Paul isn’t every preacher’s cup of tea. As the New Testament itself acknowledges, his letters can be hard to understand (2 Peter 3.15-16). Many people – in and beyond the Church – complain that Paul threw his weight around, or discriminated against women, or complicated the simple gospel of Jesus.

Admittedly, Paul doesn’t always express himself as clearly as we would wish, (his ‘sermon illustrations’ can be particularly confusing) and no doubt he made his mistakes, but recent scholarship has done much to refresh, deepen and even correct our understanding of the apostle. We have learnt that, before his conversion, he was what someone has called ‘a successful Pharisee’, not a failed one (Philippians 3.6). Unlike Luther and Wesley, his conversion does not seem to have been preceded by a growing sense of failure and guilt – at least there is no evidence that it was. His encounter with Christ, however, was still life changing. We have also realised that Judaism did not subscribe to ‘salvation by works’ – as Christian caricatures have often supposed – still less that most Jews were self-righteous. Paul’s deeply held conviction that we are justified through faith by grace grew out of his mission to the Gentiles and the controversy, reflected in Galatians, about what should be required of ‘outsiders’.

Not least, we have come to appreciate more fully the personal cost and challenge to Paul of being an apostle to the Gentiles.  Apostleship meant that, far from Paul betraying or complicating the gospel of Jesus, he was, on the evidence we have, Jesus’ most faithful interpreter. He saw, more clearly and consistently than anyone, the meaning and the practical implications of Jesus’ mission. Jesus came for outsiders – the likes of Zaccheus, (Luke 19.10) – died as an outsider and commissioned Paul to be his apostle to outsiders – i.e. Gentiles.
So what does Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, have to teach us preachers?

First, Paul teaches that the Gospel, when preached, will always be both enculturated and counter-cultural. It will be enculturated by being expressed in the thought-forms, language and conventions of the day; it will be counter-cultural in challenging at least some aspects of that same culture. This is a permanent challenge for the preacher: how can our message be enculturated without being ‘trendy’ and superficial and how can it be counter-cultural without being censorious? (Christmas offers a particular challenge here!).

Let me illustrate from Paul himself. Paul, in his ministry, was ‘all things to all people’, (1 Cor.9.22). Contrary to what this phrase suggests nowadays, this was a very costly ministry, since Paul kept crossing the boundaries – religious, racial and cultural – between Jewish and Gentile communities. (Imagine a preacher exercising such a ministry in both communities in South Africa or Northern Ireland during apartheid and ‘the troubles’ respectively).

‘Being all things to all people’ applied to what Paul said, the way he said it, and where he said it. Paul was nothing if not supremely adaptable. It is no accident that, to the church at Rome with a strong contingent of Jewish Christians, he wrote in a more ‘Jewish’ way; only in his letter to them does he refer to Jesus’ Davidic descent (Rom.1.3-4). By contrast, a letter to a church in a Roman military colony is full of political and military imagery (e.g. Philipp. 2.25 and 3.20).

Our preaching is not just a matter of ‘what I’ve got to say’. Communication is a two-way process. This means that, whatever message I may think I have given, ‘the Gospel has not been preached until it has been heard’ (A. Outler). The words we use may be understood differently by our hearers, or, of course, they may not understand them at all.  A ‘seeker’ service provides a good challenge. How may we present the Gospel to a ‘congregation’ (I’m not assuming that such a service will be on church premises), who have rarely, if ever, been to church before? I used to ask my students which words are indispensable to the communication of the Gospel. I incline to think there are only three: Jesus, God and life.

Second, the apostle to the Gentiles urges us to take risks for the Gospel, not least by venturing on to new or unfamiliar ‘territory’. Paul told the Christians at Corinth that he came to them ‘in weakness’  (1 Cor.2.3). He did not mean natural or unavoidable weakness. He meant: ‘weakness’ which he chose for the sake of the gospel. What that meant in practice we can only guess at. But, on his own admission, it meant at least forgoing the usual eloquence and worldly wisdom which those worldly-wise Christians expected from visiting speakers. He may also have been referring to his practice of earning his own keep – contrary to what was expected of teachers and preachers in those days.  Paul’s strictures here on worldly wisdom, by the way, shouldn’t be used as an argument for not using our intellects as strenuously as we can in the service of the Gospel! Paul certainly did so. But he knew he could not preach the cross from a position of power, or by ‘going with the flow’.

Most people who read this will be used to preaching in churches – as, indeed, I am. But as we think more and more about ‘fresh expressions’ of church, we shall need to move, as Paul did, on to new, unfamiliar territory, preaching to the people we wrongly call ‘outsiders’, or ‘non-members’. It will be necessary to work for such opportunities, to earn the right to a hearing, since twenty-first century Britain is not so disposed to listen to visiting preachers as was first century Corinth. (Sadly, too many Bible-thumping fundamentalists have given open-air  preaching a bad name).  But the apostle to the Gentiles still challenges us to choose weakness. A World Council of Churches ‘Letter on Evangelism’ some years ago put it like this:

‘…. Can a person who holds human power over others truly evangelise? I think not.  As long as I have power over others, I cannot challenge them to repent, or to stand up and walk, or take up one’s cross and follow Jesus. I can say these words all right…. but as long as I hold power over others, I cannot share the gospel of Jesus Christ with them and expect an authentic response’.

Does this put a question mark against the use of a pulpit? If it is perceived as ‘six feet above contradiction’ (or, I might add, above interruption), then I think it does. Paul’s letters, and especially the way in which some sections of them are interspersed with questions, curious or hostile, from an imaginary conversation-partner, hint at a more interactive kind of preaching.

But the apostle to the Gentiles does more than challenge us about the way we preach, and even where we preach. He challenges us to look out for ‘outsiders’ in our churches. By ‘outsider’ here I mean any person or group who, for whatever reason, are marginalized: their voice isn’t heard, their presence largely unnoticed, their views ignored or even disparaged. The marginalized in our churches may be the old, the young, the people whose views – whether about hymns, music, theology, the gay issue or other matters – are frowned upon. (This does not mean any person’s view is as good as any other’s. But if people belong to ‘the Body’, no-one should be ignored or marginalized). Every detail in Paul’s discussion of ‘the Body’ repays careful study, not least because he has ‘slanted’ it to emphasize looking out for the ‘weaker members’, (1 Cor.12.12-26).

The same concern for the outsider lies behind his discussion of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11.17-34). At Corinth, the church seems to have adopted the style of pagan dinner-parties: some, no doubt the wealthier, more well-to-do members, over-indulged, the poorer ones received all too little (v.21).

What is the root source of all this concern for the outsider and the marginalized, whether in communicating the Gospel, or in the fellowship of the Church? The answer lies in what Morna Hooker has taught us to call the ‘divine interchange’:

God in Christ became what we are, that we might become what He (Christ) is.

Paul expresses this in many different ways, depending on the situation he is addressing. So, in discussing money, he expresses the divine interchange like this: ‘the Lord Jesus  was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor.8.9).

When Paul is discussing the issue of the law, he puts the ‘interchange’ in different language: Jesus was born ‘under the law’ in order to redeem those under the law and to make them heirs of God  (Galat.4.4-7). There are other examples of interchange language, (Romans 8.3-4 and 2 Cor.5.21 for example), but behind them all lies this conviction: Christ died for us that we might live with (and for) Him.

This is the root of Paul’s theology and practice. Because God in Jesus became what we are, Paul follows the divine example, becoming ‘a Jew to Jews, a Greek to Greeks,,, all things to all people, that by all means he might save some’ (1 Cor. 9. 19-23). Paul goes to new, unfamiliar territory, choosing ‘weakness’, because that is what God did in Christ (1 Cor.1.25). And though God loves the world, strong and weak alike, Jew and Gentile alike, He has ‘a bias’ to the outsider, not least because the world, the strong, the religious and even the good are likely to marginalize them.

Our preaching, I’m sure, suffers from preaching to church congregations only. And even amongst those congregations, I guess, most will be long-standing ‘regulars’. Of course, they need to hear the Gospel too! But what of the challenge of preaching to ‘outsiders’ – people who have come to church for the first time, or the first time for many years? Some preachers will have such opportunities – principally at family or all-age worship. But do we rise to the challenge of saying something briefly and simply in non-religious language (excepting, perhaps, my three words of ‘God’ ‘Jesus’ and ‘life’), which is at the same time faithful to the Scriptures? Paul, apostle par excellence to the Gentiles, has much to teach us.  Is a rediscovery of Paul an essential task on the road to the renewal and revival of the Church?

Neil Richardson

Rev Dr Neil G Richardson is the Chair of the Leeds NE District and a past President of the Methodist Conference