- Consider how Paul's argument with Barnabas and
Mark would have been well known, seeing that a zealous brother always
has his weak side paraded. Or the way he demands the magistrates to
come personally and release him from prison, because they
have unfairly treated him (Acts 16:37);
- or 22:25,28, where Paul seems to enjoy putting the
wind up the soldiers by waiting until they had bound him for torture
before asking, surely in a sarcastic way, whether it was lawful for
them to beat a Roman citizen. The fact he asked the question when he
knew full well the answer is surely indicative of his sarcasm. The
chief captain commented, under his breath it would seem, that it had
cost him a fortune in backhanders to get Roman citizenship. Paul picked
up his words and commented, with head up, we can imagine: “But I
was free born”- I was born a citizen, never
needed to give a penny in backhanders to get it either. Surely there is
an arrogance here which is unbecoming. And it was revealed at a time
when he was in dire straits himself, and after already being in Christ
some time. It may indicate that he was tempted to adopt a brazen,
almost fatalistic aggression towards his captors and persecutors- what
Steinbeck aptly described as “the terrible, protective dignity of
the powerless”. One can well imagine how such a mindset would
start to develop in Paul after suffering so much at the hands of men.
- Consider too his claim that he had lived in all good
conscience before God all his life (Acts 23:1). The Lord Jesus Himself
informs us that Paul kicked against the pricks of his own conscience
(Acts 9:5). And in any case, Paul elsewhere says that his good
conscience actually means very little, because it is God's
justification, not self-justification through a clear conscience, which
is ultimately important (1 Cor. 4:4 RSV). It seems Paul was aware of
his weak side when he comments how despite his own clear conscience,
God may see him otherwise (1 Cor. 4:4 RSV); and surely this was in his
mind. So how true were Paul's words in Acts 23:1? It seems that he said
them in bitter self-righteousness. Soon afterwards he changes his life
story to say that he had always tried to have a good
conscience (24:16).
- To address the Sanhedrin as “brethren”
has been described as “almost recklessly defiant” (William
Barclay, Ambassador For Christ p. 132). The usual address
was: “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel”. But Paul
instead treated them as his equals.
- Having started on the wrong footing by this
statement, it was perhaps this arrogant mood which lead him to curse
the High Priest as a " whited wall" (23:3-6). It seems to me that Paul
realized his mistake, and wriggled out of it by saying that he hadn't
seen that it was the High Priest because of his poor eyesight- even
though Paul would have recognized his voice well enough. Another
possibility is that " I wist not, brethren, that he was the high
priest" is to be read as Paul claiming that he didn't recognize this
high priest, as Christ was his high priest, therefore his cursing was
justified. But he thinks on his feet, and suggests that he is being
persecuted only because of his belief in a resurrection- with the
desired result ensuing, that there was a division between his accusers.
- Paul's appeal to Caesar seems to have been quite
unnecessary, and again it seems to have been the outcome of bitter
exasperation and almost pride: " I ought to be judged" , as a
Roman citizen..." no man may deliver me..." , " as thou very well
knowest" ; the response of Festus seems to be appropriate to Paul's
arrogance: " Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar thou shalt go"
(25:10-12). The word used to describe Paul's " appeal" is that usually
translated " to call on (the name of the Lord)" , perhaps suggesting
that this was whom Paul should have called in, not Caesar.
- Even " Believest thou the prophets? I know that thou
believest" (26:27) suggests that Paul in full flow, even shackled and
in prison clothes, had a fleck of arrogance and aggression in his
presentation.
- Paul seems to have recognized this hard exterior
which he had: " I write these things being absent, lest being present I
should use sharpness" (2 Cor. 13:10).
- “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen
of no mean city” (Acts 21:39) seems rather proud, especially when
we learn that Tarsus was famed for being a proud city. She inscribed
upon her coins: “Tarsus, the Metropolis, First, Fairest and
Best” (W. Barclay, Ambassador For Christ p. 25).
- " Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean;
from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles" (Acts 18:6) seems to also
be a flash of unspirituality. For later, Paul realizes that he may be
condemned if he doesn't preach the Gospel; he realized that he perhaps wasn't
free of his duty of preaching. Yet for all his " from henceforth I go
unto the Gentiles" , Paul still preached to the Jews (Acts
18:8; 19:8); which would suggest these words were said in temper and
perhaps unwisdom. He himself seems to recognize this when he wrote to
Timothy at the very end of his life of how we must with meekness
instruct those who oppose themselves (2 Tim. 2:25), whereas his own
response to those who “opposed themselves” (Acts 18:6) had
been to say, without meekness, that he was never going to
‘instruct’ Jews ever again.
- F.F. Bruce has observed: " Something of Paul's
native impetuousness is apparent in his epistolary style...time and
again Paul starts a sentence that never reaches a grammatical end, for
before he is well launched on it a new thought strikes him and he turns
aside to deal with that" (Paul: Apostle Of The Free Spirit,
Exeter: 1980, p. 456). His style is exemplified in 2 Cor. 5:17. The
Greek text here is a sentence in which there are no verbs: “If
anyone in Christ- new creation”. It is as if the thrill of it
leads him to just blurt it out. And observe that this was to be
found in a man of extraordinary culture and intellectual ability. By
perceiving this tension, the passion behind his style is thereby
accentuated the more. Likewise consider how in Galatians Paul uses so
many negatives, as if his passion and almost rage at the false teachers
is coming out: “an apostle not from men…the
gospel preached by me is not man’s gospel…nor
was I taught it…I did not confer with flesh and blood,
I did not go up to Jerusalem…I do not
lie…Titus was not compelled…to false
brethren we did not yield…those ‘of
repute’ added nothing” (Gal. 1:1,11,12,16,20;
2:3,4,6). The way he says “Ye have known God, ir rather, are
known of God” (Gal. 4:9) seems to indicate [through the “or
rather…”] a very human and passionate touch in his
writing, as if he was thinking out loud as he wrote(1).
- Paul was clearly told by the Spirit that he
“should not go up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4). Yet Paul chose
to go up to Jerusalem, with the Holy Spirit warning him against it in
every city he passed through (Acts 20:23; 21:11). What are we to make
of this? Was a spiritual man like Paul simply out of step with the
Spirit on this point? Maybe- in the light of all we've seen above.
It’s possible to get fixated on a certain project and ignore
God’s clear testimony. Or it could be that Paul knew the Lord
well enough to realize that although God was telling him what would
happen, he could still exercise his own love for his brethren to the
maximum extent. For it was for love of his brethren and his dream of
unity between Jew and Gentile that he personally took the offerings of
the Gentiles to the poor saints in Jerusalem.
- 2 Cor. 7:11-15, when properly translated, perhaps
reflects Paul at his angriest and most abrasive: “I robbed other
churches [an exaggeration!], getting money from them to be a minister
to you!...as the truth of Christ is in me- I swear that this reason to
be proud will not be stopped as long as I work in the area of Achaia!
You ask me why do I do this? Do you think it’s because I
don’t love you? God knows I do! It’s because what I do- and
I am going to go on doing it- shuts up some people who are trying to
pretend they are as good as we are, those fakes! Such apostles are
treacherous workmen. They deck themselves out as apostles of Christ and
it’s no wonder people are fooled… but they’ll get
what’s coming to them!”(2). Even through the
barrier of words, time, culture and distance, the abrasion of Paul in
full-flow comes down through the centuries.
A Desire for Human Acceptance
A case can be made that Paul's visit to Jerusalem and
insistence on preaching to the Jews when he was directed to the
Gentiles is all an example of his weakness. God is eager to work with
us, even if we chose to work in fields or ways which He would ideally
prefer we didn't. But why was Paul so obsessed with preaching
to Jews when he kept suffering for it; why did he insist on
going to Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit warned him in every city of the
consequences? I would suggest that as an orthodox Jew, the blessing and
acceptance of the culture in which he had grown up meant more to him
than it should've done. He so wished to persuade Jewry as a whole that
Jesus was indeed Messiah because this would've legitimated him in the
view of his native culture- a culture he would've surely done best to
not seek acceptance and legitimacy from, seeing he had it in Christ.
His insistence on raising a significant financial offering from Gentile
churches like Corinth was perhaps because he thought that hard cash
would convince the Jerusalem eldership to bless his planned mission to
the ends of the Roman empire. He explains in Rom. 15:23-25 how he
intended to travel East, to Jerusalem, and then retrace his steps
Westward. If he had just gone to the Gentiles and disregarded the need
he felt for human legitimacy, many of his problems and sufferings may
never have happened. There is of course no doubt that God worked
through those experiences and decisions, just as He does with us when
we choose to diverge from His ideal intentions, despite still serving
Him. 2 Corinthians seems to indicate that Paul had a hard job raising
the funds from the Gentile ecclesias anyway, and he ended up damaging
his relationship with the Corinthians. Significantly, when he finally
arrived in Rome, Acts 28 indicates that the Jews there had not heard
anything from Jerusalem about Paul, i.e. legitimizing him. So the plan
didn't work; and there is a pregnant silence about any actual cash
handover occurring in Jerusalem when he arrived there. One wonders
whether he had to spend the funds financing his prison stay, and
therefore Felix hoped for a bribe from Paul at that time (Acts 24:26),
often calling him to discuss the option of paying a bribe. Clearly at
that time Paul was perceived as having cash in hand.
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