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Article taken from Fatherly Talks
The Humility of Paul
Dearly Beloved,
There is no doubt that Paul the apostle was a man who learnt the humility of Jesus. He spoke of the tears of humility in his farewell to the Ephesians (Acts 20:19). This was something he learnt as a follower of Christ for Paul, then known as Saul, was a proud man who persecuted the Christians. He was well taught at the feet of the best teacher in town, Gamaliel, and was always ahead of all his contemporaries (Acts 22:3;Galatians 1:14). Possibly a member of the Sanhedrin, he was well known to the council and obtained letters of authorization from the council to eliminate the Christians. Eloquent and highly skilled, he had so many reasons to be proud; and indeed, before Christ, he was proud. In his pride and zeal, he even thought that he was serving God (Acts 22:3). When pride and religion get together, the mixer is potent and destroys many lives. We do not know how many Christians were killed and imprisoned by Paul but it suffices to know that even after his conversion, he was greatly feared (less the conversion be false) by many Christians. Even today, Christians who are proud and highly religious would be the guilty ones who persecute other Christians. What a ridiculous notion - Christians persecuting Christians but that is so true of church history. Why do Christians do this? The only answer I can find is pride - purely pride and high religious status. Take away such and these persecutors will be begging for mercy. Who makes us a judge over one another? Who makes anyone a guardian and defender of the faith? I am not speaking of the reasonable place in Christianity where one can debate doctrine and principles for the sake of biblical accuracy like they did in the Jerusalem council (Acts 15). Such debates can be done without pride; it can be done in humility and respect so that every one's views are voiced out with the possibility of disagreement without being disagreeable. There are those who totally do not respect other people's viewpoints and have to either silence them or persecute them. Such do not have respect for others and would have taken the lives of others if they were not restrained by Christian morality.
Paul was a great defender of the faith and good at debating doctrine yet he always showed respect for other's differences. The main demonstration of humility in a debate is respect for others. To respect another person is to hold them in esteem despite the differences in doctrinal understanding or practices. In the Spiritual World, respect goes hand in hand with the demonstration of love. It is out of love that the various angels and higher developed saints do not push their greater and better understanding of God onto others less enlightened. Paul speaks about even acknowledging the weaker brother amongst us (Romans 14:21; 1 Corinthians 8:7-11) who does not have the revelation of dietary laws or of freedom from food offered to idols. He advocate the allowance of each person to walk and progress at their own level of understanding; even suggesting that to push the higher revelation would have gone against the personal faith of such and condemn their conscience. This is not to say that Paul had no temper for we see him quickly apologising when he was corrected for being out of line in attitude to the high priest (Acts 23:2-5). He did also publicly rebuke Barnabas and Peter over the withdrawal of eating of food with the Gentiles and had a dispute with Barnabas over Mark (Galatians 2:14). I wonder what Jesus would have done in such situations? The choice is either silent disapproval without withdrawal of love and perhaps a tolerance of a second chance to Mark - who knows? Only eternity will reveal who is right in such disagreements. The fact remains that despite the various disagreements that Paul had in his lifetime (the recorded ones to our knowledge), Paul continued to walk in humility with those he disagreed with. In his relationship with Peter, it continued on even after he had rebuked Peter and Peter put in a good word for Paul in his epistle (although recognising that some of Pauls' teaching are not easy to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). And with Barnabas and Mark, the apocrypha records how they fell on each other's shoulders and wept and prayed as they parted (The gospel of Barnabas). It takes humility to be able to continue a relationship AFTER a disagreement. Pride huffs and puffs and walks away. Humility continues to respect and make room for one another especially if it is in an area which does not deny our Lord Jesus' lordship or the Bible. No one person in the world has total knowledge in everything; there are so many possible viewpoints in Scriptural knowledge of everything. Moreover, everyone sees Scripture from their own experiential context and background. Sometimes all variable differences are looking at the same truth from different perspectives and they both have a place in the economy of Christian doctrine. Paul with such a great intellect demonstrated humility. Many people of lesser intellect and capability get stuck in the pride of their own opinions that they considered vital doctrine - like a child holding on to the last drop of ice cream not knowing that the fridge has a container left to replenish their ice cream cone.
Pride is the hindrance to all intellectual understanding. To acquire revelation and knowledge, one must be prepared to be like a little child when one comes to the presence of God or the Spirit of Truth. Pride forms a wall of stupidity that prevents a person from further changes in his knowledge. The person of pride behaves like a stupid person who goes round and round the same belief systems that are sometimes extreme or lack better application and understanding. What can be done to such? Such people unfortunately in the Spiritual Word and in this natural world, have to be left to themselves until they knock themselves so often in the school of reality and experience that they realized that something is fundamentally wrong with themselves and they need to change both their attitude and then their understanding. Attitudes must be changed first before there can be a change in understanding. The word 'repentance' for the Greek word 'metanoia' conveys not just a 180 degree turn around of the mind but also a willingness of the mind to see and accept what it could not comprehend - meta in this case meaning beyond. How many times have we believed before we understand? Truth is determined by its spiritual nature before its intellectual qualities. The spiritual nature of truth is love, peace, joy, kindness and all the other fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23). It is after we accept love that we begin to understand love. We can receive love beyond the comprehension before comprehension begins. Thus by this means we know truth before we understand truth. All truth will be in line with the fruit of the Spirit and the nature of Christ. Anyone who has any area of new revelation of truth will always be transformed proportionally by that portion of truth into Christlikeness before the person could even express that truth intellectually. In the end as we fully receive Truth and have the Truth (the Living Word) living in us, we would become fully Christlike. You can tell who is right or wrong by the attitudes and nature of the debater. You can tell right or wrong of a new revelation or principle or method by the nature that it produces in its receiver. All truth will lead to more Christlikeness and any thing opposite from truth will lead to less Christlikeness. The purpose of truth is to experience God with understanding - intellectual processes to understand truth is not just for the sake of giving all of us a big head full of pride. The goal of all true intellectual understanding of truth is to make us better people and more Christlike in God. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life to lead us to God our Father. Intellectualism is not an end in itself. What good is a great intellect without a great heart in Christ Jesus? Note how Paul's great intellect did not lead him away from Christ but rather towards Christ. The next time you struggle to discern truth, don't do it just with your head but do it with the heart.
The apostle Paul regarded himself as a proud insolent man, a blasphemer and persecutor against Christ before his conversion to God (1 Timothy 1:13). He even regarded himself as the worst of the lot, the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). It takes humility to admit one's personal failure and the worst part of one's character. Every one of us has a bright side and a dark side. It is important to know what we are potentially capable of without Christ as much as to know what we can be and do in Him. To know one's weaknesses is half way towards overcoming it. Although in their positive faith mode Christians like to think the best of each other, we also need to know that behind every good character is the potential of the opposite at its worst. A good strong leader might end up a bad domineering dictator. A friendly social person might end up a man pleaser without backbone. A strong determination to work against the odds can become a stupid stubbornness on the wrong road. A detail worker can become a constant worrier. All strengths are potential weaknesses and all weaknesses can be potential strengths. For this reason we all need to learn to walk in the love of Christ for without it our worst characteristics come out. Paul learnt that his weaknesses can be opportunities for God's strength to be in him (2 Corinthians 12:8-10). When Paul and Barnabas clashed in Acts 15 over Mark, the strengths of both of them came to the fore. Barnabas has always and will always be the champion of the discarded, rejected and unknown. He was that way when he first helped Paul the unknown (Acts 9:27). Paul was a man of principle and cannot take unproven people who have failed into his team (Acts 15:38). He was not one who can accept untested teammates especially those who have already been given a chance and failed. In the end the very differences between them that made them a strong team became the force that separated them. We know that eventually they both looked past this event and Mark became a blessing to Paul in his latter years (2 Timothy 4:11). We note how Dr Luke remained a lifelong friend of Paul right to the end (2 Timothy 4:11).
All life is about relationships. If we are not able to make good strong relationships in this life, the problem is as much us as others around us. Some people who have zero friends around them. Or never could make lifelong friends because their weaknesses kept coming up and splitting them so throughout their entire life, they are always looking for new pastures to make new friends; one day there will be no more new pasture because they have hurt every potential person around them and no one wants to come near them because they are well known for being people who are vicious and hurtful. We need to examine the following areas introspectively before God at all times:
1. How is our relationship to our parents or adopted parents? The first relationships we build are those with our parents. No matter how imperfect they are, we must learn to love them unconditionally. Some of us from not so good backgrounds have more to struggle in this area than others but we are not responsible for the family we are born into, we are only responsible for our character and response to such families. No matter how hard it is and in some cases there might not be any possible close relationships, we must always walk in love and forgiveness and be able to think with unconditional love towards our parents.
2. How is our relationship with our spouses? The closest person to us is our spouse and if we have not learn to make our spouse our best friend and confidant, then we are completely incapable of having close friends. For those who have experienced separation and divorces, it is important that you also see your part and failure in the marriage and not just your opposing spouse. If you do not admit your own character flaws, then you will bring the same flaws into the next marriage and completely destroy another life. Humility is being able to admit your own flaws and mistakes. The secret to lasting marriage is unconditional love. Learning and cultivating the ability to love unconditionally is part of all successful marriages.
3. What types of friend do you have? If you have not been able to develop friends who can disagree with you or be brutal with you in their honesty, you do not have real friends – you possible might just have fans and not friends. How many of your friends can you count on that you can show up at midnight and know that they will take you in? If there are none and you are already in your latter years, something is very wrong with you. How can you not in 80 years of life on earth not developed at least some lifelong friends? Where have you been living, on Mars? It is time to admit that you are incapable of being honest about your own weaknesses and flaws (which might be the reason no one is a friend to you) otherwise you would have much to deal with when you meet Jesus face to face. If the only friend you have is Jesus, then your standards are too high and nobody in the world is going to meet that standard. If everyone is your friend including the devil and the world, then your standards are so low and your morality and principles non-existent that you do not truly know the meaning of having a good spiritual friend. The only reason why people have not developed true friendships is that they cannot accept other people's weaknesses nor their own flaws. No one is perfect and friendships are based on love and not perfection. Look around at those who truly love you and care for you (but who will not put up with your nonsense or excuse your flaws), those are the people you should make friends with even if they themselves have their own flaws.
Without humility, there is no possibility of forming true friendships and relationships in this life. We learn humility when we relate to others around us. May God teach us to be humble and walk in humility with our loved ones and all our extended family in Christ.
In Christ's love
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