Early Influences on Paul

We’re all influenced to some extent by the culture we’re raised in. Paul was no exception. Two influences were Stoic philosophy and the mystery religions. While neither became as embedded as profoundly in his heart as Judaism and, after his conversion, Christianity, traces of both are evident in his preaching/writing style and therefore worth delving into.

Stoicism was founded around 300 BC in Athens by Zeno of Citium and quickly spread throughout the Roman empire. Its emphasis on morality and developing a humanitarian mindset had mass appeal. Its adherents were more than eager to carry its message abroad. It’s fair to call them missionaries.

James S. Stewart wrote, “The deep things of the soul, the need for moral reformation and spiritual rebirth, the way to victory over life and death – these were the themes on which the Stoic orator discoursed with all the eloquence and appeal at his command. It’s no wonder that, in that weary, disillusioned world, men stopped to listen.”

Wikipedia states: “Stoic philosophy is traditionally divided into three interconnected disciplines: logic, physics, and ethics. Stoic logic focuses on highly intentional reasoning through propositions, arguments, and the differentiation between truth and falsehood. Philosophical discourse is paramount in Stoicism, including the view that the mind is in rational dialogue with itself. Stoic ethics centers on virtue as the highest good, cultivating emotional self-control, a calm problem-solving state of mind, and rational judgment to attain lifelong flourishing.”

Stoic discourses were called Diatribes and they were typically characterized by rhetorical questions, short and sometimes disconnected sentences, the employment of an imaginary objector, and relatable illustrations from human life. All these tendencies show up from time to time in Paul’s letters. For instance, his use of the word “conscience” comes directly from Stoicism.

Stewart commented, “When Paul declares to the Colossians that all things ‘cohere in’ Christ, when he depicts Christ as the unifying principle of life, the form of expression at least is reminiscent of Stoic doctrine, and may have been chosen deliberately to bring home Christ’s cosmic significance to those whose minds had already been familiarized, by the work of non-Christian preachers, with the thought of a world-soul binding all creation together.”

In no way am I saying Paul was a Stoic. The fact that he was intuitive enough to borrow from Stoicism’s positive ideals and terminologies only prove that he was intellectually aware concerning the societal mentality of the people he was taking the Gospel to. Truth is, the differences between Stoicism and Christianity vastly outnumber the similarities.

Stewart pointed out, “The Stoic teachers preached pantheism. At the center of Paul’s devotion was a personal God, once for all revealed in Christ. At the center of Stoicism was a dim, ill-defined ‘Something’, world-spirit, fate, destiny – call it what you will. Stoicism suffered from the weakness that’s been the doom of all pantheistic systems from the beginning: it could speak of a God within, but could offer no God without. Man was thrust in upon himself for salvation. His, not God’s, was the initiative. There was no doctrine of grace. The one thing which to Paul was paramount, the one glorious truth which Christianity existed to proclaim, was nowhere in Stoicism at all. Stoicism, worked out to its logical conclusion, is a religion of despair.”

Another influence was the plethora of the era’s mystery religions. Paul knew all about them. We’re told in Acts 17:22-23, “Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all aspects. For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: “To an unknown God.” Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica states: “Mystery religions (or mystery cults) were private religious associations in the ancient Mediterranean whose rites were restricted to initiates. They supplemented public Greek and Roman religion by offering personal religious experiences, deeper ritual participation, and hopes related to the afterlife.”

There were three important aspects of the mystery religions that made Paul’s efforts to establish Christianity in pagan strongholds more likely to succeed. First was their adherents’ refusal to “sync up” their religion with others of their ilk. Their beliefs were exclusive. Thus, when Paul wrote, “If after all there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we live, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live“ (1 Corinthians 8:5-6), that concept resonated with many.

Second, the Church’s ruling out any attempts to compromise its tenets to appease followers of other religions had a similar effect. The Roman rulers couldn’t tolerate worship of the King of kings. Stewart wrote: “It was because the Church under no circumstances would play the game of syncretism that the Church, like its Lord, was crucified, dead, and buried. And it was because of the same refusal that the Church – again like its Lord – survived death, and broke the tomb, and went to work in the world.”

Thirdly, it was the difference, not the familiarity, of the Christian religion that impressed the pagans. They’d grown weary of worshiping imaginary gods who only seemed to quarrel, fight and gossip amongst each other constantly. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: “There can be no parallel between what was admittedly a myth or mystery and what was admittedly a man.”

Stewart summarized thusly: “The cults’ concepts were sensuous, external, and ritualistic. In Paul’s gospel its heart and soul is faith. The Hellenistic world had nothing to say about faith. Christianity had everything to say about it. Initiation into the mysteries left faith out of sight, but baptism into Christ enthroned it. With the one, faith was nowhere. With the other, it was everywhere. That’s the decisive difference between the mystery religions and Paul, the final, fathomless gulf. Across it no bridge can be thrown.”

Why did Christ choose Paul?

To start off, it’s vital every Christian understand that our religion’s foundation is grounded in Judaism and Hebrew culture. It’s why the Old Testament is included in the Bible. James S. Stewart wrote: “The Hebrew attitude to life was its inheritance, the Hebrew genius for God its birthright. Jesus came, not to destroy, but to fulfill. Yet Christianity from the first was destined by God for a world-religion. Born and cradled in Judaism, it was to leave its ancestral home and face the desperate need of the whole earth.”

Therefore, when the time arrived for the the Good News to “go viral”, our Savior wisely chose a man who belonged to both Israel and the world beyond its borders. That man was the apostle Paul. He was a Jew and a Roman citizen. To change him from a vicious bounty hunter of anyone who dared follow our Lord into a passion-filled, effective herald of the Gospel, Jesus confronted Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road in person and literally made him a “new creature”, a born again believer instantly transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Paul was the perfect man for the job.

Was Paul then ashamed of being a Jew? Did he try to keep it secret? Not at all. He wrote, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I“ (2 Corinthians 11:22). He openly proclaimed, “I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, I lived according to the law as a Pharisee. In my zeal for God I persecuted the church. According to the righteousness stipulated in the law I was blameless. But these assets I’ve come to regard as liabilities because of Christ“ (Philippians 3:5-7).

The Pharisees weren’t inherently sinful. On the contrary, they had many noble intentions. Stewart commented, “In its origins, at any rate, the Pharisaic party stood for a perfectly right and healthy reaction against a cosmopolitan drift which was endangering the very foundations of morality. Fired with a passion for religious independence, refusing to be swamped by the denationalizing forces of the time, jealously guarding the historic heritage of faith and morals from the destroying influence of a subtle and pervasive invasion of paganism, the Pharisee rendered a real service, not only to their own land and creed, but to the cause of vital religion everywhere.”

Sadly, as is the case with every human institution, it became corrupted by pride and greed. The Pharisees became less interested in upholding righteousness, justice and compassion and became obsessed with dogmatic legalism that all but gutted their true and admirable ideals. How tragic!

Stewart opined, “It’s not only one of the greatest anomalies of history, but also one of the most solemnly significant of facts for every age to ponder, that the men who were, outwardly at least, the most religious people in the land, were ultimately the head and front of the opposition which compassed the death of the Son of God.”

Due to years and years of studying hard in the Rabbinic schools, Saul of Tarsus considered the Old Testament to be the only truth. But once his stony heart was regenerated by the Holy Spirit the ancient verses he knew by heart commenced to live and breathe with fresh revelations the Rabbinical teachings he’d treasured and respected had never revealed. Stewart commented, “Suddenly what he’d pondered and pored over so diligently for years was a new book. Deep answered to deep, insight called to insight; and all the majesty, the spirituality, and the urgency of the Old Testament revelation passed right over into Paul’s proclamation of the Good News of Christ.”

Paul also possessed a more extensive worldview than the other apostles who’d never ventured abroad had. He was born in a Hellenistic city and was brought up surrounded by the influences of a Grecian-Roman environment, including his familiarity with the Greek language that had become the standard vernacular outside of Israel. The forced dispersion of the Jews over the centuries had resulted in Jewish settlements springing up throughout the Roman empire. For example, there were over a million Jews in Egypt alone. They’re referred to as “the Diaspora.”

Stewart pointed out, “The distance of these scattered Jewish communities from Jerusalem and the Temple, the headquarters of their ancestral faith, necessitated a change in the center of gravity of their religion: it shifted from the Temple to the local synagogues. These gradually became the real home of their worship.”

Because this was the situation, the designated local Rabbis enforced strict rules intended to regulate the behavior and intermingling of the Diaspora with the pagan cultures they lived in and interacted with. Jews all over Europe, Africa and Asia were obliged to pay Temple dues and were encouraged to make regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Luke’s description in Acts of the international character of the crowd present on the day of Pentecost backs up that fact explicitly.

Why is that important? Stewart wrote, “If ever a Jew of the dispersion strove to be loyal to the land and law of his fathers, that Jew was Paul. His success as a missionary was due, in the main, to the extraordinary fascination which a lofty monotheism will always exercise upon the better elements in a pagan society which are growing weary of polytheism and its morally degrading accompaniments.”

Therefore Paul’s familiarity with the social mores and political trends that greatly influenced the religious attitude of the Diaspora prepared him well for boldly taking the Gospel message to them and the Gentiles. Paul was up for the challenge the Romans presented, announcing, “I’m a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. Thus I’m eager also to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome“ (Romans 1:14-15).

Jesus never sinned or made mistakes. Choosing Paul to be His mouthpiece was a crucial part of the plan all along.

Reactions to Paul

Sadly, some theologians have accused Paul of creating an alternate form of Christianity that contradicts and/or obscures Jesus’ simple Gospel of trust. They advocate eradicating Paul from the Bible altogether. James S. Stewart spoke out for the vast majority of believers who consider doing that nonsense. He wrote: “The alleged twist given by Paul to the Christian Gospel, turning it out of the channel which Jesus had intended for it and causing it to flow in a totally different direction, is simply myth and imagination. The truth is all the apostle’s great central conceptions – the grace of God, the justifying of the sinner, the adoption of sons, the death of the Redeemer, and all the rest – came to him straight out of the bosom of Jesus’ Gospel.”

Now, if Paul was a false teacher wouldn’t the other apostles have rejected him outright? On the contrary, Peter himself wrote to the churches: “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of these things in all his letters. Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the Scriptures“ (2 Peter 3:15-16). Sounds like a glowing endorsement to me.

Stewart opined: “What meets us in the epistles isn’t a man creating a new religion, or even giving a new direction to one already existing. It’s simply the Gospel of Jesus in action, the original, authentic Gospel first changing a man’s life, and thereafter molding all his thought. This ‘man in Christ,’ so far from being a perverter of the simple Gospel, is the mirror in which the true nature of that Gospel, and the quality of its influence, have been most accurately revealed.”

Others’ reaction to Paul is the polar opposite of those who want him erased. They respectfully regard him as a man who was miraculously transformed from being a Jesus-hater into a bold testifier of our Lord’s power to change hearts from stone to flesh but they’re reticent to consider him a theologian. But how could he have been anything else? For Paul, theology was a way of life.

Anderson Scott commented, “Paul isn’t a ‘theologian’ in the technical or modern sense of the word… Yet neither is he a dreamer, indifferent to history and to reason, satisfied with emotion, sentiment or ecstasy.”

Recall that Paul was a highly esteemed expert on Jewish law and traditions before his dramatic conversion near Damascus. His ability to study diligently and to reflect deeply on what he read and examined in the Scriptures caused him to excel in the Rabbinical schools. Upon encountering the risen Christ and given profound revelations of truth by Him, Paul became even more dedicated to comprehending what he’d received, spending years meditating on it first.

He wrote: “When the one who set me apart from birth and called me by His grace was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I could preach Him among the Gentiles, I didn’t go to ask advice from any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but right away I departed to Arabia, and then returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas…” (Galatians 1:15-18).

In other words, Paul didn’t rush into preaching. He took his time, digesting mentally and spiritually what the Holy Spirit taught him.

Stewart defended Paul brilliantly, writing: “Direct experience is everywhere fundamental with Paul, but upon that experience his mind keeps working, working sometimes at white heat; and to this reflection on experience, which was part of his nature, we owe some of the profoundest and most fruitful ideas about God, Christ and the Spirit which have ever entered the heart of man.”

I’m not saying Paul’s writings are always easy to discipher and fully comprehend. He can be a challenging read. As Heinrich Julius Holtzmann opined: “Scarce another writer of antiquity has left his commentators with such puzzles to solve as Paul.”

Stewart admitted, “Paul can contradict himself, can land himself at times in hopeless antinomy, can leap without warning from one point of view to another totally different, can say in the same breath ‘Work out your own salvation‘ and ‘It is God which works in you‘ (Philippians 2:12-13); but through it all and beneath it all there’s a living unity and a supreme consistency – the unity, not of logic, but of downright spiritual conviction, the consistency of a life utterly and at every point filled and flooded with the redeeming love of God”

I confess I often feel I’m not smart or intuitive enough to savvy what Paul sometimes wrote. For example, in Galatians 2:20 He says, “I’ve been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.“ Try as I may, I don’t think I’ve ever completely understood what he’s getting at.

I once heard the late, great John MacArthur state during a question & answer session in his church that he doesn’t know precisely what those two verses mean, either. That made me feel better, knowing that a preacher as intelligent as he was didn’t quite savvy all of it, as well. There are several passages in his other letters in which Paul leaves me scratching my head, too. I’ve concluded that Paul was sometimes striving with all his might to put into descriptive words a spiritual experience or concept that human words simply can’t convey. Yet his unwavering trust, faith, honesty and emphasis on Christ’s love always shine through.

Stewart concluded: “Systems, dogmatisms, Paulinisms, have no more unity than the shifting sands; but Paul’s Gospel, spoken and written, stands on solid rock. And that Rock is Christ.”

What Paul Never Taught

Paul wouldn’t tolerate any variations or additions to the fundamental truths he risked his life to preach. He wrote to the church in Galatia, “I’m astonished that you’re so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel – not that there really is another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ“ (Galatians 1:6-7).

He then warned believers both then and now, “Even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell!“ (v.8). To make sure nobody fails to “get it”, he repeats himself in verse 9. Sadly, despite his warning, Roman Catholics and Protestants alike have repeatedly turned Paul’s teachings into a somewhat complex “plan of salvation” that Paul never taught.

While this tendency did create a systematic order of rituals and icons that appealed to the masses in general and helped Christianity survive throughout the centuries, it nevertheless “watered down” the gospel to a great extent. James S. Stewart wrote: “Its weakness was that almost inevitably it gave men the impression that here was a rigid system to be intellectually accepted, a doctrine of salvation whose acceptance was indeed prior to, and the condition of, the experience which it described.” He deemed it “a drab, colorless uniformity”, adding “it’s hard to believe the God whose Spirit is like the wind, blowing where it will, ever intended anything of the kind.”

Of course, it’s one of the scourges of human nature that we routinely complicate simple truths, something Jesus Himself never did. In fact, His most ferocious and ruthless of enemies were those who were willing to murder Him over the Mosaic law that He came to fulfill. He was a threat to their precious hierarchy that meant everything to the Pharisees and Sadducees. While it’s easy to condemn the Jewish leaders for their hard hearts, we must admit that the same thing often happened to the “Good News” Paul delivered to the Gentiles.

Stewart commented: “If less emphasis had been placed on schemes and systems, and more emphasis thrown on the actual realities of life, where forgiveness can be seen creating goodness in the forgiven, and doing it by its own inherent power and love, many damaging blunders in the interpretation of the Gospel could’ve been avoided. But as it is, endless misconceptions have been caused by isolating the various elements in the Christian experience from one another, and assigning each its place on a chronological chart.”

Again, it’s predictable that false teachings arose. Even revered theologians like Origen and Augustine were wont to ascribe to Paul the thought forms and customs of their own age and culture. We mortals just can’t help ourselves! Truth is, Paul has repeatedly proven to be “too big for his interpreters.”

Stewart and other scholars have stated that Paul thought in pictures. He taught not in parables but by allowing his listeners and readers to visualize what he preached. For example, “Jesus has destroyed what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness expressed in decrees opposed to us. He’s taken it away by nailing it to the cross. Disarming the rulers and authorities, He’s made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross“ (Colossians 2:14-15).

Get the picture?

Stewart wrote: “In the days when God let His servant Paul loose upon the earth, with a heart aflame for Christ, the forces which carried the new adventure forward on its amazing career weren’t precision of doctrine, not skill of definition, but an open vision, a ringing conviction, and a great love. Often when men have succeeded in defining Paul’s doctrine most closely, they’ve lost Paul’s Christ most completely.”

Another and no less damaging trait is our frustrating habit of isolating Paul’s verses, sentences, thoughts and concepts from their immediate and critical context. This destructive habit has not only instigated widespread confusion about understanding the miracle of grace but has splintered countless congregations into warring denominations that want nothing to do with one another. What a tragedy!

R.C. Sproul wrote: “This approach to the Scriptures sees the individual books and individual passages as ‘atom bits of teaching’. For example, a scholar may say he’ll interpret Paul’s teaching of justification as set forth in Ephesians without any consideration of the doctrine in Galatians or Romans. Each passage is treated as an atom of insight, and whether that atom coheres with teaching found elsewhere in the author’s writing or in the whole of Scripture is irrelevant. The Reformation rule – that the Bible is its own interpreter and that we’re not to set one portion of Scripture against another – is thrown to the winds in this approach.”

Stewart opined: “More serious still is the fact that, through a failure to preserve a right emphasis and accent, the great thought of predestination, which to Paul stood for God’s sovereign freedom and will to save, has come to be entangled with ideas of reprobation and damnation which can only be described as repulsive and immoral. If Paulinism has had not a few disquieting results, let us remember that Paul himself was not to blame.”

So how are we to interpret Paul correctly? By developing a deep spiritual empathy/kinship with Paul’s personal experiences with Christ. Until we conclude, as did he, that our achievements are but filthy rags in the eyes of God and humbly acknowledge that only Jesus’ atonement can cover our sins will any church or individual believer gain wisdom from Paul’s teachings.

Stewart wrote: “The first requisite is spiritual sympathy of experience. That’s why Luther stands out as a supreme interpreter of Paul: the men were blood-brothers in Christ. And that’s why, at every juncture in history where Christ’s church has been carried on some wave of revival back to reality and self-consecration, thousands of men and women have rediscovered Paul, and have thrilled again to the music of his message.”

Paul, not Paulinism

James S. Stewart was a superb 20th century Scottish theologian whose writings still influence many preachers and laymen like me. His book, The Vital Elements of St. Paul’s Religion, is a masterpiece and I’ll be quoting from that excellent tome heavily in the weeks to come. Paul wrote at least a quarter of the New Testament so to say he and his Holy Spirit-inspired work are worth delving into is an understatement. I’ll do my best.

Paul, above all else, was dedicated to preaching the authentic Gospel of Jesus and emphasizing the spiritual love the Lord commands every Christian to share with everyone indiscriminately. In fact, he went out of his way to make sure love saturated his teachings: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I don’t have love, I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but don’t have love, I receive no benefit“ (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Sadly, many scholars have turned Paul into the very type of man he never wanted to be known for being. Stewart wrote: “We’ve had Paul the ecstatic visionary, Paul the speculative theologian, Paul the organizer and ecclesiastic, Paul the humanitarian moralist, and Paul the ascetic. Of these portraits which have appeared at different times in the course of Pauline study, by far the most unfortunate in its results has been the second – Paul the dogmatist, the doctrinaire thinker, the creator of a philosophy of religion, the constructor of a system. This is history’s greatest injustice to its greatest saint. It’s the blunder which has ruined Paul for thousands.”

Stuart added: “Sometimes a man’s worst enemy is himself; unconsciously he damages his own influence. But Paul’s worst enemy down the centuries hasn’t been Paul. It’s been Paulinism. So the vital religion of Paul has to be recaptured in our day. The great thing is that that vital religion is still there for anyone who cares to seek.”

What’s the “vital religion of Paul”? There are three main aspects to consider, the first being the core focal points of what he taught. The foremost of which are God’s righteousness, Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross, His glorious resurrection, and the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the heart of every believer. However, fully dissecting or describing any of those things is impossible. We Christians can only humble ourselves before the profound mysteries they contain. As Paul wrote: “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow“ (Philippians 2:10).

Paul never presented himself as a conceited know-it-all. He was well aware of his all-too-human limitations. He exclaimed, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how fathomless His ways!“ (Romans 11:33).

The second aspect is acknowledging his epistles were intended to address particular misconceptions that had arisen in the early church. We must always bear in mind that Paul didn’t intend his letters to be theological treatises, designed to set forth the whole of the Christian faith. The difficulties he had to wrestle with weren’t the kind that could be solved by penning lengthy, elaborate essays about the doctrine of salvation. He had to deal directly with Satan’s ongoing attempts to mislead, discourage and confuse God’s adopted children.

Stewart wrote: “Christianity, on the mission fields where Paul’s work was done, meant a new quality of life, a life in Christ, God-given, supernatural, and victorious. The first century mission churches in Asia and Europe made headway precisely because they confronted the world with a way of life, and not a speculative system. The situation Paul was addressing demanded great simplicity. And that’s what the apostle offered – the simplicity of Christ, the life in Christ.”

Aspect #3 is that Paul had a realistic view of his purpose. He knew he was commissioned to present the “Good News” to all people, many of whom were illiterate. Thus, it would’ve been foolhardy for Paul to confront the masses with a dogma-saturated system, and thereby burden the uneducated with detailed sections regarding anthropology, original sin or philosophical studies on salvation. He knew his audience.

Stewart commented, “Paul wasn’t aware when he wrote that his writings were to become Holy Scripture. He wasn’t aware that future generations would pore over these letters and seek to fit together every thought they contained. Paul had no great love for systems and very little faith in the speculations which produce them. The wisdom of this world was such a poor thing, and mere intellect so bankrupt, and the best possible formations of doctrine so pitifully short of the mark when they tried to measure Christ!”

As Paul confessed to the church in Corinth, “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn’t come with superior eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony of God. For I decided to be concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified“ (1 Corinthians 2:1-2).

Stewart wrote: “That goes to the root of the matter. The man knew himself charged to bear Christ, to herald Christ, not to rationalize Christ. Indeed, nothing else was possible, for the fundamental fact about the Christ of Paul’s experience was that He was alive. Historical data and reminiscences you can rationalize; a living Lord you can only proclaim. This was the apostle’s calling. This was his sole vocation and concern. This it was for which he’d been born. He came to bring, not a system, but the living Christ.”

The writings of Paul eventually instigated the Reformed Theology movement. Verses like: “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law“ (Romans 3:28) and “For by grace you have been saved through faith“ (Ephesians 2:8) changed not only Christianity but the whole world.

Loving Like our Heavenly Father

Jesus said we’re to “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect“ (Matthew 5:48). Talk about setting the bar high! Yet that’s our goal. Thankfully, Christ didn’t leave us without instructions. He repeatedly revealed the many facets of the Father’s character, often via parables. And perhaps the one that displays God’s forgiveness, patience, compassion and love most vividly is the story of the Prodigal Son.

Henri Nouwen’s observations on it are profound. For example: “I see how the story of the father and his lost sons powerfully affirms it wasn’t I who chose God, but God who first chose me. This is the great mystery of our faith. From all eternity we’re hidden ‘in the shadow of God’s hand‘ and ‘engraved on His palm.’ Before any human being touches us, God ‘forms us in secret‘ and ‘textures us‘ in the depth of the earth, and before any human being decides about us, God ‘knits us together in our mother’s womb.’ God loves us before any human can show love to us. He loves us with a ‘first’ love, an unlimited, unconditional love, wants us to be His beloved children, and tells us to become as loving as Himself.”

There’s no taller order.

R.C. Sproul preached: “Whatever else God’s love is, it is holy. His love is therefore characterized by the qualities that define holiness—transcendence and purity. First, God’s love is transcendent. It’s set apart and different from everything we experience in creation. Second, God’s love is pure. His love is absolutely flawless, having no selfishness, wickedness, or sin mixed in with it. God’s love is not ordinary or profane. It’s a majestic, sacred love that goes far beyond anything creatures can manifest. No shadow of evil covers the brightness of the pure glory of the love of God. The love of God is in a class by itself. It transcends our experience.”

In the parable the father, like God, displays a love that’s truly transcendent if not absolutely scandalous. Nouwen wrote: “God’s not the patriarch who stays home, doesn’t move, and expects His children to come to Him, apologize for their aberrant behavior, beg for forgiveness, and promise to do better. To the contrary, He leaves the house, ignoring His dignity by running toward them, pays no heed to apologies and promises of change, and brings them to the table richly prepared for them.”

J.I. Packer opined: “There are many today who talk about the love of God who are total strangers to the God of love. The divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence; it’s reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterned after human emotion. The truth is, as on everything else, our thoughts need to be formed and regulated by what’s revealed in Scripture. How little real love there is for God! One chief reason is because our hearts are so little occupied with His wondrous love for His people. The better we’re acquainted with His love – its character, fullness, blessedness – the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him.”

Jesus challenges His followers to imitate our Heavenly Father’s graciousness.

Nouwen asked: “Why do we pay so much attention to the sons when it’s the father who’s in the center; when it’s the father with whom I’m to identify? Why talk so much about being like the sons when the real question is: ‘Are you interested in being like the father?’ It feels somehow good to be able to say: ‘These sons are like me.’ It gives a sense of being understood. But how does it feel to say: ‘The father is like me?’ Do we want to be like the father? Do we want to be not just the one who’s being forgiven, but also the one who forgives; not just the one who’s being welcomed home, but also the one who welcomes home; not just the one who receives compassion, but the one who offers it as well?”

Our Lord didn’t merely “talk the talk.” He obediently “walked the walk.” He once told the hard-hearted Pharisees, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on His own initiative, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise“ (John 5:19).

God’s love for us is matched only by His limitless compassion. Nouwen wrote: “If the only meaning of the story were that people sin but God forgives, I could easily begin to think of my sins as a fine occasion for God to show me His forgiveness. There would be no real challenge in such an interpretation. I’d resign myself to my weaknesses and keep hoping that eventually God would close His eyes to them and let me come home, whatever I did. Such sentimental romanticism is not the message of the Gospels.”

What’s the Gospel message? Jesus made it clear as a church bell on Easter. He said, “I give you a new commandment – to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are My disciples – if you have love for one another“ (John 13:34-35).

Nouwen spells out the lesson we’re to learn from this timeless parable: “If God forgives the sinners, then certainly those who have faith in God should do the same. If God welcomes sinners home, then those who trust in God should do likewise. If God is compassionate, then certainly those who love God should be compassionate as well. The God whom Jesus announces and in whose name He acts is the God of compassion, the God who offers Himself as example and model for all human behavior.”

Nouwen encapsulated the entire parable thusly: “This isn’t the picture of a remarkable father. This is the portrayal of God, whose goodness, love, forgiveness, care, joy, and compassion have no limits at all. Jesus presents God’s generosity by using all the imagery His culture provides, while constantly transforming it.”

The Incredible Love of the Father

Two of the characters in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son are very relatable. The younger man thought he knew everything there was to know, grabbed his entire inheritance and proceeded to waste every bit of it, living it up like there was no tomorrow. Until the money ran out. He hit rock bottom when he found himself living and eating in a filthy pig sty so he dragged his sorry self home, tail between his legs. To his astonishment, his dad was tickled pink to have him back.

Henri Nouwen wrote a personal insight on what motivates so many of us to leave our spiritual home: “I’m so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I’m constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in doing so I move far away from my Father’s home and choose to dwell in a ‘distant country’.”

His older brother wasn’t happy to see Bubba at all. So when he saw the fuss his father was making over the slacker’s return he threw himself a pity party. His heart was filled with anger concerning the whole shebang. How dare his dad not only forgive his ungrateful brat of a sibling for disgracing their family name, but to host a massive and very festive kegger in his honor! He wanted nothing to do with it.

I assume most people, Christians included, can identify with either or both of the sons. I was the black sheep of my clan when I was in my 20s, doing whatever I pleased, chasing fame and fortune. But when my wild, carefree lifestyle left me with nothing I finally came to my senses and realized I had only one option – go back home. At the age of 30 I did so and lived with mom and dad a few weeks while I got my life in gear again. And, like the elder son, I’ve had my moments of feeling sorry for myself when my peers were getting what I thought I deserved.

Nouwen commented: “Often I catch myself complaining about little rejections, little impolitenesses, little negligences. There’s an enormous, dark drawing power to this inner complaint. Condemnation of others and self-condemnation, self-righteousness and self-rejection keep reinforcing each other in and ever more vicious ways. As I let myself be drawn into the vast interior labyrinth of my complaints, I become more and more lost until, in the end, I feel myself to be the most misunderstood, rejected, neglected, and despised person in the world.”

However, the person no one can relate to in the parable totally is the father because he illustrates God’s incredible, incomprehensible and downright miraculous love, compassion, patience and forgiveness He offers His adopted children. Though the father utters only a few words in the story, it’s his gracious mindset that Christ desires all His followers aspire to achieve. In short, the parable is about the character of our Heavenly Father.

John Calvin wrote: “By setting before us this admirable example of mildness in a man, Jesus designed to show in how much greater abundance we may expect it from Him who’s not only a Father, but the best and most merciful of all fathers, however ungrateful, rebellious, and wicked sons and daughters we may be, provided we only cast ourselves upon His mercy. And the better to assure us that He’s such a Father if we’re Christians, He’s been pleased to be called not only a Father, but our Father, as if we were pleading with Him after this manner: ‘O Father, who’s possessed of so much affection for Your children, and are so ready to forgive, we your children approach You and present our requests, fully persuaded You’ve no other feelings toward us than those of a father, though we’re unworthy of such a parent‘.”

I’ve heard many testimonies at Celebrate Recovery meetings. Many of them describe their birth father as being abusive, neglectful or AWOL and that those dubious attributes contributed heavily to the hurts, hangups and/or habits that have caused psychological trauma in their life. However, the father Christ presents in this parable is the loving Father who created our individual, eternal soul. He has no flaws, He’s perfect in all of His ways. No earthly father, regardless of how well he raises his offspring, can match how much our Father in heaven yearns for His children to embrace and lean into His supernatural affection for them, and to have them dwell in His presence forevermore.

Nouwen wrote: “In this story the heart of the father burns with an immense desire to bring his children home. Oh, how much would he have liked to talk to them, to warn them against the many dangers they were facing, and to convince them that at home can be found everything they search for elsewhere. How much would he have liked to pull them back with his fatherly authority and hold them close to himself so they wouldn’t get hurt.”

He added: “But his love is too great to do any of that. It cannot force, constrain, push, or pull. It offers the freedom to reject that love or to love in return. It’s precisely the immensity of the divine love that’s the source of the divine suffering. God, creator of heaven and earth, has chosen to be, first and foremost, a Father.”

Michael Youssef preached: “One way of fully understanding what our heavenly Father is like is to understand what Jesus is trying to tell us about Him. Nobody could reveal the Father better than the Son, right? People say to me, ‘How do you know God’? Well, you take a good look at Jesus. That’s how you know God. Jesus is the only one who could truly describe his Father perfectly. Nobody else could, and that’s why in Luke chapter 15 he paints the clearest picture of our heavenly Father you can find anywhere in the Scripture.”

The Older Sibling

In Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son, two of the family members wound up being happy as clams. The father was so elated over his youngest offspring’s return he threw a huge welcome home bash to celebrate the event. The young man, no doubt, was absolutely astounded that his dad, whom he’d disgraced immensely before splitting with his inheritance, would take him back without a reprimand. Both were relieved and filled with joy.

However, the elder son didn’t share their jubilation. Not one bit.

“Now his older son was in the field. As he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the slaves and asked what was happening. The slave replied, ‘Your brother has returned, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he got his son back safe and sound.’ But the older son became angry and refused to go in“ (Luke 15:15-28a).

It’s easy for us to say the older son was being a rude jerk about the situation. It’s hard for us to concede that many of us would react the same way.

Henri Nouwen expressed what many Christians are reticent to admit: “It’s strange to say this, but, deep in my heart, I’ve known the feeling of envy toward the wayward son. It’s the emotion that arises when I see my friends having a good time doing all sorts of things I condemn. I’ve called their behavior reprehensible or even immoral, but at the same time I often wondered why I didn’t have the nerve to do some of it or all of it myself.”

Matthew Henry commented: “This offended the elder sibling to the highest degree not only because he was resolved he would not himself join in the mirth, but because he would show his displeasure at it, and would intimate to his father that he should have kept his younger brother out. This shows what is a common fault. Those who’ve always been a comfort to their parents think they should have the monopoly of their parents’ favors, and are apt to be too sharp upon those who’ve transgressed, and to grudge their parents’ kindness to them.”

As I wrote earlier, it’s instinctive for us to be judgmental concerning the younger son and label him a “lost cause.” Nouwen steps on all our toes, writing: “The lostness of the elder son, however, is much harder to identify. After all, he did all the right things. He was obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, and hardworking. People respected him, admired him, praised him, and likely considered him a model son. Outwardly, he was faultless. But when confronted by his father’s joy at the return of his brother, a dark power erupts in him and boils to the surface. Suddenly, there becomes glaringly visible a resentful, proud, unkind, selfish person, one that had remained deeply hidden, even though it had been growing stronger and more powerful over the years. The lostness of the resentful ‘saint’ is so hard to reach precisely because it’s so closely wedded to the desire to be good and virtuous.”

Yet it’s not as if his father didn’t notice his absence from the party. “His father came out and appealed to him, but he answered his father, ‘Look! These many years I’ve worked like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your commands. Yet you never gave me even a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends! But when this son of yours came back, who’s devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’“ (v.28b-30).

John MacArthur pointed out: “Guess what? The Pharisees and scribes just appeared in the story. They were angry that God, in Christ, was embracing sinners. That’s what ticked them off. And here they are in the story. They are, by the way, referred to earlier as the ninety-nine who need no repentance, never seeing themselves as sinners. Legalists like this, religious people, superficially religious people, are jealous of prodigals because inside they have the same lusts they’re never fulfilled. They have the same hankering for sin and iniquity, and they’re jealous and envious of those who play those out to the max and don’t care what people think. They do because their approach to garnering accolades is to conform outwardly. So here they are in the story.”

What Jesus says next describes our gracious Heavenly Father perfectly: “Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and everything that belongs to me is yours. It was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found‘“ (v.31-32).

Arthur Freeman commented: “The father loves each son and gives each the freedom to be what he can, but he can’t give them freedom they’ll not take nor adequately understand. The father seems to realize, beyond the customs of his society, the need of his sons to be themselves. But he also knows their need for his love and a ‘home.’ How their stories will be completed is up to them. The fact that the parable isn’t completed makes it certain the father’s love isn’t dependent upon an appropriate completion of the story. The father’s love is only dependent on himself and remains part of his character.”

In other words, God’s love for His adopted children isn’t predicated upon how “good” we are. It’s truly unconditional and every believer should be extremely grateful that it is.

Nouwen wrote: “The return of the elder son is becoming as important to me as – if not more important than – the return of the younger son. How will the elder son look when he’s free from his complaints, free from his anger, resentments, and jealousies? Because the parable tells us nothing about the response of the elder son, we’re left with the choice of listening to the Father or of remaining imprisoned in our self-rejection.”

The right attitude to have is obvious. Choose to love others as Jesus loves us.

The Prodigal Son

Luke 15 begins with the Pharisees warning everybody that Jesus blatantly “welcomes sinners and eats with them“ (v.2). Our Lord responds with two parables – the shepherd who’ll leave the 99 to find the one who’s lost and the one about a woman who literally turned her home upside down to locate a missing silver coin. He ends both by saying, “In the same way, I tell you, there’s joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents“ (v.10).

But the parable he tells next is probably His best known – the story of the Prodigal Son. It not only involves the son but his brother and father, as well. If you’ve only heard about it but have never read the Scripture account, we’ll go one portion at a time:

“A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. After a few days, the younger son gathered together all he had and left on a journey to a distant country, and there he squandered his wealth with a wild lifestyle” (Luke 15:11-13).

Henri Nouwen, in his must-have book “The Return of the Prodigal Son“, commented, “The evangelist Luke tells it all so simply and matter-of-factly it’s difficult to realize that what’s happening is an unheard-of event: hurtful, offensive, and in radical contradiction to the most venerated tradition of the time.” The son had no right to ask for his inheritance until his father was deceased. In essence he was callously saying to his dad, “I can’t wait for you to die!“

“Then after he’d spent everything, a severe famine took place in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and worked for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He was longing to eat the carob pods the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything” (v.14-16).

Many of us can identify with the son. Nouwen confessed: “The sequence of events is quite predictable. The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I’m able to hear the voice that calls me the Beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.”

“But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food enough to spare, but here I am dying from hunger! I’ll get up and go to my father and say to him, “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired workers.” So he got up and went to his father” (v.17-19).

Nouwen wrote: “There is repentance here, but not a repentance in the light of the immense love of a forgiving God. It’s a self-serving repentance that offers the possibility of survival. It’s this God who makes me feel guilty. Submission to a legalistic God doesn’t create true inner freedom, but breeds only bitterness and resentment. One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. There’s something in us that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning.”

“But while he was still a long way from home his father saw him and hugged his son and kissed him. Then his son said to him, ‘Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and against you; I’m no longer worthy to be called your son’” (v.21).

R.C. Sproul commented, “How he got to his father, we don’t know. He didn’t have money for a donkey, camel, or horse. We know he was in a far country. Presumably, the only way this young man could get home was by walking. His tattered clothes held the stench of the pigs. His shoes had disintegrated. As he stunk, he walked and walked with no shoes on his feet and his clothes filthy, tattered rags. Every step was painful. He could have stopped and decided to go back to his comfort with the pigs, but he kept on going.”

“But the father said to his slaves, ‘Hurry! Bring the best robe, and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Bring the fattened calf and kill it! Let us eat and celebrate, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again – he was lost and is found! So they began to celebrate” (v.22-24).

I expect that everyone listening to Jesus tell this parable felt absolutely aghast. No father in his right mind would do what this one did. There had to be retribution. There had to be punishment! But those consequences were nowhere to be found. Understand, Jesus was illustrating how merciful, forgiving, and compassionate our Heavenly Father is towards us. His grace is beyond amazing.

Sproul opined: “Nobody ever entered the kingdom of God saying: ‘Here I am, folks. Heaven wouldn’t be right without me.’ This is the only way you get to heaven: broken and dependent on grace and grace alone. No one’s ever entered the kingdom of God without wearing the robe of the righteousness of Christ. All our own righteousness, the Scriptures tell us, is as filthy rags. Just as God knelt and covered His shameful sinners, Adam and Eve, the first thing that happens to us when we’re born of the Spirit is that He covers us with the robe of Christ and its righteousness.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached: “God’s love is active. It’s the mightiest activity in the world and it transforms everything. The love of God alone can give us a new start and a new chance. The love of God doesn’t merely talk about a new beginning, it makes a new beginning.”

We’ll delve into the brother’s shameful (yet predictable) reaction next time.

The Power of Persistent Prayer

Nothing in the Bible gets emphasized more than prayer. Some examples: “As for me, I’ll call out to God, and the LORD will deliver me. During the evening, morning, and noontime I’ll lament and moan, and He will hear me“ (Psalm 55:16-17). “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness“ (James 5:16). “Always rejoice, pray constantly, in everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus“ (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

However, no one ever taught how to pray and how the Heavenly Father will respond more than Jesus. In His sermon on the mount He preached: “Ask and it’ll be given to you; seek and you’ll find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, although you’re evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?“ (Matthew 7:7-11). He also said there’s an essential caveat: “Whatever you ask in prayer, if you believe, you’ll receive“ (Matthew 21:22).

Will every one of a Christian’s requests be granted immediately? Perhaps, but not always. John MacArthur wrote: “Our prayers aren’t always answered instantly, on our preferred timetable. For reasons that are supremely wise, and gracious, and right – but often unknown and unexplained to us – God sometimes delays answering our prayers. Yet He encourages us to keep praying with persistence and passion, never losing faith and not growing faint.”

Luke chapter 18 begins with a poignant parable: “Jesus told the disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. There was also a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, “Give me justice against my adversary.” For a while he refused, but later on he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I’ll give her justice, or in the end she’ll wear me out by her unending pleas“ (v.1-5).

“Then the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! Won’t God give justice to His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He delay long to help them? I tell you, He’ll give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?‘” (v.6-8).

Understand that not only were widows and corrupt judges plentiful in that era, justice was often difficult to acquire. The self-righteous Pharisaical judges were bad enough but those appointed by Caesar were the worst of all, severely lacking in morals and scruples. Most likely the judge in Jesus’ parable was a Roman magistrate because he possessed no respect for God or people in general.

MacArthur commented: “In short, this judge was bereft of basic decency; lacking in nobility; devoid of natural affection. His own character was so barren of virtue most would consider him inhuman. And yet this parable is told to teach a positive lesson about God and how He answers our prayers – using the wicked behavior of this unrighteous judge as an illustration. This is very similar to the parable of the unjust steward in that Jesus was using a wicked person’s actions to depict something pure and righteous.”

Females across the globe in that time had few rights and widows were often neglected, poor, powerless, helpless, deprived, unknown, unloved, or otherwise desperate. However, this particular widow was bound and determined to be treated fairly by the court. She demanded justice, not special treatment. MacArthur opined: “It seems she was seeking redress for some injustice that had already been done to her. And her desperation suggests that everything had been taken from her. She had nothing to lose.”

So why did the judge finally give in? Simple. She kept bugging the dickens out of him. He wasn’t allowed to imprison her or have her killed so, because of her non-stop pleading he gave her what she asked for. It was all about him and his peace of mind, not for the sake of doing the right thing.

Don’t think for a moment that Christ implied His Father isn’t just. No way. R.C. Sproul preached: “Jesus was saying, ‘If this crooked, corrupt, miserable human being who holds the office of judge, who has no regard for God and no regard for people, will sometimes administer justice because he’s tired of people pleading for it, how much more will the Judge of heaven and earth vindicate His people who cry unto Him day and night?'”

It’s vital the reader bear in mind the context. Jesus had been speaking to the disciples about His Second Coming. He was commanding them to pray with relentless persistence that God would strengthen their resolve, that they wouldn’t give up hope, that the Father in heaven will make all things right when Jesus comes back to judge the world.

MacArthur wrote: “We continue to pray and plead for the return of Christ – not merely because we want to be vindicated, but also because we want Christ to be glorified. And when you live that way and pray that way and plead that way, it changes everything about your life.”

In the Celebrate Recovery ministry, I’ve seen the power of persistent prayer heal and change many lives. Sometimes that change is very gradual but the end result never fails to take place and amaze. If you’re feeling hopeless, pray for the power to repent of your sins and for God to restore you completely. He will.