SAINT PAUL’S SPIRITUALITY

In the spiritual walk of Paul there is a ‘strange’ progression. Though I wonder if the word ‘strange’ is the right, correct description. It is likely that Galatians is the first Letter which Paul ever wrote, and that he wrote it about the year AD 48. In the first sentence of this Letter he calls himself “Paul, an Apostle” (Gal.1:1) Without hesitation he lays claim to the highest office in the Church; it is on his possession of that office he bases his claim to write.

Seven years later in the year AD 55, he was writing to the Corinthians. There he writes: “I am the least of the Apostles, and not fit to be called an Apostle.” (1 Cor. 15: 9) By that time he had come to think of the office of an Apostle to which he had little right and little claim.

Another eight years went by and about AD 63, he wrote the Letter addressed to the Ephesians, and in it he declares: “Unto me, who am less than the least of the saints is grace given.” (Eph. 3:8). In the New Testament ‘saint’ is the word for ‘church member’ . By that time Paul had begun to think of himself, not as an Apostle, but as barely fit to be a member of the Church at all.

At the very end of the day, when he was awaiting death, he wrote to Timothy, and in that letter he wrote: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the chief.” (1 Tim: 1:15) Here, the man whom all the world regarded as a supreme servant of Jesus Christ calls himself the ‘chief of sinners’. Nor is there any cause for surprise in all this.

A man might think that he is a fairly satisfactory person, and that he has nothing to worry about … as long as he compares himself to his neighbor and to his fellow men. But the question he should ask is: “Am I as good as Jesus Christ ?”.
That is the question Paul asked.