Power in Weakness

Paul's Transformed Vision for Ministry

Timothy G. Gombis

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781467461337
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Educazione religiosa

Envisioning cruciform community built on resurrection hope

After Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he turned from coercion and violence to a ministry centered on the hope of Christ's resurrection. In earthly terms, Paul had traded power for weakness. But—as he explained in his subsequent letters—this "weakness" was actually the key to flourishing community that is able to experience God's transformation, restoration, and healing. What would it mean for pastors today to take seriously Paul's exhortation in 1 Corinthians 11: 1 to "imitate me as I imitate Christ" and lead their congregations in this way?

Instead of drawing leadership principles and practices from the worlds of business, education, and politics—which tend to orient churches around institutional power and image maintenance—Timothy Gombis follows Paul in resisting the influence of the "present evil age" by making cruciformity the operating principle of the church. Gombis guides the reader through practices and patterns that can lead a congregation past a focus on individual salvation, toward becoming instead a site of resurrection power on earth.

1

Paul’s Unconverted Ministry

Pastors struggle with anger and frustration. Leading a church is hard work and it is easy to lose patience with God’s people. At the same time, pastors love what they do, serving God and genuinely caring for the people in their churches. And, of course, they do not want to appear abrasive or condescending, or to fall into ordering people around, so they rarely find outlets for dealing with slights, criticisms, personality conflicts, and other disappointments.

I knew a pastor whom I will call “Kevin” who had become frustrated with his church and with his small support staff. When he was younger he was part of a vibrant church in a major city that was led by a dynamic preacher with a magnetic personality. The pastoral staff was large and the church had no shortage of resources to send them to conferences and to offer many other professional development opportunities. His experience at this big, “successful” church shaped his conceptions of his future ministry. He later became the lone pastor of a small church in a less populated area of the country that had far fewer resources. He nurtured ambitions about leading the congregation toward experiencing the sort of thriving community life that characterized his former church.

Over a few years, however, very little had changed and Kevin grew frustrated. He harbored a desire for the church to be a dynamic community of blessing, to reach into the community with vigor, and to experience growth in its various ministries. Because Kevin had formerly enjoyed plenty of professional development opportunities, he began to grow resentful that he could no longer go to conferences and catch up with pastoral colleagues as he once did.

Kevin’s preaching began to have an edge to it. People began to feel that he was berating the congregation in his Sunday sermons. Some of the church staff felt that he was being short with them. In Kevin’s view, they were becoming obstacles, not committed to ministry as they should be, failing to live into the vision he felt God had set for them. He often complained about his situation to former ministry partners at his previous church, claiming that his leaders were getting in the way of where he wanted to “take the church.” He was discouraged that they were not getting on board with his vision the way he wanted them to. He began to see many of the people in his church as problems to be solved. He grew bitter, frustrated, impatient, and angry. One Sunday a lay leader took him aside and mentioned that he seemed sullen and irritated. Word had spread that he had recently blown up at the youth pastor. Leaders in the church were doing what they could to avoid being around him.

This sort of situation is far more common than many would expect. It is surprisingly easy to slip into a mode of ministry where we are trying to bring about God’s blessings in a destructively forceful or coercive manner. From our perspective, of course, we are only trying to carry out God’s calling for us. After all, most pastors want their communities to be life-giving havens where people experience the power and presence of God. We may attempt, however, to get there in ways that counteract our intentions. Pastors in situations like this require a conversion of their ministry imaginations.¹ Their entire outlook must be transformed regarding their postures toward their churches, toward their ministry partners, and toward the manner in which God works among them.

Such a conversion took place in Paul’s life. In this chapter, and in the next two, we will reflect on the conversion of Paul’s pastoral imagination that occurred after his dramatic encounter with the exalted Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. That encounter thoroughly changed Paul’s life, his mode of ministry, and his vision of how God works in the world.

Paul’s Pre-Christian Pursuit of Resurrection

Paul had been trained as a Pharisee and remained one throughout his life.² Luke mentions that the Pharisees believed in the resurrection, whereas the Sadducees did not (Acts 23:8). We might read this as if the Pharisees had a doctrinal statement buried in a desk somewhere back at Pharisaic headquarters with a line item indicating their belief in the resurrection. But this assumption underestimates the significance of the resurrection for them. The resurrection was the singular impulse that united the Pharisees and drove their agenda. It oriented all their activities and dominated their study, their teaching, and their praying. They longed for the resurrection, praying for it throughout the day and tirelessly working to bring it about.³

Their conception of the resurrection did not merely mean that at the great day of the Lord each righteous individual would be raised from the dead. It involved that and so much more. It had to do with the restoration of God’s purposes and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to God’s people. Along with all other Jews, the Pharisees felt keenly the tragedy that God’s purposes were not being worked out in the world the way they should be. God had intended for Israel to be his special possession, to enjoy his blessing, and to be the people on earth among whom his glory was clearly seen. They were supposed to joyfully inhabit the kingdom of God on earth by experiencing the fullness of God’s shalom, which meant a flourishing economy, with each family owning land and living off its plenty. And they were to enjoy the worship of the one true God at the temple in Jerusalem, overseen by godly priests under the authority of uncompromised leaders. Thus enjoying God’s restored rule, Israel was to lead the nations of the world in the worship of the one true God.

But none of this was a reality. First-century Jews lived under the oppressive rule of an occupying force—the pagan Romans. They were beaten down and mistreated and faced the hopeless reality of crushing poverty. Their national leaders were compromised by alliances with the Romans that allowed them to hold on to their positions. The tangled web of power interests fed a system of oppression that felt worlds away from God’s intended national order of flourishing. Along with other Jews, Pharisees longed for the fulfillment of the promises of God to liberate them, to purify their land, and to restore his gracious reign.

Resurrection, to the Pharisees, indicated this larger, national scenario of economic, political, and religious restoration of God’s promises to the patriarchs and to Israel through the prophets. Resurrection referred to the reality of God pouring out his life-giving presence upon the land and the holistic renewal of Israel’s national life—the restoration of flourishing at every level of society. Resurrection would transform the entire tragic situation facing the nation. The God of all creation would return to Zion and demonstrate that Israel was indeed his people by driving out the Romans and removing the stain of their impurity. Hearts would be satisfied and lives would be renewed. God would exalt the righteous and destroy the wicked. In this restored order, Israel would then begin to lead the nations, instructing them to obey the God of Israel and directing them in the worship of the one true God.

Before his conversion, then, Paul was desperate for God’s people to experience resurrection—the restoration of God’s gracious reign among them. He was convinced that he and his Pharisaic associates were the key to the God of Israel unleashing this holistic salvation program on the nation. This passionate conviction involved him in a daily pursuit of trying to move God to save Israel.

Paul’s Ministry Mode of Coercive Power

I refer to Paul’s preconversion conduct as a mode of “ministry” because that is how he would have seen it. He was serving God, convinced that God would initiate resurrection when Israel became a people of faithful Torah observance uncompromised by the cultural influences of paganism. When Israel became sufficiently obedient, God would judge the wicked, purify the land of the defiling presence of the pagan Romans, and pour out salvation on the nation. This hope drove Paul and his ministry associates to seek to present to God a nation faithfully obedient to their conception of Scripture. They reasoned that if God had sent Israel into exile because of unfaithfulness to the Torah, then surely the nation’s renewed faithfulness would move him to bring about restoration.

This outlook, based on Scriptural reasoning, led to a ministry mode of coercive power, and even violence. Paul believed that the main obstacle to salvation was the presence of sinners among God’s people. God would restore Israel and drive the Romans from the land were it not for the many Jews whose faithfulness to Torah was questionable, half-hearted, or inconsistent. The Pharisees were meticulously attentive to a form of purity in daily life that matched the Torah’s instructions for priests in their rituals within the temple. And they taught Jewish commoners to carry out these same practices. The presence of Jews who were either unconcerned or inconsistent in their view was a grief and tremendous frustration. These people were standing in the way of God saving Israel and transforming their oppressed land into the glorious kingdom of God.

Paul describes himself as surpassing his contemporaries with regard to zeal (Gal. 1:14), which he displayed by passionately pursuing the purity of the Jewish people from the stain of foreign cultural influences. Not only did he teach and exhort Jews toward a careful faithfulness to God and to his understanding of the Mosaic law, but he demonstrated a zeal that involved persecution, which we see in his encounter with the early followers of Jesus.

Scripture does not indicate whether or not Paul ever encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. He may have been one of those who went out to question Jesus in order to find out more about him (cf. Mark 7:1). It is a fascinating exercise to imagine Paul’s response to Jesus, if indeed he knew of him. The land of Israel/Palestine is not a huge place and word about various teachers got around quickly, especially among those who were looking out for indications of God’s coming salvation. Was he intrigued? Was he hopeful that Jesus was indeed the Messiah of Israel’s God? On the other hand, he may have been one of those who quickly opposed Jesus. Whatever the case, certainly after Jesus’s death Paul became an intense persecutor of the followers of Jesus. But why did he do this? What drove Paul to attempt to stamp out the early Christian movement?

Paul saw clearly that God had rendered his judgment of Jesus by how he was killed. Jesus had been put to death on a cross, and Paul knew well what was written in the Torah:

When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession. (Deut. 21:22–23)

For Paul, Torah clearly expressed God’s judgment regarding Jesus. He had been hung on a tree and was therefore cursed of God. Paul viewed the followers of Jesus who were claiming otherwise as idolatrous sinners since they were worshiping a person God had condemned, defiantly rejecting God’s verdict on this messianic pretender. Paul saw these early Jewish Christians as a stain on the land of Israel and an affront to God. They were unfaithful Israelites who were preventing God from saving the nation, keeping him from pouring out resurrection life on earth. For Paul, these Jesus-followers needed to be stopped by any means necessary.

It is crucial to recognize that it was Paul’s passion for resurrection—for God’s salvation—that drove him to try to stamp out the church, and this led him to a program of coercive power and violence. According to Paul’s later ministry partner, Luke, Paul was present at the killing of Stephen and approved of what was done (Acts 7:58–8:1). After this he led an initiative against the followers of Jesus:

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison. (Acts 8:1–3)

Just prior to his encounter with the exalted Lord Jesus, Luke describes how Paul,

still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1–2)

In a later reflection on his life and career, Paul notes that he had been a “blasphemer” and “violent aggressor” (1 Tim. 1:13). When he speaks of “blasphemy,” Paul may be referring to the way he had formerly talked about Jesus whom he later regarded as the Messiah. But it may also be that his reference to blasphemy recalled his violent and condemnatory speech about Christians. The Greek term for “blasphemy” refers to abusive or reviling speech that can be directed toward other people or against God. While Paul may or may not have spoken blasphemously about Jesus before his conversion, he was undoubtedly engaged in a program of verbal and physical violence against his followers.

Keep in mind that in all of this, zeal for God and God’s glory drove Paul. He longed to see God’s word enacted by God’s people. In his mind his motivations were pure! He wanted Israel to enjoy the fullness of resurrection life—the life of God on earth that would bring about renewal, restoration, and the completion of redemption. But Paul was seeking this through power. He was coercive toward others and had adopted postures of domination and threat. He had become verbally abusive and violent.

Pastors and church leaders can fall into this very same trap. They genuinely love the congregations they serve and desire for God to be exalted in their churches. They feel they have a vision for what their church could be and the ways their church could serve. They want to see their communities characterized by joy as they embody being God’s new family. They may be disappointed when they see little fruit and slow growth. Ministry leaders can grow frustrated by their churches and demonstrate postures of coercive power, manipulation, and verbal violence toward the people they are called to serve.

I have witnessed on more than one occasion a pastor scolding a congregation for failing to measure up to expectations or for lacking a passion for God’s purposes. I have heard passive-aggressive comments from the pulpit about what pastors perceive as their church’s lack of commitment. Perhaps it is a special ministry effort that the pastor had been excited about or a drive to raise money about which the pastor had great expectations. Unfulfilled hopes generated a scolding posture from the pastor. It is not far from the mark to call this verbal violence. Like Paul “breathing out threats,” pastors can grow so frustrated that they berate their staff or lay ministry leaders for not meeting expectations. In the midst of ministry disappointments and setbacks, pastors are tempted to adopt a ministry mode that resembles Paul’s preconversion pursuit of resurrection. It is tempting to imagine that sheer force can bring about God’s blessing.

Paul Pursued a Personal Identity of Power

Paul’s desire to bring about resurrection realities at the national level was matched by his attempt to establish a basis for making his own claim for salvation at the day of the Lord based on the construction of a socially approved identity. That is, Paul assumed that on the day that God saved Israel by pouring out resurrection, God would vindicate him on the basis of who he had become in the eyes of others. He had worked very hard to establish an identity oriented by a certain kind of Torah observance and faithfulness to the traditions he had inherited. He figured that the impressive social status he had cultivated in his zealous pursuits would gain him the verdict of “righteous” from the God of Israel at the day of judgment. God would gladly approve of his efforts in seeking to foster a passion for righteousness among his fellow Israelites.

At the day of the Lord, Paul wanted to be exalted by the God of Israel. He wanted to hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” He had equated the praise of men with the anticipated praise of God. He was respected and admired by his peers, and many others thought highly of him, based on his knowledge of Scripture, his passion for the purity of Israel, and his clear articulation of how the glory of God ought to be embodied in everyday life. Paul was confident that at the final judgment God would vindicate him as someone at the very center of God’s people, a leader of God’s chosen ones, a teacher of Israel.

In Philippians 3, Paul reflects on his former pursuit of accumulating credentials to build a powerful personal identity in the hopes of establishing a claim to righteousness before God. He had formerly put confidence “in the flesh”—that is, in his impressive resume:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Phil. 3:4–6)

The “confidence” that Paul refers to has to do with his expectation that he would personally participate in the ...