You might have read that title and wondered if I’ve lost my faith or my mind. But I wanted an attention-grabbing title to talk about something that I think of whenever I’m reading isolated quotes from the book of Job.
This book records dialog between Job, his three friends (Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite), a young man named Elihu, and God Himself. At the end of the book, God rebukes the three friends, saying, to Eliphaz,”My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7, WEB). Here, we see God pointing out that the things these three men said about him were not right. Their words are recorded in the Bible, but those words don’t reflect a correct view of the world or a proper understanding of God.
For those of us who believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, we often assume that if we’re studying a topic and look up all the verses using a specific keyword or we read a scripture that someone quotes, then whatever that individual verse says must be true. That is often the case, but we can get into trouble if we don’t read the context. Sometimes a verse might be part of a larger argument that changes how we understand a specific phrase (this happens a lot in Paul’s writings). Sometimes the verse might be part of a recorded dialog where the speakers says things that aren’t true. The Bible contains the Truth, but if we take pieces of it out of context or misunderstand what’s going on, we can still take things away from reading the Bible that are not true.
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A Wrong Conclusion About Suffering
Sometimes, the Bible records incorrect assumptions people made about God. If we read the rest of the story these incorrect assumptions are corrected, but if we just read the person’s incorrect statement and think, “Well, it’s in the Bible so it must be true,” then we can make the same mistakes they did. When we lift a quote from the book of Job, for example, we need to check who said it, what the larger context is, and if it fits with the rest of scripture. We don’t want to risk making the same mistakes Job’s friends did. For example, these men assumed that people who suffer must have sinned and are being punished by God. It’s a mistake people in Jesus’s time were making (John 9:2-3) and it’s one you’ll still hear some people today repeating. They can even trot out some scriptural evidence for it.
Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed?
Job 4:7, NET (Eliphaz the Temanite speaking)
If your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin. …
Surely, God does not reject a blameless man, nor does he grasp the hand of the evildoers.
Job 8:4, 20 NET (Bildad the Shuhite speaking)
These are a couple arguments that Job’s friends used to try and persuade him that he must be guilty of some great sin that caused God to kill his children, take away his wealth, and strike him with a horrible sickness. However, we readers know that something entirely different was going on behind the scenes: Job was “a blameless and upright man” who became the central player in a wager between Yahweh and Satan. Even without that highly unusual circumstance, the rest of the Bible reveals suffering does not just happen because you did something wrong and good people often suffer even while doing what is right.
Limiting God In Our Minds
Another example of how we can arrive at a wrong conclusion based on taking a Biblical person’s mistaken words out of context comes from the book of Habakkuk. When God told Habakkuk, “Look, I am about to empower the Babylonians” to sweep violently across the earth (Hab. 1:6, NET; see Hab. 1:5-11), Habakkuk had concerns. He protested, “You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing. So why do you put up with such treacherous people?” (Hab. 1:13, NET). God responded that He would certainly do exactly as He’d said (Hab. 2). It seems that Habakkuk had an idea of what God couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and God corrected his misunderstanding.
The whole book of Habakkuk is only 3 chapters long; you can easily read it all in one setting. But we can still take Habakkuk’s words out of context and make his same mistake today. I’ve actually heard people use Habakkuk’s words, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13, KJV) to say that God can’t be in the presence of sin. That’s an incorrect assumption that contradicts much of the rest of the Bible (for example, God let Satan come before Him in Job and he’s as sinful as you can get). And yet, people take this misconception and create whole doctrines, such as saying the Father must have forsaken Jesus and turned His face away when His Son hung on the cross because Jesus took on the world’s sins and God can’t be in the presence of evil. The Bible doesn’t say that! Such an assumption is based on us turning Habakkuk’s misconception into a rigid rule to the point that we place limits on what God can and can’t do that don’t actually exist.
Ask For Understanding
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It is good to question the things we read. We should also keep in mind, though, that our goal isn’t to disprove the Bible or dismantle correct doctrines. We question, examine, and study in order to learn what is true and correctly understand God’s words.
The brothers sent Paul and Silas off to Berea at once, during the night. When they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue. These Jews were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, along with quite a few prominent Greek women and men.
Acts 17:10-12, NET
The Bereans are often held up as a good example of examining the scriptures, and rightly so. Notice, though, that their response to hearing the gospel was not to search through the scriptures trying to prove their own idea but “to see if these things were so.” They studied to figure out what was true.
God’s word is Truth, but we must be cautious in how we read it and ask God to guide us to a proper understanding. If we take things out of context or misunderstand what’s being said in a scripture, we might come away from Bible reading with ideas that are not true. It requires God’s spiritual intervention to open our minds to understand the scriptures (Psalm 119:18; Luke 24:45; 1 Cor. 2:6-16). We should approach His word with humility, a willingness to learn, and commitment to understanding God’s word rather than just picking out bits that sound good.
I’ve been thinking about this question since hearing a sermon on it last weekend. It’s a question I’d settled in my own mind some time ago, but I realized there’s an argument for why God’s expectations are reasonable that I hadn’t considered before.
People often accuse God of being unreasonable, particularly in the context of His commandments. It can be hard to accept that God has the right to ask us to give up things we might want or that He’s being reasonable in those requests. For example, we need look no farther than the gospel accounts.
The young man said to him, “I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws. What do I still lack?”Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.
Matthew 19:20-22, NET
We don’t know exactly what was going on in this wealthy man’s mind or what he chose to do in response to Jesus’s statement, but we know that he was sad and that he walked away. He may, perhaps, have felt that Jesus’s instruction was unreasonable. If we were to ask Jesus, “What do I still lack?” there’s a very good chance He would give us a different response than to sell all our possessions, but I suspect it would be an equally challenging task.
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The Sovereignty of God
For me, God’s sovereignty is the first of two things that settled the questions of whether or not God’s demands are reasonable. He created humanity, including me, and the entire universe. His laws are simply part of the way the universe is structured. He has the right to tell us how to live because He is in charge and it is good of Him to tell us how to live because He knows what we need to do in order to get the best outcome.
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?”But who indeed are you—a mere human being—to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?”Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?
Romans 9:19-21, NET (bold italics mark a quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9)
From the perspective that God has rights over what He created (including me), it was not terribly hard for me to make peace with things like not trying out for local theatrical productions because of performances and rehearsals on Friday evenings and Saturday. God has the right to designate certain days as holy and He wants me to keep His Sabbath, so I give up things that conflict with that. I grew up with the mindset that it’s just what you do and I never personally hit a point where I resented that. People in my church congregation would lose jobs, for example, because they wouldn’t work on Saturdays and that’s not something we compromise on. It always worked out in the end.
Jobs or hobbies that conflict with following Him are not the only thing God asks us to give up, though. He also asks us to give up revenge, inappropriate anger, selfishness, pettiness, bitterness, fear, and grudges. He asks us to give up any desires or actions that run counter to His laws. It is often much harder to bring your emotions and thoughts in line than your actions, though it is all closely connected, but God has the right to ask this of us.
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We Owe Him So Much
The second thing that settled the question of “Is God unreasonable?” for me is thinking of all the things He has done for us. This really hit me years ago when I started the Bible studies which eventually led to my first ebook God’s Love Story (available free when you subscribe to my newsletter). In the universe that God created and under His laws, “the compensation due sin is death” (Rom. 6:23, LEB). The outlook would be very bleak for us imperfect humans if it stopped there, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23, LEB). Jesus died in place of all who will accept His substitutionary sacrifice. Now, we are “the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son” (Acts 20:28, NET). As such, we have certain obligations.
Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20, WEB
People in the modern world, particularly Western culture, tend to think of “grace” as a free gift with no expectation that those who receive grace would do anything afterwards. It wasn’t that way in Biblical culture. Grace, the Greek word charis, was linked to relationships and carried relational expectations. It’s connected to covenants, the type of relationship that God makes with His people. Grace is freely given, but with the expectation that those who accept this gift have reciprocal obligations. We don’t try to pay God back for what He’s done (it would be impossible), but we are supposed to respond a certain way because we’ve received such incredible gifts from Him (salvation, forgiveness, hope of eternal life). Because I have a grace-based, covenant relationship with God, it is reasonable of Him to ask things of me and for me to respond by doing as He says.
God’s Level of Commitment
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This third argument for why it’s reasonable of God to ask things of us is the one I hadn’t thought of before. Let us return, for a moment, to the story of the rich young man that we read at the beginning of this blog post. After the rich man walked away, Peter asked a question.
Then Peter said to him, “Look, we have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth: In the age when all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”
Matthew 19:27-29, NET
When Jesus called His 12 disciples who would (with the exception of Judas Iscariot) become apostles, they gave up their former lives to follow Him. A tax collector and several fishermen became the students of a traveling rabbi because they believed He was the promised Messiah sent from God. Understandably, Peter wondered what the pay-off would be. But Peter and all of us who follow Jesus aren’t the only ones who gave something up.
You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death —even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5-8, NET
To slightly paraphrase the sermon that inspired this topic, “Peter gave up a fishing boat, Jesus gave up a throne.” Now, you might reply to this point that it wasn’t the same for Jesus because He got to go back to His throne and become immortal God again, but that’s basically the same reward that’s awaiting Peter and all the other faithful believers as well. We’re not going to be exalted as high as Jesus, but we will be welcomed into God’s family and made co-heirs with Jesus Christ.
God is 100% committed to expanding His family and building relationships with His people that will last into eternity. Jesus emptied Himself to share in human nature and die for us. When He asks us to be fully committed to Him, even if that means giving up some things we might like to keep, He’s not asking more of us than He was willing to do.
As the sovereign creator, the one who paid a high price to redeem us, and a leader who doesn’t ask of us anything He hasn’t done Himself, it is reasonable for God to have expectations from us. Not only that, but these expectations are good for us. His purpose is to give us eternal life. When God asks us to devote our entire lives to Him, it’s a reasonable request and we can do so willingly when we shift our perspective to reflect the reality of who God is and what He is doing.
In this post, we’re looking at how Paul describes his readers and, by extension, us today. I’ve found it fascinating to look at how he addresses his readers and what he emphasizes about who they are and what they’re doing.
The Church of God
Five of these letters are addressed, “to the church” of God in a specific city or the “churches” in a region (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:2; 1 Thes. 1:1; 2 Thes. 1:1). Others are addressed “to the saints” of a specific city (Rom. 1:7; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2). Let’s take a look at the Greek words translated “church” and “saints,” since they mean something a little different than we might expect from the use of those English words.
“Church” in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word ekklesia (G1577). It might also be translated “assembly” (as it is in the WEB version). The English word “church” carries the connotation of a building where people gather or an organization that people belong to, but ekklesia emphasized the aspect of people gathering together. The basic meaning is “a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly” (Thayer’s dictionary). Hence, the church is God’s called-out people that He assembles together.
“Saints” is translated from the Greek word haggios (G40). It is also commonly translated “holy” and refers to “a most holy thing” (Thayer’s dictionary). At it’s heart, the “fundamental idea is separation, consecration, devotion to the service of Deity, sharing in God’s purity and abstaining from earth’s defilement” (Zodhiates’s dictionary). God’s temple was holy because it was set apart for sacred use. Similarly, God’s people are holy because they’re separated from the common or impure things and devoted to Him. By calling us the church of God and the saints, Paul focuses on God’s work bringing us out of the world into fellowship with each other and Him, and on our distinctiveness as a group devoted to God.
Called By God and Belonging to Jesus
This point is very closely connected to the first one, since we are “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7, 1 Cor. 1:2, NET) as part of the church/assembly of God. This also means we are “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:6, NET) and “called into fellowship with” Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:9, NET). Romans and 1 Corinthians are the only letters that use the “called” wording in the introduction, but others echo similar sentiments with phrases like “chosen” (1 Thes. 1:4) and “claimed.”
For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.He did this by predestining us to adoption as his legal heirs through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will …
In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his willso that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:4-5, 11-12, NET
Paul also refers to his readers as those “who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Cor. 1:2, NET). We are called-out of the world and into God’s family by God, and as such we can call on the name of our Lord. We’re identified, both in the Pauline introductions and throughout New Testament writings, by our association with Jesus Christ. This in no way diminishes the Father, who is the one calling us. Rather, properly acknowledging Jesus as Lord and knowing that we belong to Him glorifies the Father (Phil. 2:8-11).
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Rescued By God
Once we’re called by God and join His people, our identities become connected with Him. As such, many of the things Paul says about us in the introductions to his letters have to do with how God sees us and what He does for us. When Paul talks about his readers, he doesn’t focus on things like their gender, wealth, or nationalities (though those topics come up in the letters). He focuses on who they are now that they are God’s people. For example, because of the God who called us and the Lord that we follow, we are sanctified (i.e. made holy), rescued, and redeemed.
to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.
1 Corinthians 1:2, NET
Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever! Amen.
Galatians 1:3-5, NET
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of his grace
Ephesians 1:7, NET
We are who we are now by the grace of God the Father and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. This works hand-in-hand with our identity as God’s church, God’s called out ones, and the people who belong to Jesus. It’s a theme Paul expands on throughout his letters (1 Cor 6:19-20; Eph. 2:4-10, for example).
Loved and Blessed
Paul addressed Romans, “To all those loved by God in Rome” (Rom. 1:7, NET) and 1 Thessalonians to “brothers and sisters loved by God” (1 Thes. 1:4, NET). God has deep feelings for us; it was His love that drove Him to save us and call us into His family. Now that we are His, He exercises great care over us. Paul mentions several of the ways that we benefit from God’s great love in the introductions to His letters.
I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. For you were made rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge—just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed among you—so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 Corinthians 1:4-9, NET
God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 1:3, NET). The abundance of blessings that God piles on us is boundless and amazing. He’s not at all stingy with His riches, gifting us liberally, primarily spiritually but also in many physical things. Some of these blessings even prompt us to action as God’s people. For example, we are recipients of God’s comfort and therefore we can comfort other people (2 Cor. 1:3-5).
Even when talking about us, much of Paul’s emphasis is on the work that God’s doing. But he also spends quite a bit of time talking about our response to that work. As a result of who God has made us and what He’s doing in our lives, we become participants.
We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. Your faith and love have arisen from the hope laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospelthat has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growingamong you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.
Colossians 1:3-6, NET
For Paul, faith in Jesus results in action, such as bearing fruit and growing. Several of his introductions mention his readers’ faith. He addressed Colossians to “the saints, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ” (Col. 1:2, NET). In Ephesians, he called them, “the faithful in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:1, NET) and speaks of the time when they “heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation)—when you believed in Christ” (Eph. 1:13, NET). (Note: “believed” is translated from the verb-form of the Greek noun translated “faith.”)
We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantly in our prayers, because we recall in the presence of our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. …
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, when you received the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction. As a result you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.
1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, 6-7 NET
Faith in the New Testament isn’t just an intellectual or emotional thing; it’s very active. When we have real faith, it’s working and doing good. We’ll be imitating the Lord, loving other people, and staying hopeful even as we endure trials. Flourishing faith perseveres and loves (2 Thes. 1:3-4). It also prompts us to be active participants in the gospel that we’ve believed.
I always pray with joy in my every prayer for all of you because of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is right for me to think this about all of you, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel all of you became partners in God’s grace together with me.
Philippians 1:4-7, NET
God is the driving force behind our faith, the one who makes everything we accomplish as Christians possible, and the one accomplishing our transformation into His covenant people. But we have a role as well. Faith is active, the gospel demands participation, and even God’s grace invites us to be partners with Him rather than just passive recipients.
There is a lot worth studying in Paul’s letters, and we’ve seen that even the introductions hold a lot of depth. Studying the first things that Paul says about himself, God the Father and Jesus our Lord, and his readers helps us understand how central God is to our identities as Christians. It is also very encouraging and uplifting to see Paul’s humility, his awe of God, and the good things he says about his readers. As we join those readers each time we reread his letters, let’s try to see ourselves the way Paul sees us and follow the Lord as faithfully as he encouraged his first-century readers to.
Today’s post is the second in a three-part series. In these posts, we’re looking at the introductions of Paul’s epistles and examining how Paul talks about himself, how Paul talks about God, and how Paul talks about us in the introductions to his letters. We’ll be focusing on the epistles he wrote to church communities rather than the pastoral epistles (Timothy, Titus) or the letter to an individual (Philemon). This series will also exclude Hebrews since there’s a good chance Paul wasn’t the author. That leaves us with nine letters: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t post this two weeks ago like I typically would, I broke my foot and I’ve been struggling to keep up with everything that needs doing. Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to stay up-to-date on news like that and changes in post schedules.
Grace and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
All of these introductions except two have Paul using the phrase, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2, Phil. 1:2; 2 Thes. 1:2, NET) There’s a similar phrase in 1 Thessalonians 1:1, and Colossians 1:2 just says, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father!” (Paul mentions Jesus elsewhere in the introduction, just not as part of this phrase). We could call this Paul’s standard greeting, and it tells us several things about how he views God.
For Paul, God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are a source of grace and peace. There are a lot of other things that God supplies us with (love, mercy, and justice, just to name a few), but grace and peace are the ones Paul uses in his salutations. According to “Grace to You and Peace: An Analysis of the Pauline Letter Openings” by JPT Aquino, “Paul used the epistolary conventions of his time” in the way that he structured his letters (p. 2) but he chose his own signature opening phrase to communicate “the theology that underlies his letters, as well [as] his life and ministry” (p. 109). As we think of Paul’s focus in his letters, “grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” does seem like a good introduction to what he typically emphasizes. He focuses a lot on God’s grace toward us, the internal peace He gives us, and the peace that He wants to see between those in His church.
From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. This gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son who was a descendant of David with reference to the flesh,who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 1:1-5, NET
Paul only mentions the gospel in the salutation to one letter. He also brings it up in the prayers for churches that make up what I think of as the second half of his introductions in several other letters, but those have to do with our response to the gospel so we’ll save that for the Part 3 post in a couple weeks (Eph. 1:13; Phil. 1:5-7; Col. 1:5-6; 1 Thes. 1:4-5).
In Romans, though, Paul lays a foundation for talking about what God’s good news is doing in us by describing it as “the gospel of God” that “he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son.” There is to be no confusion: the gospel is about Jesus, who is the Son of God, and what He and the Father are doing and have done for us. It’s also not a new thing; the gospel that Paul preaches is something that God promised in the scriptures we now call the Old Testament. Christianity wasn’t a new religion, it’s just what people started calling those who understood that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ and followed Him as He showed the way to continue following God faithfully.
The One Who Calls and Chooses
God is the one who called Paul to be an apostle (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1), called us to belong to and fellowship with Jesus (Rom. 1:6; 1 Cor. 1:9), and called us to be saints (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2). He also chose us (Eph. 1:4; 1 Thes. 1:4) and is the one who “began a good work” in us (Phil. 1:6). All the things that Paul is (which we talked about in the previous post) and all the things that we are (which we’ll talk about in the next post) happened because God made choices. He chose to call us into His family, offer us eternal life, and make us holy (that’s what the word “saint” means).
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.He did this by predestining us to adoption as his legal heirs through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will
Ephesians 1:3-5, NET
This focus in the intro to Paul’s letters on God the Father’s and Jesus Christ’s action in our lives carries through the rest of Paul’s writings. He’s constantly pointing to Them and what They are doing. Take Philippians, for example. Right at the start of the letter, Paul focuses on “the onewho began a good work in you” and who “will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6, NET). We’re here, reading Paul’s letters to learn more about God, because He started working in us and He won’t give up until He’s brought us to perfection. A little later in this same letter, Paul wrote, “continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence,for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort—for the sake of his good pleasure—is God” (Phil. 2:12-13, NET). We’re participating in our salvation, but God’s doing the work and as long as we don’t reject Him, He’ll make sure we succeed.
Continuing in Philippians, Paul also talked about rejecting human credentials, power, or prestige and focusing only on the calling of God. Paul encouraged all his readers to join him: “with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let those of us who are ‘perfect’ embrace this point of view” (Phil. 3:14-15, NET). Just as Paul put the calling of God at the forefront of many letters, so we should put God’s calling at the forefront of our lives.
In several of his introductions, Paul emphasizes the redemptive work that God accomplishes in saving and sanctifying His people. We are “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2). He “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal. 1:3, NET). It is “In him” that “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7, NET).
God’s aid didn’t stop with accomplishing our redemption, though. He is all-in when it comes to the work of bringing children into His family. Jesus’s work of sanctifying, rescuing, and redeeming His people is ongoing, and it includes love (Rom. 1:7; 1 Thes. 1:4), grace (1 Cor. 1:4; Eph. 1:6-7; Phil. 1:7), and comfort.
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NET
Even just looking at the openings of Paul’s letters, we see the depth of his devotion to God, the awe he feels for the Father and Son, and the wonder of God’s incredible work in our lives. God’s grace, peace, calling, and salvation are at the forefront of Paul’s mind and his letters. In one of these letters, Paul wrote, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, NET). One of the ways that we can imitate him is by similarly prioritizing God and cultivating a relationship with Him that’s at the center of our lives and our focus.
As I was reading Galatians a couple weeks ago, I was struck by how much Paul packs into those first couple sentences of the letter. He introduces himself, explains his qualifications for writing to them, wishes his readers well, glorifies God, and highlights one of the amazing things God has done for His people.
This introduction is part of a pattern that Paul follows in his other letters to churches. The first few lines of the letter might also include a brief summary of the gospel, some further description of his audience, and/or expressions of thanksgiving. As I looked at the openings of these letters, I wondered what we might learn by comparing the very first things that Paul wanted his readers to see and hear when they read his letters.
I expect this will be the first of a three-part post series: how Paul talks about himself, how Paul talks about God, and how Paul talks about us in the introductions to his letters. We’ll be focusing on the epistles he wrote to church communities rather than the pastoral epistles (Timothy, Titus) or the letter to an individual (Philemon). This series will also exclude Hebrews since there’s a good chance Paul wasn’t the author. That leaves us with nine letters: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians.
Apostle
Paul introduces himself as an apostle in six of the nine letters: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians. He also talks about how he became an apostle, probably because it wasn’t the usual way. The other apostles named directly in the New Testament were among Jesus’s original 12 disciples, while Paul was personally selected by Jesus later. (Note that there may have been other apostles, but it’s not clear if that’s the case. For example, some consider Barnabas an apostle but he’s not explicitly called one in scripture [Acts 4:36; 14:14; 15:2, 22], and it’s unclear if Andronicus and Junia were apostles or not [Rom. 16:7]).
In the book of Romans, Paul introduces himself as “a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1, NET). Just a few lines later he adds, “Through him we have received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name” (Rom. 1:5, NET). It matches something he says later in Romans, calling himself “an apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13, NET). Most of the time, he’s not that specific, though. He simply states that he’s “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (2 Cor. 2:2; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1, NET) or that he’s “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (1 Cor. 1:1, NET).
Galatians is the letter where Paul spends the most time discussing his apostleship. He opens the letter by saying, “From Paul, an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)” (Gal. 1:1, NET), then follows that with a vindication of his apostleship and more details about it (Gal. 1:11-2:10). In the letter to the Galatian brethren, Paul focuses on correcting their theological errors and countering false teachers. That gives us context for his focus on his credentials in this letter: he wants to assure the Galatian believers that the gospel they originally received came straight from Jesus and was verified by the apostles. Throughout all of this, Paul’s reason for calling himself an apostle is to point his readers to Jesus and the Father as the higher authority. They are the ones who “empowered me for my apostleship to the Gentiles” (Gal 2:8, NET) and that’s the reason we can trust what Paul says in his role as an apostle.
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Slave
In both Romans and Philippians, Paul calls himself a “slave of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1; Phil. 1:1). He also uses this phrase to describe himself in other letters we’re studying today, just not in the introduction (2 Cor. 4:5; Gal. 1:10; Col. 1:7; 4:7). Slavery in the Bible is a super tricky subject, but in this particular context at least we have a pretty good idea of what Paul is talking about. Here’s part of what the New English Translation (NET) translators have to say in their footnote that accompanies most verses using the word:
tn Traditionally, “servant” or “bondservant.” Though δοῦλος (doulos) is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG [Bauer’s Lexicon of Biblical Greek] notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). One good translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος) in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force. …
sn Undoubtedly the background for the concept of being the Lord’s slave or servant is to be found in the Old Testament scriptures. For a Jew this concept did not connote drudgery, but honor and privilege. It was used of national Israel at times (Isa 43:10), but was especially associated with famous OT personalities, including such great men as Moses (Josh 14:7), David (Ps 89:3; cf. 2 Sam 7:5, 8) and Elijah (2 Kgs 10:10); all these men were “servants (or slaves) of the Lord.”
NET translation note (tn) and study note (sn) on Galatians 1:10
In Romans, Paul further developed this idea by explaining that all human beings serve as slaves, either to sin or to righteousness (Rom. 6:15-20). We don’t get the choice to not serve anything, but we do get to choose who we submit to as our master. Will we be controlled by sin, or will we accept and strive for the privilege of serving God and living righteous lives that glorify Him? Paul made that choice when he rejected human privilege and credentials, responded to God’s call, and stopped persecuting the church and became someone persecuted for preaching the truth (Phil. 3). When he describes his service to God, he doesn’t use a word that would indicate a servant who can just walk away if they want, but someone who (in this case voluntarily) bound himself in lifelong service. He’s fully committed to serving God.
A lot of what Paul shares in these assurances that he’s praying for his readers is about how he views them, but it also tells us something about him. He says, “I always thank my God for you” (1 Cor. 1:4, NET), “I thank my God every time I remember you.I always pray with joy in my every prayer for all of you” (Phil. 1:3-4, NET), “We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you” (Col. 1:3, NET), “We thank God always for all of you as we mention you constantlyin our prayers” (1 Thes. 1:2, NET), and “We are bound to always give thanks to God for you” (2 Thes. 1:3, WEB). Paul wants his readers to know that he–and for some letters his co-authors as well (Timothy for Colossians, Silvanus and Timothy for Thessalonians)–are thankful for them and that they remember them when they’re praying.
I think it tells us a lot about Paul’s character and his focus that he doesn’t start these letters by talking about his credentials (other than apostle chosen by God and slave in Jesus’s service, both emphasizing his humility) or by telling the churches what they’re doing wrong. There is correction in many of these letters, some very serious (especially 1 Corinthians), but that’s not where he starts. He starts with thankfulness. He wants his readers to immediately know that he’s thankful for them and he’s praying for them.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul encouraged us to imitate him as he imitated Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Just from the way he talks about himself in the introduction to these epistles, we see a humble man who focused on the work that God was doing in him and the churches he served. We think of Paul as one of the most important men in the whole Bible, but he kept pointing back to Jesus and the Father. Even when acknowledging that he had been commissioned by God as an apostle, he also called himself God’s slave.
In addition, we see that Paul was an encouraging person. Over and over in these letters, he told Christians to build others up rather than fight with them and tear them down, and he models that approach in his letter writing. He also tells his readers he’s thankful for them and that he’s praying for them. He also talked about his blessings, something that is encouraging to hear from other people, and included his readers in the “us” who are blessed.
I recently read a social media discussion centered on the issue of women in ministry. Without going into too much detail, the original post criticized the idea of “women pastors,” and subsequent comments went in the direction of debating whether or not women had any authority roles in the church. As I read these comments, I started feeling uncomfortable. It’s not as if I’m unfamiliar with this topic or I don’t have my own ideas on whether women are “allowed” to teach, speak, pray, prophecy, or lead in churches (one example: my post “Women Who Speak in Scripture”). But the focus on who gets to have authority struck me as wrong. If we focus discussions like this on who is in charge, I think we’re missing one of the New Testament’s big points about how all Christians are supposed to relate to one another.
Jesus’s Take on Authority
Authority is not a bad thing. Jesus taught with authority, used the authority His father gave Him for good (such as to forgive sins), and currently has “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 7:29; 9:6; 28:18; John 5:27; 10:18). He also clarifies that His authority comes from God–it’s legitimate authority conferred upon Him by the highest authority (John 12:49). As someone with authority, He could and did give His disciples certain authority, such as over unclean spirits (Matt. 10:1).
In these verses, the Greek word translated “authority” is exousia (G1849). Thayer’s dictionary lists several primary meanings: “1. power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases … 2. physical or mental power … 3. the power of authority (influence) or right (privilege) 4. the power of rule or government.” Like the English word “authority,” it can refer to legitimate, well-wielded authority or it can have a darker side. We see that in a discussion Jesus had with His disciples at least twice: once after James and John asked for authority in His kingdom and once at the Passover when all the disciples debated who would be the greatest after Jesus died.
Now when the other ten heard this, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use their authority over them. It must not be this way among you! Instead whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:24-28, NET
A dispute also started among them over which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.So Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’Not so with you; instead the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.For who is greater, the one who is seated at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.
Luke 22:24-27, NET
“Authority” in these verses is exousia (or it is in Luke 22; Matthew 20 uses katexousiazo, a derivative meaning “to exercise authority, wield power” [G2715, Thayer]). In this case, it’s talking about people among the nations who have worldly authority. The phrase “lord it over” is another word: kurieuo in Luke 22, which means “to be lord of, to rule, have dominion over” (G2961, Thayer) and katakurieu in Matthew, a related word meaning “to bring under one’s power … to hold in subjection to be master of, exercise lordship over” (G2634, Thayer). It’s definitely not a good thing in this context, and Jesus clearly tells his disciples not to act this way. If you want to be great in His church, then you serve.
When I saw people arguing things like, “How dare women try to get authority over men?” or “I can’t stand that only men get authority, why can’t women like me be in charge?” I thought about these verses. There are certain kinds of authority given to people in the church (and legitimate roles instituted by Jesus or those He taught directly, such as apostle, pastor, and deacon), but if we’re concerned about who gets to lord it over other people then we’re missing the point. No one is supposed to be lording it over other people or coveting a position where they could do that. We’re supposed to be humble and focus on service.
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Who Can Serve and How?
Maybe instead of asking, “Can women have authority in the church?” we should ask, “Can women serve in the church?” The answer to that is a resounding “Yes!” supported by the examples of many women in the Old and New Testaments. What gets more to the heart of the original debate, though, is the question, “How do women serve in the church?” We have examples to answer that question as well. We know for certain that women in the Bible served God’s people in these ways:
Worker/laborer (Mary, Rom. 16:6; Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis Rom. 16:12).
There may even have been a woman apostle, Junia (Rom. 16:7), but her exact role is so hotly debated that I didn’t put “apostle” on my list (scholars pretty much agree that she was a woman, but not on whether the phrase used in this verse indicates she could have been an apostle). Clearly, women were heavily involved in the church, both in what we think of as “behind the scenes” roles and (apparently more rarely, though female prophets are relatively common) in the more public leading, serving, teaching, preaching roles. When God uses a woman to do something in scripture, we really can’t argue that the church shouldn’t allow women to do those same things today.
Things Women (Probably) Don’t Do
It’s worth noting some of the roles that we don’t see examples of women in. If we look at the lists of ministry gifts/roles in 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Ephesians 4:11, we see “first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, helps, gifts of leadership, different kinds of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28, NET) and “some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11). Let’s use those lists as a guide for examining women’s possible roles in the church.
We might have one possible example of a woman as an apostle, but no specific examples of them as pastors (from the same Greek word translated “shepherd”) or evangelists (Greek word only used 3 times). However, “evangelist” is a title that comes from the Greek verb euaggelizo (G2097), “to bring good news” or preach the gospel (Thayer). It is likely that women did participate in that activity (Acts 8:1-4; Phil 4:2-3). We also don’t have specific examples of women performing miracles or healings. But we know for certain that women can be prophets, that women teach even if not called “teacher” as a title, that they fill helper roles, that they can have leadership-related gifts, and that those at Pentecost spoke in different languages just like the apostles and other men (Acts 1:14; 2:1-4).
It seems, then, that we can say women did not serve as pastors/shepherds in the Bible and that they were not typically apostles or evangelists. The only other church “authority” roles I can think of in the New Testament are elder, bishop/overseer, and deacon/servant. We have a concrete example of a woman as a deaconess/servant, but no women in the overseer role. “Elder” seems to refer to men most of the time, but the feminine version of the Greek word is used in 1 Tim. 5:2. I suspect that when “elder” is used to refer to respected older people in the church it often includes men and women, but when it’s used to refer to an ordained role in the church it typically or exclusively refers to men. That said, we also don’t have any verses directly saying, “women cannot be pastors.”
You might be uncomfortable with how ambiguous I’m being here, but it is deliberate. The need to have hard rules defining what women and men can and cannot do is a product of Western cultural mindset being applied to the Biblical text. We want specific and inflexible rules for things, but Eastern cultures (like those of Biblical writers) see rules differently: “rules apply except when the one in charge says otherwise. Westerners might consider this arbitrary; many non-Western Christians consider this grace” (Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes, Richards & O’Brien, p. 174). As an example, one of the authors of this book recounts a time when he was invited to speak to a group of pastors in Indonesia. He was shocked, knowing the group’s bylaws say pastors must be male, to see a few women in the audience. When he asked about it, he was calmly told, “Yes, and most of them are [male]” (p. 169). The Indonesian man he spoke with saw nothing strange about an exception to the rule. Perhaps Christians at the time Paul wrote Romans would have heard us say, “Women can’t be apostles,” and responded by saying, “That’s right, except for the times when they are apostles.”
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But What About 1 Timothy 2?
Because we’ve been talking about authority, we need to address 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul wrote, “I don’t permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man” (WEB). Seems straightforward enough, until we start looking at the context and Greek words. Paul doesn’t use any of the typical words for authority here, but rather the incredibly rare word authenteō. This word may refer to wrongly used authority and/or could be connected to astrology practiced by some pagan women at the time, but it’s hard to say for sure since this is the only time it’s used in the Bible and it’s rarely used in contemporary writings (“The Strangeness of 1 Timothy 2:12,” Andrew Bartlett). Paul also uses a different phrase, “I don’t permit,” than he typically uses when laying down rules for the churches.
We also should take note of the fact that Timothy was in Ephesus when he received this letter, a church that Paul specifically brought Priscilla and Aquilla into and where he left them to serve (including teaching Apollos when they arrived [Acts 18:18-28]). It makes a whole lot more sense to interpret this as a prohibition against women usurping (KJV), dominating (ASV), or lording it over (TLB) a man (note that “man” is singular in the Greek, not the plural “men”) rather than a general rule that women never speak or have any authority, particularly given how involved some women were in ministry in the New Testament.
This analysis might seem pedantic or as if we’re trying to “get around” this scripture, but when you come across something in Paul’s writings that is hard to understand (and a lot of things are [2 Pet. 3:16-17]) we need to look at how it fits with the rest of scripture. Our interpretation of what he says has to match other things in the Bible. In this case, if scripture shows women consistently involved in various types of ministry work–including, occasionally, what we’d think of as “authority” roles like prophet or church host–then Paul’s words here can’t be a prohibition on women serving in the body of believers. It would go against precedent in the entire Bible–including Jesus’s radical treatment of women as equals and Paul’s own writings about how God views converted men and women on a cosmic scale (1 Cor. 11:11-12; Gal. 3:28)–if Paul were making a blanket declaration against women serving in the church. It is much more likely that he is telling Timothy not to let women in Ephesus do things that men wouldn’t be allowed to do either (e.g. lord it over others in the church or teach things related to astrology).
It seems very strange to me that we pull out a few isolated phrases Paul uses (1 Cor. 11:3; 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:12) and come up with this whole doctrine that women can’t ever teach, speak, or have public roles in the church. What about the whole rest of the Bible? What about how Jesus treated women? It seems just as misguided to me as those who take Paul’s statement, “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14, NET) to mean that New Covenant Christians don’t have to obey God. We need to be careful about things like this, and test our assumptions (even if they’ve been assumptions for centuries of church history) to make sure they actually fit what God teaches through His word.
Motivated by Service and Humility
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As we look at the roles we see women in the Bible filling or not filling, we need to be careful how we conceptualize authority related to those roles. The point isn’t to figure out who is most important (e.g. is it the male pastor or the female prophet?) but to serve God with the gifts He provides in the role He supplies. If God calls a woman to host the church in her home, that’s what she does. If He gives a woman the gift of prophecy, then she’s supposed to prophecy.
Likewise, if He chooses not to place women in the role of ordained pastor, elder, or overseer, that is God’s choice and the New Testament makes it seem like this is indeed the case (at least most of the time). Most men don’t fill those roles either; other roles are more commonly needed in the church. We’re not supposed to be jealous of or resent people who have roles that we think of as more authoritative than us any more than Jesus resents His Father for being greater than Him (to be clear, there is no resentment or competition between Jesus and the Father [John 10:29-30; Phil. 2:5-11]).
Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well.You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave
Philippians 2:3-7, NET
No one in God’s church is supposed to seek authority roles for the prestige or the power. We should seek to serve with humility, the same way that Jesus modeled. In a healthy church following God’s lead, we’ll filter into the roles most suited to the gifts He has given us (ideally without doctrinal misinterpretation or other people’s “selfish ambition or vanity” blocking someone from what they’re supposed to be doing). It doesn’t always work that way because the church is composed of people–redeemed people working on becoming more like God, but still people who can make mistakes. We need to have patience with each other in that. For example, it is not wrong for me to want churches I’m involved with to let me exercise my teaching gifts (and other women to exercise their gifts), but it is wrong when I feel as if I deserve more recognition and responsibility than I get or when I resent other people who have the opportunity to use their gifts differently than I do.
Two of the things that we’re called to do is submit “to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21, NET) and “through love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13, NET). We’re not called to seek authority or argue about who gets to be in charge. Ultimately, Jesus is the one in charge as head of the church (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18). The rest of us are here to serve in a variety of different capacities, but all of them characterized by encouragement, love, and humility (see, for example, John 13:35; 2 Cor. 1:24; Eph. 4:1-3; Col. 3:12-13). If we think any of this is about being in charge, claiming authority over others, or getting what we think we’re owed, then we’ve missed the whole point.
![Image of four people sitting around a table studying their bibles overlaid with text from 2 Cor. 6:16-18, NET version: "We are the temple of the living God, just as God said, “I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore “come out from their midst, and be separate,” says the Lord, “and touch no unclean thing, and I will welcome[e] you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters.”](https://likeananchor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/unreasonable-3.jpg)
Like An Anchor 