PAUL, DANDELIONS, AND THE FLOWERING OF THE GOSPEL

In previous blogs, we have talked about our life paths or roads and how God guides us along the way. In each of our lives, He has set a destination which is always for us to come to know Him in a highly personal relationship that gives us peace and the direction forward for the myriad, excellent paths that are possible once we have come to this point – once we begin to truly know Him. Now guided by God, the opportunities are endless.

A visual image is always helpful in understanding this or any spiritual journey stretching out before us. My friend and trusted blog advisor, Michael Canale, gives us a great illustration of this. He said to picture a dandelion with the stem of the plant as the road we are on in this world. The round seed nucleus at the end of this stem (our destination), has all the seeds that symbolize Kingdom work and opportunities. These are activated and sent out by the breath of God at the moment when, on the roads of our lives, we come to know this God intimately, personally. The postscript for this encounter and relationship is the scattering of the seeds we begin to plant, now being, in Jesus’ words, about our Father’s business. This powerful analogy is evident throughout Scripture but never more clearly than in the story of Saul, soon to be Paul, and his travel on the road to Damascus.

If ever a man was on the wrong spiritual path, it was Saul, as he “neared Damascus on his journey,” (Acts 9:3) with letters from the high priest enabling him to persecute the believers in Jesus, aptly named disciples of “The Way.” “Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.” (Acts 9:1) It was on the road to Damascus and before he arrived at his intended destination that Jesus intervened and, in so doing, placed Saul at the spiritual destination to which his entire life’s road had been leading.

“…suddenly, a light from Heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’
‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked.
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now, get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Saul, having been struck blind, had his stunned companions take him by the hand and lead him to Damascus where, three days later, he regained his physical sight and, as Scripture sets forth, gained spiritual eyes that would render him one of the great Christian visionaries, as well as an apostle of Jesus, down all the ages. Ultimately, he would pen about two-thirds of the New Testament and become as powerful an evangelist for Jesus as has ever lived.

(As an aside, we have studied light on the paths of our lives in other blogs but none more dramatic than the “light from Heaven” experienced by Paul and described here in Acts. It was Jesus’ calling card – Jesus who is Light itself. Sometimes the light with which God illuminates our paths is gradual; other times, as here, it is precipitous, breathtaking for Saul,)

Like the metaphor of the dandelion, there are immeasurable seeds planted from Paul’s missionary journeys. Through him, the Gospel of Jesus, blown like all the seeds of this plant, flowered and proliferated throughput the region and, ultimately, throughout the world at that time. The breath of the Holy Spirit multiplied the message of the Messiah by bringing a spiritual increase in new disciples wherever Paul traveled. Countless volumes of books have chronicled this story. The constraints of a blog limit us to just one of these – Paul in Athens.

Our God is a God of detours and Paul’s teaching in Athens was occasioned by just such a diversion. Acts 17:16 tells us how Paul was waiting for Jesus-followers, Silas and Timothy, to join him in Athens. Though very distressed by this delay, Paul used it to preach one of the most iconic sermons in Scripture. Looking around the city, Paul saw a culture that worshipped many idols, having a god for everything. Paul, in his sermon delivered on Mars Hill, introduced them to the true God, whose Son, Jesus, had given him a detour on the road to Damascus. The manner in which Paul approached the Athenians goes down in the history of missionary zeal as as fine an evangelistic moment as exists.

Rather than taking a judgmental approach in reckoning with all the gods they worshipped, Paul used diplomacy and finesse. At the invitation of some of the Greeks, he stood up and gave a public sermon:

“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I found an altar with this inscription:

TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” (Acts 17:22-23 NIV)

These people of Athens were, as noted theologian N.T. Wright, put it, “hedging their bets.” Just in case they might have left out a god for every aspect of their lives, they had this altar to a generic, catchall god. It was this deity that Paul brilliantly seized upon:

“I’m here to introduce you to this God so you can worship intelligently, knowing who you’re dealing with.” (Acts 17:23 The Message)

Explaining more about the true God to them, Paul went on, stating,

“…He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else…” (Acts 17:25 NIV) …He’s not remote; he’s near…(Acts 17:26 The Message,) “As some of your own poets said, ‘We’re his offspring.” (Acts 17:28)

Paul then closes with a mirror’s image of what Jesus said to him on the road to Damascus:

“The unknown is now known and he’s calling for a radical life-change.” (Acts 17:30 The Message)

Like Paul’s own dramatic life-change from persecutor of Christians to, arguably, Christianity’s strongest advocate, he was a spiritual seed planter in Athens, as in so many places visited on his amazing number of missionary journeys.

Seeds blown about by human breath from the nucleus of a dandelion – seeds of Christianity blown about by the breath of the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul. The wind catches such seeds, planting them as they go on to flower. The message of the Christ, who met Paul on his life’s road, is unfurled in the air and men and women spiritually grow, coming to know the true God as followers now, as then, of “The Way.”