Towards the very end of Tom Wright’s book, Paul, A Biography, he ask the question, What is the reason for Paul’s success? ‘In particular, what was it about Paul the man that made him – let’s face it – one of the most successful public intellectuals of all time?’
The answers he gives are challenging and provocative. First, Wright says it is Paul’s sheer energy. He is relentless. He is moving from one situation to another, often in danger, and never really stopping. He is visiting households, writing letters, working for a living, preparing what to say in his next address, praying, and so on.
Second, he mentions ‘his blunt, up-front habit of telling it as he sees it no matter who is confronting him’. He’s willing to confront people (including friends), stand before authorities, engage in debate, address mobs of hostile opponents. ‘He is the kind of man you want on your side in a debate but who may just alienate more sensitive souls.’ This forcefulness of personality meant that ‘As a companion, he must have been exhilarating when things were going well and exasperating when they weren’t. As an opponent, he could cause some people to contemplate murder as their only recourse.’
Wright goes on:
People today write doctoral dissertations and business books about how successful companies and not-for-profit organizations begin. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there is someone like Paul hammering away from the start, getting things off the ground, confronting local authorities, raising money, persuading co-workers about what needs to be done, never losing the vision. Someone who will take the bull by the horns. Someone who will go on and on insisting on what to do and how to do it until it happens.
Then, he mentions another quality in Paul – his disarming vulnerability. Although he’s constantly working with an ‘in-your-face energy’, nevertheless, he is deeply loved by those around him. He has an open heart, loving the churches and people he ministered to. He’s honest and real, and he doesn’t ask anything of anyone that he wasn’t himself willing to do.
When he says he was gentle as a nurse in Thessalonica, we believe him. When he writes the poem about love, we know that the Corinthians would have recognized a self-portrait. When he tells the Philippians, over and over, to rejoice and celebrate, they know that, given half a chance, he would be the life and soul of the party. He modeled what he taught, and what he taught was the utter, exuberant, self-giving love of the Messiah.
Finally, Wright points out that Paul’s continuing influence is explained (of course!) by his letters. Somehow, by the grace of God, in less than 80 pages of an average Bible, we have enough of the mind of this saintly Apostle as he addresses all kinds of different situations and circumstances, that his Christlike influence has permeated throughout the church ever since. And many great figures in church history have been formed agains the anvil of Paul’s writings.
And what would Paul say was the secret to his success? ‘Paul himself would say that the One God was behind it all.’
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