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THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL
by
PROF. JAMES STALKER, D.D.
Author of "The Life of Jesus Christ"
With Foreword by
Wilbert W. White, D.D.
President of the Bible Teachers' Training School, New York
New and Revised Edition
New York ---- Chicago ---- Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1912, by
American Tract Society
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
FOREWORD
I. HIS PLACE IN HISTORY
II. HIS UNCONSCIOUS PREPARATION FOR HIS WORK
III. HIS CONVERSION
IV. HIS GOSPEL
V. THE WORK AWAITING THE WORKER
VI. HIS MISSIONARY TRAVELS
VII. HIS WRITINGS AND HIS CHARACTER
VIII. PICTURE OF A PAULINE CHURCH
IX. HIS GREAT CONTROVERSY
X. THE END
HINTS TO TEACHERS AND QUESTIONS FOR PUPILS
FOREWORD
By Wilbert W. White, D.D.
When asked to write a foreword to Dr. Stalker's "Life of St. Paul," I
thought of two things: first the impression which I had received from a
sermon that I heard Dr. Stalker preach a good many years ago in his own
pulpit in Glasgow, Scotland, and secondly, the honor conferred in this
privilege of writing a foreword to one of Dr. Stalker's books.
I felt sure before even glancing at the pages that I should be pleased
and profited by their perusal.
The first thing that I did was to glance over the pages for the
headings of chapters and the summaries of paragraphs. I found the
arrangement admirable, and would advise those into whose hands this
fine volume may come to follow this plan.
The only sentence apart from the headings which I read in the aforesaid
preview was the last one in Chapter X, and that because the closing
words, "the best of friends," especially arrested my attention.
I wondered before I read this sentence if the author was saying of Paul
that he was going out of the world to the One who had been to him the
best of friends. From this you may gather--what you like. Only I felt
sure before reading the pages that Dr. Stalker would interpret Paul in
a manner such as I could enthusiastically approve.
And now having read the volume I heartily commend it. It is the best
brief life of Paul of which I know.
Before reading the book I said to myself, I shall put down what I think
the writer will make the heart of the secret of Paul. It was this: The
key to Paul's efficiency was his wholehearted persistent loyalty to
Christ, his Saviour and Friend. He was not disobedient to the heavenly
vision. He stood fast in the liberty wherewith Christ set him free.
He was three things all stated in one verse, and put thus: "I am
crucified with Christ--Christ liveth in me--I live in faith."
Here are some, a very few of many striking, true thoughts presented by
Dr. Stalker:
"Paul was the interpreter of Christ, saying what Christ Himself would
have said under the circumstances."
"Paul's entire theology was nothing but the explication of his own
conversion."
"In bringing Paul West, Providence gave to Europe a blessed priority,
and the fate of our continent was decided, when Paul crossed the
Aegean."
"A secret of Paul's success was his sense of having a mission and his
freedom alike from the bondage of bigotry and the bondage of liberty."
A writer recently gave me this thought about Paul: "What makes St. Paul
so interesting is his conception of the dimensions of life."
Back to Christ? Yes, the whole world needs it, but the way to get back
to Christ is through the Apostolic interpretation of Christ in words
and life. This is the only way, and Dr. Stalker's book is a great help
in this direction.
THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL
CHAPTER I
HIS PLACE IN HISTORY
Paragraphs 1-12.
1, 2. The Man Needed by the Time.
3, 4. A Type of Christian Character.
5-8. The Thinker of Christianity.
9-12. The Missionary of the Gentiles.
1. The Man for the Time.--There are some men whose lives it is
impossible to study without receiving the impression that they were
expressly sent into the world to do a work required by the juncture of
history on which they fell. The story of the Reformation, for example,
cannot be read by a devout mind without wonder at the providence by
which such great men as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Knox were
simultaneously raised up in different parts of Europe to break the yoke
of the papacy and republish the gospel of grace. When the Evangelical
Revival, after blessing England, was about to break into Scotland and
end the dreary reign of Moderatism, there was raised up in Thomas
Chalmers a mind of such capacity as completely to absorb the new
movement into itself, and of such sympathy and influence as to diffuse
it to every corner of his native land.
2. This impression is produced by no life more than by that of the
Apostle Paul. He was given to Christianity when it was in its most
rudimentary beginnings. It was not, indeed, feeble, nor can any mortal
man be spoken of as indispensable to it; for it contained within itself
the vigor of a divine and immortal existence, which could not but have
unfolded itself in the course of time. But, if we recognize that God
makes use of means which commend themselves even to our eyes as suited
to the ends He has in view, then we must say that the Christian
movement at the moment when Paul appeared upon the stage was in the
utmost need of a man of extraordinary endowments, who, becoming
possessed with its genius, should incorporate it with the general
history of the world; and in Paul it found the man it needed.
3. A Type of Christian Character.--Christianity obtained in Paul an
incomparable type of Christian character. It already, indeed,
possessed the perfect model of human character in the person of its
Founder. But He was not as other men, because from the beginning He
had no sinful imperfection to struggle with; and Christianity still
required to show what it could make of imperfect human nature. Paul
supplied the opportunity of exhibiting this. He was naturally of
immense mental stature and force. He would have been a remarkable man
even if he had never become a Christian. The other apostles would have
lived and died in the obscurity of Galilee if they had not been lifted
into prominence by the Christian movement; but the name of Saul of
Tarsus would have been remembered still in some character or other even
if Christianity had never existed. Christianity got the opportunity in
him of showing to the world the whole force it contained. Paul was
aware of this himself, though he expressed it with perfect modesty,
when he said, "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief
might Jesus Christ show forth all His long-suffering for an ensample of
them who should hereafter believe on Him to everlasting life."
4. His conversion proved the power of Christianity to overcome the
strongest prejudices and to stamp its own type on a large nature by a
revolution both instantaneous and permanent. Paul's was a personality
so strong and original that no other man could have been less expected
to sink himself in another; but, from the moment when he came into
contact with Christ, he was so overmastered with His influence that he
never afterward had any other desire than to be the mere echo and
reflection of Him to the world.
But, if Christianity showed its strength in making so complete a
conquest of Paul, it showed its worth no less in the kind of man it
made of him when he had given himself up to its influence. It
satisfied the needs of a peculiarly hungry nature, and never to the
close of his life did he betray the slightest sense that this
satisfaction was abating. His constitution was originally compounded
of fine materials, but the spirit of Christ, passing into these, raised
them to a pitch of excellence altogether unique.
Nor was it ever doubtful either to himself or to others that it was the
influence of Christ which made him what he was. The truest motto for
his life would be his own saying, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me." Indeed, so perfectly was Christ formed in him that we can now
study Christ's character in his, and beginners may perhaps learn even
more of Christ from studying Paul's life than from studying Christ's
own. In Christ Himself there was a blending and softening of all the
excellences which makes His greatness elude the glance of the beginner,
just as the very perfection of Raphael's painting makes it
disappointing to an untrained eye; whereas in Paul a few of the
greatest elements of Christian character were exhibited with a
decisiveness which no one can mistake, just as the most prominent
characteristics of the painting of Rubens can be appreciated by every
spectator.
5. A Great Thinker.--Christianity obtained in Paul, secondly, a great
thinker. This it specially needed at the moment. Christ had departed
from the world, and those whom He had left to represent Him were
unlettered fishermen and, for the most part, men of no intellectual
mark. In one sense this fact reflects a peculiar glory on
Christianity, for it shows that it did not owe its place as one of the
great influences of the world to the abilities of its human
representatives: not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God,
was Christianity established in the earth. Yet, as we look back now,
we can clearly see how essential it was that an apostle of a different
stamp and training should arise.
6. Christ had manifested forth the glory of the Father once for all
and completed his atoning work. But this was not enough. It was
necessary that the meaning of his appearance should be explained to the
world. Who was he who had been here? what precisely was it he had
done? To these questions the original apostles could give brief
popular answers; but none of them had the intellectual reach or the
educational training necessary to put the answers into a form to
satisfy the intellect of the world. Happily it is not essential to
salvation to be able to answer such questions with scientific accuracy.
There are tens of thousands who know and believe that Jesus was the Son
of God and died to take away sin and, trusting to Him as their Saviour,
are purified by faith, but who could not explain these statements at
any length without falling into mistakes in almost every sentence.
Yet, if Christianity was to make an intellectual as well as a moral
conquest of the world, it was necessary for the Church to have
accurately explained to her the full glory of her Lord and the meaning
of his saving work.
Of course Jesus had himself had in his mind a comprehension both of
what he was and of what he was doing which was luminous as the sun.
But it was one of the most pathetic aspects of his earthly ministry
that he could not tell all his mind to his followers. They were not
able to bear it; they were too rude and limited to take it in. He had
to carry his deepest thoughts out of the world with him unuttered,
trusting with a sublime faith that the Holy Ghost would lead his Church
to grasp them in the course of its subsequent development. Even what
he did utter was very imperfectly understood.
There was one mind, it is true, in the original apostolic circle of the
finest quality and capable of soaring into the rarest altitudes of
speculation. The words of Christ sank into the mind of John and, after
lying there for half a century, grew up into the wonderful forms we
inherit in his Gospel and Epistles. But even the mind of John was not
equal to the exigency of the Church; it was too fine, mystical,
unusual. His thoughts to this day remain the property only of the few
finest minds. There was needed a thinker of broader and more massive
make to sketch the first outlines of Christian doctrine; and he was
found in Paul.
7. Paul was a born thinker. His mind was of majestic breadth and
force. It was restlessly busy, never able to leave any object with
which it had to deal until it had pursued it back to its remotest
causes and forward into all its consequences. It was not enough for
him to know that Christ was the Son of God: he had to unfold this
statement into its elements and understand precisely what it meant. It
was not enough for him to believe that Christ died for sin: he had to
go farther and inquire why it was necessary that He should do so and
how His death took sin away.
But not only had he from nature this speculative gift: his talent was
trained by education. The other apostles were unlettered men; but he
enjoyed the fullest scholastic advantages of the period. In the
rabbinical school he learned how to arrange and state and defend his
ideas. We have the issue of all this in his Epistles, which contain
the best explanation of Christianity possessed by the world. The right
way to look at them is to regard them as the continuation of Christ's
own teaching. They contain the thoughts which Christ carried away from
the earth with him unuttered. Of course Jesus would have uttered them
differently and far better. Paul's thoughts have everywhere the
coloring of his own mental peculiarities. But the substance of them is
what Christ's must have been if he had himself given them expression.
8. There was one great subject especially which Christ had to leave
unexplained--his own death. He could not explain it before it had
taken place. This became the leading topic of Paul's thinking--to show
why it was needed and what were its blessed results. But, indeed,
there was no aspect of the appearance of Christ into which his
restlessly inquiring mind did not penetrate. His thirteen Epistles,
when arranged in chronological order, show that his mind was constantly
getting deeper and deeper into the subject. The progress of his
thinking was determined partly by the natural progress of his own
advance in the knowledge of Christ, for he always wrote straight out of
his own experience; and partly by the various forms of error which he
had at successive periods to encounter, and which became a providential
means of stimulating and developing his apprehension of the truth, just
as ever since in the Christian Church the rise of error has been the
means of calling forth the clearest statements of doctrine. The ruling
impulse, however, of his thinking, as of his life, was ever Christ, and
it was his lifelong devotion to this exhaustless theme that made him
the Thinker of Christianity.
9. The Missionary of the Gentiles.--Christianity obtained in Paul,
thirdly, the missionary of the Gentiles. It is rare to find the
highest speculative power united with great practical activity; but
these were united in him. He was not only the Church's greatest
thinker, but the very foremost worker she has ever possessed. We have
been considering the speculative task which was awaiting him when he
joined the Christian community; but there was a no less stupendous
practical task awaiting him too. This was the evangelization of the
Gentile world.
10. One of the great objects of the appearance of Christ was to break
down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile and make the
blessings of salvation the property of all men, without distinction of
race or language. But he was not himself permitted to carry this
change into practical realization. It was one of the strange
limitations of his earthly life that he was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. It can easily be imagined how congenial a task
it would have been to his intensely human heart to carry the gospel
beyond the limits of Palestine and make it known to nation after
nation; and--if it be not too bold to say so--this would certainly have
been his chosen career, had he been spared. But he was cut off in the
midst of his days and had to leave this task to his followers.
11. Before the appearance of Paul on the scene, the execution of this
task had been begun. Jewish prejudice had been partially broken down,
the universal character of Christianity had been in some measure
realized, and Peter had admitted the first Gentiles into the Church by
baptism. But none of the original apostles was equal to the emergency.
None of them was large-minded enough to grasp the idea of the perfect
equality of Jew and Gentile and apply it without flinching in all its
practical consequences; and none of them had the combination of gifts
necessary to attempt the conversion of the Gentile world on a large
scale. They were Galilean fishermen, fit enough to teach and preach
within the bounds of their native Palestine. But beyond Palestine lay
the great world of Greece and Rome--the world of vast populations, of
power and culture, of pleasure and business. It needed a man of
unlimited versatility, of education, of immense human sympathy and
breadth, to go out there with the gospel message--a man who could not
only be a Jew to the Jews, but a Greek to the Greeks, a Roman to the
Romans, a barbarian to the barbarians--a man who could encounter not
only rabbis in their synagogues, but proud magistrates in their courts
and philosophers in the haunts of learning--a man who could face travel
by land and by sea, who could exhibit presence of mind in every variety
of circumstances, and would be cowed by no difficulties. No man of
this size belonged to the original apostolic circle; but Christianity
needed such an one, and he was found in Paul.
12. Originally attached more strictly than any of the other apostles
to the peculiarities and prejudices of Jewish exclusiveness, he cut his
way out of the jungle of these prepossessions, accepted the equality of
all men in Christ, and applied this principle relentlessly in all its
issues. He gave his heart to the Gentile mission, and the history of
his life is the history of how true he was to his vocation. There was
never such singleness of eye or wholeness of heart. There was never
such superhuman and untiring energy. There was never such an
accumulation of difficulties victoriously met and of sufferings
cheerfully borne for any cause. In him Jesus Christ went forth to
evangelize the world, making use of his hands and feet, his tongue and
brain and heart, for doing the work which in His own bodily presence He
had not been permitted by the limits of His mission to accomplish.