“Why so much about Paul?” is a fair question. Or why so much mention of him and the writings (are they revelations to any?) given through him with some obviously and comparatively less mention of some others? Good questions. Fair questions, if they exist in any other as they are not non-existent in me, also.
God knows.
No doubt this can appear a coy response if there are such questions. It does seem to be, in some sense, too handy a ploy or catch all; nevertheless I can only rest where God has allowed me. God knows.
Our all and only justification for things done, things not done, views and perspectives held vs whatever blindness remains, is only one, Jesus the Christ. We may see things, we may say things (we are even encouraged to it) but there is, for us, only one foundation upon which any can, or anything is that is, is standing. All things being upheld by the word of His power. Even folly when allowed.
Just as it is to me, and for me, impossible to distinguish in myself faith from presumption (I must be shown) or of those places where I have spoken too much, or too little, I cannot justify myself. Nevertheless, having the same spirit of faith, we speak. Even (even most particularly!) that when we speak not from faith but from presumption…we have faith of being corrected. Disciplined. Chastened. Rebuked. We have a Lord, we have a Father, diligent in and to such.
And even if or when we think we see guidelines and rules, as salubrious as they may sound or appear, we dare not trust in ourselves to their fulfilling. We are (strangely in this faith) made open to being shown all wrong and that…because of Christ, and only so, it is alright. Now, admittedly this sounds too much a way of carelessness and caprice, but how this is not so is for another book, for now. (How can it be made alright to be wrong?…yes…a very good question!)
Saying that, there is no explanation as to my knowing all, or any of my “why’s” I might present as explanation, must come short. Even to any question of “Why so much about Paul?” But we are to share what we see even of not knowing all (or any) of the why’s we have been given to see it…as to us in particular. We are told sight helps the whole body to the extent it is given by God through Christ. Yours, mine, and ours. If we deny this mutuality, then we are no less denying any mutuality in Christ and of Christ, whose body we are. All and anything given of God to any part in the knowledge of Christ in even the deepest and most closeted finding, builds up the whole. And all is for comfort, encouragement (yes!) even rebuke and if or as need be, chastening. We don’t get to choose at this buffet “I only came for the dessert cart”. We are eating all the Lamb.
That being said, what might be seen (rightly, or wrongly, God knows) of Paul? A man conspicuously chosen? Is that a thing seen? A man in such and particular state of mind as to be totally opposed (at least to himself) and going about to do all he could in his strength and by whatever means and authority available to him to wipe out the name of Jesus from among men by by bringing as many as possible of those who declared that name to prison and/or death? Is that a thing seen? A man in some experience of the very precise targeting of God to all particularly personal (O! so personal) experience… “Saul, Saul”! Is that a thing seen?
And here, may God help me. For you may see a “seem” inconsequential and I may be in all presumption of raising it, nevertheless…may it not be to anything but wholesome provocation for investigation. God knows. But here we have a man (if we believe) called, chosen, even under the most miraculous of circumstance (but is it ever less for any man?) included in and among a company as one “not having known” Jesus the Christ in the days of His flesh, who is included in this company and by this company who once, in seeking to determine how such would be chosen said:
Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
No, the case is not being made (nor can it) of any rule or constraint being made of the disciples called as apostles to “of whom” they must or only could, choose. Yet, they showed a persuasion that it ought to be of one who was physically with them (and Jesus)
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us
There is no case they were mistaken in this, nor that the lot falling to Matthias was in any way less than God’s choosing. They had, these apostles, by prayer and all they knew to that time…sought to remove from their own hands and preference…any choice being made according to any of their own preference. This is no accusation of some falling short or error. But it shows disposition and even to whom they limited such choosing…(one who went in and out among them) which may surely have been according to God’s instruction to them.
But they encountered an “expansion”. (Do we?) When Paul’s revelation was presented, when Paul’s testimony heard, when Paul’s spirit was discerned as being in and of the spirit of Christ…and even as one quite particularly who had never accompanied Jesus (after the flesh), they (after the flesh), even once strenuously opposed (after the flesh)…with all this (is it a thing seen?)…he could not be denied his place in the body…and was indeed acknowledged as an apostle of no less standing nor stature than those who ate, drank, slept beside, walked dusty roads, “heard” Jesus through compressions of air expelled over vocal cords, witnessed overturned merchants tables, than any other.
This (dare it be said?) “should” hold no less wonder nor lack of glorious praise (in its form) from us as it once did from a “them”:
But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me.
Do you ever think of yourself at some remove? Consider that in some way you (or I) are disadvantaged by time and/or circumstance? That a “something” more manifestly displayed in power and glory happened in “a then” and according to some (even if minutely) different working than discerned in some “now”?
Yes, to me, Paul speaks (and is even a wonderful example of all hope) against such folly I have often given myself to.
And yes, Peter does no less. John does no less. Even their chastening and rebuke against such folly cannot be denied. They too came to well understand what man understood about the frailty and unprofitability of the flesh according to its own knowing:
Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. 2 Cor 5:16
Odd, right? At least in some way, right? Paul wrote this (or was given it to write) even sounding as though he were one claiming to have once known Jesus “after the flesh” in that “we”. But we know he wasn’t in the common sense of knowing as once the other apostles also knew Him, what His feet looked like after a dusty walk, what His breath smelled like up close, what His height was compared among them. NO. Not that at all. Yet he still wrote “we” to include himself as one once knowing after the flesh.
Yes, paul understood something of an enlightening necessary worked even curiosuly and strongly in himself…to all dissuasion against “knowing after the flesh” and all persuasion to knowing only after the spirit.
And, thanks be to God what was worked in him as one “born out of time” to lay hold, grasp, secure by true testimony that “what is for one, is no less than for all”.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
The sufferings of Christ and the honor upon Jesus the Christ is/was enough to transport him.
God forbid we think otherwise in any way.
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