexist. Human power is made into weakness in the presence of Christ’s power.

This takes us back to one of the first things Paul did after his conversion. He says in Galatians 1:16-17 “…I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.”

This is a fact that came in handy when Paul wrote Galatians. It helped him prove his independence from the church in Jerusalem and validate his message as authorized by God and not man. However, I doubt such ideas motivated him to head off by himself in the first place. I don’t think he strategized like that.

When Paul went into Arabia he wasn’t thinking about how it might look to people or what it might say about his independence. He was thinking about survival. He was seeking wisdom and direction. He had just had the foundation of his life knocked out from under him and he needed a new foundation. And since God removed the old foundation, God Himself would have to establish the new one. After his encounter with Christ Paul had a new understanding of something that King David had said: “The help of man is useless.” (Psalm 60:11,108:12)

It wasn’t to prove his independence or to validate his ministry that he consulted not with flesh and blood. After what he had just gone through he understood that only God could help him.

He did go to visit Peter, after three years. After he had received the help that can only come from God, he was not too proud to receive from others. He visited Peter and learned all he could, not only from Peter but from anyone that he could learn from. Paul understood interdependence  and mutual edification among fellow believers and he never turned down help when it was offered.

But he never played politics. He never tried to court favor with influential people. He avoided it not only because it was wrong but because it was worthless. Political power is human power. Human power is nothing before God.

6.  “…they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.”

When we read the books of Acts we see that Paul disappears from the narrative for a couple of chapters. Paul was in Tarsus, his hometown, during the events narrated in Act 9:32-11:18. What we might not see when we read Acts is that this time spent in Tarsus was somewhere between seven and ten years.

There is no mention in the New Testament of any preaching that Paul did or of any church that he started in Tarsus. It seems he was just living and working. He wasn’t speaking to kings and changing the course of history, like he was called to do.

It's hard to wait when you have work that you are eager to do. It’s hard to wait not knowing when or how you will get the chance to do that work. But what is worse is to begin to do the work and to be cut off just when it was really going strong.

That’s what happened to Paul. After his conversion “immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. Then all who heard him were amazed…” (Acts 9:20-21)

After three years, when he was ready to go to Jerusalem, he also preached powerfully there, to the very people who had stoned Stephen while he watched approvingly. Acts 9:28-30 says, “So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.”

Paul was ready to fulfill his ministry. He was ready for persecution. He went straight into the High Priest's back yard and boldly preached the same message that had gotten others killed. And as much as he was ready to be persecuted, the unbelieving Jews were more than ready to persecute him.

But the church wasn’t ready for Paul. He was ahead of his time and out of place. Jesus Himself appeared to Paul in the temple and ordered him to leave Jerusalem, promising to send him to the Gentiles (Acts 22:17-21).

Instead he went to Tarsus, to his family, to the life he had always known, to obscurity.

Christ had to be more important to him than the work he was called to do. It's easy to say that Christ is more important than the ministry. It’s hard to know how true that is, until you're really tested.

When he see God's greatness revealed in Jesus Christ, it is a natural reaction to want to live a life that reflects that greatness. But true greatness is often hindered by false ideas of greatness. These must die first.

A character in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye attributes the following quote to psychologist Wilhelm Stekel (it was actually a paraphrase of Stekel quoting another author, Otto Ludwig). Here is the quote: “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

Paul was ready to die for Christ in Jerusalem. He learned to live humbly for Him in Tarsus.

7.  “I know a man in Christ…”

We don’t know much about Paul’s years in Tarsus because Paul didn’t talk about them in his letters. We don’t know if he was ever married. We don't know how his parents reacted to his conversion. We know that he was a tent-maker, but only because Luke mentions it in Acts.

It’s not that Paul didn’t talk about himself in his letters. He talked very much about himself, some would say embarrassingly much. He talked about his fears, his anxieties, his rejoicing, his weeping. He talked about what he was thinking, why he was thinking it, and how he felt about thinking it. He poured himself into his letters. And yet we don’t know basic things about him, like if he was ever married.

Paul wasn’t extremely helpful to future historians. His concern was for the churches to which he wrote, and that explains why he was utterly transparent but at the same time so uninterested in his own personal life. He shared what he saw was necessary to point to Christ, nothing more and nothing less. His life as a biography didn’t matter to him except as a tool. What mattered was his life as a witness to Christ.

We do, however, know something interesting about the time he spent in Tarsus, after his conversion. And for that, we have the immaturity of the Corinthian church to thank. They drove him to foolishness.

The Corinthian believers had met some preachers who talked a lot about their biographies, their credentials, and their spiritual experiences. Some of the Corinthians were impressed—so impressed that they were losing interest in what Paul had to say.

In 2 Corinthians Paul delivered a lengthy critique of these other preachers and a defense of his own ministry, something he felt should have been unnecessary. In the course of his defense he shared this: “It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4)

During those years in Tarsus, when it seemed like not much was happening, Paul was taken to Paradise. He lived with the Corinthians and ministered to them for 18 months, yet it seems he never mentioned this fact. It seems he never talked about it at all except for this one moment when he was forced to defend himself.

If your life is defined by what other people think about you, the work of promoting yourself will never end. You will be obligated to present the best interpretation of your actions, and to highlight those things about yourself that will most impress others. In a sense you will be so busy writing your own biography that you will miss out on living your life.

When Christ is your life you find that you are free to give yourself to others completely, and yet there will still be much that nobody knows about you. You are free to share will others, not what will make you look good, but what will bear witness to Christ.

8.  “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Paul’s hidden years in Tarsus came to an end. It did not happen because of another encounter with the Lord or another trip to the third heaven. It happened because of something less spectacular but still very special: a man who appreciated him.

Barnabas came to Tarsus looking for Paul. The church was catching up to Paul’s vision of the gospel for the Gentiles. At least it was in Antioch. Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem to Antioch when they heard about what was happening there. What he saw there reminded him of what Paul had preached almost ten years earlier. He went to Tarsus to find Paul and bring him to Antioch to help.

The connection between Paul and Barnabas was not political. Barnabas didn't owe Paul anything. Paul didn't seek favor from men, but only wanted to please God. But when you are not trying to impress other people, people notice. And God granted to Paul a man who appreciated what he stood for.

Paul was teaching in the church at Antioch for some time when the Holy Spirit spoke to the church to send Barnabas and Paul on an apostolic mission. Acts 13:2 says, “As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’”

That day Paul was separated unto a work, but it was work for which he had been separated from his mother’s womb (Galatians 1:15). This was the moment he had been waiting for, when his life met his destiny. He was waiting for it, but he could do nothing to make it happen. When Christ is your life you do not need to go on a search for your destiny. It will come looking for you.

Because Paul waited, he had the endorsement of a church that heard from God. That's worth waiting years for. Paul didn’t seek the favor of men, but he knew that if something was from God, God would work through the church to do it. He had great esteem for the church of God.

Paul didn’t start new churches because he was dissatisfied with the present ones. He loved the church so much that he wanted to see one in every city on earth.

And it was important to him that he worked with existing churches. He didn’t care about men’s opinions, but he honored the church. That's why, in his letter to the Galatians, after asserting his independence from the Jerusalem church, he says he shared his gospel with the leaders of that church, “lest by any means I might run, or had run, in vain” (Galatians 2:2).

If Christ is your life you will love His bride, the church. You will love not just the ideal picture of what she can be, but the reality of what she is today in your city. You will love her and you will wait for her. And wherever you wait, God knows how to find you.

9.  “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.”

Barnabas and Paul saw tremendous fruit on their trip. God moved powerfully as they passed through the island of Cyprus, and on the main land they started churches in four cities, and perhaps some in the surrounding villages as well (Acts 14:6-7).

The first city was Antioch in Psidia. The method was simple. They came to town and visited the synagogue. When invited to speak Paul preached that Jesus was the Christ. One sermon. And according to Acts 13:44, the next Saturday almost the whole city came to the synagogue to hear what Paul had to say.

They reached everyone in the city in a week’s time. Paul was an overnight success. That is, if you call fourteen years of being distrusted, misunderstood, ignored, and forgotten “overnight.”

This is the work that Paul was eager to do since he first met Christ. And it turns out that the Gentiles were just as eager to hear the gospel as Paul was to preach it to them. This is the kind of result that God brings about when He does things His way. But His way is not popular with people, not only because it's hard, but also because it's hard to understand.

Would the people of Antioch have responded the same way had Paul visited them fourteen years earlier? Human reasoning would probably assume that the same people hearing the same message from the same man would have the same reaction, regardless of the time. Human reasoning would then find fault with God for wasting fourteen years.

Fortunately for Paul, he had learned the limits of human reasoning. For just as he and Christ could not both be strong at the same time, neither could they both be wise. Paul had to become foolish so that Christ could be his wisdom.

If success is your life, you will live in search of your next success. If Christ is your life, every moment is precious, even the time between successes. Success has its place, as does failure, and both can teach you about Christ if you are in the place to learn—at His feet.

God used Paul this way in city after city. He was able to get his message to the entire city in a matter of days. And this was important, because he usually only had a matter of days.

Paul’s preaching found a receptive audience, but it also brought immediate resistance. Persecution came just as fast as success. In one city on this trip he was stoned, dragged out of the city, and left for dead. That was right after being mistaken for a god.

When Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, they had many amazing miracles to tell the church about. God had confirmed His word. The unbelieving Jews also confirmed something that Paul had anticipated: they weren’t going to look the other way as Paul brought his gospel to the Gentiles.

10.  “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

Nearly everyone in the early church was in favor of sharing the gospel with the Gentiles, but they assumed that those Gentiles would become Jews, circumcision and everything. What they envisioned, then, was not the gospel for the Gentiles as Gentiles, but for the Gentiles as potential Jews.

As Luke tells the story in Acts, the church's leaders changed their position on this issue the same way that one of Ernest Hemingway's characters in The Sun Also Rises went bankrupt: gradually and then suddenly. There was a series of events leading up an important meeting in Jerusalem, where a final decision was made. But what is interesting about this is that each event in and of itself should have been enough to cause an immediate and complete change of position on this issue.

The first event was Peter’s divinely orchestrated visit to the Gentile Cornelius’ house. This happened while Paul was living in Tarsus. It initially stirred up controversy, but Luke records the reaction of the Jerusalem church to Peter’s explanation: “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life” (Acts 11:18). Case closed, or so it would seem.

The next event was Barnabas’ trip to Antioch to investigate reports of a flourishing mission church. It’s hard to know exactly how soon and how serious the Antioch church was in evangelizing Gentiles (Acts is unclear). But we know from Galatians 2:11-13 that by the time Peter visited Antioch they had Gentile believers, and the Jews and Gentiles were accustomed to eating together.

By the time the Jerusalem church heard about Barnabas and Paul’s astounding work among the Gentiles, they should have seen it coming. This successful apostolic mission was the third event, and, along with pressure from the pro-circumcision faction within the church, it finally brought the church to a conclusive decision.

Before this decision was reached, the church seemed to take a position similar to Gamaliel's advice in Acts 5:33-40. He advised the Sanhedrin to leave the Christian movement alone. If it is of God, he said, God will establish it. If is it not of God, it will fall apart on its own.

This council benefited the church because it kept Peter and John from being killed. But it was not helpful to Gamaliel. It left him on the sidelines, perhaps until it was too late. Better advice would have been to make an effort to find out if the movement was of God or not. There was plenty of proof available.

When Christ is your life you don't have to chase your destiny, it will come to you. This frees you up for a different endeavor: developing a deeper knowledge of God's heart. This is what Paul was referring to when he told the church to "try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (Ephesian 5:10 ESV).

First you do what you know to do, what you understand the Bible to be clear about. Then you don't simply say, "Whatever God's wants to happen will happen." Find out what is pleasing to Him.

The acceptance of Gentiles into the church didn't just happen because the leaders in Jerusalem were reacting to events. It happened because Paul, working together with God, was making events happen.

The Jerusalem church leaders sent a report of their decision to Gentile believers. They laid down some guidelines for Gentiles, saying, "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things..."

Don't let the casual language fool you, this decision was reached only after much conflict and reflection. It may require some time and effort to really understand what is pleasing to the Lord in a particular situation, but it will be worth it all to be able to say, "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to me..."

11.  “…if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing”

In bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, Paul not only had to deal with hesitation from the church and persecution from the unbelieving Jews, there was also the challenge of false brothers. When the enemies of Paul's gospel saw that persecution wasn't stopping him, they got clever. Some of them pretended to be ministers of the gospel themselves. They came to the churches Paul had started and pressured them to be circumcised. Paul’s gospel was incomplete, they said, for he hadn't told them that they need to keep the law of Moses. The letter to the Galatians was written in response to this challenge.

These false preachers had much going for them. They had an air of authority and the backing of a large and powerful institution. And they had their interpretation of the Old Testament, which they had been fine tuning for generations.

They also had verses like these: "And God said to Abraham: 'As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised...He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.'” (Genesis 17:9-10,13-14)

These are strong words: keep the everlasting covenant if you want to be a descendent of Abraham, or be cut off from the people.

We have no record of what these false ministers actually said, but it seems likely that they would have used these verses and others like them. We don't know exactly what they said because Paul, in Galatians, did not counter their argument point for point, although he could have. He could have won an argument over the interpretation of certain verses, or at least he could have fought to a draw.

Instead he presented his own argument, on his own terms, and interpreted Scripture according to a different standard. He contended for the method of interpretation that Jesus had also taught, when He said, for example, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

The unbelieving Jews not only studied the Scriptures in search of life, as Jesus said, but also in search of authority. They thought the Scriptures gave them authority, but they would not submit to Jesus, who had true authority. The crowds, on the other hand, recognized that Jesus "taught as one having authority, not as the scribes" (Mark 1:22). Jesus had authority in and of Himself, the scribes could only appeal to the authority of others. They thought that the authority of Scripture was also their authority as long as they interpreted it correctly.

Paul reminded the Galatians that the Scriptures bear witness to Jesus Christ. He insisted that any interpretation that leads them away from trusting in Christ was a wrong interpretation, no matter how persuasive it sounded. He warned them in Galatians 5:2, "Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing."

The Scriptures are given to point us to Christ, that He Himself might profit us. When the Bible is understood correctly, the benefits of Christ are received. When it is twisted so as to obscure these benefits, it will not yield its authority and life.

When Christ is your life you will treasure the Bible. You will not use it to prove your correctness or to give weight to your own arguments. Ultimately, Scripture will serve no man’s agenda, and you will not be interested in getting it to serve yours. You will only want to serve the agenda of Scripture: to bear witness to Christ. You will search the Scriptures and long for them to point you to your Authority, the Great King, that you might submit to Him.

12.  “As a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.”

Paul and Barnabas were ready to revisit the churches they had started but they had a disagreement. It was about Mark. It need not be seen as bitter or intensely personal, it just meant they couldn’t work together as before. Anyway, they had finished the work that God had sent them to do. Paul found another partner, Silas, and went on.

It was then that God gave Paul another special gift. Barnabas himself had been a gift to Paul, a man who encouraged and appreciated him. Now God gave Paul a spiritual son, Timothy.

Timothy wasn’t Paul's only spiritual son but he is the one we have heard the most about. Paul boasts about him in Philippians 2:20-22: “For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. But you know his proven character, that as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel.”

Paul boasted about him when he sent him to the Corinthians too, saying, “For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church” (1 Corinthians 4:17).

Timothy wasn't sent just to tell them about Paul's ways, any disciple could have done that. Timothy was sent as a living demonstration. Paul sent Timothy because he knew that just by being among them and being himself, he would remind them of Paul's Christ-like nature. Only a son can do that.

If Jesus Christ is everything to you, you are not alone. There are many who are like-minded. One of the great gifts that God gives to His children is like-minded co-workers.

This does not mean that Barnabas, or Mark for that matter, were not just as devoted to the Lord as Paul and Timothy were. Disagreements about methods and tactics are not disagreements about the worth of Jesus Christ. Not everyone who shares your love for Jesus is someone who you will be able to work closely with in the gospel.

Like-minded co-workers are gifts from God that grow more precious with time. Working together in the service of the gospel creates a great bond of love between people.

After visiting the churches he started with Barnabas, Paul went on to start churches in more cities. We know from the book of Acts that he ended up in Macedonia, and he ended up with another gift from God: Luke, the beloved physician, who at this point mysteriously appears in his own book (Acts 16:10).

Wherever he came from, Luke was one of Paul’s dearest friends. From this moment on he was often with Paul.

When Christ is everything to you it doesn’t make other people in your life less important. The opposite happens. When you share love for Christ, not just in words but in effort and sacrifice, when you cooperate with others to express His worth together at great cost, God gives a great love and mutual affection.

Paul, now with Silas, Timothy, and Luke, came to Philippi. There Paul received yet another gift from God: a like-minded church. Like Timothy and Luke, the Philippian church was a blessing to Paul for the rest of his life. The Philippians gave him very little trouble and supported him financially when no other church did (Philippians 4:15-16).

13.  “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

There was no synagogue in Philippi, so for the first time Paul started a church in a city and was not driven out by unbelieving Jews. He was persecuted and driven out, however, but by idolaters who were angry with him for casting a demon out of a girl.

Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into prison. While they were in prison they sang, and while they sang there was an earthquake—a special kind of earthquake that opened the prison doors and loosed the bonds of all the prisoners.

I love Paul. I didn't think it was possible to have so much affection for a man I have never met. I love him because of how much I have benefited from his letters and his example. I love him, not because of who he was but because of who Christ was to him.

But as much as I love Paul, I'm not sure that, if I met him, I would even like him. There is reason to suppose that he may have been a hard man to get along with. He was driven and emotional. He was relentless and intense. Some may have seen him as over-bearing and demanding.

On the other hand, he may have been someone I would have loved to be around. It is true that his intensity and confidence are seen in his letters, when he is exercising his apostolic authority to correct the church, but that is not the whole picture. The Corinthians said, “His letters are weighty and powerful,” but they added that “his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible” (2 Corinthians 10:10). And Paul described himself to them as “one who in presence am lowly among you” (2 Corinthians 10:1). It seems that there was a very gentle, perhaps even easy-going, side to Paul.

In addition to being meek and mild, he also must have been very joyful. He told the Philippians to rejoice always (Philippians 4:4). He wouldn't have told them to do something that he himself didn't do, for he offered himself as an example of all of his teachings.

So Paul was an emotionally complex and, I would say, well-rounded, individual. And joy was a fundamental part of his personality. We don't know what song Paul and Silas sang in prison that night, but I imagine it was pretty joyful.

Different personalities express joy in different ways. That's why God made so many types of people, so that He could express the nature of Christ with variety. But however you express it, if Christ is your life, you are called to joy.

In Jesus' day the people thought perhaps he was John the Baptist raised from the dead, or else Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets (Matthew 16:13-14). They couldn't figure out which of the prophets he was. All of the Old Testament prophets bore witness to Him in their own way. So when He came, He reflected the ministry of all the prophets. He wept with the compassion Jeremiah; He confronted His enemies with the boldness of Elijah; He rejoiced in the Spirit like David.

In reality it was the other way around. Jeremiah's compassion, Elijah's boldness, David's joy, were all manifestations of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the ministry of Christ through different personalities and in different situations.

Only in Christ can we see the whole picture. As great as the Old Testament prophets were, I believe that any one of them would have preferred to be a New Testament saint, like you. You have a unique personality that is designed by God to bear witness to Christ, and the more you testify of Christ with your life, the greater will be your spiritual joy.

14.  “We were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.”

After Paul left Philippi he came to Thessalonica. Two of Paul's earliest letters were written to the Thessalonian believers. Listen to Paul reminding them, in 1 Thessalonians 2:5-12, about how he and his co-workers lived among them and how they poured themselves out for the sake of the church there.

“For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.

“You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.”

Based on this description, how long do you think that Paul and his coworkers were in Thessalonica? Six months? A year?

It was less than a month. Acts 17:1-9 tells us that they were there long enough to visit the synagogue every Sabbath for three weeks before they were forced out of town by persecution.

It doesn’t take long to fall in love with a group of people until you affectionately long for them and work tirelessly for their well-being. It doesn’t take long to pour your life into a group of people for the sake of the gospel. However, it takes a long time for most people to decide if that is something that they want to do or not.

It takes a long time to build trust between people. We naturally don't want to expose ourselves to people we don't yet trust. Therefore close relationships normally take a long time to develop.

But those are relationships of friendship, of mutual give and take. That is not what Paul is describing here. He is more than a friend or partner to the Thessalonians. In these verses he compares himself to both a mother and a father. He saw the Thessalonians as his children.

Parents love their children immediately. It takes no time at all for a mother to love her newborn child. She gives herself for her children while she doesn't yet know them and certainly can't trust them, and she loves them long before she can expect to receive any love in return.

A father also loves immediately and unconditionally. And, while being a spiritual father is the work of a lifetime, a true father figure in the Lord can influence the course of an entire life in a very short space of time. Paul had this kind of influence on people.

You might be blessed, as Timothy was, to have a spiritual father with whom you can spend countless hours. But you might not. Nevertheless, there is still benefit in any amount of time that you can spend in the presence of a spiritual mother or father. If you understand this, you will want as many of these kinds of people in your life as possible, even if it's only for a limited time.

When Christ gives the kind of love for a people that Paul had for the churches he started, three weeks is a long time. There is a common saying that goes something like this: “In the end it’s not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.” Paul had more life in his weeks than most people have in their years.

15.  “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.”

Paul finally got to stay in a city without being driven out. The city was Corinth, and he stayed there 18 months. If we follow the account in Acts, we see that since he was sent on the first mission with Barnabas he started churches in seven cities and never stayed in one in which he was not driven out by persecution.

It was not his strategy to stay in each city only for a short time. He had no choice, persecution came and forced him out. It was leave or die.

Paul got used to that pattern and was expecting the same thing in Corinth. But Jesus appeared to him and told him it would be different, saying, "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city" (Acts 18:9-10). So Paul stayed there. Persecution did come there as well, but only after 18 months.

We know much about the church in Corinth because two of Paul’s longest letters were written to the Corinthians in the years after he had left. And they are almost entirely devoted to solving problems. 2 Corinthians contains two chapters dedicated to an offering that Paul was collecting for Jerusalem, but aside from those two chapters, 1 and 2 Corinthians are almost exclusively devoted to solving problems in the church. We wouldn’t have these letters, and we wouldn’t know as much about Paul, unless the Corinthians gave him lots of problems.

They had a variety problems. There were things they didn’t understand and things they were doing wrong. They had arrogance, rivalry, envy, and all the other marks of immaturity.

The immature get a lot of attention. Before Paul reached Corinth he started a church in Berea. The people of Berea are described in Acts 17:11 as "fair-minded" people who "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so." In other words, they were pretty mature people. It's no surprise, then, that the New Testament contains no letter of Paul to the Bereans. They would have loved to have one sent to them, but they didn't urgently need one. The Philippians were also mature. We do have a short letter of Paul to the Philippians, but that was written primarily to thank them for financial support.

The Corinthians, on the other hand, were different. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?"

So Paul dedicated two long letters to solving their problems and correcting their immaturity. But don't feel sorry for Paul, as if he would have preferred to write about Christ and His greatness and glory, and instead he had to deal with petty problems. He didn’t see those as two mutually exclusive options. He solved problems by speaking of Christ. He used all of the Corinthians errors and immaturity to point to Christ as the answer, as wisdom, as holiness, as power.

How you solve problems will reveal Christ as your life. As Lord of your life, He is relevant to every area of your life, including all problems, great and small.

Paul rebuked the Corinthians for not being able to settle petty disputes among themselves without seeking outside help. 1 Corinthians 6:1-4 says, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge?"

To the Corinthians, the fact that the church will judge angels in the future had nothing to do with their daily personal problems. That was part of their high calling that they had learned about from Paul. It was part of their eschatology. It was otherworldly. It was perhaps fun to contemplate, but what did it have to do with their earthly disputes? A lot, apparently.

The Corinthians were called to a glorious future, but that did not mean that the problems of earthly life were beneath them. Paul didn’t say the glories of the age to come have no relevance to daily life. On the contrary, he said if you are going to judge angels, “how much more the things that pertain to daily life.”

You are called to reign with Christ in the glorious age to come. This fact does not give you a reason to ignore your earthly problems, but grace to solve them.

16.  “Now I trust that you will understand, even to the end (as also you have understood us in part)...”

Paul had described the church in Corinth as being enriched “in all utterance and in all knowledge” (1 Corinthians 1:5). They loved teaching. They may have lacked wisdom and love, but they were enriched in knowledge just as they were in the Spiritual gifts. They had some among them who held to false teaching (about the resurrection, for example) but it was not for lack of access to true teaching.

They had learned from Paul for a year and a half. They had learned from Apollos, who was described as, "an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures" (Acts 18:24). Its seems that they had also been taught directly by Peter himself. They understood that the church would judge angels, a fact that Paul could briefly allude to without feeling the need to explain further (1 Corinthians 6:3).

Yet for all their knowledge there was something that they had only a partial understanding about. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 1:13-14, “For we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand. Now I trust you will understand, even to the end (as also you have understood us in part), that we are your boast as you also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus."

The Corinthians didn't understand the boast they had in Paul. Things are no different today. Many Christians still do not fully appreciate the eternal value of relationships in the kingdom of God. Relationships with those who have shared the gospel with us, or shared with us in suffering for the truth, are extremely precious in this life and will be our boast at the return of Jesus.

This is not to say that the Corinthians didn't boast in Paul. Some of them did. But, because they didn't understand their true boast in Paul, they boasted in a superficial and immature way.

Paul spent the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians dealing with this problem. Their immaturity led to divisions in the church and carnal boasting, with each saying, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” “I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).

So some were already boasting in Paul, but Paul did not commend them. Rather he corrected them along with those who boasted in Apollos and in Peter (Cephas). He warned them not to boast in men, or to be “puffed up on behalf of one against the other” (1 Corinthians 4:6).

The more you value Christ the more you will value your relationships with others, especially those that are built on Christ. That others have shared the gospel with you and that you have shared it with others will be a source of great joy when so much else that is fleeting and unimportant fades away in the light of His glory.

Paul came to the Corinthians determined to know nothing among them "except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." That way his relationship with them was built on Christ alone. This did not mean that he was too spiritual to talk about the weather with them. It meant that he viewed them and valued them first and foremost in the light of the age to come. His purpose in being among them was to share Christ with them. When he did talk about the weather or current events with them, Christ was never far from his mind. Paul's very presence among them was a constant reminder of the message of the gospel.

17.  “…reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.”

After Paul left Corinth he traveled back to Antioch and then visited the churches of the Galatians for a third time. Then he settled in Ephesus.

Acts 19:8-10 summarizes his time in Ephesus: "And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks."

Paul spent his days talking about Christ and never ran out of things to say. Some early manuscripts of Acts indicate that Paul was reasoning in the school of Tyrannus for five hours a day (11am-4pm). And we know that this wasn't all that Paul was doing. He was also supporting himself and others by working with his hands and he was teaching the believers in their houses (Acts 20:20,34).

Luke uses the word reasoning to describe Paul's activity in the school of Tyrannus. This is the word that often describes Paul's teaching style in the book of Acts. He reasoned from the Scriptures, showing how they make sense and point to Christ.

Paul's teaching style also included patiently addressing people's objections to his message. We see this in the rhetorical questions that he raised and answered throughout his letter to the Romans. And if his teaching resembled the pattern that was common in places such as the school of Tyrannus, then it also included dialogue with the students. So Paul didn't just lecture, he also engaged his listeners in conversation and answered their questions.

People who are interested in the gospel are going to have sincere concerns and objections. This is reasonable, and they deserve reasonable answers. Providing these answers is what we today call apologetics, and it was an aspect of Paul's ministry as well.

Immediately after Acts 19:8-10 (quoted above) Luke describes another important aspect of Paul's ministry: "Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them" (Acts 19:11-12).

It's not by accident that Luke describes Paul's reasoning ministry and then his miracle ministry. There is a connection between talking about Jesus all day, every day, and God doing miracles.

There are many great apologists for Christianity today who can answer peoples’ objections. They are a gift from God, a comfort to believers, and a help to unbelievers. Nevertheless, few of them can say that God does extraordinary miracles through their hands. In fact some of the best apologists today offer elaborate yet contrived arguments why miracles don’t happen anymore.

Such arguments are not necessary. Jesus makes sense, and He also does miracles. He Himself is a mystery, but He makes sense of the rest of the world. That is, He helps us to understand the world, why it is the way it is. It's reasonable to believe and to trust in Jesus Christ. Miracles are reasonable as well. There is nothing anti-intellectual about miracles. If our reasoning about Christ doesn’t lead us to expect miracles to happen then there is something wrong with our reasoning, no matter how well we understand and can articulate a great many other important subjects.

We may say that God sovereignty chooses to work in an extraordinary way through certain individuals, such as Paul. This is true, but He also works through the gospel.

Paul pointed to miracles as a sign of his apostolic ministry in 2 Corinthians 12:12, saying, "Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds." But miracles were a sign, not only of the apostolic ministry, but also of the apostolic message. We see this in Galatians 3:5, where Paul says that miracles were proof (but not the only proof, of course) that the gospel he preached to them was the true gospel: "Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"

Paul pointed out the miracles that were still happening in the churches of the Galatians even though he wasn't there anymore. The message continued to work miracles among them long after the messenger had left town. So today also, we can expect God to do signs and wonders among us. Paul's handkerchiefs are long gone, but his message, miracle-working gospel of Jesus Christ, is still here.

18.  “For the form of this world is passing away.”

Jesus told parables to illustrate the danger of not being ready for His coming. Matthew 23:45-25:13 contains two such parables, teaching two different ways that it's possible to be unprepared.

First, a servant misbehaves while his master is away but gets in trouble when his master returns sooner than he expected. Next, five virgins waiting for a bridegroom did not bring extra oil and ran into trouble because the bridegroom came later than they expected and their lamps went out. These parables illustrate two errors regarding the coming of Jesus: not being ready for it and not being ready to wait for it.

Paul dealt with both types of errors. The Thessalonians were an example of those who were not prepared to wait. They were disturbed by false reports that the day of Christ had come (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). Paul had to tell them that there was still some time to wait. Some scholars believe that the urgent expectation of the return of Jesus also contributed to the problem of some in the church not bothering to work for a living (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). These Thessalonians were like the foolish virgins of the parable; they had expectation but were not prepared to wait as long as necessary.

On the other hand, there were some in the Corinthian church who were more than happy to wait. In fact, they thought that there was nothing left to wait for. They believed that there was no such thing as the resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:12). If there is no resurrection, there is no reason for Jesus to return. This life is all there is. These Corinthians were like the servant who acted as if his master wasn't coming any time soon.

In fact, the behavior of the Corinthians was similar to the behavior of the servant in that parable. Matthew 23:49 says that his complacency caused him to "beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards." The Corinthians had similar problems: self-indulgence and fighting with one another.

Paul himself avoided both of these errors. His approach concerning the return of Jesus was the one that Jesus Himself had taught. Paul was ready and he was also ready to wait.

Did Paul think that Jesus would return during his lifetime? He made some statements that seem to indicate this. Did he think, instead, that he would die before Jesus returned? He made statements that seem to indicate this as well. This does not show inconsistency in Paul's thinking. It shows proper eschatology.

1 Corinthians 7 gives us insight into Paul's eschatology. In that chapter he is answering the Corinthian church's questions about marriage. When he comes to addressing those who are not yet married, he gives his opinion: "Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy. I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress—that it is good for a man to remain as he is: Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But even if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless such will have trouble in the flesh, but I would spare you." (1 Corinthians 7:25-28)

He says that he gives this answer, “because of the present distress.” What is the present distress that he refers to? He doesn't say, because he doesn't have to. It was obvious to the Corinthians. It's not obvious to us today, though.

Some scholars believe that it was a severe economic crisis caused by a grain shortage. Whatever it was, it was not a sign that Jesus' second coming was at hand. Paul was not one of those preachers who see every unfortunate event as evidence that Jesus is about to return.

But although "the present distress" was not a sign of Jesus' imminent return, it was a reminder of it. Everything for Paul was a reminder that this world has been judged and is coming to an end. So he goes on, in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, to inject this brief teaching on proper eschatological thinking: "But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away."

It may be hard to understand how to rejoice without rejoicing, but not if you've already learned to be ready for the end of the world but also to be ready to wait for it.

When Christ died on the cross He experience the end of the world ahead of time. Now He is living in the age to come. That age won't arrive in its fullness until Christ's return. But since He's already there, He shares the life of the age to come with us daily.

The form of this world is passing away. This is not just a matter of how soon Jesus is coming, but of how powerfully He has already come into your life. He experienced the end of the world already. He brings it with Him wherever He goes. If Christ is your life you cannot help but to be constantly reminded of this certain end.

19. “...as dying, and behold, we live!”

Luke covers the years that Paul lived in Ephesus in Acts 19:1-20:1, and by this account it appears that there was not as much persecution there as in other cities. Luke does mention a riot caused by idolaters, but it happened after Paul had already decided to leave Ephesus, Paul's friends prevented him from addressing the crowd, and a ruler dismissed the rioters before any harm was done. So at first it looks like the three year that Paul spent in Ephesus were relatively peaceful.

But there are hints elsewhere in the book of Acts that this was not the case. First, when Paul said goodbye to the Ephesian elders, in Acts 20:19, he spoke of the “many tears and trials which happened to [him] by the plotting of the Jews.” And then, in Acts 21:27, we learn that when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, it was Jews from Asia who, “seeing him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him.” (Ephesus was the principle city in the Roman province of Asia.)

Something happened in Ephesus that Luke doesn't mention. There is also a hint in 1 Corinthians 15:32, where Paul says that he “fought with beasts and Ephesus.” And this was written before the riot that Luke describes in Acts 20.

2 Corinthians, however, contains more than a hint. Something bad had definitely happened to Paul and his co-workers. He refers to it in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11, written not long after he had left Ephesus and was on his way to Corinth: “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”

Whatever happened to Paul, it was more than he could bear, and it gave him reason to think that he was about to die. But somehow, in a way that he could not have anticipated, he was delivered.

Later in the same letter he describes himself and his fellow ministers with a list of contradictions, including this one: “as dying, and behold we live” (2 Corinthians 6:9). The word behold indicates a surprise, as if Paul still can't get over the fact that he's somehow still alive.

Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” God made everything we can see and everything we can't see. When He started, He had nothing to work with, and if you had been there to watch Him, you never would have guessed what He was about to do. Creation was a surprise.

Creation out of nothing teaches us a lot about God and Christ. All things were created in and through and for Christ (Colossians 1:16-17). Christ is utterly creative, and therefore, utterly surprising.

When Christ is your life, that same surprising, creative power is at work for you. When it looks like there is no way, He makes a way out of nothing. He's not limited to the ways and means that you can see or imagine.

Paul thought he was going to die; there was no way out. Surprise! God created a way out. You might never be in a situation in which you think you are about to die. But one way or another you will learn the same lesson that Paul learned repeatedly. “We had the sentence of death in ourselves,” he said, “that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.”

20.  “...providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”

Paul was traveling through Macedonia on his way to Corinth. He sent Titus ahead of him to Corinth to prepare the collection of a large offering.

Paul was collecting an offering from the churches he had started. It was a special offering for the church in Jerusalem. It was a gesture of honor from the Gentile churches to the Jewish believers in Judea. Paul was going to deliver this gift himself along with delegates from the churches.

The churches were not only sending delegates, they had appointed someone as the treasurer of this gift. This person was traveling with Paul to make sure that every last bit of the gift was accounted for.

In 2 Corinthians 8:18-21 Paul explains to the Corinthians that this person will be accompanying Titus: “And we have sent with him the brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches, and not only that, but who was also chosen by the churches to travel with us with this gift, which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord Himself and to show your ready mind, avoiding this: that anyone should blame us in this lavish gift which is administered by us—providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.”

The churches chose someone to oversee the collection and delivery of this large offering. We don't know whose idea it was but it was a good idea and Paul had no objection to it. Paul knew that it was a necessary measure to protect his reputation before men. He also knew that, between him and God, it was totally unnecessary.

This offering to the Jerusalem church was something that Paul had been planning for years. It was a sign of the unity of the church and a proof that Paul's gospel was not divisive to the kingdom of God. This offering was extremely important to Paul. There was no doubt in his mind that he would not abuse it. He would rather have starved to death than spend a penny of the offering on himself. Paul knew that, and he knew that God knew it.

For an idealistic person that should have been enough. After all, if God knows your heart, who cares what people think? God cares. If you are His representative, then He is interested in what is proper and honorable “also in the sight of men.”

Paul was realistic, not idealistic. He knew that any appearance of impropriety concerning money would give people an opportunity to accuse him. Any accusations would of course be false, but why give them the opportunity? It is much better to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing.

Paul cared about his image. He cared how things appeared to people. And so he controlled his image, but not the way that most people do. Instead of trying to project a certain image, he worked at letting the true image of himself be projected. And, yes, this does require work.

You may remember that Paul had an experience while he lived in Tarsus. He was taken to Paradise. He didn't speak of this much in his ministry, but we have his account of it in 2 Corinthians. Paul felt compelled to defend his ministry because some of the Corinthians were comparing him unfavorably to false preachers who boasted of their spiritual experiences. Everything these false preachers did and said was designed to project a carefully crafted image of themselves to impress and intimidate others. In Paul's words, they “put on airs” (2 Corinthians 11:20, ESV). And some of the Corinthians were taken in.

After describing what happened, referring to himself in the third person, as “a man” that he knows, he then says this: “Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.” (2 Corinthians 12:5-6)

Paul refrained from talking about his experience in Paradise, in part, to keep people from getting the wrong idea about him. He knew that it was inevitable that he would project an image. Anyone who is known by other people projects an image, and for Paul to do his job meant that he would be known by many people who hadn't even met him. Many more people would know about him than would know him personally.

Aware of this, he was careful to control his image. But he did this in the opposite way than the false preachers. They chose an image that they wanted to project, whether it was accurate or not; he was careful to make sure that the image that was projected of him was not distorted.

He said, “lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.” In other words, “Let peoples' image of me be accurate and truthful, and let it be based on their personal experience, not on word of mouth.”

It is a great blessing to understand that God knows you and that you have nothing to prove to Him. You don't have anything to hide from Him, and you couldn't hide it if you tried. Before God there is no putting on airs or projecting a carefully crafted image, so there certainly doesn't need to be any of that before people.

But you still live in the real world, where people who don't know you make assumptions about you based on what they observe or hear about you. You can't stop them from doing this, but you don't have to make it easy for them either. Let the real you come through so loud and clear that there is no room for false impressions to form.

21.  “The Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.”

While Paul was in Corinth, preparing to travel to Jerusalem, he wrote a lengthy letter to the churches in Rome. In that letter he told them of his plans to travel to Spain, and to visit Rome on the way. He was confident that he would be coming to them as soon as he had delivered the offering of the Gentiles to Jerusalem, saying, “Therefore, when I have performed this and have sealed to them this fruit, I shall go by way of you to Spain. But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:28-29).

Yet despite this confidence, he immediately requested prayer for his safety: “Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen” (Romans 15:30-33).

There were two things that Paul knew to be the will of God, and they were in tension with one another. The first one he indicated to the elders of the Ephesian church when he said to them, “And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me” (Acts 20:22-23). He knew that there was more hardship and imprisonment in his future.

The second thing that Paul was convinced was the will of God was his mission to the Gentiles. As part of this mission from the very beginning, he was called to testify to kings (Acts 9:15). There was no more powerful king than Caesar, and there was no more influential city than Rome. It was God's will for Paul to go to Rome.

He didn't know what form his future chains would take or how they would come. He didn't know how long they would last. He didn't know exactly when or how he would get to Rome, if it would be according to his own plan as laid out in Romans, or if God had a different plan.

All of that information, combined with lack of information, could well have paralyzed him. But instead of being paralyzed, he planned as best as he could and moved forward with much prayer.

Paul avoided two mistakes that are sometimes made by people who are called by God to fulfill a work. Some are held captive by what they don't know. They will do nothing unless they hear directly from God, and then they will do only as much as they are instructed to do and no more. Instead of going in the general direction that God has called them, trusting that His purpose will become clearer as they go, they always wait for more specific instructions.

Others make the second mistake, which is to have such a firm idea of how to do the work that they don't receive any further directions, even from God. They think they already see the whole picture. They are held captive by what they know.

Paul balanced what he knew and what he didn't know, being held captive by neither. He wasn't paralyzed by the unknown or puffed up by his own vision.

Nevertheless, there is something that Paul could have done differently. He could have stayed out of Jerusalem. It wasn't clear to anyone but Paul why it was so necessary that he deliver the offering in person.

In fact, a few years before making this trip to Jerusalem, Paul wrote to the Corinthians that he might not even go in person. I Corinthians 16:1-4 shows how casual and undecided he is about the matter: “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the churches of Galatia, so you must do also: On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come. And when I come, whomever you approve by your letters I will send to bear your gift to Jerusalem. But if it is fitting that I go also, they will go with me.”

At that time he said, “if it is fitting that I go also...” Now he describes himself as “bound in the spirit to Jerusalem.” Something changed.

Luke marks the change in Acts 19:21: “When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, 'After I have been there, I must also see Rome.'”

So Paul purposed in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. But he visited some disciples on the way there, and according to Acts 21:4, “They told Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.”

So what did the Spirit think of all of this? It's hard to say, even after all these years. Luke tells us that he and others tried in vain to change Paul's mind. He says in Acts 21:14, “So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, 'The will of the Lord be done.'” One thing we can say for certain is that their prayers were answered and the will of God was done.

22.  “...but the word of God is not chained.”

Paul was arrested in Jerusalem. The Roman authorities arrested him to keep him from being killed by an angry mob and then further protected him from an assassination plot.

Paul was kept in Caesarea until Felix the governor made a decision about him. Felix, however, didn't want to make a decision, so Paul was left in custody for two years.

Paul appealed to Caesar as a Roman citizen, and was eventually sent to Rome. When he arrived there he spent two more years under house arrest in Rome, and that is were the book of Acts ends.

So it was a four-year imprisonment, two years in Caesarea and two years in Rome. Paul had already been imprisoned often (2 Corinthians 11:23), but those imprisonments must have been of shorter duration. This was his first extended period of imprisonment. Four of Paul's letters were written during this time: Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians.

A few years after this, during his second Roman imprisonment, Paul wrote to Timothy that, although he was imprisoned, “the word of God is not chained” (2 Timothy 1:9). These four letters, sometimes called the prison epistles, demonstrate how true that is. The gospel proclaimed by these four letters is anything but chained.

Prison changed Paul. His prison letters have a different tone. The doctrine is the same, similar themes are repeated, but there is a deep serenity in all four of those letters. This is especially noticeable when they are compared with certain of his early letters.

Galatians and 2 Corinthians 11-13 have a sense of urgency to them; they cannot be read in a serene tone. The prison letters are different; they are peaceful and cannot be read otherwise. They deal with some of the same problems, heresy from within and persecution from without, and they give the same answers, but in a different voice.

It's not that Paul doesn't still have harsh words for opponents of the gospel. He does: “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!” (Philippians 3:2). But still, there is an underlying serenity.

Many scholars read Ephesians and don't believe that Paul wrote it. It's so different from his earlier letters that they imagine it was produced by one of his disciples. But there is a better explanation. Prison changed Paul. Not only was he restrained from traveling, but he was left in limbo, not knowing how long his imprisonment would last or how it would end.

In addition to that there were the persecutions and crises that he had already experienced. More than once it appeared that he would die. More than once he saw no way out and yet God intervened. This is bound to change a person.

So I don't agree with those scholars who doubt that Paul wrote Ephesians, but it's easy to sympathize with them. I wouldn't be surprised if some of Paul's own friends didn't recognize him. Prison, and tribulation, changed him.

If Christ is your life, then your life is one of constant growth, and that growth is into ever greater peace. What worries you today will not worry you tomorrow. What bothers you now, you will not notice next year. Such is the influence of the Prince of Peace.

Paul wrote to the Philippians about growing into maturity. He said that even he himself pressed on to the goal. This life is one of constant growth in maturity.

Philippians 4:6-7 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Anyone who knows Christ can pray to God and find peace. The peace of God is not only for the mature. It can be received in a day and it can be received by someone who has only been a Christian for a day. The peace of God is a gift to all believers.

Paul goes on, however, to describe a deeper level of peace that comes with maturity. He promises that if the Philippians will imitate him consistently—that means over time and with effort—they will not just experience the peace of God, they will have a deeper knowledge of the God of peace.

Philippians 4:9 says, “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Prison made Paul a more peaceful person. It's not that he wasn't peaceful before, it's that life with Christ is one of ever-growing peace. “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7).

23.  “God has granted you all those who sail with you.”

Paul set sail for Rome as a prisoner and Roman citizen who had appealed his case to Caesar. As the trip proceeded it became clear to Paul that they could not make it to Rome before winter, and that if they tried they would die.

He knew what he was talking about. He had already experienced three shipwrecks. He had written in 2 Corinthians 11:25, “three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep.” The ship's crew, however, tried to get far enough to reach a place that would be more comfortable to spend the winter, and they were blown off course and set adrift on the sea.

Acts 27:21-26 tells us that, when it looked like they were all going to die, Paul had a word of encouragement for them: “But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, 'Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.” Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island.'”

Luke tells us that there were 276 people on that ship (Acts 27:37). They all had their reasons to want to get to Rome, and they would have considered their reasons to be much more important than a prisoner going to appeal his case. But however important they thought their reasons were, Paul's mission was the one that mattered.

Paul was fulfilling the purpose of God, and God was going to make sure that he got to Rome. Not everyone on that boat was interested in Paul and his message, but everyone was preserved because of Paul.

In this case Paul was the anti-Jonah. Jonah, the Old Testament prophet, was running from the will of God, and God troubled the boat he was on. Because of him, everyone in the same boat was in danger, until they threw Jonah overboard. In this case, God preserved everyone in the boat for the sake of one man, to get him to Rome.

As we have seen, Paul brought persecution and trouble wherever he went. But he also brought God's purpose, and God's preservation. He had promised the churches of Rome that not only would he come to them, but he would come “in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:29). He did so, regardless of the decisions of the crew of the ship he was on.

If Christ is your life, then your life is fulfilling a purpose for God's kingdom. If you serve that purpose with dedication and integrity, then you carry a blessing with you. People around you are going to benefit just by being in the same boat as you. They may never recognize that it's because of you that they are blessed (although some might), but at the same time, we might not considered Paul's journey to Rome to be  “in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ,” but it was.

24.  “Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.”

Let's revisit the words of Paul that we first considered when we began this study: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” This statement comes from Philippians, one of Paul's prison letters. Let's read it again, and the five verses that follow it.

“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.” (Philippians 1:21-26)

Paul was on this earth for the sake of his service to others. Christ defined his life because service defined his life—service for the sake of the gospel. This dedication and focus gave Paul the confidence that his work was not yet finished.

These verses provide us with a good definition of ministry. Ministry is simply to be alive for others for the sake of Christ. Whatever else we think of when we think of what it means to be “in the ministry,” it boils down to this simple definition. And by that definition of ministry, all believers can consider themselves ministers of the gospel. Some are called to full-time ministry, but all have service to offer the world for the sake of the gospel.

All true service in the gospel is service unto the Lord. First and foremost, it is Him we seek to please. And we can't do this if we are more concerned about what other people want. Paul made this clear in Galatians 1:10, when he said, “For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”

But there is a funny thing about being a bondservant of Christ. Once He has set you free from the need to please people, He sends you out to please people. This is what happened to Paul, for he describes himself this way in 1 Corinthians 10:32-33, saying, “Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”

He says he pleases all men (and he uses the same word for please that he used in Galatians 1:10). Of course he makes clear that he does it that they may be saved. That's a very different kind of man-pleasing. Christ frees you from the need to please people by giving them what they want, so that you can give them what He wants for them. And what He wants above all is to give Himself.

Faced with living or dying Paul said, “what I shall choose I cannot tell.” It's not at all clear that he even had a choice in the matter, but he thought as one who had a choice. And his choice was determined by his service to the church.

If Christ is your life then you are on this earth for the sake of others. You have a contribution to make. That should be the main factor in every decision you make in life, not an afterthought.

25.   “After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”

The book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest for two years. He was released after that, probably because the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem had bigger problems arise and never came to Rome to press charges.

Did he go to Spain? We don't know, but if he did it was a short trip. He was arrested again after two or three years, and this time under very different circumstances. This time his arrest led to his execution.

Besides making a possible trip to Spain, Paul also returned to the areas where he had already done most of his missionary work. Two of Paul's letters, Titus and 1 Timothy, seem to fit best in these years after his release from prison, and were written while Paul was traveling around Greece and Asia Minor.

He wasn't planning to return to that area or to those churches, but those two letters are pretty clear that he did, and that it was because of false teachers.

In 1 Timothy, Paul writes to Timothy, who was in Ephesus, about how to handle this problem until he himself arrives. 1 Timothy was written only a few years after Paul's letter to the Ephesians, but when we read Ephesians we don't see much hint of trouble (although the situation sounds a little more serious in the letter to nearby Colosse).

This crisis did not take Paul completely by surprise, however. Right before he traveled to Jerusalem with the offering from the Gentiles, he met with the elders of Ephesus to say goodbye. He warned them, saying, “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” (Acts 20:28-30)

It seems Paul was right about wolves coming into the churches, because in 1 Timothy we see him and Timothy dealing with those wolves and the aftermath of the havoc they wreaked.

Paul also told those Ephesians elders, “And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more.” (Acts 20:25)

It seems Paul was wrong about that. He did go back. Apparently the situation was so bad that he felt he had to. Things fell apart quickly in Ephesus.

1 Timothy is an unusual letter. It sounds like a situation in which a church is just starting out, yet it was written to an established church. The church in Ephesus was about ten years old, but they were in sense starting all over.

This was not what Paul planned to be doing. He knew that trouble was coming, but the church was supposed to take care of itself. Things weren't supposed to get this bad. Paul didn't think that he would be spending the last few years of his life laboring to save a church that was straying from the gospel. He saw himself starting new churches, not fighting to save the old ones.

And this wasn't just any church. This is where Paul had lived, worked, and preached for nearly three years. It was from here that the gospel spread to all of the district of Asia, even to people whom Paul never met. Now he was working to reestablish this church after removing some of the elders.

This is a reminder that you don't always get to do what you want, and that you are never too old or too experienced to start over. You're never so far along that what you want to do can't be overtaken by what you need to do. If Christ is your life, you never stop laying down your life, your plans, your expectations, and it's never too late to tear a work down to it's foundations in order to build it up again.

26.  “But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.”

One of the issues that Paul had to deal with in Ephesus concerned widows being supported by the church. He instructed Timothy about this matter and, in 1 Timothy 5:11-15, he gave this advice concerning young women who had become widows: “But refuse the younger widows; for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry, having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith. And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not. Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some have already turned aside after Satan.”

According to Paul's instructions in 1 Timothy, widows may dedicate themselves to the Lord and be supported by the church, but only if they are at least sixty years old. The younger ones should remarry. Paul gave this advice because some young widows had dedicated themselves to the Lord but found that they could not keep their commitment and felt bad about it. Others tried to keep their commitment but wasted their time and fell into gossip.

In light of what had happened to these young women, Paul thought that it was better if young widows remarry. But he did not always think this way. His opinion on this matter changed over the years.

Look back at 1 Corinthians, which was written about ten years earlier. It was written to Corinth while Paul was living in Ephesus, so we can assume his advice for Ephesus would have been similar.

In 1 Corinthians he is more optimistic that young women (and men) will be able to devote themselves to the Lord and not feel the need to get married.

He says in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, “But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife. There is a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.”

And again in 1 Corinthians 7:39-40: “A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she remains as she is, according to my judgment—and I think I also have the Spirit of God.”

Paul had a gift for not being married, and he valued it. But over the years, between writing 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, he realized that few other Christians had this gift—fewer than he had supposed. His advice in 1 Timothy 5 reflects this realization.

But it's not that Paul had led the church astray. Even while writing 1 Corinthians 7, he was careful to distinguish between his opinion and the word of God. He advised that a widow would be better off remaining single, but he added these words: “according to my judgment—and I think I also have the Spirit of God.” That is why, even while he changed his emphasis to reflect what he saw happening in the church, what he wrote in 1 Corinthians isn't wrong.

That same caution appears also in 1 Corinthians 7:7-9: “For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

It took real humility for Paul to acknowledge that he was gifted in ways that others are not. This kind of humility leaves room for other gifts to flourish as well. Many churches emphasize the gift that the pastor happens to excel at. This is only natural; leaders obviously focus on what they are good at. But it is good to remember, along with Paul, that each has his or her own gift from God.

Paul had a gift from God, but he did not allow it to put unnecessary pressure on those who did not have the same gift. If you don't recognize your gifts for what they are, manifestations of God's grace, you will assume that what is easy for you is easy for others as well. This can make other people think there is something wrong with them, when in fact they simply have different gifts. False humility makes light of God's gifts; true humility values them.

I once read an interview with an very accomplished musician. When asked what other musicians impressed him he said he was more impressed by scientists and engineers. I didn't understand at first, but now I think I do.

When you exercise your gift for years and years, what really impresses you is people exercising very different kinds of gifts. That is as it should be. God wants us to be impressed by the variety of gifts that He has dispersed among his people. But in order to see other people's God-given gifts, you have to recognize your own.

27.  “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Emperor Nero began a systematic persecution of Christians. Paul was arrested again. He wrote 2 Timothy while awaiting execution, knowing he would not be released. 2 Timothy 4:6-7 makes this clear: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

But before writing those words, Paul had other things to say. 2 Timothy, Paul's last letter, is not so much about Paul as it is about Timothy. It was written to strengthen and encourage him. Paul was looking out for Timothy to the very end.

He was also looking out for the church. He says in 2 Timothy 2:2, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

He was concerned not just for Timothy, not just for the church of his day, but also for the next generation. Paul was looking at the church on earth right up the day he departed from the earth. In this way he was a faithful servant of God like Moses.

Moses died on Mount Nebo, before the Israelites entered the land that God had promised to give them. God allowed Moses to see the promised land. He could see it but he would not enter it.

Deuteronomy 32:48-52 tells the story: “Then the LORD spoke to Moses that very same day, saying: 'Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people; because you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hallow Me in the midst of the children of Israel. Yet you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.'”

God told Moses he would see the land even though he would not enter it. This was a concession, a favor to Moses, allowing him to at least view the promised land.

But I think it was more than that. Moses was a leader and an intercessor, and so it was important that his last act on earth would be to look forward to the fulfillment of God's promises on earth. It was a final act of leadership, looking ahead to where the people of God were called to go.

It was also a final act of intercession by one of God's great intercessors. For he looked at the land not in despair but in faith. Just by looking at the land and believing that the Israelites would occupy it, Moses was performing one last act of service unto God before he died.

So it was fitting that Paul's final letter be written to encourage his spiritual son and co-worker, who was not only about to lose Paul, but still had much suffering and imprisonment to go through himself.

In 2 Timothy there is no trace of regret, no looking back on what might have been. Paul is not concerned with how he might be remembered, or even if he is remembered at all. He is concerned that there be faithful men and women on earth, and that Timothy and others would commit the truth to them.

Even though Paul knew he would die soon, he didn't quit living. He kept doing what he had always done, laboring for the sake of the gospel. He went to his execution very much alive.

28.  “All those in Asia have turned away from me”

The persecution started by Emperor Nero, during which Paul was arrested and killed, had a severe impact on the churches that Paul had started. We can see how bad things were when we read what he wrote in 2 Timothy 1:15: “This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me...”

We don't know the exact nature or the extent of this turning away. Paul does go on to mention a certain Onesiphorus, apparently a resident of Ephesus, who was faithful until the end. So the abandonment of Paul was not total.

But there are ominous hints at how bad things were. For example, at the end of the letter, his greets his friends, saying simply, “Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus” (2 Timothy 4:19). Prisca and Aquila were Paul's dear friends, and it is nice to see that they remained friends to whom he could send greetings. But in the past when he greeted them in a letter (Romans 16:3-5) or sent greetings from them (1 Corinthians 16:19), he included the church that met in their house. It is unusual that when writing to Timothy, who was in Ephesus at the time, Paul had no word for the church there. Whatever Paul meant by, “all those in Asia have turned away from me,” it was serious.

It seems that Paul would not have been a welcome guest in some of the churches that he had started just twelve years earlier. Some of his friends and coworkers, like Demas, had abandoned the faith completely (Colossians 4:14, Philemon 1:24, 2 Timothy 4:10). There were some very discouraging things happening in the churches when Paul died.

What Paul did not live to see was that those who were faithful to him, though perhaps smaller in number, would have the greater impact on history. He did not live to see his letters, including the one he wrote to Ephesus, become some of the most widely studied writings in the history of the world.

If you could send a message back in time, imagine what you could tell Paul in order to encourage him. Books written about him could fill libraries, to say nothing of the people who have been converted by reading his letters. Imagine being able to tell him that, 2,000 after his death, there would be cities named after him on the other side of the world.

Paul didn't get to see, in his lifetime, all of the impact that he was having on the world. Nobody does. We get to see some of the fruit of our labor, but not all of it.

Remember that John the Baptist saw his ministry as a fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah about a voice in the wilderness. That's pretty huge. But when asked about another prophecy, about the coming of Elijah, he said no, that wasn't him. John said he was not Elijah. Jesus, however, said about John the Baptist, “And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come” (Matthew 11:14).

Even John the Baptist didn't realize how much his ministry was accomplishing. Nobody ever does. Nobody gets to. Those who try to measure their accomplishments in this life get distracted. If Christ is your life you can accept this. Even when it looks like everything you have worked for is falling apart, you know that's not necessarily true.

Everything you do, you do for Christ. He sees the impact you are making, and, in order to encourage you, He will let you seem some of it, but never all of it. Not in this life. That is reserved for another Day.

29.  “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”

2 Timothy 4:16-18 gives us some of Paul's last written words:

“At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!”

Paul knew that he was going to die soon, being executed by having his head cut off, as he said in 2 Timothy 4:6-7: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

In light of this knowledge it is unusual that he said, a few verses later, “Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom.” (emphasis added)

In these verses (2 Timothy 4:17-18) Paul used a certain Greek word twice, once to describe what God had just done for him and once to describe what he expected God to do for him again. Here in the New King James Version it is translated as deliver (“I was delivered...and the Lord will deliver me...”).

The word means to rescue. But the way Paul uses it makes me wonder if he knows what it means. He is about to be executed at the command of Nero, an exceedingly wicked ruler. It is definitely an evil work and it is certainly going to happen. Yet Paul speaks of being rescued from it.

He had been prevented from being harmed so many times before—lowered in a basket through a window, escorted by Roman soldiers, hidden by his friends. But more often than not, he was not delivered from harm, but delivered over to it: “From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep...” (2 Corinthians 11:24-25). You would think by now that Paul knows the difference between being rescued from something and not being rescued from it.

Of course he did know what the word meant. He knew what it was to have to go through an unpleasant experience, and what it was to be rescued from one, and he went to his own execution as one who had already escaped it.

What Paul learned throughout all of his sufferings was that the Lord always rescued him eventually. Whether the beating happened or didn't happen, he was rescued from it. He was given grace to avoid it or grace to endure it. He was indestructible in life and now he would be indestructible in death.

You don't know everything that you're going to have to go through in this life and you don't want to know. Knowing everything ahead of time would not make things any easier, it would probably make things harder. But if you know this one thing, that whatever happens, it can't separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, then you've already been rescued.

30.  “...and to die is gain.”

If Christ is your life, then your entire life is a mere beginning of much greater things. Your life is a seed, and your years on earth are an opportunity to invest in another lifetime that will never end.

If Christ is your life, then you live your life so that, ultimately, you can lay it down at His feet. After all, what else will you have to give Him? You have a life, nothing more and nothing less.

Paul's life has yielded many lessons for us to consider and put into practice. We have just focused on a few themes. There are many more lessons to be learned and many more books to be written.

God was gracious to us to preserve for us 2 Timothy, Paul's last letter, so that we can see the courage with which he faced his death. We can go to our reward with the same confidence.

Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that Christ became a man so that “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

People don't realize how much of their daily lives are shaped by the fear of death. They may go for days, even months, without giving any thought to their eventual death, especially when they are young. Nevertheless, the fear of death is still enslaving them and determining the course of their lives. Just imagine how differently people would live if they thought they would never die.

But slavery to the fear of death is not simply a matter of how often you think about death. In fact, being delivered by Christ from the fear of death frees us to think often about our own deaths, while those who still fear death are busy changing the subject. It is often those various ways of changing the subject, those distractions from death, that the devil uses to enslave people.

If Christ is your life you are free to die when your time comes. And that death will be gain to you. You are also free to live, for if it's not yet your time to die, it's your time to live. Live in a way that will magnify Christ.

Let's take one more look at what Paul says in Philippians 1:20-21: “...Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

And here is Philippians 1:20 in the Amplified Bible: “This is in keeping with my own eager desire and persistent expectation and hope, that I shall not disgrace myself nor be put to shame in anything; but that with the utmost freedom of speech and unfailing courage, now as always heretofore, Christ (the Messiah) will be magnified and get glory and praise in this body of mine and be boldly exalted in my person, whether through (by) life or through (by) death.”

May this also be your own “eager desire and persistent expectation and hope,” and may God fulfill this hope by magnifying, honoring, and glorifying Jesus Christ in your life in innumerable and unexpected ways. May the peace of God be with you in Christ Jesus, and lead you into ever greater knowledge of the God of peace.

From the Author

More material is available at JoshuaNickel.com

My weekly blog is at TheLanguageOfGrace.net

My email address is JoshuaMarkNickel@gmail.com

May God bless you and magnify Christ in your life.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. “For to me, to live is Christ...”

2. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

3. “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ”

4. “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”

5. “I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood”

6. “...they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.”

7. “I know a man in Christ…”

8. “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

9. “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God.”

10. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

11. “…if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing”

12. “As a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.”

13. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

14. “We were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, becau

15. “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in

16. “Now I trust that you will understand, even to the end (as also you have understood us in part).

17. “…reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.”

18. “For the form of this world is passing away.”

19. “...as dying, and behold, we live!”

20. “...providing honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men.

21. “The Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.”

22. “...but the word of God is not chained.”

23. “God has granted you all those who sail with you.”

24. “Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.”

25. “After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”

26. “But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.”

27. “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men w

28. “All those in Asia have turned away from me”

29. “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”

30. “...and to die is gain.”

From the Author