Remember Your Leaders: The Apostle Paul

Perhaps no man in Christian history, save Jesus Himself, has led the way as an example of faith to be imitated as the Apostle Paul. Our understanding of Hebrews 13:7 encourages us to both remember our leaders as those who 1) spoke the word of God to  others, and 2) whose life also matched the proclamation (consider the outcome of their way of life). The greatest example of someone who spoke God’s word true and whose life was congruent with the proclamation is Jesus. He was perfect. But the testimony we have of the Apostle Paul reveals him as a sinner, as we all are, but a sinner whose entire life was transformed by his encounter with the risen Jesus, an encounter and calling that has made Paul an incredible example of faith for us to imitate. His life, though not perfect, matches the proclamation of the Gospel very clearly. He was a man who possessed the secret to life, the secret to saving faith, and he strived to make that secret public both in what he said and how he lived, he proclaimed salvation by Jesus Christ alone.

A Biographical Sketch
Paul was born Saul, a Roman citizen (Acts 22:27) from Tarsus, a city in the south of Turkey, just a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea. Though rather than worshiping Roman deities (i.e. Caesar), Saul was raised an ardent Jew. In fact he was a “Hebrew born of Hebrews” (Philippians 3:6). Not only was he a Jew, he was an exemplary Jew as He spells out in Philippians 3:5, he was “circumcised on the eight day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” His life as a Jew was of exemplary character. Indeed the pedigree he discloses here in Philippians is one that would set him apart as a real example of Jewish heritage.

Saul was highly educated in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), a leader among the Pharisees, the strict educated Jewish elite. He was educated among a Jewish Ivy League school. It was his academic expertise in the Pharasaical school that blended so well with his own dedicated temperament that made him such a force of zeal, both against Christianity and later for Christianity. This zeal led him to persecute the Church (1 Cor. 15:9), which included the persecution and martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 8:1-3). He thought he was doing right, what the Jewish faith would commend him for as a good Jew.

However, on a road approaching Damascus, north of the Sea of Galilee, Saul had an unexpected encounter. The very founder of the religion he was persecuting appeared to him, Jesus Himself. Jesus questioned why Saul was persecuting Him and then saw fit to blind him. But with the trial he also provided the way of healing; a man named Ananias who would lay his hands upon Saul for healing, a testament to Jesus’ power and authority. It is here that Saul is called to go and proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles. Saul sheds his Jewish name and takes a new Christian name, Paul. This calling takes him on numerous missionary journeys around the Mediterranean, results in imprisonment, stonings, beatings, a shipwreck, and more (2 Cor. 11:16-29). All this for the Gospel. This call to proclaim it took him eventually to Rome where many believe he was executed.

His devotion to the calling Jesus placed upon Him led to a faith that we must never forget, a faith that if we are seeking to live as disciples of Jesus, we must seek to imitate. The following are specific realities within the life of Paul that we as Christians 2000 years removed would be foolish not to learn from and incorporate into our own lives. He is a beacon pointing the way to us to the realities of grace and Christian discipleship.

By Grace Alone
One of the major tenents of the Reformation was sola gratia, by grace alone. This doctrine referred to the means by which a sinner is justified before God, thereby inheriting eternal life. Paul’s letters are foundational to this theological truth. In Pauls’ letter to the Christians at Ephesus he states, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (2:4-5). Indeed Paul’s entire ministry can be described by those two words by grace. Paul saw clearly that saving faith in Jesus Christ was only given to the sinner through grace. Our verse here makes it plain in the original Greek that God is the acting agent. The verse is filled with divine passives, stating what God has done as the primary agent, and stating that we are recipients of God’s action, of God’s bestowing of free grace.

For isn’t this how we define grace? Something that is given to another based on nothing earned but entirely based on the freewill and good desire of the individual bestowing it? This is why any notion of earning God’s grace, of earning salvation, is so preposterous according to the Scriptures. Paul makes it explicit that in order for grace to be grace, it has to be given contrary to any striving of the individual to attain it. Faith in what Jesus Christ has done on the cross is a gift given to the individual by God’s gracious will. Faith itself is not something that we can bring about on our own, for if it was then grace wouldn’t be grace. If we could believe by our own power, then the very act of faith would be an act earning salvation. But Paul’s writings are very clear that salvation is by grace alone, by God’s free decision to be gracious.

We learn from Paul the depths of God’s goodness towards us. When we see that God knows only He can rescue us, we learn to adore this God and glorify Him as the sole agent in our salvation, the sole gift giver. When we let grace be grace, and turn from any works righteousness, we rest in the beauty of God’s sovereignty and are drawn to glorify Him with thankfulness, that He would be gracious enough to rescue a sinner like me from the depths of my wretchedness. Soli Deo Gloria.

Suffering Redeemed
Paul was not a man who had an easy life. We have already alluded to some of what he had endured for the sake of his call to share the gospel with the gentiles above. But one thing that we can learn from Paul has to do with how he responds to these hardships. In his second letter to the church at Corinth he writes this particularly regarding his physical weakness, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (12:10).

We read this verse and we think “How could Paul say this?!” We suffer in this life and have seen hardships befall us. We know they aren’t easy to endure and we come across verses like this and we think that Paul was out of touch with life. This may not be the best verse to share with someone who is suffering, but it is an integral verse for building a theology of suffering and pain. For we see in v. 9 just prior Paul states, “But [Jesus] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” And I do believe this is the key to a theology of suffering that it exists for a purpose. The ultimate end of suffering, according to Paul, is so that it might lead us to rest on God’s grace alone, and not our strength. When we are reminded of how weak we are we realize how much it is we need to rest and trust in God.

And so Paul can say that he is content in hardships because he knows that in the midst of them he is weak and the only strength he has comes from God. Paul says this in 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” For as FF Bruce says, “If his ministry was so effective despite his physical weakness, then the transcendent power was manifestly God’s, not his own.” (FF Bruce, 136)

We learn from Paul that the hardships that assail us in life ought to be redeemed. We should view them as an opportunity to look to God, to say to Him, “Lord please help me, I am weak, please be strong that you might receive due glory.” When we see our weakness as a vehicle for God’s strength to be supplied, God gets the glory and we are sustained by the sufficiency of His grace.

The New Self
The last key lesson from Paul that I want to highlight (there are many) is his understanding of the old and new self. In Paul’s letter to both the church in Ephesus and Colossae he makes this doctrine a key point of exhortation and encouragement. Paul explains that for those in Christ they have a new nature. The old self, which was alienated from God due to a bondage and total inclination to sin, has been put to death and instead we now stand in the new life that Jesus has given us.

In his letter to the church at Colossae Paul states, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God…for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:1,3; see Eph. 4:17-32 for a fuller exposition of this doctrine). The key encouragement that Paul brings to his Christian audience is that they have put to death the old sinful self and have been reborn and are united with Christ in heaven at this very moment. Because of this reality Paul encourages them to then live as new creations. If we are made new and our old self has been put to death we are to act like it. Knowing that we are united to Him who is at the right hand of the Father, united to Him who intercedes on our behalf, united to Him who speaks every prayer we pray to His fathers ear, knowing this enables us to live in the reality of the new life.

We learn with Paul’s exposition of the new self that we are liberated from our sinful past. We are made new. We are forever shiny and clean in God’s eyes. There is great comfort here. Out of this comfort by God’s grace we are given the strength to then live as new creations, seeking things that are above and seeking to live in the reality of our justification.

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If you are looking for a wonderful comprehensive understanding of the Apostle Paul I would turn your attention to FF Bruce's wonderful text Apostle of the Heart Set Free. Bruce's understanding of Paul is top notch and the text is easily accessible with chapters discussing different areas of Paul's life and his influence.

**Next Week: Remembering Your Leader John Calvin

The Opportunity Presented by Post-Modernism

By Matthew Everhard

Permit me a moment to do a bit of cultural analysis. Let’s cover a thousand years of history in two minutes. Here goes…

The Ancient World gave way to an era called the Medieval Age, marked by superstition, supernaturalism, tradition, and the centralized authority in the Roman Catholic Church. This broke wide open in the Reformation period (1500’s) one of history’s great revivals of Biblical truth, as men like Luther and Calvin returned to the sources of the Old and New Testaments.  

Co-extensively, the Reformation ushered in the Enlightenment period (1700’s) marked by scientific inquiry and advance (Newton et al.) This matured into full-blown modernism (1900’s) which rejected almost all forms of supernaturalism, and essentially made empirical science “king.” Freud and Darwin took the top of the heap.

But today, we live in an age called “post-modernism.” Here, because we live in an inter-connected “global village” now, our culture rejects modern notions of absolute truth. Post-modernism rejects overarching meta-narratives. The playing field is wide-open. Anything and everything gets a fair shake in our day. Your truth is as good as mine. Wicca, Scientology, Mayan Calendar, Zombie Apocalypse--are all handled with the same gloves of tolerance!

We can define post-modernism as: an era of history in which the idea of “absolute truth” has been abandoned, in favor of: pluralism, tolerance, and personal experience. 

Good News/Bad News

There is both good news and bad news in all of this for evangelicals. First the bad news. Post-modernism makes evangelism a very difficult endeavor, because the preaching of the Gospel is first of all a truth claim. It is an assertion of certain facts: Jesus came, Jesus died, Jesus rose again. If these facts are not absolutely true, Christianity is unfounded. That post-modernism rejects “absolute truth” makes evangelism hard sledding indeed.

The good news in all of this is that our post-modern era is far more open to the sharing of personal-experiences than we fear! Much more so than other eras in the past! This is to our advantage in sharing personal experiences of Christ! Notice that in the book of Acts, Paul’s personal conversion story is told three times (chapters 9, 22, and 26). We should take note.

Discernible Life Change

There is, however, one rule to play by in post-modernism: you had better be authentic. The one thing that you must have to share your testimony with a post-modern thinker is a discernible life-change. Post-modern people can smell out a hypocrite from a mile away.

As Paul re-told his testimony and conversion to the angry crowd in Acts 22:1-22 twenty years later, not one man there could dispute that Paul had determined to live exactly like he professed that he would. Paul could pull up his shirt and show them the scars to prove it.

Biggest Fear

For most Christians, our biggest fear and ultimate obstacle in sharing our faith is that someone will reject us because we spoke about something so deeply personal as our faith in Christ. We are terrified of those two letters “no.” Have you ever heard the child’s motto “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” Well that goes for personal evangelism too!

Ironically, most people will not reject you for telling them what Jesus did for you. We should, however, be far MORE AFRAID that our lives reveal our hypocrisy, superficiality, and shallowness. That to me is far more terrifying prospect than rejection. 


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Brooksville, Florida. Follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard or friend him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pastor.everhard

James vs. Paul: Are We Justified by Faith or Works?

By Matthew Everhard

There is no doubt that James 2:24 presents a difficulty to those who hold the Reformed doctrine of Sola Fide (that is, that believers are justified by faith alone apart from works of the law). This present writer is one such man who holds firmly to Sola Fide without compromise. Briefly, how is it that we can hold firmly to the doctrine that justification is given by God as a gift through faith alone when James specifically says, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone"? Does this single verse present a mortal wound in the Reformed understanding of justification by faith?

Worse still, many have attempted to show that the Apostles James and Paul are at irreconcilable war with one another. Paul, has written clearly, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Romans 3:28). Because of this apparent discrepancy or contradiction, some have thrown out the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture altogether. While Martin Luther certainly did not throw the “baby” of inerrancy out with the “bathwater” of this troubling text in James, he certainly was befuddled by the perplexity of this difficulty. He called James the “epistle of straw!”

However, when viewed in light of their respective literary contexts, James and Paul can both be understood to be holding swords—not against one another—but standing back to back to defend the gospel against different foes.

Paul’s primary concern is to defend the gospel of faith alone against a deeply entrenched (and misguided) Jewish understanding of a man’s right standing before God. Many had assumed they there were “in” merely because of their ethnic heritage. In Romans 1-3, Paul labors to show that all of humanity has fallen. This includes both Jew and Gentile. Because even one sin disqualifies us from salvation (a statement upon which James and Paul would certainly agree; compare Romans 2:23 and James 2:10), all of mankind stands in desperate need of salvation. Paul argues forcefully that salvation cannot be attained by obeying the Law (i.e. performing “works”) since no man can fully uphold the Law. Condemned under the weight of the Law, mankind is helpless and needs a Savior. This Savior is none other than Jesus Christ who died to atone for the sins of all who believe, satisfying the righteous requirements of the Law and propitiating the wrath of God.

James’ primary concern however is to defend against the error commonly called today “easy believism.” That is, that a person can be saved by merely reciting a creedal statement with no more commitment than mental assent to the facts of the gospel. James refutes the theoretical possibility by showing that any one who claims to have such mere “faith” (note James says claims in verse 14), yet demonstrates no real life change, cannot truly said to be a believer. James fights against a different enemy than Paul—one who would suggest that mere words are enough “faith” to save. No, the Apostle’s point is that saving faith—true, sincere saving faith—always consists of a radical renewal of the inner nature.

The point of discrepancy, however, is most acutely felt in the use of the word “justify” and its variants. Paul says we are justified by faith alone (Romans 3:28) and James says it is by works (James 2:24). This dilemma dissolves easily when we simply understand that the word “justify” has different meanings in different contexts.

We all know that words may have different meanings. For instance, the dictionary contains over 20 definitions for the word “run.” Sometimes words even change over a matter of a few years. Recall for example that the English language contains the word “gay” which until recent decades meant “happy.” How that word has changed! Obviously, context is everything.

When Paul uses the word “justify” he is taking this word in the most technical, theological sense. He uses it in its forensic (or legal) sense of declaration. He commonly uses the word to denote a man’s being DECLARED righteous before a holy God. Without the atonement of the cross, wiping away a believer’s sin, this declaration would be impossible. Only when the righteousness of Jesus Christ is given to a believer through faith is a man justified (that is, considered and declared righteous before God.)

However, when James uses the word “justify” and its variants in James 2, he is NOT taking it in its technical theological (or legal, forensic) sense. No, he is using it in its more common connotation of “proving,” “defending,” “showing,” “revealing,” or “authenticating.” Another such usage of the same verb appears in Luke 10:29. James’ point is simple: a man of faith PROVES the reality of his conversion by his corresponding outward behavior.

In conclusion, we find that both James and Paul are in agreement: we cannot separate Jesus Christ as the Savior from Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives. True salvation always and necessarily results in a life-change spilling over into a joyful response of obedience and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Understanding that Paul and James use the word “justify” differently causes the apparent contradiction to melt and disappear altogether.

The analogy of a fire may be helpful. A fire emits heat and light as a result of combustion. The light is not given off not as the cause of the combustion, but as its effect. Similarly, we are saved exclusively by the grace of God through the agency of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet the inevitable effect of this saving power is good works which radiate from the believer as light inevitable emanates from a fire. 

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Friend him at www.facebook.com/pastor.everhard or follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard. 

The Un-Precious Life

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).

There is a counter-intuitive, inverse correlation between self-love and ultimate joy. The more one loves self, the more the self actually erodes into oblivion. The more one savors Christ and expends everything for the sake of the Kingdom, he finds himself more alive than ever possible.

After spending three years with them, Paul told the Ephesian elders on the beach minutes before his departure that he viewed his own life as un-precious. He said, “I do not account my life of any value…to myself.” He does not deny that God created him unique or stamped him with the imago dei (Genesis 1:27). He does not deny his role as Apostle or church planter. He says he viewed his life as un-precious to himself (emphasis added).

The un-precious life is the key to living fully and radically for the glory of Christ. Let’s look quickly at four marks of this “theology of self.”

First, un-precious men are often viewed as crazy, even by other Christians. The un-precious man is almost always greatly-misunderstood in his own time. Most think they are weird. Perhaps in some degree they are. Even their parents, peers and fellow believers don’t “get” them because they live so contrarily to their age and culture.

If you want to live like Paul, know and expect that most will not relate well to you. Your reputation among others cannot be highly prized in your own eyes. Often it is not until history looks back upon them that their genius is received.  Think about Jim Elliot (d. 1956) who was martyred at the hands of the Waodani Indians. Consider his wife Elizabeth Elliot who went back to preach to those who killed her husband. Most had tried to talk them out of this “foolishness.” Today we hail them as heroes.

Second, un-precious men take risks because their decisions are not based on self-preservation. This builds on the last point. The reason they often aren’t understood is that they make decisions with little regard for self-preservation. Paul says in Acts 20:23, “The Spirit testifies to me that in every city imprisonments and afflictions await me.”

How is it that Paul seems to have no fear of death? Well the simple answer is that he knows he’s going to heaven. But a slightly more nuanced answer can be seen in his manner of life as well. Paul has no fear of death because he has already died to self a thousand times over. He says in another place, “I die every day” (1 Corinthians 15:31). 

By “losing his life” (to use Jesus’ expression, i.e. forsaking health, material gain, comfort, ease, leisure, prosperity) Paul has “found it” in spending and being spent for the Gospel. Death cannot take anything away from a man that he has already willingly renounced! Over such a man, death has no sway.

Third, un-precious men accomplish incredible feats because obstacles are viewed as negligible. Un-precious men are not inhibited by the obstacles that stop other men because they serve a God that is big enough to overthrow any resistance by His Mighty Hand. Words like “cost,” “risk,” “expense,” and “danger” are not in their vocabulary. David regarded his life as un-precious when he fought Goliath. Joshua considered his life un-precious when he took Jericho.

Fourth, many un-precious men die early through excessive use of the body. Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) considered himself un-precious.  He preached 600 times before the age of 20. His sermons sold 20,000 copies a week. He led the first mega-church of the modern era, some 4-6 thousand persons at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. By his fiftieth birthday, Spurgeon had founded some 66 organizations including orphanages, publications, and missions.  His writings today comprise 63 volumes. Many do not know that his wife became an invalid at age 33, and for next 27 years could not attend her husband’s preaching.

David Livingston the famous missionary once asked Spurgeon, “How do you manage to do two men’s work in a single day?” Spurgeon replied, “You have forgotten, there are two of us.”[i] By this he meant the power of the Holy Spirit living within him!

Spurgeon wrote,

“If by excessive labor we die before reaching the average age of man, worn out in the master’s service, then glory be to God, we shall have so much less of earth and so much more of heaven. It is our duty and privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices whose lot it is to be consumed.”[ii]

Finally, of course, the greatest man who lived as though He were un-precious (although He was of ultimate, supreme value in the entire universe!) was our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote,

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).

Praise God that Christ lived as un-precious for you. Will you resolve to live as un-precious for Him? 

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville Florida. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/pastor.everhard or follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard.

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[i] Quoted in John Piper. Charles Spurgeon: Preaching Through Adversity. (1995 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors). www.desiringgod.org.

[ii] Ibid.