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Start the night with praises

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Col 1:

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What was the source or cause of Paul’s ministry?

The source or the cause of the Apostle Paul’s ministry was GOD.

Paul didn’t raise his hand and say pick me.

He didn’t stand in front of some Elder Board and become ordained by men.

He did not take an oath like most of us did at some point in our life when we joined the military.

Terrified by Christ majesty and blinded when his Lord appeared to him suddenly at about noontime on a Roman road.

He asked Jesus, “What shall I do Lord?”

Paul spells it out for us pretty clear here in verses 23 and 25.

Verse 23 “and of which I, Paul, became a minister” ….

Repeating it in verse 25, “of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.”

Saul of Tarsus was on a different path and had grandiose plans for himself to please the men of his nation and religious sect he had embraced.

Additionally he believed with all his heart, mind and strength that he was serving God.

We often in Paul’s letters and the account of Luke in the book of Acts read about the Apostle’s credentials.

lays these out very well

Let’s spend a little time here dissecting those character references for Paul.

5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Let’s spend a little time here dissecting those character references for Paul.

Circumcised on the 8th day of the people of Israel.

This was important for the Jewish nation and the religious leaders in Jesus time look back to Genesis chapter 17 verses 12-13

This was also important for Jesus.

Luke’s gospel tells us that as was custom Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple

He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised.

Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised.

So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant.

A Benjamite - A Hebrew of Hebrews

This was also important for Jesus.

Luke’s gospel tells us that as was custom Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple “and at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus.”

“and at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus.”

A Benjamite - A Hebrew of Hebrews

Paul was born to Jewish mother and father who lived outside of the boarders of the Jewish nation in Tarsus.

The capital city of the Roman province of Cilicia that was able to maintain it Jewish heritage.

He could trace his Jewish lineage to the tribe of Benjamin, was given the name of Saul the name of Israel’s first king who was also a Benjamite as were Mordecai and Ehud the left-handed Benjamite from Judges chapter 3.

The tribe of Benjamin comes from Jacobs’s youngest son Benjamin.

He was the only son of 12 born in the Promised Land and his mother was Rachel.

They were a fierce tribe and protective of the clan.

In judges 20 and 21 we learn a lot about this small tribe and how; when they were engaged in war their small 26,000-man army took 38,000 men from the 400,000 mustered by the eleven other tribes of Israel.

Paul could speak and read Hebrew or Aramaic, the ancestral Jewish languages, as well as the government mandated language of the first-century Roman Empire, Greek.

We know he could write in Greek and we can assume he could also write in the other two as well.

As to the Law - A Pharisee

Paul was a member of the legalistic Jewish sect or Pharisee meaning separated one.

He was taught by Gamaliel ( “educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers.”)

Gamaliel was one of only seven men recorded as being a teacher of teachers or rabban.

These rabban shaped and molded the legalistic views adopted and put into place during the inter-testament period.

Paul was also following in his father’s footsteps tells us he was the “son of a Pharisee.”

A Zealot and Persecutor of the Church

There is nothing wrong with being passionate or enthusiastic about ones faith or the work they are called to do for God’s purposes.

It is probably boring when I stand up here and drone on about the Apostle Paul.

But it would also have a reverse effect if I were screaming at the top of my lungs about some other subject and telling you how you should use my new product to help your beard grow or your car look better.

On the other hand, even more damaging if I were telling you your religion or denomination was blasphemy or heretical and you were all going to hell or I am going to throw you into the dungeon if you don’t see things my way.

We know Paul approved and oversaw the stoning of Stephen in and those doing the stoning “laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”

Zeal for the Lord is one thing but to take God’s wrath into our own hands is forbidden in scripture.

We are also warned that our anger is a slipper slope:

And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Jam

Someone might say well Jesus got angry and drove the tax collectors and merchants from the temple outer courts and this is true.

But, Jesus was not just a man, he was God and man and he was sinless.

His is the only anger is righteous.

Zeal for the Lord is one thing but to take God’s wrath into our own hands is forbidden in scripture.

We are also warned that our anger is a slipper slope: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Someone might say well Jesus got angry and drove the tax collectors and merchants from the temple out courts and this is true.

But, Jesus was not just a man, he was God and man and he was sinless.

His is the only anger that was righteous.

Can you be angry and not sin?

We can be angry about things but unless you can control your sin it is advisable to channel that feeling toward something good.

We know that God converted Saul on the road to Damascus and commissioned him to Apostleship for the Gentiles but Paul never again use violence and persecution.

He certainly didn’t use it to spread the Gospel.

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”

We know that God converted Saul on the road to Damascus and commissioned him to Apostleship for the Gentiles but Paul never again use violence and persecution.

He certainly didn’t use it to spread the Gospel.

The Lord used Paul’s zeal for two purposes; to explode the persecution in Jerusalem, the fuse was lite the day Christ was crucified.

The action at Stephen’s stoning disbursed believers and evangelists to spread the gospel to the gentiles who make up the vast majority of the church.

It also to provided a highly educated speaker able to reason from the word of God to men and women appealing to them so that God would open their eyes and ears to see and hear what God’s purpose is and allowed God to convert them each and every one.

This same man was a writer, capable of documenting God’s word.

From this documentation and the rest of the New Testament, God establish clear and relevant doctrine for the individual believer and the church.

Found blameless when it came to righteousness in law.

We shy away from using this word blameless today from the pulpit or in the bible study.

However, for Paul to claim this was well within his right.

He was a serious Pharisee.

He paid attention to the smallest details of the Law of Mosses.

Not one of his peers could charge him with failure to keep it.

But as one commentator buts it,

“a distinction needs to be drawn between external conformity to the law in areas where men can judge and inflict legal penalties, and the perfect spiritual conformity to it that God alone can truly assess, and by which “no man can be justified” Homer Kent

Paul clearly understood this and in

Never the less his claim to blamelessness in view of the law and man was correct and a justifiable statement.

wrote “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

Never the less his claim to blamelessness in view of the law and man was correct and a justifiable statement.

I want to talk a little about the phrase Paul uses “to the stewardship from God”

The Greek for stewardship is a compound word oikos (“house”) and nemō (“manage”).

Oikonomia He was under a compulsion to manage what God had placed into his care.

In ancient times a steward had control of everything that the master had possession of and was fully trusted to manage the assets, money, servants, lands, etc… as he saw fit.

This left the owner to pursue other interest.