One of the great injustices in our marriage occurred when I was invited to St. Petersburg to consult with a new Christian publisher seeking to produce Russian language Sunday School curriculum.
We were living in Poland at the time, and it was a great opportunity for collaboration. Coincidentally, one of our friends had married an American missionary and they had planted a church in St. Petersburg.
After concluding the fruitful consulting work, I went to visit them. They were very proud of their city and wanted to give me a taste of Russian culture.
The first evening we attended the Kirov ballet, my first ever ballet. The next day they took me to the Hermitage. Unknown to me my host had graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in art history.
He provided me with a professional private tour including a brief lecture on Rembrandt’s use of light! I had never seen anything like it. There was the Michelangelo statue, a large room with over 15 Rembrandt paintings including the Prodigal Son, a hall filled with impressionist paintings with at least 10 different Monet paintings.
At the end of the tour there was a room packed full of Picasso paintings. To be honest, I was an art idiot. On the other hand I knew my wife would have killed to be there.
When I got home, she asked me for a description of the Hermitage. Trying to recount everything I saw was impossible, so I just hit the highlights.
Similarly, describing the Apostle Paul’s dynamic philosophy of ministry is nearly impossible.
It is not an overstatement to identify Paul as the greatest church planter, missionary, pastor, theologian, and Christian leader in the history of Christianity.
Volumes have been written about each of the above and his writings have occupied the study, preaching, teaching, and devotional life of the church for centuries.
Attempting to assess his leadership in a few short paragraphs may seem like a fool’s errand, but the focus will be on a limited assessment.
Last week, we suggested that effective leaders develop a dynamic philosophy of ministry based on biblical principles, personal giftedness and ministry context. This was clearly the case with Paul.
We will not attempt to describe in totality the spiritual principles, giftedness, and context which informed Paul’s leadership. We will, however, survey each of these to illustrate how they did inform his leadership.
We would contend that an in-depth assessment of the same would provide a more thorough, rich, and nuanced understanding.
#1 - Principles
As noted, attempting to identify the principles that were foundational to Paul is beyond our scope.
However, we can take as examples some of the core spiritual convictions of his life and leadership.
God’s Faithfulness
God’s faithfulness to His covenant promises and purposes is a guiding principle for Paul.
God’s original intention to create man and woman in His image to reign over the earth and live in a worshipful relationship with Him would not be thwarted.
God’s commitment to make Abraham and his descendants a blessing to the nations was an integrating principle for Paul.
And finally, His faithfulness in dealing with sin once and for all in Christ makes it possible for all people to be justified before Him through faith in Christ Jesus.
Supremacy of Christ
Jesus Christ is the name above all names (Philippians 2:9-11) and all things have been brought under his feet (Ephesians 1:22).
Christ is the fullness of God and in everything he has the supremacy (Colossians 1:15-20). Jesus was the Servant (Isaiah 42:1-4); Yahweh came back to the land (Isaiah 42:5-9).
He is the only mediator between God and humanity (I Timothy 2:5) and is the fulfillment of God’s promise to make Abraham’s descendants a blessing to the nations (Galatians 3:1516).
Simply stated, for Paul, the person and work of Christ was the hinge of history, upon which everything turned.
Spirit Filled Living
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit defines the people of God (Romans 8:9).
Various images portray the Holy Spirit as God’s personal presence, being alive in us (Romans 8:11), to be walked with (Galatians 5:16), and kept in step with (Galatians 5:25).
The Holy Spirit dwells among God’s people (I Corinthians 6:19) with God’s personal presence no longer within the Temple only. He gives us freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17), life and peace (Romans 8:6), and fruitfulness in God’s Kingdom (Galatians 5:22-23).
In short, the person and work of the Holy Spirit allows those who have confessed Jesus as LORD and Savior to experience God’s original intent to bear His image in the world and be the worshipping community that is a blessing to the nations.
Israel and the Nations
From the outset, Paul was drawn to God’s covenant promise to make His people a blessing to the nations (Acts 9:15).
God’s faithfulness to His promise to make Abraham a blessing to the nations was a central conviction (Romans 4:16 and Galatians 3:7-9). Paul considered himself a faithful Jew (Philippians 3:4-6). He realized that the people of God were members by faith alone (Romans 3:22, Romans 20:12, Galatians 3:28).
For Paul the amazing news was that God’s people included Jew and Gentile. Both were members by faith alone!
It is Paul’s love for Israel, God’s own and the nations that was the impetus for his tremendous missionary, church planting work (Romans 1:16).
There are certainly weighty spiritual principles and convictions held by Paul in addition to these: ecclesiology and eschatology come quickly to mind.
In addition, the summary of the four principles above is concise in nature with volumes written on each. However, the point made is that Paul’s way of leading was influenced profoundly by these convictions, a key to his effectiveness.
#2 - Giftedness
If attempting to outline Paul’s basic spiritual and doctrinal conviction is daunting, speaking of his giftedness is nothing less.
Coming after Christ, as one of the founders of the Christian movement, his giftedness was rich and diverse giving him tremendous influence as a leader.
Here is a sampling that certainly influenced his leadership style.
Apostleship
Paul identifies this gift himself in the greetings of his many letters. (Colossians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Galatians 1:1, Romans 1:1 etc..)
In its strictest sense, an apostle was a messenger and was used in secular sources to refer to an ambassador. For Paul, it was one entrusted with the message of the gospel and sent to proclaim it to the nations.
Although not a witness to Christ’s life and ministry, he had a personal encounter with Christ and sensed his apostolic calling and message was received directly from God (Galatians 1:1, 11).
This gift was the impetus for his missionary work, taking the gospel to Asia Minor, Rome, and desiring to serve in Spain (Romans 15:28).
Teaching
The book of Acts documents Paul’s teaching ministry with a few examples in Cyprus (Acts 13:12), Antioch (Acts 15:35), Athens (Acts 17:19), Corinth (Acts 18:11), and Jerusalem (Acts 21:28).
There are, many more, but suffice it to say that students of the Bible agree that one of Paul’s primary gifts was teaching. Like Jesus, his teaching could be widely divided into two categories.
The first was correcting misunderstandings, erroneous doctrine or outright falsehoods. (cf. Philippians 3:1-14, Romans 2:1-11, and Galatians 3:1-15) In many cases, it was a misunderstanding of the Law and the purposes of God.
In other situations Paul is teaching new doctrine with fresh new insights into the truth. (cf. I Corinthians 13:1-13, Colossians 1:15-23, and I Thessalonians 5:1-11)
Closing Thoughts
With this brief overview of Paul’s personal giftedness and the Scriptural principles that guided his ministry we feel like we have eaten a snack at a great banquet.
The point of the survey is to note that Paul’s way of doing ministry, his philosophy of ministry, was formed by his giftedness and his critical Scriptural principles.
If you have not already done so, you might take some time and identify the unique ways that God has gifted you and the biblical principles that are so crucial to you.
For my part, God concern for children (Deuteronomy 6, Matthew 19:13-15 etc..) and His love for the church (Ephesians 3) are two guiding Scriptural principles for my life of ministry. Reading this blog, you can decide if I have the gift of teaching 😊!
Next week we will look at how ministry context was so crucial for Paul as a leader.
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