What Truly Matters

The Apostle Paul as Paradox and Paradigm

W

hile it is not unusual for people to speak openly of their successes and even their failures, it is rather rare for people to denigrate their successes and to celebrate their failures. Be that as it may, the Apostle Paul, who was also known as Saul of Tarsus, had a penchant for doing precisely that.

In his instructions to the Philippians— with whom Paul had a special, reciprocal relationship—he maintains that Christfollowers are to boast in the Lord and to put no confidence in the flesh. They are, in a word, to live in dependence upon the Spirit (Philippians 3:3). That said, Paul contends that if anyone else had reason to be confident in their pedigree, performance, and progress according to “the flesh,” he himself could make an even stronger case (3:4).

Then, in the next two verses, Paul “puts his money where his mouth is.” Truth be told, from an ancient Jewish perspective, he was something of a muckety-muck. His ascribed status markers were four: 1. circumcised on the eighth day (per Jewish regulations); 2. from the people of Israel (i.e., not a proselyte); 3. from the tribe of Benjamin (as was his namesake King Saul); and 4. a Hebrew of Hebrews (who could communicate in Aramaic). Adding additional luster, he was a Pharisee who zealously persecuted Christfollowers and who observed the law with righteous, faultless fastidiousness.

The picture Paul paints of himself to the Philippians is congruent with the selfportrait he offers the Galatians: He was on a meteoric rise in Judaism, leaving his contemporaries in the dust as he eagerly— and successfully—pursued his ancestral traditions and customs (Galatians 1:14). But after his encounter with the Risen Jesus en route to Damascus, Paul would come to view many of his previous commitments, and much of his previous conduct, as misguided, however earnest he may have been (see esp. 1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:23; 1 Timothy 1:13-14).

Paul’s conversion led him to reevaluate all of his previous metrics. He was forced to ask afresh what truly mattered, and he could have hardly anticipated what would prove to be the radical, revolutionary answer. As Philippians 3:7-14 evinces, what he had previously regarded as credit he came to view as debit. Considerable success, status, and standing within Judaism notwithstanding, he considered all such achievements and accolades as loss and dross. Furthermore, he came to view everything as paling

in comparison to Jesus’ incomparable person. Regardless of their seeming glory, Paul perceived all his previous prizes as skybala (that is, offscouring, rubbish, even excrement) in light of the surpassing worth of knowing, gaining, and being found in Christ. The “secret of his success,” then, became the righteousness he received and the resurrection he hoped for through his faith in the faithful Lord Jesus Christ—for whose sake he lost all things (Philippians 3:8). In short, Paul’s winning came through losing, his gain through loss.

Regarding this topsy-turvy attitude, another passage is especially pertinent: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Having boasted in a roundabout way about being caught up in a vision into the third heaven (or paradise) some fourteen years previous (see 2 Corinthians 12:1-4; scholars agree that the man in Christ about whom Paul speaks is almost certainly he himself), Paul pivots, indicating in verses 6-7 that he will refrain from boasting about such revelations and will instead boast about his weaknesses. Moreover, he maintains in verse 7 that in order to keep himself from becoming puffed up (with respect to such ecstatic religious experiences), he had been given (by God?) what he describes as a “thorn” or “stake” in his flesh, i.e., his body. Paul further depicts this thorn/stake as a “messenger of Satan” sent to buffet or torment him. Like Job of old, Paul did not tread a primrose path.

Far from a masochist, Paul took no pleasure whatsoever in this pain or its source, whatever it might have been. (One can rise early and retire late and still not be able to identify with certainty Paul’s mysterious thorn in the flesh. Had it been important to him, he would certainly have revealed it. Apparently he had bigger fish to fry, and so do we.) In fact, according to 2 Corinthians 12:8, Paul pleaded with the Lord that this unidentified thorn might be removed, not once, or twice, but thrice. For whatever combination of reasons, the Lord denied his appeal, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is perfected in weakness” (12:9a).

Instead of sulking, simply resigning to such an “unfair” fate, or throwing in the proverbial towel, Paul embraces, indeed boasts, in such weakness(es). He does not do so, however, to exalt (his) weakness(es) per se; rather, he does so in order that the power of God, which is made manifest in human weakness, might rest upon him (12:9b). What is more, he goes so far as to say that for the sake of Christ he will delight (!) in weaknesses as well as any number of other unsavory experiences like insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

Again, such a response does not indicate a delight in drudgery or difficulty in and of itself. Instead, Paul had discovered through the school of hard knocks (in which he had long been enrolled as a prized and experienced pupil) that when he was weak, he (somehow) was (made) strong (12:10; cf. Philippians 4:13). For some, this summative statement of Paul’s may well bring to mind the memorable line from the children’s song, “Little ones to him belong; they are weak but he is strong.”

And while the passages above are two of the most prominent texts in which Paul reflects upon gain and loss, strength and weakness, his letters are replete with examples where the apostle overturns the apple cart of cultural expectations and conventions along these lines. We do well to ponder where Paul might have developed his counter-cultural notions of what counts and who is keeping score: Where did he come up with such stuff to say?

As his letters reveal, Paul’s understanding of what is valuable was birthed in the crucible of his own experience. Paul could not have anticipated his conversion and call any more than he would have signed up for his arduous plight as a Jewish apostle to the Gentiles. Neither, however, could he deny or disregard what God had graced him to do.

But Paul’s assessment of what matters in life and in death—and what counts as success and failure—cannot be reduced to his single experience alone. Rather, it is clear that Jesus’ own life and example of self-giving deeply impacted him. Paul implores the Philippians, for example, “to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (2:5). And were one to ask what might characterize such an attitude, one would need to look no further than to Jesus’ kenosis—that is, his renunciation of privilege and rights and his embrace of sacrificial, faithful service to God for the sake of others (note well Philippians 2:6-8). In his own earthly ministry, Jesus declared, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Similarly, while encouraging the Corinthians to give liberally to a collection for impoverished saints in Jerusalem, Paul speaks of the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” who “although he was rich became poor” so that through his poverty the Corinthians (and others) might be enriched (2 Corinthians 8:9). Paul more than implies that the Corinthians should do likewise; that is, they should give generously (literally “hilariously”) just as God has done through the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 9:7, 12-13, 15). One experiences great gain not by hoarding but by helping, not by getting but by giving.

In writing to both the Philippians and the Corinthians, Paul admonishes them to imitate him (see 1 Corinthians 4:16; Philippians 3:17). It is in 1 Corinthians 11:1, however, that Paul explicitly states that his converts should be imitators of him as he is of Christ. Because not even Paul was always worthy of emulating. Whenever he was, it was because he was following Jesus’ way.

Some have suggested, unconvincingly to my mind, that Jesus and Paul were poles apart in the way they were in the world. The way I see it, they viewed success and, correlatively, failure likemindedly. The one who famously said that “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16) also said, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

Although employing different terms, tactics, and tone, Paul came to view success and failure similarly. Furthermore, he began to consider his own life in light of Christ and “the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:1011). For Paul, “to live [was] Christ and to die [was] gain” (Philippians 1:21). Far from selfabsorption—which, as our own times can attest, ironically and ultimately leads to selfnegation—Paul discovered that valuing others above oneself and pursuing Christ above all else are the metrics that ultimately matter both here and in the hereafter.