THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE PLAYERS | PART 3

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

In our last blog, Michael and I wrote of how, looking through the world’s lens, one would almost assuredly be amazed at Jesus’ choice of Saul/Paul as a prominent player in the play Jesus was writing. As to this surprise, it is fair to say that no one was more struck with wonder, as to Jesus’ decision, than Saul himself. Scripture clearly corroborates this. Flooded with the light of Jesus on the road to Damascus, Saul is described as follows:

 

“And he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me do?”

(Acts 9:6) KJV

 

Oh, what a question! What a scene in the play! No sooner had Jesus asked Saul why he is persecuting him than Saul asks him the pivotal question of the ages: “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?”

 

The action then continues. After seeing the light of Jesus, Saul was blind for three days, until a follower of Jesus, a man named Ananias, at the command of Jesus, healed Saul of his blindness.

 

(This was a preamble to Paul’s doing the same thing for others. Yes, Paul, most renown for his theology, later became a healer.)

 

“God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him, were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.”

(Acts 19:11) NIV

 

“His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him.”

(Acts 28:8) NIV

 

Paul learned healing from Ananias in the laying on of hands on his own eyes, which cured his blindness. One might ask an important question at this point. If Saul was such a well-known persecutor of Christianity, did Ananias show any reluctance in obeying Jesus’ command to heal Saul? He did, indeed, for Jesus followers like Ananias knew well of Saul’s fury against believers. When asked by Jesus to help Saul, the following exchange took place:

 

“Lord,’ Ananias answered. ‘I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he was here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

(Acts 9:13-14) NIV

 

At first, Ananias basically argued with Jesus – until the Lord said to him,

 

“Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.”

(Acts 9:15) NIV

 

To his eternal credit, Ananias obeyed Jesus:

 

“Placing his hands on Saul, he said, BROTHER Saul, (emphasis added), the Lord – Jesus, who appeared on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. He got up and was baptized.”

(Acts 9:17-18) NIV

 

Ananias will forever go down in Biblical history for this act of obedience. N.T. Wright, noted English theologian and Pauline scholar, commented on this in a zoom seminar I attended. He did so in a powerful way when he asked,

 

“Who are the Sauls in our lives, just waiting for our obedience?”

 

As Ananias did, at first, haven’t we all argued with God about the Sauls we know – the ones we just have trouble envisioning as “Christianity material.” God help us! There are potential Paul’s out there who are now Sauls. May our obedience to Jesus result in our reaching out to them. Like Saul, yes, they are now spiritually blind, as we all were at the beginnings of our spiritual odysseys.

 

Ananias had not cornered the market in being apprehensive about Paul at the outset:

 

“When he (Paul), came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.”

(Acts 9:26) NIV

 

Only after Barnabas, (Jesus-follower and missionary), vouched for Paul, was he trusted to stay with the disciples.”

(Acts 9:27-28) NIV

 

This all explains Paul’s defense of his apostleship as a “Johnny-come-lately” to hold this office.

 

Michael says it so well:

 

“Paul had to reconfigure his thoughts. When he said, ‘I am an apostle, he is stating his credentials, gathering the wind for his sails to preach.”

 

Scripture is replete with such statements. Paul is speaking:

 

“Am I not an apostle?…Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! (the Church in Corinth). For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.”

(1 Corinthians 9:1-2) NIV

 

“I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super apostles,’ even though I am nothing. I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs and wonders and miracles.”

(2 Corinthians 12:11-12) NIV

 

“I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles.”

(Romans 11:13) NIV

 

“I am Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…”

1 Corinthians 1:1) NIV

 

Paul, however, tempered his authority with humility and a realistic view of who he was before Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

 

“For I am the least of the apostles and do not deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace to me was not without effect.”

(1 Corinthians 15:9-10) NIV

 

Truly, Paul was a man who came to humility under the tutelage of Jesus. As Michael says,

 

“He was an advocate against Christianity but he switched gears; he became an advocate for Christianity. Strong people who meet Jesus do this. You don’t woo them into decisions. He converted instantly.”

 

In his humility, Paul is saying something so profound, so full of hope. That is, “If Jesus can use me, he can use anyone.” There is no one so far gone that they cannot serve God and do so with star power, like an angel. Paul is speaking of this when he says,

 

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; OF WHOM I AM CHIEF… (emphasis added) …for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”

(1 Timothy 1:15-16) KJV

 

What is this pattern? It is that time and again, God, through the Lord Jesus, has warrantied the performances of those who are lifted from the depths of sin, like Paul, and anonymity, like every fisherman who became an apostle. Apostles, as we studied two blogs ago, are “ Heaven sent.” They’re tapped for greatness by God Himself – pulled up from the dregs of sin and ordinariness. We know that no one is past saving but do we always remember that no one is past starring? For God’s sake, literally, let’s use our faith and a bit of imagination and see those whom the world views as hopeless, as spiritual victors, as a Paul, as a Peter.

 

Now, some may think, Michael and Jill, you’re portraying Paul as so humble as to be unrecognizable. Yes, but, as we promised in centering these blogs to focus on  Paul’s personality, we will show him as he was – feisty, to say the least. Paul was complex with a complexity that fascinates and causes us to fall in love with his pure spunk. As a matchless evangelist, he postured, he cajoled, was satirical, sarcastic, charming, exasperated – all to win souls for his Lord and Savior, Jesus.

 

Paul was led in his complexity of preaching and teaching by God and, as Michael says,

 

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking God is human. He is so much more complex than that.”

 

Paul, driven by frustration at the Church in Corinth, particularly, as they were highly susceptible to following “false apostles,” uses all of his evangelistic mannerisms to attempt to persuade them to follow his own true message of the Gospel of Jesus. He takes off the gloves when he states,

 

“Since many are boasting the way the world does, I, too will boast. You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face. To my shame, I admit we are too weak for that!”

(2 Corinthians 11:18-21) NIV

 

Literally dripping with sarcasm, Paul speaks of all about which he can boast regarding himself. As set forth in last week’s blog, he reminds them of how he was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked and the like. In short, he gives the Corinthians his own resume for why he is a true apostle.

 

In an iconic argument, he advances the point that, if he intended to boast to them, that he would boast of his weakness:

 

“…for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then am I strong. I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it.”

( 2 Corinthians 12:10-11) NIV

 

Of course, he is pouring himself out to say that, unlike those who would lead the Church astray, he operates on the Lord’s strength because he MUST when his adversity comes in waves and is unrelenting. Thus, he welcomed tribulation. All of this, he preached, is to save those Jesus has sent him far and wide to reach in his missionary journeys.

 

He was appealing to the Church then and, down the ages, to us today. When Paul, still Saul, still on the road to Damascus, asks Jesus, as previously cited, “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” Jesus said in so many words, over time, for him to preach and, yes, to preach his heart out. Such obedience, such an apostle, such a master of the heart and his craft!

 

POSTSCRIPT

Next week, Michael and I will write Part 4 of “The Playwright and the Players.” It will cover, among other Pauline topics, a study of Paul’s penning of 1 Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter. Paul, the master evangelist will give us life’s bottom line, showing himself to truly be as Michael writes, “Larger than life.”