The Apostle Paul was a devout Jewish man who had been personally tapped by God to minister to the Gentiles. Ironically, he was a most unlikely candidate for this assignment.
Early in life, Paul had despised anyone who didn’t share his Pharisaical devotion to the Hebrew world view. His theology was simple: Jews were made for heaven, while hell was the destiny of everyone else — meaning Gentiles.
In fact, his religious snobbishness was such that he not only snubbed — but hated non-Jews — and sometimes allowed his vitriolic attacks to spill out upon suspect Jewish sects, such as the followers of the Nazarene. Paul was an inquisitor; a bigot; a trafficker in racism; a dogmatic zealot. He was not a nice guy.
Strangely enough, his fanaticism was fueled by an obsessive desire to please God. He was walking proof that one can be entirely sincere and completely wrong at the same time. Paul was an enigma — a well meaning religious man who was cruel to the point of sadism in his “persuasive” techniques.
Indeed, it was while on a rampage to arrest disciples of a dead man named Jesus that he was unexpectedly transformed. At high noon Paul was a proud sheriff on a steed, leading his posse to round up varmints. Seconds later he was sucking dirt on a road into Damascus, having been dismounted by a hand unseen, gloved in a flash of light. In a moment his life turned around.
While cloistered, recovering from a temporary bout of blindness brought on by that midday encounter, he received divine orders. He was to present the Good News about Jesus the Christ to Jews, always to Jews first. However, if they rejected the Gospel (as it was prophesied they would) he would then preach to Gentiles with equal fervor. This was his destiny. He would build a bridge between the Chosen and the Barbarians.
Paul had a late start as an apostle. But he quickly caught up with the best and the brightest of them. He concluded that Grace was God’s special gift to him, but what he did with his allotment of Grace was his unique gift to others, and hence back to God.
Fueled by this reasoning, he went on many a perilous journey, preaching to Jews and Gentiles with equal fervor. In writing to the Roman church, a congregation he was preparing to visit, he addressed both of these cultures.
Paul explained in his letter to the Roman church that when he spoke to Gentiles he always had his wayward countrymen in his thoughts. Whenever he gave a message he valued the Gentiles who responded affirmatively, but he admitted that there was extra, undeniable exhilaration when a fellow-Jew acknowledged Christ as Messiah.
He had been given an office by God — apostleship. He had been granted a title — ambassador to the Gentiles. He had been bestowed with spiritual authority by the Holy Spirit.
However, in the end he had to work at his craft and his calling. What spiritual victories were won by Paul did not happen by mere happenstance. He called it “the work of God” for a reason. It involved Paul’s work — and God’s will.
Paul wrote to the Roman church “I magnify my office”. The term he used was actually “glorify”. In context it means to enhance or expand; to beautify; to improve what exists.
For example, an unadorned Christmas tree is not very attractive. But when an artsy person adds lights, tinsel, bulbs, and ribbons it becomes a thing of beauty. Even so in ministry: God gives us the raw material and we “magnify” it for Him by our efforts — done for His honor rather than our own.
It has ever been so. The first Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden before the Fall to “work and take care of it”. Why this seemingly innocuous assignment?
There were no weeds to pull. There was no lawn to water. God had made a beautiful paradise without Adams’ aid. What could this created man do to make God’s creation better? Could he be expected to improve on “and God saw that it was good”?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he could! God had left some small things undone so that Adam could “magnify”, not himself, but Him. The ever-so-slightly unfinished work of creation was to be gradually completed by way of a partnership between God and Adam. Since Adam was formed in God’s image, he possessed a natural penchant for making things better and more beautiful. This was in his DNA. He took after his Father.
But after the Fall the human inclination to invent, improve, discover, and create became selfish in the extreme. Creativity morphed into a stage upon which to magnify Adam, rather than glorify God. The Office of Topiary to the Glory of Elohim became prostituted. The process became something base and ignoble.
Now all-too-mortal arborists trimmed trees and improved flower beds with nary a consideration for the Almighty. They no longer sought God’s smile or His favor. Furthermore, now there were weeds, a sign of the new sin-full order, which took the delight out of work as worship and turned it into drudgery for momentary self exhalation.
However, Paul regained the right perspective and focus. It was all about God, not about him. His purpose was to magnify his ministry, so that God could be honored. His life’s work was to the end that he could one day hear “well done, my good and faithful servant”. He served his Savior, not his self.
Today we who are called to be “God’s gardeners” have been set apart to work in a Fallen Eden. Our labor is made increasingly difficult by the thorns and thistles that aim to choke out the very Word we proclaim.
Yet, we seek to magnify our ministry – not to our glory, but His. We are all too aware that without God and His giftings we can do no-thing, but even with His divine enablements the job won’t get done unless we give it our full effort and panache.
Paul made much of his ministry for Jesus of Nazareth, whom he had encountered at high noon two decades before.
He transformed the dirt from the Damascus Road into divine gold dust for God.
He took the shabby threads of his BC existence and wove a testimonial tapestry in honor of Christ’s goodness.
Paul’s scars bore witness to the fact that he had not fled adversity, but had been true to his primal call.
Any and all of us who are in ministry, called by Almighty God, could do worse than have an epitaph that reads: “He magnified his ministry” or “She made much of her call”.
May we strive to festoon and adorn the Gospel of Christ until the falleness of this Adamic planet is transformed into an Edenic paradise once more.
