Paul's Testimony in Modern Day America

"Paul's testimony in modern day America" 

By: Ryan Schlipp

Ephesians chapter 1:1-12 “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth-in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

 In the verses we read God gives us the who, what, when, where, and why of salvation all wrapped up into a few sentences but stressed over and over and over again by Paul, so that there can be no confusion on the matter. What’s the who, what, when, where, and why? Who did it? God. What did He do? He chose to save a group of lost sinners. When did He choose to save these people? Before the world was even created. Where did He save these people? He saved them in their sins. And why did He save these sinners? Because it gives Him pleasure and it gives Him glory, the only reasons He needs.

To look at the passage of scripture a little more in depth, the word predestine can only mean one thing, and that is that God divinely and solely acted. It is a verb, an action. God did it. The notion of foreknew is a completely passive word. I can foreknow the outcome of a movie that I have seen 50 times but I have no influence over the outcome; it is passive. To predestine means to preordain, it is an active decision being made.

Another word is adopt. When we look at adoption we see a picture of a loving couple choosing to save a young child from a poor existence. We do not see a family walk into an adoption home and open their arms and say, "all who accept me I will take home." It is a choice on the part of the adopter, not the adopted. In fact, if many people today treated adoption like they do the doctrine of Calvinism, adoption would be seen as one of the most evil practices on the face of the Earth. Let me give you a picture of what I mean. Suppose there was a couple named Alisha and Ryan, and God laid it on their heart to adopt a child. They decided to go to the worst part of the world and rescue a poor child on the verge of death. Out of pure love and because it gave them great joy, they chose to save a life. Days later a woman named Sue was telling a man named Joe about what Alisha and Ryan did. At the end of the story Joe said, "That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard and I can’t believe that Ryan and Alisha would ever do something so sinister and horrible." Sue being a little confused asked Joe to explain what he means by that and Joe replied, "So you mean to tell me that Ryan and Alisha left that horrible nation without allowing all the poor to come back with them. They are just going to leave them there. That is murder, and it's disgusting." Do you see how backwards that is? But that is exactly how people view what Paul is clearly teaching here. He chose a small group out of many to save from death because it gives Him joy and PRAISE GOD for it, because He has no obligation to any one of us.

Another word we need to look at is the word inheritance. What do we think of when we hear the word inheritance? We think of a rich uncle that passed away and left his money to his first son. Would you like to know who most American conservative evangelical Christians are in this story? They are the spoiled brat nephew that says "How dare he not give me some of that money?! How dare he not give some to aunt Lucy, she's a nice lady, she deserves it." No, how dare YOU! How dare you claim any of the inheritance, it was GOD that paid the price, it was GOD that earned the glory and if He chose to close the gates of heaven behind Him and leave us here to rot, He would be entirely justified. But He put in the work, He paid the price, and the glory is His to give to whom it gives Him pleasure. If He has given you the gift of faith because of His sovereign grace it was given to you by no merit of your own. You did nothing to earn it, you did nothing to attain it and you have no RIGHT to tell God how to distribute it.

Some however still want to challenge Paul's intent on these issues; in fact, I often did the same thing. I felt, for only a brief moment, that there was no way to really know what Paul meant. That is until I had a "duh" moment and decided to look at Paul's testimony. We do hear his testimony in the Bible you know. However, before we turn there I would like to point out that, although his story is unique in many ways, it is not unique in God's design for salvation.  He didn't go outside the original plan for salvation just for Him, but saves us using different circumstances; Paul was saved by grace through faith. That being said, turn with me to Acts chapter nine verses 3-9. 

“And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: but rise, and enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but beholding no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing; and they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor drink.” 

At this time I would like to contrast this story. I would like to slightly change the testimony to fit a little more into 21st century American evangelicalism. I imagine it sounding something a little more like this.

Hi, my name is Paul. Some of you may know me as Saul. I was raised in a very religious home but never really had a relationship with Christ. As I got older I began to resent God. Over time I started running with the wrong crowd. We got so fired up about our beliefs, I don’t know what came over us, it was like we were possessed. One day I was on my way to a town called Damascus to kill Christians.  As I was riding in, however, I began to feel remorseful for all that pain I had caused.  Eventually I just couldn't take it anymore; God was really speaking to my heart at that moment. I told everyone to stop and I knelt by the side of my horse. I called out to God asking him to forgive me for what I had done. I made the decision from that day forward to be a follower of Christ.

That is the testimony we hear again and again from Christians in America. What is the difference between the 21st century testimony and Paul's actual conversion story? What inconsistencies do we see with 21st century Paul and what he wrote in Ephesians? What we see is 21st century Paul changing the truth of his conversion to make himself look like the one that chose God. In Acts we see Paul thrown from his horse and commanded to walk. We see God's intervention which provides Paul with saving faith. In Ephesians we see Paul BEGGING us to see that it was not him. A truly humble man that really does give all the glory to God, begging us to see no good in him and also pleading that we understand that faith is given to us. We inherit it, we are adopted, we were predestined by God, it is a gift, "...lest any man should boast." Over and over again he is pleading with us to deny any involvement in what is entirely God's. Do not take from God, but declare your sinful nature as being absolute along with your inability to ever love God in your fallen state. Praise Him, not in part for letting us choose him in our not so horrible state, but praise Him entirely for choosing a rebellious God hater as His adopted child.