 
Missionary Methods

God's Plan for Missions According to Paul

Roland Allen

Contents

Author's Preface to The Second Edition (1927)

Introduction

PART I

Strategic Points

Class

Moral and Social Condition

PART II

Miracles

Finance

The Substance of Paul's Preaching

PART III

The Teaching

The Training of Candidates for Membership and Ministry

PART IV

Authority and Discipline

Unity

PART V

Principles and Spirit

Application

A Present-Day Contrast

About the Author
Author's Preface to The Second Edition (1927)

It is now fifteen years since this book was first published, and I thought that a new and cheaper edition might be useful. In these fifteen years, I have seen, and I have heard from others, that the study of Paul's methods has influenced the missionary process. I am more convinced than ever that in the careful examination of his work and in the understanding and appreciation of his principles, we shall find the solution to most of our present difficulties. We are talking today of indigenous churches. Paul's churches were indigenous churches in the proper sense of the word, and I believe that the secret of their foundation lay in his recognition of the church as a local church as opposed to our "national" churches. He maintained a profound belief and trust that the Holy Spirit indwelt his converts and the churches of which they were members, which enabled him to establish them at once with full authority. We do not trust the Holy Spirit as easily today. We are more apt to believe in His work in us and through us, than we believe in His work in and through our converts; we fail to trust our converts to Him. That is one of the most obvious lessons the study of Paul's work teaches us, but I believe that we still have much to learn from his example.

In the reviews that appeared when this book was first published, I was surprised and pleased to find that little fault was found with my statement of the apostolic practice. Accepting the statement of the facts as substantially true, critics almost invariably fixed on two points: (1) that the gulf between us and the people to whom we go is deeper and wider than that between Paul and those to whom he preached, and (2) that Paul could rely upon converts from the synagogue to preserve his churches from dangers only too plain to us. The conclusion drawn was that what was possible for him in his day is impossible for us in ours.

To the first of these criticisms, I replied in a book entitled Educational Principles and Missionary Methods, in which I argued that the greater the gulf, the greater was the value of the apostolic method. That argument is too long to summarize here. To the second, I may say here briefly: (1) The dangers that we anticipate, the dangers of lowering a standard of morals or of a confusion of Christian doctrine by the introduction of ideas borrowed from heathen philosophy or superstition, were not less in his day than in ours. (2) The breach between the synagogue and the Christian church arose so early and was so wide that churches were soon being established which certainly were not "off-shoots of the local synagogue," and yet the apostolic practice was maintained. (3) At Corinth, and in Galatia and Ephesus, the presence of Jews or proselytes in the church did not prevent the dangers from arising; if Paul relied upon them, they failed him. (4) The argument demands that we admit that Mosaic teaching is a better foundation for Christian morality and theology than the teaching of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. (5) Paul's faith in Christ and in His Holy Spirit would have forced him to act as he did under any circumstances. He could not have relied upon any power in heathen philosophic or in Mosaic teaching to establish his converts under any circumstances whatsoever. (6) If we went to China or to India and told those people that they were so far beneath the provincial Jews and proselytes of Paul's day in morality and intelligence, and that he could not have dealt with them as he did with the provincials of Galatia, they would be insulted. And if anyone answers me that when we use such speech we are thinking only of people in Africa and other uncivilized lands, I must reply that we are plainly thinking of all men everywhere, because we employ the same method everywhere and we shrink from establishing the church on the apostolic plan everywhere.

In the light of experience gained in the last fifteen years, I might have enlarged this book, but it did not seem wise to add greatly to its bulk. I have therefore contented myself with making as few corrections and additions as possible, and have carried the argument further in a book now published as a companion volume to this, entitled The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It. In that book I have tried to set forth the secret of an expansion, which was a most remarkable characteristic of apostolic churches, and have examined the hindrances that have prevented us from establishing such churches.

If any of my readers desire to pursue the consideration of missionary methods further, I can only refer them to that book.

June 24, 1927

ROLAND ALLEN

Beaconsfield
Introduction

In a little more than ten years, the apostle Paul established the church in four provinces of the Roman Empire: Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. Before AD 47, no churches existed in these provinces. In AD 57, Paul could speak as if his work there was done, and he could plan extensive tours into the far west without anxiety that the churches he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support.

The work of the apostle during these ten years can therefore be treated as a unity. Whatever assistance he may have received from the preaching of others, he unquestionably established the churches in these provinces. In the pages of the New Testament, he, and he alone, stands as their founder. And the work that he did was really a completed work. As far as the foundation of the churches is concerned, it is perfectly clear that the writer of the Acts of the Apostles intends to represent Paul's work as complete. The churches were really established. Whatever disasters fell upon them in later years, whatever failure there was, whatever ruin, those things were not due to any insufficiency or lack of care and completeness in the apostle's teaching or organization. When he left them, he left them because his work was fully accomplished.

This is truly an astonishing fact. That churches should be founded so rapidly and so securely, seems to us who are accustomed to the difficulties, uncertainties, failures, and disastrous relapses of our own missionary work, almost incredible. Many missionaries in later days have received a larger number of converts than Paul; many have preached over a wider area than he has; but none have produced similar established churches. We have long forgotten that such things could be possible. We have long accustomed ourselves to converts in a new country being submitted to a very long probation and training, extending over generations, before they can be expected to stand alone. Today, if a man suggests that the methods Paul used to attain such wonderful results are worthy of our imitation, he is in danger of being accused of revolutionary tendencies.

Yet this is not as it should be. It is impossible that the account given by Luke of the planting of the churches in the four provinces should have nothing more than a mere archaeological and historical interest. Like the rest of the Holy Scriptures, it was written for our instruction (Romans 15:4). This account was certainly meant to be more than the romantic history of an exceptional man doing exceptional things under exceptional circumstances – more than a story from which ordinary people get instruction from the history of El Cid or from the exploits of King Arthur. This record was really intended to throw light on the path of those who should come after.

But it is argued that Paul was an exceptional man living in exceptional times, preaching under exceptional circumstances, and he enjoyed advantages in his birth, his education, his call, his mission, and his relationship to his hearers. He also enjoyed advantages in the peculiar constitution of society at the moment of his call, such as to render his work quite exceptional. To this I must answer: (1) Paul's missionary method was not peculiar to Paul; he was not the only missionary who established churches in those early days. The method in its broad outlines was followed by his disciples, and they were not all men of exceptional genius. It was indeed universal, and outside the Christian church, it has been followed by religious, political, and social reformers in every age and under most diverse conditions. Only because he was a supreme example of the spirit and power with which it can be used can we call the method Paul's. (2) We possess today an advantage of inestimable importance in that we have the printing press and the whole of the New Testament, whereas Paul had only the Old Testament in Greek. (3) However highly we may estimate Paul's personal advantages or the assistance, which the conditions of his age afforded, they cannot be so great as to rob his example of all value for us. In no other work do we set the great masters wholly on one side and teach the students of today that whatever they may copy, they may not copy them, because they lived in a different age under exceptional circumstances and were endowed with exceptional genius. It is just because they were endowed with exceptional genius that we say their work is endowed with a universal character. Either we must drag down Paul from his pedestal as the great missionary, or we must acknowledge that there is that quality of universality in his work.

The cause that has created this prejudice against the study of the Pauline method is not hard to find. It is because every unworthy, idle, and slipshod method of missionary work has been lathered upon the apostle. Men have wandered over the world, "preaching the Word," laying no solid foundations, establishing nothing permanent, leaving no instructed society behind them, and have claimed Paul's authority for their absurdities. They have gone through the world, spending their time in denouncing ancient religions in the name of Paul. They have wandered from place to place without any plan or method of any kind, guided in their movements by straws and shadows, persuaded they were imitating Paul on his journey from Antioch to Troas. Almost every intolerable abuse that has ever been known in the mission field has claimed some sentence or act of Paul as its justification.

Because in the past we have seen missionary work made ridiculous or dangerous by the vagaries of illiterate or unbalanced imitators of the apostle, we have allowed ourselves to be carried to the opposite extreme and have shut our eyes to the profound teaching and practical wisdom of the Pauline method.

People have adopted fragments of Paul's method and have tried to incorporate them into alien systems, and the failure that resulted has been used as an argument against the apostle's method. For instance, people have baptized uninstructed converts, and the converts have fallen away; but Paul baptized few, deeming the preaching of the gospel to be most important, which ensured their instruction. He told the Corinthians, I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void (1 Corinthians 1:14, 17).

Also, they have gathered congregations and have left them to fend for themselves with the result that the congregations have fallen back into heathenism. But Paul did not gather congregations; he planted churches, and he did not leave a church until it was fully equipped for every good work. His parting words of encouragement to Timothy were: All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Or again, they have trusted native helpers with the management of mission funds, and these helpers have grievously misused them; but Paul did not do this. He had no funds with which to entrust anyone. These people have committed funds in trust to individual native helpers and have been deceived; but Paul left the church to manage its own finances. These people have made the helpers responsible to them for honest management; but Paul never made any church render an account of its finances to him. In fact, he gave instructions to the Corinthians before he came. Now concerning the collection for the saints, . . . let each one of you set aside in store, as God has prospered him, that there be no collections when I come (1 Corinthians 16:1-2).

At times, Europeans have ordained uneducated native helpers and have repented of it. But they have first broken the bonds which should have united those whom they ordained to those to whom they were to minister. They then expected them to be ministers of a foreign system of church organization with which neither the ministers nor their congregations were familiar. Paul did not do this. He ordained ministers of the church for the church, and he instituted no elaborate constitution. His focus was on having qualified leaders as he described in 1 Timothy who were blameless, moral, and upright. It is expedient, therefore, that the bishop be blameless, the husband of only one wife, vigilant, temperate, of worldly affections mortified, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine, not hurtful, not greedy of dishonest gain, but gentle, not contentious, not covetous; one that rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all integrity; (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the congregation of God?), not a novice, lest being puffed up, he fall into judgment of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of those who are outside lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Likewise the deacons must be honest, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of dishonest gain; holding the mystery of the faith together with a pure conscience (1 Timothy 3:2-9).

When these false and partial attempts at imitating the apostle's method have failed, men have declared that the apostolic method was at fault and quite inadequate for the condition and circumstances of present-day missions. The truth is that they have neither understood nor practiced the apostle's method at all.

There is yet another, more weighty reason for this failure: Paul's method is not in harmony with the modern Western spirit. We modern teachers from the West are by nature and by training persons of restless activity and boundless self-confidence. We tend to assume an attitude of superiority towards all Eastern peoples and point to our material progress as the justification of our attitude. We are accustomed to doing things for ourselves, to finding our own way, to relying upon our own exertions, and we naturally tend to be impatient with others who are less restless and less self-assertive than we are. We are accustomed to an elaborate system of church organization and a peculiar code of morality. We cannot imagine any Christianity worthy of the name existing without the elaborate machinery we have invented. We naturally expect our converts to adopt from us not only essentials but also accidentals. We desire to impart not only the gospel, but also the law and the customs.

With that spirit, Paul's methods do not agree, because they were the natural outcome of quite another spirit, the spirit that preferred persuasion to authority. Paul distrusted elaborate systems of religious ceremony and grasped fundamental principles with an unhesitating faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to apply them to his hearers and to work out their appropriate external expressions in them. It was inevitable that methods which were the natural outcome of the mind of Paul should appear as dangerous to us as they appeared to the Jewish Christians of his own day. The mere fact that the methods can be made to bear a shallow resemblance to the methods of "no method" is sufficient to make the "apostles of order" suspicious.

In the face of the vast amount of work to be done, we are day by day seeking for new light on the great problem of how we may establish the church in the world. In this search, the example of the Apostle of the Gentiles must be of first importance to us. He succeeded in doing what we so far have only tried to do. The facts are unquestionable. In a very few years, he built the church on so firm a basis that it could live and grow in faith and in practice, that it could work out its own problems and overcome all dangers and hindrances from within and without. I propose in this book to attempt to set forth the methods he used to produce this amazing result.

I am not writing a book on Paul's doctrine. I do not feel it necessary to argue over again the foundations of the faith. I am a churchman, and I write as a churchman. I naturally use terms that imply church doctrine. But the point to which I want to call attention is not the doctrine, which has been expounded and defended by many, but the apostle's method. A true understanding of the method does not depend upon a true interpretation of the doctrine, but upon a true appreciation of the facts. About the facts, there is very general agreement; about the doctrine, there is very little agreement. For example, it is almost universally agreed that Paul taught his converts about baptism; however, it is very far from agreed upon as to what he meant by baptism. I use the terms about baptism from the church of which I am a member, but my argument would be equally applicable if I used terms that implied a Zwinglian doctrine.

Similarly, I use the terms about the orders of ministry that are natural to one who belongs to my particular denomination. But the general force of my argument would not be affected if I used the terms natural to a Presbyterian or a Wesleyan. I hope that, if I am happy enough to find readers who do not accept my denominational position, they will not allow themselves to be led away into the controversy I have tried to exclude. I hope my readers will seek to consider the method of the apostle's work that I set forth, rather than find fault with the use of terms or expressions that imply a doctrine they do not hold.

Neither am I attempting to describe the character of the apostle or his special qualifications for the work or his special preparation for it; still less am I attempting to write his life. I propose to deal simply with the foundation of the churches in the four provinces of Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia in the ten years that covered the three missionary journeys. I wish to suggest an answer to the following questions:

  1. Was there any preliminary advantage in the position or character of the cities in which Paul founded his churches? We must inquire:
    * Did he deliberately select certain strategic points at which to establish his churches?
    * Was his success due to the existence of some peculiar class of people to which he made a special appeal?
    * Did the social, moral, or religious condition of the provinces differ so much from anything known in modern times, as to render futile any comparison between his work and ours?
  2. Was there any peculiar virtue in the way in which the apostle presented his gospel? We must consider:
    * His use of miracles,
    * His finances, and
    * The substance of his preaching.
  3. Was there any peculiar virtue in his teaching or his method of training his converts?
  4. Was there any peculiar virtue in his method of dealing with his organized churches? This will include:
    * How discipline was exercised, and
    * How unity was maintained.
  5. Finally, I will call attention to certain principles that seem to lie at the heart of all the apostle's actions where we may find the key to his success. I will endeavor to show some of the ways in which the apostolic method might be usefully employed today.

Of course, it will be impossible and inadvisable to quote particular instances from the mission field. I can only deal in general terms with tendencies quite familiar to anyone who is acquainted with the missionary work of the present day.

PART I

  1. Strategic Points. Did Paul deliberately select certain strategic points at which to establish his churches?
  2. Existence of a Peculiar Class. Was his success due to the existence of some peculiar class of people to which he made a special appeal?
  3. Social, Moral, and Religious Condition. Did the social, moral, or religious condition of the provinces differ so much from anything known in modern times, as to render futile any comparison between his work and ours?

CHAPTER 1

Strategic Points

Evidence is lacking to prove that Paul deliberately planned his journeys, selected strategic points to establish his churches, and then carried out his designs. The only argument that seems to support that theory is the use of the words "the work" with regard to his first missionary journey. According to Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them. In Acts 14:26, we are told that the apostles sailed to Antioch, where they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And in Acts 15:38, Paul complains that Mark departed from them from Pamphylia and did not go with them to the work. These words taken together seem to imply (a) that the apostles started out with a definite plan before them, (b) that they actually carried out their plans, and (c) that Mark's fault lay in the fact that he had deserted a work that he had undertaken to do.

But the difficulties in that interpretation are very great. If we accept Professor William Ramsay's theory that the churches to which the epistle to the Galatians was written were the churches in South Galatia, which Paul founded on this journey, then we cannot dispute that Paul did not design to visit them when he started out from Syria. In that epistle, he distinctly states that he preached to them because he was either driven to them or detained among them by an infirmity of the flesh. Paul says in Galatians 4:13, Ye know how through weakness of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.

It seems reasonable to suppose that the words "the work" are used in a general sense of their journey rather than of any defined sphere of action. But whatever view we take of this first journey, Acts 15:36 seems to indicate that Paul attempted to follow a predetermined route. And some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they do. It appears that when he left Antioch, he was headed to Cilicia and South Galatia and then on to Ephesus. Acts 15:41 tells us that Paul and Silas went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the congregations. It is expressly stated that he tried to preach in Asia but was forbidden by the Holy Spirit; he then attempted to go into Bithynia and again was forbidden by the Spirit. So he found himself at Troas where he was directed by a vision to Macedonia (Acts 16:6-10).

Having preached in Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea, he fled out of Macedonia and to Athens, and waited for Silas and Timothy (Acts 16:11-17:16). It seems he did not intend to establish himself as a preacher, but simply used the city as a retreat. When he departed from Athens, he went to Corinth, either because that was the most convenient place or because he was directed there by the Spirit. In all this, though Paul had desired to reach certain churches, he was directed by the Spirit from one town to the next.

Only one other place remains at which Paul established the church before his first imprisonment, namely, Ephesus. It appears from Acts 18:18-19 that he stopped at that place in the ordinary course of his journey to Jerusalem, and finding the people ready to listen to him, he promised to return.

On his third journey, Paul apparently laid his plans and executed them as they were designed so far as Ephesus. It is during this journey that we find the first expressed plan for future work. While at Ephesus, Paul purposed by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem, after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, After I have been there, it behooves me to see Rome also (Acts 19:21).

I cannot help concluding from this brief review that Paul set preliminary plans for his missionary tours, but he was often redirected by the Spirit. Nevertheless, there are certain facts in the history of his missionary journeys that demand attention.

First, both Luke and Paul speak of the provinces rather than of the cities. Thus, as Paul was forbidden to preach the Word in Asia, he was called from Troas, not to Philippi or to Thessalonica, but to Macedonia. Speaking of the collection for the saints at Jerusalem, Paul says that he boasted to the Macedonians that Achaia was ready a year ago (2 Corinthians 9:2). The suggestion is that in Paul's view, the unit was the province rather than the city.

Secondly, his work was confined within the limits of Roman administration. It is perfectly clear that in preaching in South Galatia, Paul was evangelizing the Roman province next to his native province of Cilicia, in which there were already Christian churches. Between these two lay the territory of Lycaonia, and Paul must have passed across this territory when he went from Tarsus to Lystra and Iconium. Yet we are never told that he made any attempt to preach in that region. From this fact, we can infer that Paul deliberately considered the strategic value of the provinces and places in which he preached. The territory of Lycaonia was not as important from the view of the propagation of the gospel as the region of Lystra. Paul deliberately chose the one before the other.

Thirdly, Paul's theory of evangelizing a province was not to preach in every place himself, but to establish centers of Christian life in two or three important places from which the knowledge might spread into the surrounding country. This is important, not for showing that he preferred to preach in a capital rather than in a provincial town or in a village, but because he intended his congregation to become at once a center of light. Important cities can become the graves of a mission as easily as villages. There is no particular virtue in attacking a center or establishing a church in an important place unless the church is possessed of sufficient life to be a source of light to the country around it.

It is not enough for the church to be established in a place where many are coming and going, unless the people who come and go not only learn the gospel, but also learn it in such a way that they can propagate it. Often a mission has been established in an important city, but the surrounding country has been left untouched by the native Christians. This happens when the gospel is preached in such a form that the native convert did not understand how to spread it or realize that it was entrusted to him for that purpose. By establishing the church in two or three centers, Paul claimed that he had evangelized the whole province. Ten years after his first start from Antioch, he told the Romans that from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum, I have filled the entire area with the gospel of the Christ and that he had no more place in these parts (Romans 15:19). In that single sentence, we have the explanation and the justification of Paul's establishment of the churches in important centers in a province. When he had occupied two or three centers, he had effectually occupied the province.

All the cities or towns in which he planted churches were centers of Roman administration, Greek civilization, Jewish influence, or some commercial importance.

(1) Just as he did not preach in native states and passed through large towns in the territory of Antiochus without stopping to preach, so within the Roman province he passed through native provincial towns like Misthia or Vasada in order to preach in Lystra and Derbe, military posts in which there was a strong Roman element. Professor Ramsay has shown that in the book of Acts there is an apparent intention to contrast the conduct meted out to Paul by local authorities with that which he received at the hands of Roman officials, and to present the Romans in the light of protectors of the apostle as opposed to the persecutions of the Jews. Probably in selecting the centers of Roman administration, Paul desired to obtain for himself and for his people the security afforded by a strong government. He knew that as a Roman citizen, he could expect and receive the protection of Roman officials against the fanatical violence of the Jews, but he did not only seek Roman protection. He found under the Roman government something more than peace and security of travel. He found not only tolerance and an open field for his preaching; there was also in the mere presence of Roman officials an influence that materially assisted his work. The Roman idea of the worldwide empire, the idea of the common citizenship of men of many different races in that one empire, the strong authority of the one law, the one peace, and the breaking down of national exclusiveness – all these things prepared men's minds to receive Paul's teaching of the common citizenship of all Christians.

(2) The centers in which Paul established his churches were all centers of Greek civilization. Even at Lystra, half the inscriptions that have been discovered are Greek, while the other half are Latin. Everywhere, Roman government went hand in hand with Greek education. This education provided Paul with his medium of communication. There is no evidence of any attempt to translate the Scriptures into the provincial dialects of Asia Minor. Paul preached in Greek and wrote in Greek, and all his converts who read were expected to read the Scriptures in Greek. For Paul, the one language was as important as the one government.

Moreover, the influence of Greek civilization was an influence that tended to spread general education, and Christianity was a religion of education. From the first, Christians were learners. They were expected to be able to give a reason for the hope that was in them (1 Peter 3:15). They were expected to learn something, if only a very little, of the Old Testament and of the proofs that Jesus was the Messiah. They were expected to know something of the life and teaching of Christ and something of Christian doctrine. Before very long it became a common argument of the Christian apologists that the Christian tradesmen, slaves, and old women knew how to give some account of God and did not believe without evidence. The widespread influence of Greek education enabled them to acquire this, and Paul seemed to turn to places where that education was established.

(3) Nearly all the places where Paul established churches were centers of Jewish influence. As a Jew, Paul was at home in the Jewish synagogues. He did not enter these great cities as a mere stranger. He came as a member of a family, as a member of a powerful and highly privileged association. Under the Roman government, the Jews enjoyed singular advantages. Their religion was definitely recognized. They had liberty to administer their common funds in their own way and to administer their own laws. They were exempt from the obligation to share in the worship of the emperor, and they enjoyed freedom from a military service that would cause them to violate their religion. They had many other privileges of less importance but of considerable advantage.

Therefore, when Paul took up his residence among the Jews or entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day, he had for the moment a singular opportunity. He had an audience provided for him that understood the underlying principles of his religion and was familiar with the texts on which he based his argument. When he went out into the city, he went as a member of a community that was associated with the idea of a very strict observance of religion. Men would naturally expect from him an unbending stiffness towards every form of idolatry, and the unhesitating maintenance of a strict code of morals as a part of his religious system. Even though the Greek and Roman world disliked and spurned the Jew, the religion of the Jew was exercising a very wide influence and no small attractive power over the minds of some of the best and most thoughtful people.

(4) Paul established his churches at places that were centers of the world's commerce. These cities occupied an important place as leaders of the provinces, foremost in every movement of policy or thought. They were sometimes almost ludicrously jealous of one another and strained all their powers in envious rivalry to maintain their position as leaders. But they were leaders, and they felt it their duty to lead. They represented something larger than themselves, and they looked out into a wider world than the little provincial town wholly absorbed in its own petty interests. Thus, they were centers of unity, realizing that they had a responsibility for a world outside themselves. Even the settlers in Lystra and Derbe on the borders of a province realized that they were pioneers of a civilization they were to extend to the barbarous country around. They lived in a life that was larger than their own. They could not live wholly to themselves.

These cities were not just centers of their own provinces. The commerce of the world passed through some of them. They were the great markets where the material and intellectual wealth of the world was exchanged. They were bound to the whole empire by great roads to which they were the keys. In their streets, the busiest and most fervent life of the empire hurried to and fro. We learn how constant that communication was from the history of the early churches; we cannot forget that Phrygian, who in his single life made the journey from Phrygia to Rome no less than seventy-two times. These places were not only centers of unity; they were also points in the circumference of a larger unity.

Thus, at first sight it seems that Paul struck at the centers of Roman administration, the centers of Hellenic civilization, the centers of Jewish influence, and the keys of the great trade routes.

We must not, however, over-stress these characteristics of the places where Paul established his churches. They were common to a great many towns and cities on the great highways of the empire. If the apostle had gone to Laodicea or to Dyrrachium, the same remarks might have been made about those places. In Macedonia, Berea was not as important as Pella. Paul plainly did not select where he would preach simply on grounds like these; he was led by the Spirit. When we speak of his strategic centers, we must recognize that they were natural centers, but we must also recognize that for missionary work, they were strategic centers because that is what he made them. They were not centers where he had to stop, but centers from which he might begin. They were not centers into which life drained, but centers from which it spread abroad.

We have often heard in modern days of concentrated missions at great centers. We have often heard of the importance of seizing strategic points. But there is a difference between our seizing of strategic centers and Paul's choosing a starting place. To seize a strategic center, we not only need a man capable of recognizing it, but a man also capable of seizing it. The seizing of strategic points implied a strategy, part of a plan of attack upon the whole country. Concentrated missions at strategic centers, if they are to win an area, must be centers of evangelistic life. In great cities are great prisons as well as great railway stations. Concentrated missions may mean concentrated essence of control or concentrated essence of liberty. A concentrated mission may be a great prison or a great market. It may be a safe where all the best intellect of the day is confined, or it may be a mint where the coin of new thought is put into circulation.

Many of our best men are locked up in strategic centers. Once they get in, they find it hard to get out. At many of the strategic points where we have established our concentrated missions, the church seems to resemble a prison, a safe, or a swamp where the best life of the country is collected rather than a mint or a spring or a railway station from which life flows out into the countryside. We are sometimes so enamored with the strategic beauty of a place that we spend our time in fortifying it, while the opportunity for a great campaign passes by, unheeded or neglected.

Paul's centers were centers indeed. He seized strategic points because he had a strategy. The foundation of churches in them was part of a campaign. In his hands they became the sources of rivers, mints from which the new coin of the gospel was spread in every direction. From these centers, he could start new work with new power. But they developed in this way not only because they were naturally fitted for this purpose, but also because Paul's method of work was designed so that centers of intellectual and commercial activity became centers of Christian activity. Paul was less dependent upon these natural advantages than we generally suppose. We have seen that he did not start out with any definite design to establish his churches in one place or another. He was led as God opened the door; but wherever he was led, he always found a center, and seizing upon that center, he made it a center of Christian life. How he did this we shall see in the following chapters.
CHAPTER 2

Class

Today we see a strong tendency to stress the importance of directing attention to a particular class of people in a country that we desire to evangelize. We had a striking illustration of the wonderful results that may be obtained by a judicious appeal to an influential class in the history of the Natural Foot Society in China.1 The success of that movement was largely due to promoters of the Society not spending their time preaching to the ignorant and conservative peasants of the villages, but rather enlisting the support of enlightened and well-to-do official and commercial families. As a consequence of that policy, a movement started by a few foreigners became so firmly established in ten to twelve years in the country that foreign encouragement and support were no longer necessary.

1 Susan Deller Ross, Women's Human Rights: The International and Comparative Law Casebook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 482-485.

Similarly, appreciating the value of a special class led to the foundation of movements like the Student Christian Movement.2 The same thought governs nearly all educational missions in the foreign field as well as special missions to official classes. At the other end of the spectrum, we are often told that in India we should concentrate all our efforts on raising up the depressed castes, believing that the sight of the recovery and civilization of the most degraded and most despised will create an irresistible attraction among the other sections of society.

2 History of the Student Christian Movement: www.movement.org.uk/about-us/history.

A common explanation of the success of Paul's preaching in the four provinces is that he followed this method. We are told there was a special class of people in the four provinces, specially prepared for the reception and establishment of the gospel. This argument was used against following Paul's method in modern days because such a class does not exist, and converts have none of the special advantages enjoyed by those in the past. We need to know, therefore, whether Paul did in fact appeal to any special class, and whether the adherents who came to him from that special class were sufficiently numerous to justify us in rejecting his method due to the peculiar circumstances of his converts being of special and peculiar character.

Is it possible to maintain that Paul established Christianity in the four provinces by enlisting in its service the gifts and influence of any particular important class of men? This would scarcely appear to be the case. Paul always began his work by preaching in the synagogue to Jews and God-fearing Greeks. But neither Jews nor proselytes provided him with such a class. It soon became apparent that Christianity could not take root in Jewish soil. The Christian spirit was in harmony with the freedom of the Greek mind rather than with the narrow legality of the Jewish mind. Christianity could not be bound by the shackles of Judaism. From the very first, it was driven out of the nation in which it was born to find in a strange country not only its own life, but also the life of those to whom it came. Paul preached in the synagogue, indeed, but he was not allowed to preach there very long, nor did many Jews join themselves to him. This is explained in Acts. And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath and persuaded Jews and Greeks. And when Silas and Timothy were come from Macedonia, Paul was impressed by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from now on I will go unto the Gentiles (Acts 18:4-6). We do not need to examine the history of the founding of the church in the four provinces or the epistles of Paul to the churches in the four provinces to show that those churches were composed almost entirely of Greek converts, for there is almost complete agreement on this subject. Again and again, Luke draws a sharp distinction between the obstinate refusal of the Jews and the eager readiness of the Greeks to listen to Paul's teaching. Again and again, Paul refers to his converts as men who knew idolatry by personal experience.

But Paul's attempts to preach to the Jews were not only unsuccessful in most cases, these Jews also stirred up great difficulties for him. Not only did this result in personal violence directed at him and his converts with the sudden suspension of his work, as he fled for refuge from the fury he had aroused, but Paul's preaching also brought into prominence a difficulty with which we are only too familiar. The Jews raised in the most acute form the question of the apostle's own authority and the truth of his message. Paul entered the cities as a Jew and as a teacher of a form of Judaism. He claimed to be preaching a revelation given to men by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he came to proclaim that the Messiah of the Jews was come and had shown Himself to be not only the Savior of the Jews but also of all men (2 Corinthians 11:22-23; Philippians 3:3-5). Yet the moment he delivered this message, the whole Jewish community rose up against him, expelled him, and sought to take his life as a blasphemer of God.

Today, the great stumbling block in our missions is the practical denial of Christianity and the indifference of men of our own blood, who call themselves Christians; but this violent persecution of Paul by the religious teachers of his own nation must have been a far greater stumbling block. Paul writes to the Corinthians that he experienced more, in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; three times I suffered shipwreck, night and day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by those of my nation, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labour and travail, in many watches, in hunger and thirst, in many fasts, in cold and nakedness (2 Corinthians 11:23-27). It must have appeared to be a sufficient refutation of the truth of his message to many people. If from Jerusalem and around to Illyricum Paul had preached the gospel, from Jerusalem and around to Illyricum that gospel was denied by all the people who were naturally best qualified to judge. When Paul turned to the Gentiles, it must have appeared that he had given up on the Jews, the ones who knew this Jesus of Nazareth. Paul was now wandering around the world, continually getting farther from the place where Jesus had been known, and trying to teach those who knew nothing of Jesus.

This difficulty would have been largely avoided if Paul had not begun his preaching in the synagogue. It was when the Jews saw the multitudes, who had been worshippers in their synagogues, following the apostle that they were filled with envy and spoke against that which Paul said, contradicting and blaspheming (Acts 13:45). No doubt the difficulty could not have been avoided, but his preaching in the synagogue brought it to a head in its acutest form.

So Paul was compelled to speak publicly about the breach between himself and the Jews, proclaiming his differences with the Jews in the synagogue. He continued to do this as time passed, until he went so far as to force the attention of all men to the separation by opening his preaching room next door to the synagogue. Paul seems to have deliberately calculated this to stir the passions of his countrymen, and we don't know why Luke called our attention to it so carefully, unless he had seen a distinct advance in the relationship between Paul and the Jews, between Christianity as represented by Paul and Judaism.

In order that Christianity might be fairly represented to the Greeks, Paul needed to emphasize the truth that Christianity was not a sect of Judaism and its truth or falsehood was independent of the attitude of Jewish authorities towards it. Paul may have preached first in the synagogue from a sense of religious obligation as much as from any motives of policy, and this seems to be the natural force of his words in the synagogues of Antioch and Corinth and his general attitude towards the Jews in the epistle to the Romans. The preaching in the synagogue may have been a religious duty or an understanding Paul had of God's plan as he wrote to the Romans. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16 KJV). Going to the Jews first certainly had a mixed advantage. Paul may have felt that he owed a debt to the Jews, but he carried a special burden for his kinsmen. He said, I have great sorrow and continual pain in my heart. For I could wish that myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, those who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites (Romans 9:2-4).

Nevertheless, Paul did not make many Jewish converts in the synagogue, but a certain number of converts must have been of great importance to the church. Proselytes and God-fearing Greeks brought into the church certain basics that were of the utmost value for the future life of the body. They already had an established conviction of the unity of God and the folly of idolatry. They possessed a conviction and experience of the necessity of morality for true religion. They had an acquaintance with the theory and practice of public worship and some knowledge of the Old Testament. Paul used the Old Testament, but not only as a textbook of controversy; he also explained how the failure of the nation of Israel brought salvation to the Gentiles (Romans 11:11). Already he had explained the allegorical significance of the story of Hagar (Galatians 4:22-26) and the spiritual significance of circumcision, for he said, he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God (Romans 2:29). He proclaimed Abraham the father of the faithful, and some of the God-fearing Greeks were prepared to receive and understand and teach these things.

At the same time, it is possible to exaggerate the influence these people exercised in the church. They were not many, for Paul speaks of the majority of Christians in his churches as having been idolaters. The epistles to the Macedonian churches are the epistles that demand no acquaintance with the Old Testament for their understanding, and the moral warnings in those epistles refer to the vices common to heathen surroundings. When we take it for granted that the existence of a synagogue and some God-fearing Greeks so alter the problem of church building that methods used by Paul cannot possibly be applied to any modern conditions, I think we are laboring under a delusion. The existence of the synagogue and the presence of God-fearing Greeks enabled Paul to receive into the church a few people who could read the Old Testament and were acquainted with the Law, a few people who were dissatisfied with idolatry or heathen philosophy and were seeking a truer and purer teaching. The Jews who joined Paul had enjoyed this knowledge from their infancy; the Greeks who had become proselytes had enjoyed it for a few years. But this is not enough to justify us in imagining that the presence of these few people in a church made such a great difference that there can be no comparison between a church in which they were present and a church in which they were not.

Outside the synagogue, Paul does not seem to have addressed himself to any particular class. He did not give himself up exclusively to preaching to the loafers, the porters, the ignorant and degraded, or the casual laborers in the streets. He does not seem to have preached at street corners to the idle or curious crowd. It is true that the lame man at Lystra who was sitting by the wayside heard Paul speak (Acts 14:8-10). It is true that the soothsaying girl at Philippi had heard him. We are also told that he preached in the Agora at Athens, but whatever we may say with regard to the lame man at Lystra, the soothsayer at Philippi was merely repeating the identity of Paul and proclaiming the purpose of his preaching. She cried out, saying, These men are the slaves of the most high God, who announce unto us the way of deliverance (Acts 16:17). At any rate, he was not preaching at the time, but was on his way to the place of prayer, where he was accustomed to preaching. As for the Agora at Athens, that was certainly not what we ordinarily mean by the street corner. If the fact that the lame man at Lystra heard Paul speak implies that Paul taught in the street, we must conclude that this was an exception to his general practice, for as a rule, Paul preached first in the synagogue and afterwards in the house of some man of good repute. It is curious how careful Luke is to tell us exactly where Paul lodged or in whose house he taught; for example, we are told that at Philippi he lodged with Lydia and preached at the prayer place (Acts 16:13-15). At Thessalonica, it appears Paul lodged with Jason and taught in his house (Acts 17:2-7). At Corinth, he lodged with Aquila and preached in the house of Titus Justus (Acts 18:1-4, 7). And at Ephesus, he preached in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9). Luke evidently desires us to understand that Paul was careful to provide things honest in the sight of all men, and thought about what was honorable and of good report, as well as what was true, and what was pure, and what was just.

On the other hand, Paul did not seek to attract the scholars, the officials, or the philosophers. He did not address himself to them. If he did so once at Athens, he deliberately refused to take that course at Corinth. He said that he did not receive many converts from those classes. "From the middle and lower classes of society," says Bishop Joseph Lightfoot, "it seems probable that the Church drew her largest reinforcements."3 Similarly, Professor Ramsay declared, "the classes where education and work go hand in hand were the first to come under the influence of the new religion."4 This conclusion is supported by Paul's reference to the deep poverty of the churches of Macedonia; and Luke's noting the conversion of "noble women" at Thessalonica and "honorable women" at Berea seems to suggest that men of rank and importance were few. Moreover, the frequent references to slavery in the epistles show that many of the Christians belonged to that class. I conclude then that the majority of Paul's converts were of the lower commercial and working classes, laborers, freedmen, and slaves; but he himself did not deliberately aim at any class.

3 Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians: A Revised Text With Introduction, Notes, and Dissertation, 2nd ed. (London & Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., 1869) 20.

4 Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Citizen, 8th Impression (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904) 133.

Moreover, it is difficult to believe that he did not also attract many people who make the least desirable converts. We all recognize that people who are most ready to receive new impressions, to follow new ideas, to embrace new creeds, or to practice new rites are by no means always the most stable and admirable, sober and trustworthy, high-principled and honest-hearted of men. And one form of Paul's preaching was peculiarly suited to attract many undesirable elements. Miracles draw a gaping crowd of idle, superstitious, and inquisitive folk. They make converts of those who are on the lookout for any means of gaining and exercising an influence over their fellows, people like the sons of Sceva, men who have a craving for power, without the natural ability to enable them to win and exercise it in a natural way. They make converts of the weak-minded and credulous.

That many such individuals approached Paul seems inevitable. If the churches of Galatia were like the churches of Achaia, Macedonia, and Asia, many members had ideas of religion and morality that were far from honorable. Paul did not exclude these people, but he did not make his first converts from them. He taught that churches needed a foundation with a strong center of respectable, religious-minded people. These naturally took the lead and preserved the church from rapid decay.

Thus, it would appear that Paul did not attempt to seek any particular class of hearers. He had his place of preaching and addressed himself to all who would listen, and, just as in China today, men of different classes came in while he was preaching or called upon him for private conversation. His converts were no better and no worse than ours in any Eastern land. The secret of his peculiar success is not to be found here. We cannot excuse our failure in the East on the grounds that we have no synagogues to preach in or proselytes to convert. If half our converts had been Jews or proselytes, I think it would have made little difference. We have had plenty of good and able converts. In this, Paul had no advantage over us.

But it may be said that if this is true of the civilized East, it is certainly not true of many other parts of the world. If Paul's method of establishing churches is conceivably applicable to civilized peoples, it is certainly inapplicable to the uncivilized, the savage, or the illiterate. To this, one answer is that we have never tried and, therefore, cannot tell what may be the power of the Holy Spirit in such cases. But it is strange that we should have applied exactly the same rule to those whom no one calls uncivilized as we do to those no one would call civilized. And further, it is true that where uncivilized men have accepted the gospel, a very few years have wrought a most amazing change in their mental and moral outlook. They are often capable of education of the highest order; they are not destitute of natural ability to lead, and they are no average evangelists. Examples can be found in the South Seas, in Papua, in New Zealand, in Central, South, and West Africa, and among the low castes of India – in fact, everywhere. Is it true that the missions to the civilized people of the East are established more quickly or surely than those among the uncivilized? Our difficulty is that we have not yet tried Paul's method anywhere and have used the same argument to bolster our dread of independence everywhere. With such an attitude, Paul's practice and the accounts of his work handed down to us lend no authority.
CHAPTER 3

Moral and Social Condition

The places at which Paul established his churches were centers of Roman and Greek civilization. Now when we speak of Graeco-Roman civilization, we generally have in mind the lofty teachings of the great philosophers, and we imagine a world permeated with those teachings. But in the empire, there was no common standard of civilization. The great cities were the homes of a bewildering variety of religions and an amazing assortment of people in every stage of civilization or barbarism. Their inhabitants differed one from another in manners and religion as widely as the barbaric heathen differs from the Englishman. Dr. Charles Bigg, theologian and historian,5 tells us that the state of the empire in the first century can only be compared with the state of India since the conquests of Clive and Warren Hastings.6

5 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bigg.

6 Charles Bigg, The Church's Task Under the Roman Empire: Four Lectures with Preface, Notes, and an Excursus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), 90.

This circumstance is of great importance when we consider the moral surroundings of the churches founded by Paul in the four provinces. We sometimes think that the social condition of those to whom Paul preached may account for his success in establishing the church. The answer comes with irresistible force that the majority of Paul's converts were born and raised in an atmosphere not better, and in some respects even worse, than that with which we have to deal in India or China.

There were of course lofty philosophies; there were profound mysteries; there were simple religious people like some of those whom Dio Chrysostom met in his wanderings.7 We see these people everywhere in all ages, the people of profound thought or simple faith; but such people were not typical of the religion and morals of the four provinces in Paul's day. They were no more typical than Chang Chih Tung8 was typical of the Chinese Mandarinate,9 or Tulsi Dâs10 typical of the Hindus, or Alfred the Great of the Saxons of his day.11 The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius were as far removed from the religious life of the empire as the doctrines of Seneca were from his practice.12

7 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dio_Chrysostom.

8 www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Chang_Chih-tung.aspx.

9 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.

10 www.linkedin.com/pulse/tulsi-das-gifted-world-ramayana-hindi-vaastu-mentor-dr-rupa-batra.

11 www.historytoday.com/barbara-yorke/alfred-great-most-perfect-man-history.

12 ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=luc_theses, 112-114.

So Ludwig Friedlander, a German historian, contrasts the evidence afforded by the literature and the monuments of the early centuries of our era.13 "The literature was chiefly the work of unbelievers or indifferentists, or of those who strove to spiritualize, purify, or transform the popular beliefs by reflection and interpretation. The monuments, on the other hand, to a great extent, at least, had their origin in those classes of society which were little affected by literature and its prevailing tendencies . . . thus in the majority of cases they are witnesses of a positive belief in a system of polytheism, of a faith which is free from doubt and subtlety alike."

13 www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Heinrich-Friedlander.

I cannot attempt to depict the moral and social conditions of the provinces, but to understand Paul's work, it is essential that we remember four elements in the life of the people.

(1) The first is the prevalence of belief in demons:

"In times of distress heathenism turned naturally to devil worship."

"Not merely idolatry, but every phase and form of life was ruled by them, they sat on thrones, they hovered round cradles, the earth was literally a hell."

"The whole world lieth in the Evil One."14

14 Source uncertain.

Not only Barbarians, not only Phrygians, but also Romans, Greeks, and Jews all believed this. Not only the uneducated but also the most cultured were as persuaded of this universal power of devils as are the Chinese or the Gonds today.15 And the consequences of that belief were then what they are today – physical and psychiatric disease, cruelty, bondage, and vice.

15 www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Gonds.html.

Men like Pliny the Elder, who argued that it was the height of irreverence to attribute to the gods adultery and strife and to believe in divinities of theft and crime, believed in the most horrible forms of magic.16 Human sacrifice was not unknown and belief in witchcraft was universal. Educated men believed that any enemy could secretly influence their lives by means of incantations. Plutarch was a good and learned man but he was quite serious when speaking of rites associated with unlucky and evil days.17 These included the devouring of raw flesh, mangling of bodies, fastings and beatings of the breast, obscene cries at the altars, ragings, and ravings. He said that he did not suppose any god was worshipped with these rites, but that they were instituted to appease and keep off evil demons. The magic incantations that many have recently found can be traced to these early rites; the formulas probably filled those magical books (worth fifty thousand pieces of silver), which were publicly burned at Ephesus under the influence of Paul's preaching.

16 www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder.

17 www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.

From this source springs the leaden tablets, the bits of bones, the belief in dreams and omens, the magical love potions, and the epitaphs on children carried away by spiritual beings – in a word, a whole world of abject superstition. When we read the treatises of the philosophers, we think of religion in the empire and in the East as depicted in the books of Sir Edwin Arnold18 or Mrs. Annie Besant.19 When we hear Dr. Bigg tell us that "it is probably not too hard a thing to say that demon worship was the really operative religion of the vast mass of the people of the empire," we think of the religion of the empire and the religion of the East as depicted in Dr. Edward Copleston's account of Buddhism in Ceylon20 or Professor J. J. M. de Groot's description of the religion of the Chinese.21 Professor de Groot takes the lowest possible view of the character of Chinese religion, but whole chapters of his descriptions of Chinese demonolatry might be incorporated in Dr. Bigg's or Dr. Friedlander's accounts of popular religion in the empire without affecting in any way the general impression those accounts produce in our minds.

18 www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Arnold.

19 www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/besant_annie.shtml.

20 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Copleston.

21 Edward Washburn Hopkins, The History of Religions (New York: Macmillan Company, 1918), 229.

Before conversion, every one of Paul's hearers was born and raised in this atmosphere of superstitious terror, and even after conversion, the vast majority of them did not cease to believe in demons. The preaching of Paul and the other apostles was not a denial of this belief; it provided those who accepted it with invincible weapons to meet the armies of evil, but they did not deny the existence of those armies. In fact, Paul readily admitted the existence of evil when he said, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the lords of this age, rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in the heavens (Ephesians 6:12). It was only the constant sense of the presence of the Spirit of Christ, before whom all spiritual powers must bow, that enabled Christians to banish these demons from their hearts and from the world in which they lived. Paul reassures them that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth (Philippians 2:10). Deliverance came not by denial but by conquest. I should like to remark that in heathen lands it might still be the wiser course to preach constantly the supremacy of Christ over all things spiritual and material than to deny or deride the notion of these spirits. Some of our missionaries know, and it would be well for others if they did know, that it is much easier for a man to hide his belief in devils than it is to eradicate the belief from his heart. By denying their existence or by scoffing at those who believe in them, we do not help our converts overcome them, but only to conceal their fears from us. By preaching the supremacy of Christ, we give them a real antidote; we take to them a real Savior who helps them in their dark hours.

(2) The second important element to remember in considering the work of Paul in the four provinces is the moral character of the religious rites. Some of the mysteries were no doubt capable of a highly moral interpretation. Adolf Harnack has collected in two or three pages the most important elements of the intellectual and religious tendencies in which the mingling of Hellenism and Orientalism prepared the way for the preaching of the gospel.22

22 www.ccel.org/ccel/harnack.

The sharp division between the soul and the body: the more or less exclusive importance attached to the spirit; . . . the sharp division between God and the world, [and the recognition that the Godhead is] incomprehensible and indescribable; yet it is great and good; . . . the depreciation of the world [and of the body]; . . . the yearning for redemption from the world, the flesh mortality, and death; the conviction that all redemption is redemption to life eternal, and that it is dependent on knowledge and expiation; . . . return to God, that the means are at hand and can be sought, that the seeker can be initiated into the secret knowledge by which the redemption is brought to him. . . . The soul, God, knowledge, expiation, asceticism, redemption, eternal life, with individualism and with humanity substituted for nationality – these were the sublime thoughts which were living and operative . . . Wherever vital religion existed it was in this circle of thought and experience that it drew breath.

And he goes on to say, "The actual number of those who lived within the circle is a matter of no moment. . . . The history of religion, so far as it is really a history of vital religion, runs always in a very narrow groove."23

23 Adolf Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1997), 33-36.

But for our present inquiry, the number of those who lived within the circle is most important. A few elect souls understood a spiritual purpose in the mysteries of Ceres24 or of Isis25 or of Cybele;26 but to the vast majority, these rites did not suggest profound truths any more than the dancing and self-mutilation of the wandering priest, who traveled to the villages with his little shrine and idol and went through his performance of penance and expiation while a collection was being made on his behalf. And the religious rites performed in the temples were disgusting beyond all words in respect to the filthy objects of devotion and the indecent accompanying worship. It is as impossible to quote the legends of these gods as it is to quote the stories of the incarnations of Krishna, while the accompanying circumstances of the worship were only less filthy than the lives of the divinities in whose honor they were performed.27 Suffice it to say that the temples of Ephesus and Corinth were no more the homes of virtue than the temples in Benares28 or Peking.29 The language of Paul in the epistle to the Ephesians exactly describes the condition of the people from whom his converts came and among whom they lived.

24 Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, and the love a mother bears for her child: www.ceresva.org/Goddess/Ceres.htm.

25 Isis was the goddess of fertility and motherhood: www.britannica.com/topic/Isis-Egyptian-goddess.

26 Cybele was considered the great Mother of gods: www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Mother-of-the-Gods.

27 www.britannica.com/topic/Krishna-Hindu-deity.

28 hinduism.about.com/od/temples/a/varanasi_banaras.htm.

29 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing.

It is upon these two conditions, superstition and uncleanness, that nearly all our arguments for our modern methods of conducting missionary work in heathen lands today are based. We should remind ourselves that whatever may be the merits of Paul's methods, they do not rest upon social and religious conditions superior to those under which most of our modern missions are conducted.

(3) But in addition to these factors, there were two evils, the likes of which are not now found throughout the world – slavery and the amphitheater. It is not necessary here to repeat what is perfectly familiar to all men concerning the shows in the amphitheater. What is more important for us is to note the attitude adopted even by the very best men towards these inhuman spectacles. Dr. Bigg tells us that there are "but three passages in which heathen writers express anything like adequate condemnation" of these shows. 30 And Friedlander says, "In all Roman literature there is scarcely one note of the horror of today at these inhuman delights." For the most part, they were spoken of with absolute indifference. People like Pliny and Cicero defended them as "affording a splendid training for the eye, though perhaps not for the ear, in the endurance of pain and as inspiring disdain of death and love of honourable wounds." Even Marcus Aurelius was simply bored by them and complains that they were always the same, while that model of pagan virtue, Symmachus, was moved to bitter complaints by the heartless conduct of some Saxons who committed suicide in their cells rather than kill one another in public at the show he had prepared in honor of his son's praetorship.31

30 Bigg, The Church's Task, 117.

31 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Aurelius_Symmachus.

The extraordinary fascination which they exercised over the minds of those who considered themselves far superior to such temptations is best illustrated by the oft-repeated tale of Alypius.

Alypius was dragged into the theater by some college friends. "If you drag me thither and put me there, can you force me to give my eyes or put my mind to such a show?" he cried. "I shall be absent from it in spirit though present in body, and thus I shall overcome both you and it." When they had found their places, he shut his eyes tight and forbade his thoughts to dally with such crimes. If he could have, he would have scaled his ears also! For at some turn in the fight, the whole people broke into a roar of shouting, and overcome by curiosity, confident that whatever happened he could despise and forget even though he saw it, he opened his eyes. Then was he struck with a deadlier wound in his soul than the gladiator whom he lusted to behold received in his flesh; he fell more miserably than the poor wretch over whose fall that bellow arose which pierced his ears and unlocked his eyes and laid open his soul to the fatal thrust. . . . For, with the sight of blood, he drank in ruthlessness; no longer did he turn away, but fixed his gaze, drank the cup of fury, and knew it not; he was fascinated by the din of battle and drunk with murderous joy. He was no longer the Alypius who had come, but one of the crowd to which he had come, and the hardened accomplice of those who had brought him! Why should I say more? He gazed, he shouted, he raved, he carried home with him a frenzy which goaded him to return, not only with those who at first had dragged him thither, but before them dragging others in his turn.

"No one," says Tertullian, "partakes of such pleasures without strong excitement; no one comes under their excitement without their natural lapses."32

32 Alexander Roberts and Sir James Donaldson, The Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume III: Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903), 86.

These shows had two very disastrous results: (1) they kept before all people's minds the division of humanity into two classes – men who had rights and men who had none, which was the great curse of slavery, and (2) this excitement made all other more reasonable forms of amusement seem tame. In particular, they had a most disastrous influence over the theater. With the powerful excitement of the circus and the arena, the stage could only draw its audience by degenerate means, rough jokes, and vulgarity. Nothing was too gross, nothing too indecent, to be displayed in the theater; nothing was too sacred to be parodied there. The legends of the gods often supplied the subjects of the most horrible and degrading scenes. When Bathyllus, a beautiful boy, was dancing, Leda, the most shameless actress of mimes, felt like a mere country novice on seeing such mastership in the art of refined sensuality.

Apuleius, philosopher and author, describes a Pyrrhic dance he saw at a festival at Corinth.33 There was a lofty mountain built of wood to resemble Mount Ida, covered with trees from which a fountain poured down a stream of clear water. A few goats were feeding on the grass, and Paris, a young man dressed in flowing robes and crowned with a tiara, was tending them. Presently, a beautiful boy, representing Mercury, whose only covering was a mantle thrown over his left shoulder, danced forward, holding in his hand a golden apple which he gave to Paris.

33 web.eecs.utk.edu/~mclennan/papers/Apuleius-long.htm.

Then a girl appeared, dressed as Juno, having on her head a white diadem and carrying a sceptre. She was followed by another whom you could guess to be Minerva, for she had on her head a shining helmet encircled with an olive wreath. She raised her shield and brandished her spear like the goddess engaged in war. After these came, another came whose surpassing beauty and grace of color proclaimed her to be Venus in her youth. She was quite naked except for a transparent blue gauze scarf with which the wind played lovingly. Her two colors, the white of her limbs and the blue of her scarf, showed that she was descended from the heavens and had come up from the sea. Juno, accompanied by Castor and Pollux, then danced with a quiet and unaffected grace and showed by gestures that she was offering to Paris the sovereignty of Asia if he would give her the prize.

Next, Minerva, attended by Terror and Fear, who leaped before her, brandishing drawn swords, rushed forward with tossing head and threatening glance and showed by quick animated gestures that she would make him renowned for valor if he would give her the prize of beauty.

Lastly, Venus, who was greeted with loud applause, advanced with a sweet smile and stood in the middle of the stage, surrounded by a throng of little boys so delicate and fair that they looked exactly like cupids just flown from heaven or from the sea. They had little bows and arrows, and they carried torches before their mistress, as if lighting her to the nuptial feast. Presently, the flutes began to breathe soft Lydian airs, which thrilled the audience with delight. But greater still was their delight when Venus began a slow, sensuous dance, which, to judge from his description, evidently appealed strongly to Apuleius. He particularly noted the play of her eyes, at one moment full of sluggishness, at another flashing with passion.

"Sometimes," he says, "she seemed to dance only with her eyes." She came before the judge and by movements of her arms was seen to promise that she would give him a bride of surpassing beauty like herself. He then gladly gave her the apple, which he held in his hand in token of victory. After the judgment, Juno and Minerva, sad and angry, retired from the stage, showing their indignation by their gestures. But Venus, full of joy and delight, showed her pleasure by dancing with all her choir. Then from some secret pipe in the top of the mountain, there broke out a fountain of wine, which filled the theater with fragrance. Finally, the whole scene disappeared into the ground, sinking out of sight.

After quoting this story, Friedlander proceeds to explain that these classic themes were altogether too refined for the vast majority. The chief delight of the educated was the pantomime; the common crowd preferred the boisterous rudeness and crude indecency of the mimes.

With the moral influence of those spectacles in the circus, the amphitheater or the theater is more easily imagined than described. And it is not easily imagined. We instinctively beautify the past. We can hardly believe the descriptions of its vices. I suppose it is necessary to have lived long in intimate touch with heathen society to be able to understand at all what these things mean. But in the world today, we can find no parallel to them. There are indeed vile religious plays; there are representations of divine beings, superhuman chiefly in their vices; but there are no gladiatorial shows; there are no criminals thrown to wild beasts.

(4) Finally, there was slavery, which was very different in Paul's days from any slavery known to us – and not for the better.

It differed from slavery in America or the West Indies in that the slaves of the empire were of the same color, often of the same race, and with the same education as their masters. They were slaves one day, but if set free, they might take their place with perfect propriety and ease in the society of their master and mistress the next day. There was no great barrier of blood, no great gulf of social habit or thought and cultivation.

In this, it may be compared with slavery in China today. In China, slaves are of the same color and race as their masters, but they are always of the lowest class and generally uneducated. They are nearly all girls, and they are not a numerous class. But in the empire, the males were in a vast majority, and the numbers were appalling. Not only was the actual multitude of slaves in some of the great houses amazing, but also the number of people who were not tainted by slavery in the cities must have been comparatively small. Corinth was colonized by Caesar with freedmen. The whole fabric of society in the cities of the empire was built upon slavery and was penetrated through and through with that peculiar infection of slavery, servility, and shamelessness. At this time, the condition of slaves in the cities was somewhat softened. They were often well educated and often treated kindly, but they had no rights. Women, girls, and boys had no protection against their masters; their master's will was their only law of virtue. And there was nothing between any slave and beatings except his master's will. Wealthy gentlemen, who had made their fortunes and secured their freedom, gave great sums to their physicians to remove the scars from lashings, or they covered themselves with costly ointments to conceal them from the eyes of their guests.

Consider for a moment the effect these conditions had on the education of those with whom Paul dealt. From birth, the child was in the care of a nurse who was a slave, "steeped as a matter of course in the grossest and most horrible superstition."34 When he went to school, the child was in the care of a pedagogue who was also a slave, whose interest it was to pander to his young master's vices and conceal his misdemeanors. He attended a private school kept by a freedman and received an education which, Dr. Bigg says, was admirably designed. The system of education adopted in the best of these schools was "probably much better than any to be found in our own schools down to the time of Dr. Arnold"35 but was thoroughly pagan.

34 Charles Bigg, The Church's Task, 18.

35 Ibid., 5-6.

A great many of the best classical authors treat the legends of the gods as mere legends, and children in England read the stories of Jupiter, Venus, and Aesculapius with no more sense of reality than they feel in reading the story of Bluebeard, but the children of Paul's day were in a very different situation. They read about Venus in Corinth beneath the shadow of the Temple of Venus with its one thousand priestesses, whose deceits and arts were known to the whole city. They read about Aesculapius with the knowledge that if they fell sick, their parents would go to the Temple of Aesculapius to make an offering for their recovery. They read about Diana in Ephesus, where the silversmiths sold her shrines, and that impure image which fell from Jupiter had its seat.

They understood a great deal too much, and the home influence was far from being what it should have been. Even a good teacher could hardly counteract the influence of the nurse, the pedagogue, and the parents, and all teachers were not good teachers.

When he left the grammar school, if he could afford it, the child went to the teacher of rhetoric, where he learned to speak on any topic under any circumstance with grace, fluency, and at least an appearance of knowledge. The scholar discussed set problems and characters, and the child learned not only to censure the adulterer, the panderer, and the gamester, but also to defend them. He learned a nice judgment in all things literary. Then he went out into the world with this education in the history of the gods and the character of men with the fear of demons as the one strong religious influence, if there was any strong religious influence at all. He learned to attend the games, the circus, and the theatre, in which he found every possible incitement to his animal nature. He visited the temples on a feast day and found them to be the homes of riots, while slaves were always ready to minister to his slightest wish. Every man of any education (except the Jews) in the churches of Paul during these ten years had attended those schools, read that literature, visited those temples, and most of them had seen those games. And every Christian child of the parents who were Paul's first converts passed through that same training. They received that education or they received none.

If the moral atmosphere in Greece was bad, in Asia Minor it was even worse. The character of the native religion was such that:

Greek education was pure in comparison, and the Greek moralists, philosophers, and politicians inveighed against the Phrygian religion as the worst enemy of the Greek ideals of life. Greek society and life were at least founded on marriage; but the religion of Asia Minor maintained as a central principle that all organized and settled social life on the basis of marriage was an outrage on the free, unfettered divine life of nature, the type of which was found in the favorites of the great goddesses, the wild animals of the fields and the mountains. The Greek and Roman law which recognized as citizens only those born from the legitimate marriage of two citizens had no existence in Phrygian cities.36

36 Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 118-119.

This is not a complete account of the social condition of the provinces where Paul preached, but these elements were there, and they cannot be ignored if we are to understand the character of the task that lay before the apostle. Devil worship, immemorial religious rites, gladiatorial games, slavery – these things cannot be set to the side. How can a man behave properly toward his sick friend when he believes that he has a demon? How can the loftiest philosophical doctrines produce moral virtue when trouble sends a man to pray to a devil? How can a man preserve a true devotion and a reverent attitude towards the divine when the divinities known to him are described as the basest of creatures? How can a man walk uprightly when he and all his world believe there is a class of men, and that class the most numerous class, which has no rights of any kind, and which believe nothing can be wrong which their masters say is right, who were designed and created solely to give service and amusement to their owners, whether by their life or by their death?

Professor Harnack tells us, "it is a mistake to suppose that any 'slave question' occupied the early church. The primitive Christians looked on slavery with neither a more friendly nor a more hostile eye than they did upon the State and legal ties. They never dreamt of working for the abolition of the State, nor did it occur to them to abolish slavery for human or other reasons – not even amongst themselves."37 Many of the members of the churches founded by Paul were slaves; some of them were slave owners. Christian masters are encouraged to be lenient, Christian slaves to be faithful. The fact that there was no "slave question" simply emphasizes the universal acceptance of the conditions. What those conditions have always been wherever slavery has existed, and what those conditions must have been when there was no color or customary barrier between master and slave, is well known.

37 Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity, 207.

Whatever advantages of education, civilization, philosophy, or religion that the empire possessed, as long as it was defiled by slavery, the games, the temples and the magicians, it is impossible to argue that Paul's converts had any exceptional advantages in the moral character of the society in which they were brought up, which are not given to our converts today.

PART II

The Presentation of the Gospel

  1. Miracles. How much of Paul's success was due to his possession of miraculous powers?
  2. Finance. How much was his success due to his financial arrangements?
  3. The Substance of Paul's Preaching. How much was his success due to his method of preaching?

CHAPTER 4

Miracles

Miracles hold an important place in the account of Paul's preaching in the four provinces, and since this is one of the arguments used that his methods can have little or no bearing upon our work in the present day, we must examine the nature and extent of these miracles and how the apostle used them. We shall find that so far from invalidating any comparison between his work and ours, Paul's use of miracles may throw an interesting light on some principles of constant value, which should guide us in the practice of many forms of missionary enterprise today.

Miracles are recorded of Paul in five towns in the four provinces. In Iconium, we are told that the Lord . . . gave testimony unto the word of his grace and granted that signs and wonders be done by their hands (Acts 14:3). At Lystra occurred the healing of a cripple (Acts 14:8-10). At Philippi, the expulsion of a spirit of divination (Acts 16:16-18), and at Ephesus God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them (Acts 19:11-12). Finally, the recovery of Eutychus occurred at Troas (Acts 20:9-12).

This last miracle stands in a class quite by itself in the nature of the case and in the surroundings in which it was wrought. It was not a miracle designed to further the proclamation of the gospel; it was wrought for the comfort of believers and is more comparable to the raising of Dorcas by Peter than with the other miracles recorded of Paul. It must therefore be left out in our present inquiry.

The importance of miracles in Paul's work may be exaggerated. They were not a necessary part of his mission preaching nor was their influence in attracting converts as great as we often suppose. Professor Ramsay indeed goes so far as to say, "The marvels recorded in Acts are not, as a rule, said to have been efficacious in spreading the new religion."38 Only at Ephesus are we told of a great increase of disciples in connection with the working of miracles, while in one case the working of a miracle was the immediate cause of serious obstruction.

38 Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 104.

On the other hand, the general tenor of Luke's narrative does not produce the impression that he considered Paul's miracles other than as tending to further the cause of the gospel. At Paphos, a miracle led to the conversion of an important man (Acts 13:6-12); at Iconium, signs and wonders were a witness to the truth of the gospel (Acts 14:2-3); at Lystra, a miracle introduced a great opportunity for expounding the doctrine (Acts 14:8-16); at Ephesus, miracles were the means by which a great spiritual victory was won (Acts 19:11-20). Luke does not speak of these as though they were ineffective in spreading the gospel. He speaks of them as though they were a natural and proper part of Paul's ministry. He certainly does not relate all of Paul's miracles, for we know that Paul wrought signs and wonders and power at Corinth (2 Corinthians 12:12). Luke tells of some as typical of many others.

There is, however, one sense in which the truth underlying Professor Ramsay's words illustrates a most important principle. These miraculous powers were not used by the apostle to induce people to receive teaching. He did not attract people to listen to him with a view of being healed of disease or with the promise of healing. Luke seems to avoid producing the impression that miraculous powers might be used to attract people to accept Christianity because of the benefits they might receive from it. We are not told of the conversion of anybody upon whom Paul worked a miracle of healing. It is true that the lame man at Lystra was apparently converted, but it is plainly suggested that he was already some sort of a convert before he was healed. He was what a later age would have called a "hearer," and his conversion as a result of the miracle is certainly not asserted.

Neither are we told of the conversion of the soothsaying girl at Philippi. Bishop Lightfoot and many others take it for granted that she was converted.39 Referring to Lydia, the jailer, and this girl, he speaks of "the three converts."40 This may be a legitimate inference, but it is certainly not a necessary one. Luke tells us only that she proclaimed the apostles as servants of the Most High God and that she was healed. We may think it impossible that such an event should take place in her life without leading to her conversion, and it may have been so, but Luke does not say that it was so.

39 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lightfoot.

40 biblehub.com/sermons/auth/lightfoot/the_first_three_philippian_converts.htm.

Paul did not convert or attempt to convert people by working miracles upon them. He did not attract people to Christianity by offering them healing. He did not heal on the condition that they attend his teaching. In this, he was illustrating a principle that guided the Christian church in her administration of charity throughout the early centuries of her history. "We know," says Professor Harnack, "of no cases in which Christians desired to win, or actually did win, adherents by means of the charities which they dispensed."41

41 Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity, 480.

I cannot help thinking that this is a principle we cannot be too careful to observe. There was a day in India when our missionaries paid a regular fee to scholars for them to attend our schools so they might receive Christian instruction. The result was not good, and that plan has been universally abandoned. But we still sometimes offer secular education or medical treatment as an inducement to people to submit themselves or place their children under our religious instruction or influence. In principle, this is precisely the same thing as paying them, though in a far less forthright form. I cannot help thinking that the day is not far distant when we shall consider the offering of any material inducement as contrary to sound doctrine, as we now consider the money payments of former days.

But if Paul did not use his powers of healing as an inducement to people to receive his teaching, his use of miracles did still help him in his preaching in four ways:

(1) His miracles attracted hearers. They were addressed to the crowd rather than to the individual. So it was at Lystra, and so it must ever have been. The wonderful cures attracted men to Paul, and they came to see who it was that had done such a thing. They naturally were eager to hear what he had to say. So miracles prepared the way for the preaching.

(2) Miracles were universally accepted as proofs of the divine approval of the message and the work of the person through whom they occurred. A good illustration of this is to be found in the account given by Tacitus of the miracle wrought by Vespasian at Alexandria. Two sick men at Alexandria were directed by the god Serapis to appeal to Vespasian for help. One was blind, the other had a deformed hand. The one begged Vespasian to anoint his cheeks and eyes with spittle; the other prayed that he would put his foot upon him. Vespasian at first laughed at them and put them aside; but at last, he was persuaded to do what they desired. Instantly the hand of the one was restored and the blind received his sight. "Persons," says Tacitus, "actually present attest both facts, even now when nothing is to be gained by falsehood." And he remarks that these miracles were tokens of divine favor and affection for Vespasian.42 Everywhere all men drew the same conclusion from the power to work wonders.

42 Tacitus, The Histories of Tacitus: Book 4: www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/histories.html, 81-82.

So Luke insists that the signs and wonders wrought by Paul at Iconium were a witness given by God to the word of His grace. So among the Jews, Christ Himself frequently appealed to His works; so Nicodemus confessed, No one can do these signs that thou doest unless God is with him (John 3:2). So the blind man healed by Christ expressed the common belief when he declared, Now we know that God does not hear sinners (John 9:31), and many hearing of that case said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? (John 9:16). And this belief continued among the Christians.

A most remarkable testimony of the appeal to miracles is found in the account of the Council held at Jerusalem to discuss the question of the admission of Gentiles to the church. The question was raised whether the work of Paul and Barnabas was in accordance with the will of God. Peter prepared the minds of the assembled multitude by reminding the Council how he himself (a man of whose orthodoxy there could be no doubt) had been led by the Holy Spirit to preach to Gentiles, and then Barnabas and Paul rose to address the Council (Acts 15:7-9, 12). Now it had been expressly remarked that throughout their journey to Jerusalem, they had been declaring to the Christians at every place that God had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles (Acts 14:27), and the conversion of the Gentiles (Acts 15:3). But in the Council, the apostles stressed their miracles. Then all the multitude kept silence and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what great miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them (Acts 15:12). The apostles might have been satisfied that the Gentiles had been converted, embraced the gospel, suffered persecution, and were devoted followers of Jesus Christ, but for the multitude, the one convincing proof of God's approval was that He had enabled them to work miracles.

In exactly the same way when he wishes to persuade the Galatians of the superiority of the gospel to the Law, Paul appeals to the evidence of miracles. He therefore that gives unto you the Spirit and does works of power among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by the obedient ear of faith? (Galatians 3:5). So too, when he is laying before the Corinthians the evidence of his apostleship, he appeals to miracles. Truly the signs of the apostle were worked out among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and power (2 Corinthians 12:12).

For Christian, Jew, and pagan alike, the evidence from miracles was irrefutable. Given the miracle, the approval of the god in whose name the miracle was done followed as an unavoidable consequence.

(3) Miracles were illustrations of the character of the new religion. They were sermons in action. They set forth in unmistakable terms two of its fundamental doctrines: the doctrine of charity and the doctrine of salvation – release from the bondage of sin and the power of the Devil.

Charity, pity for the weak and the oppressed, and love for men expressed in deed and word, as taught by Christ and His apostles and practiced by them, was quite new in the history of the world. Christ not only gave men the parable of the good Samaritan and the oft-repeated command, but He also went about doing good. He first inspired men with the spirit of charity. He opened their eyes to see in every case of trouble and disease, not a loathsome thing to be avoided, but an opportunity for the revelation of grace and loving-kindness.

Inspired by that spirit, Paul uttered his most profound teaching on the power of charity. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1). In that spirit, he worked his miracles. For a great price, heathen magicians exercised their powers, uttered their incantations, and administered their potions. Paul healed the sick and cast out devils, because he was grieved at the bitter bondage of the oppressed or because he welcomed the first signs of a faith that could respond to the power of the Lord. In this respect his miracles were the first steps in the path by which the early church became known among the heathen for its organized charity, support of widows and orphans, tender care for the sick, the infirm, and the disabled, gentle consideration for slaves, and constant help afforded to prisoners and those afflicted by great calamities. Two centuries later, Tertullian, after recounting the charities of the Christians, could write, "It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us."43 How great and powerful an assistance this was to the conversion of the world is known to all men.

43 Tertullian, The Sacred Writings of Tertullian, chapter 39.

(4) Similarly, Paul's miracles illustrated the doctrine of release – salvation. In the world to which the apostles preached their new message, religion had not been the solace of the weary, the medicine of the sick, the strength of the sin-laden, or the enlightenment of the ignorant. It was the privilege of the healthy and the instructed. The sick and the ignorant were excluded. They were under the bondage of evil demons. But this people who do not know the law are cursed was the common doctrine of Jews and Greeks (John 7:49). The philosophers addressed themselves only to the well-to-do, the intellectual, and the pure. Only those who had clean hands and sound understanding were invited to the mysteries. It was a constant marvel to the heathen that the Christians called the sick and the sinful.

The Christians said everyone who is a sinner, devoid of understanding, a child, and generally, whoever is unfortunate will be received by the kingdom of God. Do you not call him a sinner the one who is unjust, a thief, a home breaker, a poisoner, a committer of sacrilege, or a robber of the dead? What other people would a man invite, if he were issuing a proclamation for an assembly of robbers?

Nevertheless, there was at this time a growing sense of need. Men sought healing and salvation in religion. The cult of Aesculapius as "the savior" was already spreading widely among the people, and other gods were called saviors too. "No one," says Harnack, "could be a god any longer unless he was also a savior."44 Men were prepared to welcome a doctrine of salvation. The apostle appealed to this sense of need. The kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared (Titus 3:4). His preaching was the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth (Romans 1:16 KJV); his converts were turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18). Into a world burdened with sin and misery and death, Paul came in the Spirit of Jesus who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil. His miracles were a visible sign to the whole world of the nature and purpose of his teaching. They proclaimed Jesus as the deliverer of the captives, the healer of the sick, the solace of the weary, and the refuge of the oppressed.

44 Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity, 129.

There can be no doubt that this power of working marvels, this striking demonstration of the authority of Jesus over evil spirits, was considered to be a most valuable weapon in the early church to counter opponents and convince the hesitating. "It was as exorcisers," says Professor Harnack, "that Christians went out into the great world, and exorcism formed one very powerful method of their mission and propaganda."45 Every Christian apologist appeals to it as a signal proof of the superiority of Christianity over heathen religions. The heathen appealed to miracles, oracles, and omens as proofs of the existence of the gods; Christians appealed to exorcism as proof of the divinity of Christ and His superior authority over all the heathen gods and demons.

45 www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Christianity%20in%20First%20Three%20Centuries.pdf, 87.

Such powers were highly valued in the church and greatly coveted by the faithful, but their importance can be easily overrated. Paul saw this danger and combated it. He does not give the gift of miracles the highest place amongst the gifts of the Spirit. He does not speak as if the best of his workers possessed it. The power of working miracles was not important to him; the Spirit that inspired the life was. Miraculous power was only one of many manifestations of the Spirit; above all, best of all, is the spirit of charity. The manner in which the healing occurred was not what was of value to him; it was the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

Every day we see how it is not the possession of great powers but rather the Spirit in which any power is used that attracts, moves, and converts. If we no longer possess his power, we still possess the Spirit that inspired him. We have powers enough to let the Spirit shine forth. We have powers sufficient to gather hearers. We have powers sufficient to demonstrate the divine presence of the Spirit of God with us. We have powers sufficient to assure inquirers of the superiority of Christianity to all heathen religions. We have powers sufficient to illustrate in action the character of our religion, its salvation, and its love – if only we will use our powers to reveal the Spirit. One day we shall perhaps recover the early faith in miracles. Meanwhile, we cannot say that the absence of miracles puts an impassable gulf between the first century and today or renders the apostolic method inapplicable to our missions. To say that would be to set the form above the Spirit.
CHAPTER 5

Finance

It may seem strange to speak of finance as one of the external accompaniments of the preaching rather than as part of the organization of the church. But it is part of preaching, as it affects Paul's approach to his hearers when finance assumes its real significance and throws its most interesting light upon our missionary work today. The primary importance of missionary finance lies in the fact that financial arrangements seriously affect the relationships between the missionary and those he approaches. It is of comparatively small importance how the missionary is maintained; it is of comparatively small importance how the finances of the church are organized. What is of supreme importance is how these arrangements, whatever they may be, affect the minds of the people and so promote, or hinder, the spread of the gospel.

This is often overlooked by modern writers, and the finance of Paul's journeys is treated as an interesting detail of ancient history, not as though it had anything to do with his success as a preacher of the gospel. Paul himself does not acknowledge its significance. He often refers to it, as he shows anxiety about his position being misunderstood. But he speaks as if its importance lay wholly in the way in which it might affect those to whom he preached, never as though it made any personal difference to him.

There seem to have been three rules that guided his practice: (1) He did not seek financial help for himself; (2) he took no financial help to those to whom he preached; (3) he did not administer local church funds.

First, Paul did not seek financial help. In his first contact with strangers and in his dealings with the church, he was careful to avoid any appearance of moneymaking. Among the heathen, there was a large class of teachers who wandered from town to town, collecting money from those who attended their lectures. A large class of people also existed who wandered about as mystery mongers, exhibiting their shows, and collecting money from those who attended them. For these men, philosophy and religion were a trade. Paul would not be counted as one of them. He refused to receive anything from those who listened to him. Similarly, in the church a class of people existed who made their living by preaching. Paul did not condemn these people; on the contrary, he argued that it was legitimate that they should do so. Heathen religion, the Jewish Law, and Christ's directions all insisted on the right of the minister to receive support.

But Paul did not receive it, and he was careful to explain his reason. He saw that it would be a hindrance to his work. [We] suffer all things, he says, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:12). He was anxious to show his fatherly care for his disciples by refusing to burden them with his maintenance. As a mother feeding and caring for her children, loving you so much, that we were willing to give unto you, not only the gospel of God, but even our own souls, because ye are dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail, for labouring night and day, not to be a burden unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God (1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9). He was anxious to set for them an example of quiet work. We did not walk disorderly among you, neither did we eat any man's bread for nought (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8). But above all he was anxious to avoid any appearance of covetousness, and said, What I do, I will continue to do that I may take away the occasion from those who desire it to be found like unto us in that in which they glory (2 Corinthians 11:12). So in his last speech to the Ephesian elders, he lays great stress on the fact that he had not made money by his preaching, but had supported himself by the labor of his own hands. I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. Moreover, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities (Acts 20:33-34).

Yet Paul did receive gifts from his converts. He speaks of the Philippians as having sent once and again unto his necessity (Philippians 4:16), and he tells the Corinthians that he deprived the other congregations, taking wages of them, to do you service (2 Corinthians 11:8). He does not seem to have felt any unwillingness to receive help; he rather welcomed it. He was not an ascetic. He saw no particular virtue in suffering privations. The account of his journeys always gives us the impression that he was poor, never that he was poverty stricken. He said indeed that he knew how to be in want, to be full and to be hungry (Philippians 4:12). But this does not imply more than that he was in only occasional need. Later, he must have had considerable resources, for he was able to maintain a long and expensive judicial process, to travel with ministers, to gain a respectful hearing from provincial governors, and to excite their greediness.46 We have no means of knowing where he obtained such large supplies, but if he received them from his converts, there would be nothing here contrary to his earlier practice. He received money but not from those to whom he was preaching. He refused to do anything that appeared as though his object was to make money.

46 Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010).

Our modern practice is precisely the same. Our missionaries all receive their supplies from home and cannot appear to seek financial support from their converts. If they ever seem to be preaching for a living, it can only be that their attitude towards the preaching gives some cause or occasion for the charge.

Secondly, not only did Paul not receive financial aid from his converts, but he also did not take financial support to his converts. To do so never seems to have occurred to him. Every province and every church was financially independent. The Galatians are exhorted to support their teachers (Galatians 6:6). Every church is instructed to maintain its poor. There is not a hint from beginning to end of the Acts and the Epistles of any one church depending upon another, with the single exception of the collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem (Romans 15:26). Paul considered that collection a very serious and important place, but it had nothing to do with church finance in the ordinary sense. He told the Corinthians, Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the congregations of Galatia, do ye likewise. Each first sabbath let each one of you set aside in store, as God has prospered him, that there be no collections when I come. And when I come, whomever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem (1 Corinthians 16:1-3). The importance of giving lay in its demonstration of the unity of the church and in the influence that such a proof of brotherly charity might have in maintaining the unity of the church. But it had no more to do with church finance in the ordinary sense than a collection made in India for Christians suffering from famine in China would have to do with ordinary Indian church finance. That one church should depend upon another for the supply of its ordinary expenses as a church, or even for a part of them, would have seemed incredible in the four provinces.

From this apostolic practice, we are now as far removed in action as we are in time. We have indeed established here and there churches that support their own financial burdens, but for the most part our missions look to us for substantial support, and it is commonly taken for granted that every new station must do so for a considerable time. Our modern practice in founding a church is to begin by securing land and buildings in the place where we wish to propagate the gospel. We provide a house for the missionary, and a church, or at least a room, fitted with all the ornaments of a Western church, where the missionary may conduct services and sometimes open a school and supply the teachers.

The larger the establishment and the more liberally it is supplied with every possible modern convenience, the better we think it is suited to our purpose. Even in the smallest places, we are anxious to secure land on which to build houses and churches and schools, and we take it for granted that acquiring these things by the foreign missionary or by the foreign society is the most important first step. Since it is impossible for the natives to supply all these things, even if they are eager to receive our instruction, it naturally follows that we must supply them. Hence, the opening of a new mission station has become primarily a financial operation, and we constantly hear our missionaries lament that they cannot open new stations where they are sorely needed, because they do not have the necessary funds to purchase and equip the barest missionary establishment.

This habit of taking supplies with us is due chiefly to two causes: first, the amazing wealth of the home church presents the notion that reverence and devotion depend upon the use of expensive religious furniture; secondly, the prevalence of the idea that the stability of the church in some way depends upon the permanence of its buildings. When we have secured a site and buildings, we feel that the mission is firmly planted; we cannot then be easily driven away. A well-built church seems to imply a well-founded, stable society. So the externals of religion precede the inculcation of its principles. We must have the material establishment before we build the spiritual house.

As we begin, so we go on. Hence, frequent appeals are found in church newsletters for organs and bells, clergy and choir robes, and candlesticks for mission stations in India or Africa. How can we teach the new converts the majesty of worship without the materials for dignified ceremony? Dignified ceremony is ceremony as practiced in the best churches at home. The best churches use these things. The natives cannot supply them. It follows that we must take these gifts to our converts.

Thus, the foundation of a new mission is primarily a financial operation. But it ought not to be a financial operation, and the moment it appears as such, very false and dangerous elements are introduced into our work.

(a) By our eagerness to secure property for the church, we often cause many difficulties in the way of our preaching. We sometimes, especially in a country like China, arouse the opposition of the local authorities who do not desire to give foreigners a permanent holding in their midst. We occasionally even appeal to legal support to enforce our right to purchase property, and thus we begin our work in a turmoil of strife and excitement, which we might have avoided.

(b) We load our missionaries with secular business, negotiations with contractors, the supervising of works, and the management of a considerable establishment to which is often added anxiety about the supply of funds for providing and maintaining the establishment. In this way their attention is distracted from their proper spiritual work; their energy and power is dissipated; their first contact with the people whom they desire to evangelize is connected with contracts and other purely secular concerns. It is sad to think what a large proportion of our missionaries' time is spent on financial accounts. It is sad to sit and watch a stream of Christian visitors calling upon a missionary and realize that in nearly every case, the cause that brings them is money. They are the financial agents of the mission.

(c) In creating these missionary establishments, we not only overburden our missionaries with secular business, but we also misrepresent our purpose in coming to the place. It is of the utmost importance that the external manifestation of our purpose should correspond with the inward intention and rightly express it. We live in a world in which spirit is known through material media. When the Son of God desired to reveal Himself to us, He took upon Himself the form of a servant, and He made a material body the manifestation to all men of the Eternal God who is Spirit. Paul expressed this to the Philippians. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:6-8).

That fact must govern all our thoughts. In themselves, words and buildings have no power to produce spiritual results. If we will not preach, we cannot convert, for God's Word is what convicts us. Hebrews 4:12 tells us the word of God is alive and efficient and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Spirit of Christ indwelling us will guide us into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority (John 16:13).

A method of working, or a material instrument, may reveal or conceal, or misrepresent, the Spirit. For example, in France, the offer of the left hand is an act of cordial goodwill; in India, it is an insult. If then a Frenchman in India were to offer a man his left hand, his goodwill would be interpreted as ill will. In ignorance, we may use incorrect expressions, but the moment we become aware that they are incorrect, we can no longer use them. That is why reformers constantly reject the use of things employed as expressions of a spirit, which they do not want to express. Today in India, many of our younger missionaries are beginning to revolt against the big bungalows used by their predecessors. They look at them and say, "That does not quite represent the spirit in which I wish to approach these people." If that feeling grows, they must abandon the bungalow. For if we are persuaded that the material vehicle misrepresents the spirit we desire to express but we continue to use it, it checks the spirit in us. If we want to express respect and goodwill, we cannot continue to offer the left hand, when we know that it will be misunderstood. If we do so, we hinder our feeling of goodwill, and our goodwill is suppressed.

Moreover, the use of wrong materials repels those whom we might draw to ourselves. All men everywhere judge the inward spirit by the external form and are attracted or repelled by it. They are apt to be influenced by the first glance. If the material form does not express the true spirit, we cannot be surprised if they are hindered.

Now the purchase of land and the establishment of foreign missions in these establishments, especially if they are founded in the face of opposition from the local authorities, naturally suggests the idea of a foreign domination. The very permanence of the buildings suggests the permanence of the foreign element. The land is secured and the buildings are raised by the powerful influence of foreigners. That naturally raises a question in the native mind as to why these people should be so eager to secure a permanent holding in their midst. They naturally suspect some evil ulterior motive. They suppose that the foreigner is eager to extend his influence and establish himself among them at their expense.

In China particularly, the common idea prevalent among the people is that to become a Christian involves submission to foreign domination. This conception has a most powerful effect in deterring the people from approaching the missionary or receiving his teaching with open minds. I think it is now almost universally admitted that the permanence of foreign rule in the church should not be our object in propagating the gospel. But by taking large supplies with us to provide and support our establishments and organizations, we do in fact build up that which we should be most eager to destroy.

Moreover, we do not want to produce the impression that we plan to introduce an institution, even if it is understood that the institution is to be naturalized. Christianity is not an institution, but a relationship with God. By importing an institution, we tend to obscure the truly spiritual character of our work. If we take the externals first, we make it easy for new converts to put the external in the place of the internal. Attendance at a house of prayer may take the place of prayer. It is easy to mistake the provision of external things relating to worship, for worship. The teachers seem to think these things are so important that they miss the really important things. When the duty of the Christian becomes attending to these things and going through the proper forms, the heathen naturally perceives this. He looks at religion from that point of view, and when he sees the externals provided at a cost, which seems very great, and sees things imported, which the country cannot provide, he tends to suppose that our religion is like his. The organization and the institution just replace what was formerly occupied by his own organization and institutions of religion. But this is precisely what we want to avoid.

Nor is this all. The first glance at these missions financed from abroad suggests that the religion they represent is foreign. They are supported by foreign money, and they are often foreign in appearance. Eastern people almost universally look upon Christianity as a foreign religion, and they do not want a foreign religion. This is one of the chief and most dangerous of our difficulties. We are not the preachers of a Western religion, and anything that tends to create or support that misunderstanding is a thing to be avoided, not encouraged. By the introduction of Western buildings and Western religious furniture, we can hardly avoid strengthening that misunderstanding. Of course, if we are prepared to maintain that our Western ornaments are essentially Christian and must be adopted everywhere as integral parts of Christianity, there is no more to be said; but for my part, I am not prepared to take up that position.

(d) By importing, using, and supplying the natives with buildings and ornaments, which they cannot procure for themselves, we tend to impoverish the converts. They cannot supply what they think is needed, so they learn to accept the position of passive recipients. By supplying what they cannot supply, we discourage them from supplying what they can supply. Foreign subsidies also import the ill effects of those endowments at home with the additional disadvantage that they are foreign. The converts learn to rely upon them instead of making every effort to supply their own needs.

(e) It is often said that these financial bonds help to maintain unity. Native congregations have been held to their allegiance by threats of the withdrawal of monetary support. But unity maintained in this way, by an external bond, is not Christian unity at all. It is simply submission to bondage for the sake of secular advantage, and it will fail the moment any other stronger motive urges separation. There is all the difference in the world between gifts freely made by members of one body to another as manifestations of the Spirit by the love that moves in them, and gifts or subsidies made with the intention of hindering freedom of action on the part of the recipients. Spiritual forces are more powerful than external bonds, and external bonds never have preserved, and never will preserve, unity. The only unity that is worth preserving is the unity of the Spirit.

(f) By the establishment of great institutions, large parsonages, mission houses, churches, and all the accompanying things, we tie our missionaries to one place. They cease to be movable evangelists and become pastors. From time to time, they go out on tour, but their stations are their chief care where they are tied. Even if they find that the center is not well chosen, so much money is invested in it that they cannot easily move. Even if some new opportunity of larger importance opens to them, they cannot pursue it without serious and difficult financial adjustments.

(g) Further, these establishments make it very difficult for any native to advance to the place of a European missionary. The Christians gathered around these centers are very conscious of the advantage of having a European in their midst. He has influence with governors, merchants, and masters. He can give valuable recommendations. He can return home and plead for his people with societies and individuals that are charitably disposed. He can collect money for his schools and hospitals. In time of need and stress, he can afford to expend much. He is, or is supposed to be, above the common temptations of the people. He is naturally free from local entanglements. He cannot be accused of seeking to make positions for his relations. His judgment is impartial and his opinion unbiased by any divisions or jealousies of local society. All these things incline the native converts to prefer a European to a native as the head of their assembly.

Consequently, it is very difficult for any native to succeed the foreign missionary. The native has none of these advantages. He cannot tap the resources; he cannot exercise the same charitable generosity; he cannot expect, as a right, the same confidence. He is liable to attack from all sides. He does not even have the prestige that attaches to a white face. His position is almost impossible. Moreover, if a native is put in charge of a center, he naturally expects to be paid at the same rate as his white predecessor. If he is not, he feels aggrieved. It is useless to explain to him that a native ought to be able to make one rupee or one dollar go as far as six or seven in the hands of a European. To him, the salary for this work has been fixed at a determined amount, and if he occupies that post, he should receive that amount. But native Christians, left to themselves, would never have created such a post, and sooner or later they will abolish it. They are accustomed to other standards and other methods of payment or support for teachers. Thus, by establishing these posts, we are creating serious difficulties. We say that we hope the day is not far off when natives will take over our positions and carry on the work we have begun. But by the creation of these centers, we have delayed that day.

From this point of view, it is plain that the creation of mission stations with large parsonages and churches is a far more serious difficulty than the establishment of large schools and hospitals. Great colleges and hospitals can more easily be treated as outside the jurisdiction of the church. They are not bound up with the ordinary life of the church. Church life can go on without them or beside them, and special arrangements made for them do not closely involve the community. There are difficulties with these, but the difficulties connected with parsonages and churches, as in India and the Far East, are already pressing.

(h) Finally, these endowments will eventually become a source of fresh difficulties. These buildings are legally held by the foreign missionary societies, which have their headquarters in foreign countries. Sooner or later the native church may grow strong and will insist on managing its own affairs. In the future then, will there be foreign patronage boards holding buildings in trust and appointing native bishops in the territories of independent states? Some of the foreign missionary societies could hand over the buildings and patronage to the native church, but others might not do that. If they hold the property for the propagation of the peculiar views of those at home, the trustees at home could not be sure that the native bishops would continue to hold those views of doctrine or ritual. Yet it is scarcely conceivable that native churches will tolerate the interference of foreign patronage boards, and a grievous conflict may arise over the endowments and the buildings. Of all sources of disagreement, material possessions are the most abundant. If there have been difficulties between the committee members at home and bishops and other leaders in the field while they were of the same race, speech, and habit of thought, how much more will difficulties occur when the bishops and other leaders are natives of independent states? We speak much of the establishment of independent native churches, but the increase of endowments may not prove to be the best means of attaining that end in the future, any more than it has proved to be the best means of attaining it in the past.

Thirdly, Paul observed the rule that every church should administer its own funds. He certainly never administered any local funds himself. He did indeed bear the offering of the church in Antioch to Jerusalem in the time of the famine; he also carried the collection of the four provinces to Jerusalem, for he wrote, But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it has pleased those of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints who are in Jerusalem (Romans 15:25-26). But in the first instance, he was acting as the minister of a church for which he had been specially appointed by the church under the direction of those in authority. In the second, he took extraordinary pains to make it clear that he was acting as the messenger of the churches. He did not take the responsibility of administering their charity without associating himself with representatives of all the provinces that contributed to the fund, and taking every precaution to not be misunderstood. In both cases, moreover, he was carrying funds collected by the churches for charitable purposes in a distant place. He certainly did not receive and administer any funds within their own borders, for if he had distributed their funds, his argument of not being burdensome would have been questionable. He told the Corinthians, I deprived the other congregations, taking wages of them, to do you service. And when I was present with you and had need, I was not a burden to any of you, for that which was lacking to me was supplied by the brethren which came from Macedonia; and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself (2 Corinthians 11:8-9). He also said, I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not your things, but you; . . . And I will very gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls . . . But be it so, I did not burden you (2 Corinthians 12:14-16).

For us today, a very different rule stands. As soon as a congregation is established, collections are made, and at least some of the money is sent to the district fund. It is taken out of the place where it is collected under the direction of the foreigner. If money is collected for local use, it is administered under the direction of the foreigner who feels he is responsible for its proper expenditure and requires an accounting of it; then he renders an account of its use to his society at home. In other words, the responsibility for the administration of funds rests upon the shoulders of the stranger, not the local church. Is it possible for human ingenuity to devise a scheme better calculated to hinder the free flow of native generosity, to create misunderstandings, to undermine the independence of the church, and to accentuate racial distinctions?

This modern practice is based partly on our distrust of native honesty and partly on our fear of congregationalism (self-governing, independent churches). But our distrust of native honesty should not exist and has nothing to do with the case. If the natives administer their own funds, they will administer them in their own way, and they will be responsible to those who supplied them. That they are capable of administering public money, the existence of guilds and societies for mutual benefit is proof. They may not administer it to our satisfaction, but I fail to see what our satisfaction has to do with the matter. It is not our business. By making it our business, we merely deprive our converts of one of the best educational experiences, and we break down one of the most powerful agencies for creating a sense of mutual responsibility. We also load ourselves with a vast burden we are not able, and often ill-fitted, to bear.

Our fear of congregationalism is really terror of a bugbear (source of needless fear). Our fear of congregationalism is, I shrink from saying it, only another name for our fear of independence. We think it quite impossible that a native church should be able to exist without the paternal care of an English overseer. If it were financially independent, it might be tempted to dispense with the overseers' services, and then, we are persuaded, it would at once fall into every error of doctrine and practice.

The congregationalism that we dread is the form that we know in England. Those difficulties have produced in us a terrible fear of the very mention of congregational responsibility. Our experience at home has not taught us to dread the suspicion of dishonesty. We take with us from the West the fear of the one and the ignorance of the other, and we suppose that the danger that arises from each is the same abroad as it is at home. Even at home, suspicion of clerical finance exists among the laity to a larger extent than we sometimes imagine, and it would be better if our clergy took greater pains to avoid any dishonesty. But the fact remains that we do not really fear it, while we do fear the slightest taint of congregationalism. Paul's attitude toward these two dangers was the exact opposite of ours. He was more afraid of a suspicion of false dealing than he was of congregationalism. Perhaps in dealing with newly converted people, his judgment on the relative danger of the two evils was more sound than ours. Perhaps in dealing with Eastern people, we would do well to follow his example.
CHAPTER 6

The Substance of Paul's Preaching

We have three examples of Paul's preaching in the book of Acts.

The sermon at Antioch in Pisidia:

Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel and ye that fear God hearken. The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with a high arm he brought them out of it. And for the time of about forty years, he suffered their manners in the wilderness. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they asked for a king, and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony, saying, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who shall fulfil all my will. Of this man's seed has God according to his promise raised up Jesus as Saviour unto Israel: John, having first proclaimed before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there comes one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose. Men and brethren, sons of the lineage of Abraham, and whosoever among you fears God, unto you is this word of saving health sent. For those that dwell at Jerusalem and their princes, because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the prophets who are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And without finding cause of death in him, yet they asked Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead, and he was seen many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who until now are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you the gospel of the promise which was made unto the fathers, which God has fulfilled unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said this, I will give you the sure mercies promised to David. Therefore he also says in another place, Thou shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep and was gathered unto his fathers and saw corruption; but he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this one is preached unto you the remission of sins; and in him all that believe are justified from all the things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is spoken of in the prophets come upon you: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish, for I do a work in your days, a work which ye would in no wise believe, if one should declare it unto you. (Acts 13:16-41)

The speech at Lystra:

Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all the things that are therein, who in generations past suffered all the Gentiles to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he did not leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. (Acts 14:15-17)

And the speech at Athens:

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your sanctuaries, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you. The God that made the world and all the things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things and has made of one blood all the lineage of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined the seasons (which he has limited) and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if in any manner they might reach out to touch him and find him though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also of his lineage. Being therefore of the lineage of God, we ought not to think that which is Divine is like unto gold or silver or stone, bearing the mark of art and man's imagination. For the times of this ignorance God overlooked, but he now commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; of whom he has given assurance unto all men in that he has raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:22-31)

We also have five incidental references to the substance of his sermons: a description given by the soothsaying girl at Philippi (Acts 16:17), a summary of his teaching in the synagogue at Thessalonica (Acts 17:2-3), a note of the points that struck the Athenians in the Agora as strange (Acts 17:18), an assertion with reference to its tone and character made by the town clerk at Ephesus (Acts 19:37), and a reiteration of his fundamental elements in his last address to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:21). Besides these, we have an account of his preaching at Corinth given by Paul himself in his first epistle to that church (1 Corinthians 2:2).

These accounts are naturally divided into two classes: the preaching in the synagogue and the preaching to the Gentiles. The account given by Luke of the preaching in the synagogue at Thessalonica exactly agrees with and recalls the sermon in the synagogue at Antioch. The main outline of that sermon is set before us at some length, and it is unquestioned that that sermon is intended to be a type of all Paul's teaching in the many synagogues he visited.

The sermon is divided into three parts by dramatic appeals to the attention of his hearers. In the first part, Paul builds upon the history of the Jewish race and shows that his gospel is rooted there, that his message is not a casting away of familiar things or a denial of the truth of the old revelation made to the fathers. Rather, Paul explains that the whole history of Israel is the divinely ordered preparation for the new revelation in the Messiah.

In the second part, he sets forth the facts of the coming and rejection of Jesus and His consequent crucifixion. Here, with simple and unhesitating directness, Paul faces at once the great difficulty that has always been the most serious hindrance in the acceptance of the gospel – the rejection of the missionary's message by his own people. He does not shrink from it; he does not apologize for it; he does not attempt to conceal its weight. He sets it forth definitively, clearly, and boldly; he makes it part of his argument for the truth of his message. It is the fulfilment of prophecy. Then he produces his conclusive proof – the resurrection – as witnessed by the apostles and foretold by the prophets as the fulfilment of the promise.

In the third part, he proclaims his message of pardon for all who will receive it and utters a solemn warning of the consequences that will follow its rejection.

We may see here five elements and four characteristics of Paul's preaching in the synagogue. The five elements are these:

(1) An appeal to the past, an attempt to win sympathy by a statement of truth common to him and to his hearers. This statement of common belief naturally creates a bond of union. It ensures that the speaker starts with the agreement and approval of his hearers. It also prepares the ground for the new seed. The new truth is shown to grow out of and to be in harmony with truth already known and accepted. It does not appear as a strange and startling assertion of something at variance with all that has before guided and enlightened life.

(2) There is a statement of facts, an assertion of things, which can be understood, apprehended, accepted, disputed, or proved. There is a presentation of the concrete, tangible, and simple story of something easily grasped – the story of life and death. It is indeed the story of a divine life and a divine death, but it moves on the plane of earth where all are familiar with the injustice of rulers, the fluctuating passions of crowds, the marvellous recovery, and the divine act of the resurrection.

(3) There is the answer to the inevitable objection and the instinctive protest that all the wisest and most thoughtful and most judicial minds among the speaker's own people have decided against the claims here made. Paul carefully presents the proof, the evidence of trustworthy men, and the agreement of the new truth with the old, which has already been acknowledged.

(4) There is the appeal to the spiritual needs of men, the craving for pardon, and the comforting assurance that in the new teaching may be found peace and confidence.

(5) Finally, there is the grave warning. The rejection of God's message involves serious danger. The way of salvation may be refused, and is commonly refused, but not without peril.

Those are the elements. The characteristics are these: (1) Calming sympathy with the condition of his hearers, readiness to recognize all that is good in them and their doctrine, sympathy with their difficulties, and care to make the way for them as plain and simple as possible. (2) Courage in the open acknowledgment of difficulties that cannot be avoided, and in the direct assertion of unpalatable truth. There is no attempt to keep the door open by partial statements, no concealment of the real issue and all that it involves, no timid fear of giving offence, no suggestion of possible compromise, and no attempt to make difficult things appear easy. (3) Respect. There is a careful presentation of suitable evidence and an appeal to the highest abilities in man. Paul speaks to men as naturally religious persons and appeals to them as living souls conscious of spiritual powers and spiritual needs. (4) There is an unhesitating confidence in the truth of his message and its power to meet and satisfy the spiritual needs of men.

We find these four characteristics of Paul's preaching everywhere. The elements are not always the same. In particular, one element is very prominent in the preaching to the heathen, which has no place in the home country. Demand for a break with the old religion is not necessary. The Jew might become a Christian without abandoning any of the forms of Judaism. A Gentile could not become a Christian without a definite repudiation of his early faith and a definite renunciation of its practice. The break for the Jew was internal only. He ceased to seek his own righteousness in the careful observation of the Law; but outwardly he might still keep the Law. For a Gentile to live as a Christian but observe the outward forms of his old religion was impossible in Paul's mind. Also, more importance is placed on the imminence of judgment in the preaching to the heathen. The other elements we shall find more or less prominent in that preaching. With the two exceptions to which I have alluded, there seems to be a closer agreement between the preaching in the synagogue and the preaching outside than is sometimes accepted.

Of the preaching to the heathen, we have two examples given us at some length – the speech at Lystra and the speech at Athens. If these were typical examples of Paul's preaching to the heathen, they would certainly make us think that there was a great gulf between his preaching in the synagogue and his preaching outside it. The sermon in the synagogue at Antioch is, comparatively speaking, complete. It contains a real account of the person and work of the Savior; the speeches at Lystra and Athens are only preliminary to any teaching about Christ. But I think we shall see these are not typical examples; they are speeches made under exceptional circumstances at dramatic moments in Paul's career. They are to be compared with "the Speech on the Stairs" to the crowd in the temple rather than with the sermon in the synagogue (Acts 22). The speech on the stairs is not a typical example of Paul's preaching of the gospel to Jews; neither are these typical examples of Paul's preaching of the gospel to Gentiles.

The speech at Lystra is a simple address, designed to check an excited crowd that proposed to sacrifice to the apostles because they believed they were gods. It begins with an explanation of the position of the apostles as messengers of God. It contains a simple statement of the nature of God the Creator, His personal care for His children, and the folly of idolatry with an exhortation to turn from it. Then an answer is given to the natural objection that if this were true, God would not have left His children in ignorance; proofs are given from the familiar course of nature – the succession of the seasons, the rain, and the harvest.

For all its depth of tone and philosophic garb, the speech at Athens is like the one at Lystra in its actual teaching. Here too Paul begins with the declaration of the nature of God as Lord of heaven and earth. Here too he brings out in sharp contrast the contradiction between idolatry and the nature of God; only, in speaking to highly educated men, he tries to draw their sympathy by using quotations from their own literature in support of his argument. Here too he answers the natural objection to his teaching that it is new and that in the past God had left men in ignorance. Here too he insists upon the need of repentance. But here he adds what he has elsewhere noted as an important element in his preaching – imminent judgment with its proof that the judge has been appointed and His appointment ratified in the sight of all men by the fact of the resurrection.

These speeches are chiefly important as illustrations of Paul's characteristic method of approach to men and his wonderful adaptability to changing circumstances. Every one of the characteristics of the sermon at Antioch is here: the calming sympathy, the courage, the respect, and the confidence; but few of the elements are here. There is no setting forth of the gospel. Professor Ramsay indeed says, "There is nothing in the reported words of Paul that is overtly Christian, and nothing (with the possible exception of the man whom he hath ordained) that several Greek philosophers might not have said."47

47 Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 127.

I cannot quite accept that estimate. There is more in the last verse of the speech at Athens than Professor Ramsay allows; but Mr. Richard Rackham seems to be using equally exaggerated language when in his commentary, The Acts of the Apostles, he describes this speech as "St Paul's Gospel for the Greeks."48 These speeches were examples of how Paul first approached the people who were either ignorant of or denied the fundamental truths of the gospel rather than a setting forth of his gospel. It is important to notice how carefully Luke calls attention to the meager results of the preaching in Athens. It is almost certain that the emphasis Paul puts upon the cross in his preaching at Corinth marks, and is meant to mark, a difference between his preaching at Athens and his preaching at Corinth.

48 Richard Belward Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles: An Exposition (London: Methuen & Co., 1901), 312.

These speeches then are certainly not representative of Paul's preaching to the heathen. The few slight references in the book of Acts to the general tenor of his preaching elsewhere make this abundantly clear. The soothsaying girl at Philippi called attention to two points in Paul's message: the Most High God and the way of salvation. Now, if the first of these is fully represented in the speeches at Athens and Lystra, the second is scarcely referred to in either. Again, in Paul's own summary of his teaching at Ephesus, the two elements of first importance are said to have been repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and here again, if the first finds a place in the speeches at Athens and Lystra, the second finds none (Acts 20:21). Or, again, the charge made against Paul at Thessalonica was that he was preaching the kingdom of Christ: that there is another king, one Jesus (Acts 17:7).But of this there is not a hint in the speeches.

In light of these facts, it is impossible to maintain that the speeches at Lystra and Athens represent Paul's gospel. It also seems unfair to conclude from them that Paul approached his Gentile hearers with great caution and discernment, leading them gradually from heathenism by a semi-pagan philosophy to Christianity. It is perfectly just to argue that the Christian missionary should strive to possess a sound knowledge of the religion of those to whom he speaks and should approach them with a sympathetic understanding of their intellectual position; but that is a totally different thing. It is one thing to preach Christ with a sympathetic knowledge of the belief of those to whom we preach and to base our appeal on the common truth, which we hold together with our hearers; it is another thing to spend our time philosophizing when we might be preaching Christ. If Paul philosophized at Athens, he did not philosophize as a general rule, and he has told us quite plainly what he thought was more important. Philosophical conversations no doubt have their place; but for mission preaching, the supreme subjects are the cross, repentance, and faith.

It may be justly argued from these speeches that Paul did not, and that the Christian missionary today should not, make bitter and virulent attacks upon the objects of his hearers' adoration. It is true that Paul denounced idolatry in strong terms, speaking of these vanities and this ignorance, but in doing this he was only taking a position sanctioned by the highest intellects of his day and recognized by all as a common attitude among thoughtful men (Acts 14:15; 17:30). Similarly, today a missionary in China might denounce in strong terms the folly of Taoist superstitions, and in doing so he would receive the approval of all right-minded Chinese, because that is the proper attitude for an enlightened teacher to have; it is the attitude of the Sacred Edict. But that is not the same thing as railing on the religion of those he addresses. Paul did not do that at Lystra or at Athens, and the town clerk at Ephesus is witness that he did not blaspheme the goddess of that city (Acts 19:35-36). This is quite in harmony with the characteristic attitude of Paul to his audience.

Christians in later days, accustomed to more bitter methods of controversy, could not understand this. To John Chrysostom, honored as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches, it seemed incredible that Paul should have refrained from fierce denunciation of the false goddess. He explained the matter by saying that the town clerk was not stating a known fact, but simply using a form of speech that he thought was calculated to quiet an excited crowd. In later ages, this habit of ridicule still lingered, and it is only now dying out. Now, it is happily rare to hear a missionary revile the religion of other people or hold up the objects of their adoration to scorn and ridicule, and it is to be hoped that it may soon cease altogether.

If we cannot accept the speeches at Athens and Lystra as typical of Paul's address to heathen people, we are still not left wholly to the guidance of the few scattered statements concerning his main doctrines, which I have quoted above. We have as a witness the epistles to the Thessalonians. The first epistle was written about a year after Paul's first preaching in the city, where, according to Professor Ramsay's calculation, he had labored for only five months. Thus, his stay had not been long enough for him to do more than teach the fundamental truths which seemed of primary importance; all the circumstances of his visit were still fresh in his memory, and he was recalling to the minds of his readers what he had taught them by word of mouth. Now in that epistle we get an extraordinarily clear and coherent scheme of simple mission preaching, not only implied but also definitely expressed. Briefly, that teaching in First Thessalonians contains the following elements:

  1. There is one living and true God (1:9).
  2. Idolatry is sinful and must be forsaken (1:9).
  3. The wrath of God will be revealed against the heathen for their impurity (4:6); it will also be revealed against those who reject Christ and for their opposition to the gospel (2:15-16).
  4. The judgment will come suddenly and unexpectedly (5:2-3).
  5. Jesus is the Son of God (1:10); He was given over to death (5:10); He rose from the dead (4:14); He is the Savior from the wrath of God (1:10).
  6. The kingdom of Jesus is now set up, and all men are invited to enter it (2:12).
  7. Those who believe and turn to God are now expecting the coming of the Savior who will return from heaven to receive them (1:10; 4:15-17).
  8. Meanwhile, their life must be pure and useful (4:1-8, 11-12) and watchful (5:4-8).
  9. To accomplish this life, God has given His Holy Spirit (4:8; 5:19).

This gospel agrees perfectly with the account Paul gives of his preaching in his last address to the Ephesian elders. It contains all the elements found in all the sermons and in all the notices of Paul's preaching in Acts, except for the answers to the objections against the gospel and the proofs of its truth, which would be out of place in writing to Christians. All the elements are here: the nature of God – one, living, personal, and loving; the facts of the life of Jesus Christ – the Son of God, the death, and the resurrection with its meaning and power to supply the spiritual needs of men; the folly of idolatry; the way of salvation – repentance and faith; the doctrine of the kingdom; and the nearness of judgment. Not one is omitted, and they form one connected whole of extraordinary power.

We can easily understand how such a gospel would appeal to Paul's hearers. To those surrounded by the conflicting claims and confused teachings of polytheism, who were seeking unity in the world of nature and of thought, Paul brought a doctrine that was simple and profound, of one personal God, living and true, the Creator of all. To men who sought an intelligent account of the world, its nature, and its end, Paul revealed a moral purpose in the light of which all the perplexities, uncertainties, and apparent contradictions resolved themselves into a divine harmony. To men of high moral instincts, appalled and dismayed at the impurity of society around them, Paul offered the assurance of a moral judgment. To men oppressed by the sense of sin, he brought the assurance of pardon and release. To the downtrodden, the sad, and the hopeless, he opened the door into a kingdom of light and liberty. To those who were terrified by the fear of malignant spirits, he revealed a Spirit that was gracious, watchful, and ever present, all powerful, and able to banish the power of darkness. To men dissatisfied with the worship of idols, he taught the pure service of one true God. To people whose imaginations were overwhelmed by the terrors and darkness of the grave, he gave the assurance of a future beyond the grave in the bliss and peace of the risen Lord. To the weak who needed support, to sinners bound with the chain of vice, and to people unable to cope with the depressed morality of their heathen surroundings, he brought the promise of an indwelling Spirit of power. To the lonely, he offered the friendly warmth and society of a company eagerly looking forward to a bright day when grace would come and this world with all its perplexities and troubles would pass away. It is no wonder that this gospel of Paul appealed to men, fired their imaginations, filled them with hope, and strengthened them with power to face persecution.

Yet to embrace this new religion was not easy. There was in Paul's preaching an understanding, sympathetic attitude towards the heathen. There was no violent attack, no crude and brutal assault upon their beliefs. Still less was there any scornful or flippant mocking of their errors. On the other hand, there was no weak condoning of the offence of idolatry, no eager anxiety to make the best of a false religion, and no hazy suggestion that every religion, if only it is rightly understood, is a worship of the true God and a teaching that leads to Him. Paul gave his hearers a perfectly clear, definite understanding of what was required of them. To enjoy the hope set before them, they had to be prepared for a complete break with the past. There was no easy road to Christ's glory, no making the best of both worlds, no hope of salvation but in Christ, and no entrance into the church except with the certainty of suffering persecution.

There is today a tendency to avoid this stern doctrine. We are tempted to exaggerate the truth and virtue of heathen religions and minimize the gulf that separates the man who is "in Christ" from the man who is not. We hesitate to speak, we scarcely dare to think, of idolatry as sin. We have lost the sense that the judge is at the door and that the wrath of God against all ungodliness is ready to be revealed. We no longer look upon the acceptance of our message as being delivered from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). We tend to think that the duty of the church is to Christianize the world rather than to gather out of the world the elect of God into the fellowship of His Son. We hear men speak vaguely of the salvation of the race rather than of the salvation of the saints.

This attitude of mind is most clearly expressed by Mr. Bernard Lucas in The Empire of Christ, and it leads him to the conclusion that we ought to receive the Hindu "without demanding that exclusion from his social environment which baptism and the renunciation of caste involve."49 Insisting that the heathen world can mix with Christian ideas as the true aim of the Christian church, and then arguing for a complete break with the heathen past with open acceptance of Christianity, the confession of Christ, and admission into His body, creates a stumbling block in the general acceptance of Christian ideas by pagan nations. We arrive at the conclusion that everything that emphasizes the difficulty or attracts attention to the gravity of the change involved in passing from the one dominion to the other should be abandoned. If our hope is to see gradual transformation of native religious thought and practice and the gradual evolution of a higher type, we naturally discourage sudden and startling rupture.

49 Bernard Lucas, The Empire of Christ: Being a Study of the Missionary Enterprise in the Light of Modern English Thought (London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd., 1907), 125.

Where this tendency manifests itself, it is because we have lost the true conception of the nature and work of faith as preached by Paul. As he taught, the one essential condition of life was faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But faith in Jesus Christ involved, in itself, a breach with the past. Faith was not a mere intellectual assent to a new theory of religion, which could be held while the life remained what it was before. It was not a mere acknowledgment of a new moral law or a duty of following the example of a new teacher who could be obeyed without breaking away from the old law. Faith was not a mere recognition of the beauty of the life and teaching of the Lord, which might make a man love His character from a distance. Faith was an act by which a man came into personal contact with the divine source of life. It was an act by which he opened his soul to the influence of the Spirit. It admitted him to a vital union. It was the condition of a new birth. It resulted in a new creation. Paul taught that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). The moment a man had faith, life for him consisted of union with Christ. Consequently, faith meant the acceptance of a new source of life. It meant dependence upon Christ for the supply and maintenance of life. It meant the abandonment of the old concept of life, of the very life itself, as he knew it before. It meant the casting away of all the former things.

But this total and entire conversion of the inner man, this absolute doing away with the old and acceptance of the new life, necessarily involved a corresponding outward breach with the old form of life. A spiritual conversion, which was not also a conversion of life, was no conversion at all but rather a delusion. Spiritual facts being more real than outward facts must dominate the outward life, or else we are reduced to distinguishing between the spiritual and the material worlds and treating them as independent spheres. Paul always refused to do that. With the heart man believes, with the mouth he confesses; but a mouth which does not confess disproves the existence of a heart that believes (Romans 10:9-10). The soul cannot be God's and the life not God's at the same time. The soul cannot be recreated and the life remain unchanged. Where there is no outward change, it is safe to deny any inward change.

Furthermore, this easy doctrine of evangelization has been made easier for us by the fact that we have lost, in these days, two of the most prominent elements of Paul's gospel: the doctrine of judgment at hand and the doctrine of the wrath of God. Paul did not preach that in times past men had lived under the stern dominion of law and that with the gospel had come a day of tolerance. He preached that in times past God had been longsuffering, and now He called upon all men everywhere to repent, because the day of judgment was at hand. He did not preach that the mission of the gospel was to reveal the true beauty of heathen religions, but that the mission was to open a door of salvation to those who would flee from the wrath to come. He did not deny the salvation of good heathen, but he did not preach that men could be as certainly saved by being good heathen as by being good Christians. He proclaimed that the man who was in Christ was in the way of salvation or saved, and the man who was not in Christ was perishing. He did not argue that it was desirable to exaggerate or conceal the doctrine of the cross, which was a stumbling block to Jews and Gentiles alike.

But Paul tells them that for those who found salvation in Christ, they could say with him, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). He also tells these new believers that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Embracing the cross and dying to his heathen past meant rising into a new life with Christ. He did not minimize the breach between Christianity and heathenism; he declared that the one was the kingdom of evil, the other the kingdom of God, and his work was to turn men from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18).

Personally, I am inclined to believe that our modern doctrine is not more true than the doctrine of the ancients in both of these respects, while it is far less effective. In concentrating our thoughts on the continuity and uniformity of the world processes, we have lost sight of the facts of change, catastrophe, and judgment. If there is no judgment, human life is the only process that we know that comes to no vivid conclusion; moral discipline is the only seed that has no harvest. In Paul's definite soul-stirring assertion of the wrath of God and the reality of judgment at hand is a truth more profound than any that underlies our somewhat weak ideas of universal benevolence and the determined progress of the race. Something is more true in his denunciation of idolatry as sin than in our denial that it is possible for a man to worship an idol or in our suggestion that all idolatry is only a road to spiritual worship of the one true God. Something stronger and better prevails in his unhesitating insistence on the necessity of those who come to Christ breaking with their past, than in Mr. Bernard Lucas's doctrine that by Christianizing the world, all men will be brought to Christ.

I think we shall return to these stern doctrines one day, realizing in them a truth more profound than we now know; then we shall preach them with conviction, and being convinced ourselves we shall convince others. Being certain of that terror of the Lord, we persuade men to the great advancement of the kingdom of God (2 Corinthians 5:11). Meanwhile, if we could avoid explaining away those passages of Holy Scripture which speak of the second coming and the judgment, I believe we should find that our converts would understand them better than we do and would help us to understand them.

Paul expected his hearers to be moved. He believed so much in his preaching that he knew it was the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16 KJV). This expectation is a very real part of the presentation of the gospel. It is a form of faith. A mere preaching that is not accompanied by the expectation of faith is not a true preaching of the gospel, because faith is a part of the gospel. Simply to scatter the seed with a sort of vague hope that some of it may come up somewhere is not preaching the gospel. It is indeed a misrepresentation of the gospel. To preach the gospel requires that the preacher believe that he is sent to those whom he is addressing at the moment, because God has among them those whom He is calling; it requires that the speaker expect a response. The air of expectation pervades all the accounts of Paul's preaching. Everywhere we are made to recognize not only that Paul expected to make converts, but that others expected it also. This accounts for the opposition his preaching created. People were afraid of his preaching, and fear is a form of expectation; it is a form of faith. Paul himself was inspired with the faith of hope; he inspired others with the faith of fear. Everywhere he was surrounded by an atmosphere of faith.

Further, he always contrived to bring his hearers to a point. There was none of the indeterminate, inconclusive talking, which we are apt to describe as "sowing the seed." Our idea of sowing the seed seems to be like scattering wheat out of a balloon. We read in our reports of missionaries on evangelistic tours visiting village after village, talking to little crowds of hearers, telling them the good news; but very little seems to be expected to come of it. Occasionally, grains of wheat scattered out of a balloon will fall upon ploughed and fertile land and will spring up and bear fruit, but it is a casual method of sowing. Paul did not scatter seeds; he planted. He dealt with his hearers in a way that he brought them speedily and directly to a point of decision, and then he demanded that they make a choice and take action. In this way, he kept the moral issue clearly before them and made them realize that his preaching was not merely a novel and interesting doctrine, but a life.

The possibility of rejection was always present. Paul did not establish himself in a place and go on preaching for years to men who refused to act on his teaching. When he had brought them to a point where a decision was clear, he demanded that they make their choice. If they rejected him, he rejected them. The shaking off the dust from the feet, the refusal to teach those who refused to act on the teaching, was a vital part of the Pauline presentation of the gospel. In this way, he followed the teaching of Jesus in Matthew: And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, depart out of that house or city and shake off the dust of your feet (Matthew 10:14). He did not simply go away; he openly rejected those who showed themselves unworthy of his teaching. It was part of the gospel that Paul shared when he said, It was necessary indeed that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46).

This question needs serious consideration: Can the gospel be truly presented if this element is left out? Can there be a true teaching that does not involve the refusal to go on teaching? The teaching of the gospel is not a mere intellectual instruction; it is a moral and spiritual process and involves a moral and spiritual response. If we go on teaching where the response is refused, we cease to preach the gospel; we make the teaching a mere education of the intellect. This is why so much of our teaching of the gospel in schools and homes is ineffective. We teach, but we teach ineffectively. We do not demand a response. We are afraid to take the responsibility that morally rests upon us of shaking the dust from our feet. We should refuse to give intellectual teaching to a pupil if he refuses to give us his attention; we might equally refuse to give religious teaching to a pupil who refused to give us religious attention.

This question also needs serious consideration: Should we plant ourselves in a town or village and continue for years, teaching people who deliberately refuse to give us a moral and spiritual hearing? We tend to persevere in spite of the fact that nearby are men who are eager and willing to give us that hearing. We are afraid to take the responsibility that rests upon us. We have forgotten that the same Lord who gave us the command to go, also gave us the command to shake off the dust from our feet. We have lost the art of leaving; we have learned the art of steeling our hearts and shutting up the bowels of [our] compassion against those who cry to us for the gospel (1 John 3:17).

One other aspect of Paul's preaching is often taken for granted, but is certainly not true – that the gospel of Paul was purely individualistic. To the heathen crowd Paul addressed himself as to a mass of souls from among which he was to gather the elect children of God. But he did not approach them as an isolated prophet; he came as an apostle of the church of God. He did not simply seek to gather out individual souls from among the heathen, but he gathered them into the society of which he was a member. He taught them that they would find salvation in the body of Christ. Souls were invited to enter into a life of communion with Christ; they were invited to enter the body in which the Spirit manifested Himself and in which they would share in the communication of His life. It was inconceivable that a Christian taught by Paul could think of himself as separate from the body. He became one of the brethren. The church was not an invisible body of unknown believers. Men were admitted by their baptism into the body and liable to be attacked by very visible foes. In explaining this, Paul said, For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also the Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether we are slaves or free, and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many (1 Corinthians 12:12-14). The apostle who preached to them was a member of it, and he preached as a member of it. And as a member of it, he invited them to enter it, to share its privileges and its burdens, its glory and its shame. To those who entered, Paul said, Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular (1 Corinthians 12:27). Thus, Christianity was from the very beginning both individualistic and corporate.

Paul's preaching always appealed to and demanded the exercise of the two highest and deepest convictions of men – their sense of individual responsibility and their sense of communion with their fellow believers. Repentance and faith were the keynotes of his preaching. He always strove to bring men to the point of spiritual surrender by which they renounce the past and turn to Christ. In repentance they confess their past wrongdoing; in faith they find forgiveness as members of Christ's body. In repentance they recognize their weakness; in faith they find strength by the administration of the Spirit of Christ. In repentance they confess that the way they have walked is a way of death; in faith they find in the kingdom of Christ the way of life. In repentance they break with a sinful world; in faith they enter the church.

PART III

The Training of Converts

  1. The Teaching. How much of Paul's success was due to the teaching he gave to his converts?
  2. The Training of Candidates for Membership and Ministry. How much of his success was due to his method of preparing his converts for membership and ministry?

CHAPTER 7

The Teaching

From what has already been said, we know that Paul did not go about as a missionary preacher merely to convert individuals; he went to establish churches from which the Light might radiate throughout the whole country. The secret of success in this work lies in beginning at the very beginning. The training of the first converts is what sets the pattern for the future. If the first converts are taught to depend upon the missionary, and all work – evangelistic, educational, and social – is concentrated in his hands, then the infant community learns to depend upon the man from whom they receive their first insight into the gospel. With no direction for growth and development, the faith of this group lies dormant. A tradition develops that nothing can be done without the authority and guidance of the missionary, and the people wait for him to move. The longer they do so, the more incapable they become of any independent action. Thus, the leader is confirmed in the habit of gathering all authority into his own hands and despising the powers of his people, until he makes their inactivity an excuse for denying their capabilities. The fatal mistake has been made in teaching the converts to rely upon the wrong source of strength. Instead of seeking it in the working of the Holy Spirit in themselves, they seek it in the missionary. They put him in the place of Christ and depend upon him.

In allowing them, or encouraging them, to do this, the missionary not only hinders the spiritual growth of his converts and teaches them to rely upon a wrong source of strength, he also actually robs them of the strength they naturally possess and could use. The more independent spirits among them can find no opportunity for exercising their gifts. All authority is concentrated in the hands of the missionary. If a native Christian feels any capacity for Christian work, he can only use his gifts under the direction and in accordance with the wishes of that supreme authority. He can do little in his own way, that is, in the way which is natural to him. Consequently, if he is to do any spiritual work, he must either act in a way not natural to him or find the opportunity outside the church that is denied to him within. Or, he must put aside the desire that God has implanted in his soul to do spiritual work for Christ and satisfy himself with secular employment. Doing the first will cripple his work for life, but if he takes either of the two other courses, the church is robbed of his help.

It is almost impossible to imagine that a native "prophet" could remain within the church system, as it exists in many districts. If a prophet arose, either he would have all the spirit crushed out of him, or he would secede. The native Christian ministers who remain are those who fall into lifeless submission to authority or spend their lives in discontented misery, feeling that they have lost themselves not to God but to a foreign system. Thus, the community is robbed of its strength; its own forces are weakened while it depends upon the most uncertain and unnatural props. In the end, the missionary is left to mourn the sad condition of a Christian church that seems in danger of falling away the moment he leaves it.

If there is a striking difference between Paul's preaching and ours, there is a still greater difference between his method of dealing with his converts and that which is common among us today. Indeed, we may say that it is in his dealing with his converts that we come to the heart of the matter and may hope to find one secret of his amazing success. With us today this is the great difficulty. We can gather in converts; we often gather in large numbers, but we cannot train them to maintain their own spiritual life. We cannot establish the church on a self-supporting basis. Our converts often display great virtues, but they remain, too often for generations, dependent upon us. Having gathered a Christian congregation, the missionary is too often tied to it and hindered from further evangelistic work. This difficulty unquestionably arises from our early training of our converts; therefore, it supremely important that we endeavour to discover Paul's method of training his converts. For he succeeded exactly where we fail.

The first and most striking difference between his action and ours is that he founded "churches" while we form "missions." The establishment of missions is a peculiarity of our modern methods in which I have already pointed out many disadvantages in regard to finances. We must add that missions have not proved themselves to be very convenient or effective instruments for creating indigenous churches. They are intended to be a means to that end. The theory is that at first the mission stands in a sort of paternal relationship to the native Christians. Then it holds a coordinate position, side by side with the native organization. Finally, it ought to disappear and leave the native Christians as a fully organized church. But the mission is not the final, established church. It consists of a missionary, or a number of missionaries, and their paid helpers, supported by a foreign society. There is thus created a sort of dual organization. On the one hand, there is the mission with its organization; on the other is the body of native Christians, often with an organization of its own. The one is not separate from the other, but in practice, they are not identified. The natives always speak of "the mission" as something which is not their own. The mission represents a foreign power, and natives who work under it are servants of a foreign government. It is an evangelistic society, and the natives tend to leave the mission to do the evangelistic work that belongs to them. The mission is a model, and the natives learn to imitate it. It is a wealthy body, and the natives tend to live upon it and expect it to supply all their needs. Finally, it becomes a rival, and the native Christians feel its presence as an annoyance, and they envy its powers; it becomes oppressive, and they groan under the weight of its domination.

In the early stages, the mission maintains a high standard of morality, and in all stages, it ministers largely to the advancement of the native community by its educational and medical establishments. But it always keeps the native Christians in check, and its relations with them are difficult and full of peril. A large part of modern books on missions is concerned with the attempt to justify these relations and to find some way of escape from these difficulties.

For Paul they did not exist, because he did not create them. He set up no intermediate organization between his preaching and the establishment of a fully organized, indigenous church. We could speculate what would have happened if Paul had hastened back to Antioch after his first missionary journey to ask for the assistance of two or three presbyters to supervise the growth of the churches in South Galatia, pleading that unless he could secure this help, he would be unable to enter the open door he saw before him. Or, if instead of ordaining elders, he had appointed catechists, keeping the administration of the liturgy and tradition in his own hands. From our own experience, we can easily guess. But our experience was not his experience, because our practice was not his practice.

The facts are these: Paul preached in a place for five or six months and then left behind a church, not necessarily free from the need of guidance, but capable of growth and expansion. For example, according to Ramsay, Paul preached in Lystra for about six months on his first missionary journey; then he ordained elders and left for about eighteen months. After that, he visited the church for the second time but only spent a few months in the province. Then for the last time, after an interval of three years, he visited them again, but again he was only a month or two in the province. From this, it is clear that the churches of Galatia were really founded and established in the first visit.

The same fact is also clear from the language used in the book of Acts concerning Paul's second visit. When he was about to set forth, Luke says that he proposed to Barnabas to go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they do (Acts 15:36). He is described as passing through Galatia, delivering the decrees of the Jerusalem Council, with the result that the congregations were established in the faith and increased in number daily (Acts 16:5). This is not language that could be used of a missionary visiting congregations that could not stand without his presence or lacked any of the fundamentals of settled Christian life. This language speaks of organized and established communities.

Similarly, in Macedonia, Professor Ramsay calculates that Paul did not stay in Thessalonica more than five months, and he did not visit the place again for over five years. Yet he writes to the church of the Thessalonians and speaks of it as being on the same footing as the churches of God in Judea. At Corinth, Paul spent a year and a half at his first visit and then did not go there again for three or four years, but he wrote letters as to a fully equipped and well-established church.

Now these are typical examples of Paul's work. The question before us is how he could so train his converts that he could leave them after so short a time with any assurance that they would be able to stand firm and grow. It seems at first almost incredible. In the space of time, which among us is generally passed in the class of hearers, men were prepared by Paul for the ministry. How could he prepare men to pastor and shepherd a people in so brief a time? What could he have taught them in five or six months? If anyone today were to propose to prepare men within six months of their conversion from idolatry, he would be deemed rash to the verge of madness. Yet no one denies that Paul did it. The sense of stupefaction and amazement that comes over us when we think of it is the measure of the distance that we have traveled from the apostolic method.

We commonly attempt to alleviate the sense of oppression by arguing, first, that his converts were people wholly and totally different from ours. Then, that as a matter of fact, he did not really leave them, because he was constantly in touch with them by messengers and by letters. In this way we escape from the difficulty, but it is only by blinding our eyes. I have already attempted to describe some characteristics of the society from which his converts were taken. It is quite impossible to imagine or believe that they came to Paul with any special advantages. If we take the highest possible view of the condition of the people at Lystra, Thessalonica, or Corinth, a few had some acquaintance with the Old Testament and the requirements of the Jewish Law. A few had some knowledge of Greek philosophy, but the vast majority were steeped in the follies and iniquities of idolatry and were the slaves of the grossest superstitions. Not one knew anything of the life and teaching of the Savior. In India and China, we are constantly in touch with material as good as any to be found at Lystra. Before now, we have received high-caste, educated men; before now, we have received mortal men endowed with profound spiritual capacities, who would compare well with the best of the people Paul dealt with. Moreover, our converts today possess one advantage of great importance, which was denied to his converts. Today, the whole Bible is printed in the vernacular of nearly every people, and in addition, there is considerable and rapidly growing theological literature. This advantage is so great that by itself alone, it should make us cautious of arguing that we cannot follow the Pauline method because his converts were in a better position than ours.

Neither is it just to minimize Paul's work by overestimating the extent of the supervision exercised by the apostle over his converts by means of letters and messengers. The only possible case in the four provinces that supports an argument that Paul guided and directed the organization of a new church for any length of time arises out of our ignorance of the movements of Luke from the time he arrived at Philippi with Paul on his second missionary journey till the time Paul met him there on his third journey. Luke says that "we," including himself, arrived at Philippi, and that "they," Paul and Silas, left for Thessalonica. Five years later, Paul and his company arrived at Philippi, and the "we," including Luke, sailed away to Troas. This has seemed to many a sufficient reason for arguing that Luke was left at Philippi all that time. In that case, he must have been a pillar of strength to the church in that place. If that was really the case, it does not affect the truth of the statement that it was not Paul's usual practice to establish his fellow workers as ministers to the infant congregations he founded. If Luke stayed at Philippi, it was on his own initiative, either, as Professor Ramsay suggests, because he had a house there or for some other private reason. It is impossible to argue from an isolated and doubtful incident of this kind against the whole course of Paul's action elsewhere.

Paul left Timothy and Silas at Berea, but only for a very short time, with orders to rejoin him as quickly as possible. He sent Timothy from Athens to Thessalonica. He sent Timothy at least once and Titus two or three times to Corinth. But there is no mention of any messenger being sent to Galatia, and the terms in which these visits of his fellow workers to Macedonia and Achaia are spoken of reveal the fact that they were not sent to minister to or educate congregations who were ignorant of the fundamental truths and incapable of maintaining their own life. Paul was careful not to lose touch with his new converts. They sorely needed visits and instruction, and they received them. I have no doubt that he was in constant communication with them by one means or another.

But there is an immense difference between dealing with an organized church through letters, messengers, and occasional visits, and exercising direct personal government. Visits paid at long intervals, occasional letters, and even constant communication by means of deputies, is not at all the same thing as sending catechists or teachers to stay and instruct converts for a generation while they depend upon the missionary for the administration of the rituals of worship. Nothing can alter or disguise the fact that Paul did leave complete churches behind him at his first visit. Nothing can alter or disguise the fact that he succeeded in so training his converts that men who came to him absolutely ignorant of the gospel were able to maintain their position with the help of occasional letters and visits at crises of special difficulty. We want then to consider: (1) what Paul taught his converts; (2) how he prepared them for the ministry.

(1) I have already tried to set forth the elements of the simple gospel contained in Paul's public preaching. That gospel involves a doctrine of God the Father, the Creator; a doctrine of Jesus, the Son, the Redeemer, and the Savior; and a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling source of strength, but these in the simplest and most practical form.

Besides this, Paul left a tradition to which he constantly refers. In the next epistle to the Corinthians, he touched on two points of Christian practice and doctrine with more detail. We see that the teaching on the Lord's Supper involved a careful statement on the manner in which it was to be observed. We see that the teaching of the resurrection included an account of the appearances of the Lord to the disciples after His death, beginning with the appearance to Peter and ending with the appearance to Paul on the Damascus road (1 Corinthians 15:5-8). Hence, we may conclude that the doctrine involved in the preaching was reinforced by more or less detailed teaching of the facts of the life of Christ upon which the doctrine rested.

It is unfortunate that we cannot determine whether this tradition was written down. Professor Harnack tells us, "the Jewish synagogue had already drawn up a catechism for proselytes."50 Anyone who has had the slightest experience in teaching heathen converts will at once understand how the need for a book of instruction, which could be left in the hands of the leaders of these early churches, must have pressed upon Paul. The first work missionaries often do, when they approach a new country, is to translate such a book. We might imagine that Paul may have procured a short life of Christ with an appendix on Christian morality. Yet there is no sure ground for arguing that in these early years such a book existed. Paul makes no references in his writings to any parable or miracle of Christ; and references to, or quotations from, His sayings are extraordinarily scanty. On the other hand, references to His death and resurrection abound. We can only suppose then that Paul relied upon an oral teaching of those fundamental facts.

50 Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity, Vol. 1, 488.

Further, Paul accepted and delivered to his converts as an inspired book the Jewish Old Testament. With him began that strange process by which a book, originally the peculiar property of one people, was taken from them and made a foundation stone of faith for another people. All its references to the original nation were interpreted to point the new people to the Savior; all its rites were explained to portray the prophecies for a people who had never heard them until at last the new people made the book their own and understood their position as joint heirs (Ephesians 3:4-6). Paul taught his converts to read the Old Testament and understand the setting aside of Israel for a time and how that applied to Gentile Christians. He said, For I would not, brethren, that ye ignore this mystery, that ye not be arrogant regarding yourselves: that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles are come in (Romans 11:25).

That does not seem easy to us. We do not as a rule find it easy to teach heathen converts to use the Old Testament properly, even when they have the whole of the New Testament with which to illuminate it. We wonder how Paul could have taught the common people, the slaves, and the laborers to use such a book in six months, even if they could read at all when they came to him.

Paul plainly lectured, using the Old Testament as his textbook. The more intelligent people speedily caught his method of reading and interpreting it. The meetings of the church were gatherings for mutual instruction. Anyone who had been reading the book and had discovered a passage which seemed to point to Christ, or an exhortation which seemed applicable to the circumstances of their life, or a promise which encouraged them with hope for this life or the next, produced it and explained it for the benefit of all. That was the secret; there lay the source of all the early Christian literature.

That is better than sending a teacher to instruct a congregation. The teacher conducts a service and preaches a sermon; the others listen or get into the habit of not listening; the local prophet is silent. Paul did not send teachers to instruct. Timothy, Titus, Secundus, Gaius, and the rest, after a short time, left their native congregations and followed Paul, ready to be sent anywhere with special instruction, exhortation, or direction to any congregation that was having difficulty; but he did not set them over congregations of Christians. By this means, Paul was always calling out more and more the capabilities of the people in the church. He might have established Timothy at Lystra or at Thessalonica; in that case, people who spoke in Timothy's absence would have remained silent.

Finally, he taught them the administration and the meaning of baptism and the Lord's Supper. There is not a shadow of evidence to support the notion that these were considered optional in the early church. In the writings of Paul, it is taken for granted that every Christian has been baptized and all meet regularly for the Lord's Supper. To twist the passage in the first epistle to the Corinthians into a depreciation of baptism is simply to deny the use of words to convey meaning. Further, it is universally taken for granted that those to whom Paul wrote were familiar with the essential doctrine implied in baptism and the Lord's Supper. Thus, Paul must have taught his first converts himself.

Paul seems to have left his newly founded churches with a simple system of gospel teaching, a tradition of the main facts of Christ's death and resurrection, and the Old Testament. There was apparently no form of service, except for the Lord's Supper, nor any form of prayer. There is no certain evidence of the existence of a written gospel or of a formal creed. We can hardly believe that a church could be founded on so slight a basis. And yet it is possible that it was precisely the simplicity and brevity of the teaching that constituted its strength. There is a very grave danger in importing complete systems of worship and theology. We lay great stress on the repetition of formal services; we make it our boast that our prayer book, year by year in an orderly cycle, brings before us the whole system of the faith. We import that prayer book and hand it over to new congregations. It contains too much. The new converts cannot grasp anything securely. They are forced to go through the whole cycle. Before they have learned addition, they must study division; before they have mastered division, they must face fractions and decimals, and then round again and again, until they cease to make any effort to master the truth. By teaching the simplest elements in the simplest form to the many, giving them the means by which they could gain further knowledge for themselves, and leaving them to meditate upon these few fundamental truths and to teach one another what they discover, Paul ensured that his converts would master the most important things. Teachers with formal prayer books cannot take the place of long meditation, private study, united search, and repeated lessons in the simplest and most necessary truths. We are sometimes astonished at the knowledge and zeal of a man who has heard one simple sermon on one Christian doctrine and has taken home with him one simple book or a gospel. After two, three, or many years, he returns and displays a spiritual insight that astonishes us. He has made his one truth his own, and that illumines the whole of his world, while our prayer-book-fed Christians often have a smattering of knowledge of the faith but have little light by which to walk. The creed is very simple and very brief, but it may be made very long and very obscure. A man does not need to know much to lay hold on Christ. Paul began with simplicity and brevity.

In doing this, the apostle Paul ran grave risks. It is characteristic that he had such faith in Christ and in the indwelling Holy Spirit that he did not shrink from risks. How great those risks were is illustrated by the Judaistic controversy in Galatia and the moral and spiritual scandals at Corinth. On a most serious point of doctrine, on most important points of practice, two of his churches fell into grievous error.

The first shows how lightly the Galatians were armed with controversial weapons against a class of preachers whom Paul knew to exist and with what ease they were misled on one of the most vital points of Paul's doctrine. The new teaching cut away the very foundation of Paul's work, and the difficulty arose on a question with which Paul became familiar quite early in his career. Yet his converts fell. It has been argued by Bishop Louis Mylne51 that this catastrophe was due to the fact that Paul in his first missionary journey had not yet learned the necessity of laying a deep foundation, that he had not appreciated the danger of trusting the future of the church to ill-instructed converts.52

51 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mylne.

52 Louis George Mylne, Missions to Hindus: A Contribution to the Study of Missionary Methods (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908), 124.

I do not think that this argument is tenable. There is no sign of repentance in all of Paul's dealings with the Galatians. He visited them again and again, and he wrote them a letter; but there is no suggestion that he regretted that he had too hastily committed the gospel to their care. On the contrary, his letter is full of earnest insistence upon the necessity of preserving their freedom. From beginning to end, it implies that he desires for them more freedom, not that he regrets that he had given them freedom.

Also, there is no sign in the book of Acts that Luke thought Paul had made a mistake in his first journey. There is not a hint of any kind that such was his opinion. Luke sets forth Paul's journeys as journeys guided by the Holy Spirit as a successful issue; he shows Paul using one method everywhere – in Antioch, Thessalonica, Lystra, and Corinth; and everywhere alike he shows us the fruit that resulted. There is no suggestion whatever that Paul made a mistake in committing the future of the churches in Galatia to ill-instructed converts or that he afterwards saw his error and repented of it.

I have often heard missionaries use the argument of Bishop Mylne to justify their unending government and instruction of their converts, but the argument is vain unless we are prepared to maintain that Paul remained all his life quite ignorant of true missionary methods. He stayed, it is true, longer at Corinth than he did in Galatia, but the history of the Corinthian church might equally be used as an argument that he had not learned the danger of entrusting the future of the church to ill-instructed converts.

At Corinth, we find the astonishing fact that the whole church could tolerate the grossest immorality of life and the most disgraceful conduct at the celebration of the Lord's Supper. There is no question that Paul was horrified. The doctrine of the Lord's Supper was a subject, as he himself declared, of his most careful teaching. In his epistle, he recalls exactly what he had taught them about it and says that he had received it directly from the Lord. He had been teaching in that church for eighteen months, three times as long as he had taught in any of his earlier congregations. During all that time, he must have frequently celebrated the Lord's Supper. The Corinthian church was renowned for its learning; it should therefore have known best the teaching and practice of the apostle. Yet we find in that church the most appalling and flagrant violations of his fundamental teaching in the matter of the simplest and most necessary church practice. We should naturally have expected that if Paul had stayed only a month or two with his converts, if they had learned anything at all about the Lord's Supper, they would have learned how to celebrate it. We should naturally have expected that if Paul had taught them anything at all about morality, he would have taught them not to tolerate conduct universally condemned by their heathen neighbors. It is quite certain that if any missionary today established a church in which such flagrant violations occurred, we should at once be told that his methods were hopelessly bad. Consequently, if the apostasy of the Galatians is proof that Paul on his first missionary journey knew nothing of missionary methods, the failure of the Corinthians in practice will equally prove that he knew nothing of them at the end of his second one. Yet the fact remains that he was the most successful founder of churches that the world has ever seen.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the shortness of his stay may have contributed in no small measure to his success. Something in the presence of a great teacher sometimes tends to prevent weaker men from realizing themselves. They more readily feel their responsibility, and they more easily and successfully exert their powers, when they see that unless they come forward, nothing will be done. By leaving them quickly, Paul gave the local leaders opportunity to take their proper place and forced the church to realize that it could not depend upon him but must depend upon its own resources. We have already seen how he did this in all matters of local finance. By retiring early, he did the same thing in matters of government and education.

One other effect of Paul's training is very clear. His converts became missionaries. It seems strange to us that there should be no exhortations to missionary zeal in Paul's epistles. There is one sentence of approval, For through you the word of the Lord has been divulged, but there is no insistence upon the command of Christ to preach the gospel (1 Thessalonians 1:8). Yet Dr. Friedlander is certainly right when he says, "While the Jews regarded the conversion of unbelievers as, at the most, a meritorious work, for the Christians the spread of the doctrine of salvation was the highest and most sacred duty."53 The Christians of the four provinces were certainly zealous in propagating the faith and apparently needed no exhortation on the subject. This surprises us; we are not always accustomed to finding our converts so zealous. Yet it should not be surprising. Christians receive the Spirit of Jesus, and the Spirit of Jesus is the missionary spirit, the Spirit of Him who came into the world to bring back lost souls to the Father. Naturally, when they receive that Spirit they begin to seek to bring back others, even as He did.

53 Robert L. Plummer, Paul's Understanding of the Church's Mission: Did the Apostle Paul Expect the Early Christian Communities to Evangelize? (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 9.

The reason for our failure is, I believe, largely because we quench that Spirit. We educate our converts to think, as we who are accustomed to a long-established and highly organized church naturally think, that none but duly appointed ministers may preach. We dread the possible mistakes of individual zeal. The result is that our converts hesitate to speak of Christ to others. They throw the responsibility upon the licensed evangelist and "the mission." They do not feel any responsibility themselves to evangelize the world. Their mouths are closed. Here and there, of course, we find a man so full of the Spirit of the Lord that he cannot hold his peace, but he is a comparatively rare exception.

We need to begin again to teach ourselves and our people what Spirit indwells us and give Him liberty, so the Word of the Lord may have free course. When we do that, the church will again reveal itself in its true character and become self-propagating.
CHAPTER 8

The Training of Candidates for Membership and Ministry

We have tried to discover what teaching Paul gave to his converts. This teaching followed, it did not precede, baptism. For baptism, apparently very little knowledge of Christian truth was required as an indispensable condition. For instance, the jailer at Philippi was baptized upon his bare confession of belief in Jesus as Savior after a short instruction. Under such circumstances Paul certainly could not have taught the man very much of the life and doctrine of Christ. He was satisfied that a spiritual change had taken place; there was some sign of repentance, some profession of faith, and that sufficed. Apparently, anyone who was prepared to confess his sins and acknowledge Jesus as Lord could be baptized. This seems to be the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the account of the baptism of whole households. The head of the house accepted Christ as the Savior; the household did so too, following their natural leader. They were all baptized and then instructed as members of the Christian congregation.

But it does not follow that the great body of converts were baptized without any careful instruction. Very early in the history of the church, a complete system of training was provided. Even if we suppose that many of Paul's converts were baptized without much teaching, it does not follow that baptism was carelessly and indiscriminately administered.

No evidence exists before us to show that Paul would have approved the practice of baptizing multitudes of uninstructed people to secure a Christian education for their children, with the hope that the second generation would become Christian in thought and deed. Likewise, there is nothing to show that he would have approved the practice of baptizing multitudes of heathen on their own undivided responsibility, simply because they thought they had evidence that their words had gone home, and the hearts of the people had been touched. Thereafter, too often they were left an isolated, unorganized group of individuals, baptized indeed, but wholly ignorant on how to walk as becomes the gospel of Christ.

On the other hand, no evidence indicates support for the somewhat stiff practice of many of the Anglican missions, where a definite and long period of probation for hearers of the gospel is prescribed with exceptions only made with the special permission of the bishop. We have adopted this practice in some form or other, more or less rigid, in order that the reality and sincerity of converts may be thoroughly tested, and they may receive the fullest possible education in Christian doctrine and morals, before they are admitted into the company of the faithful. By this means, we have undoubtedly restricted the number of our converts, and it is not certain that we have succeeded in attaining an exceptionally high standard of morals and education. We have also run a great risk of confusing the minds of the converts as to the true meaning and nature of baptism. We have taught them that union with Christ is the source of strength; we have taught them that baptism produces unity, and then we have told them that they must prove their sincerity by practicing virtue in their own strength before they can be baptized. In other words, we have taught them that the one great need of men is Christ, and without Christ, men cannot attain righteousness; then we tell them they must attain righteousness by themselves in order to receive Christ.

The evidence in the New Testament will not provide us with a neat, ready-made rule, which we can follow without thought. What it does show is that in Paul's teaching, the requirements for baptism were repentance and faith. The moment a man showed that he had repentance and faith, he was baptized into Christ Jesus in order that Christ in him might perfect that repentance and faith and bring it to its full end, holiness in the body of Christ.

The difficult question is who is to decide whether the candidate is honest in his confession of repentance and faith?

In some cases, it is certain that Paul was the sole judge of the reality of the spiritual change and of the truth of the profession, but it is equally certain that this was not always the case. The majority of Christians were baptized in his absence; and even when he was present, he did not always baptize them himself. His words in the first epistle to the Corinthians that Christ sent him not to baptize, but to preach the gospel has surely a wider reference than to that one city (1 Corinthians 1:17). It is a general truth expressed in general terms. I cannot reconcile this statement with the common assertion that Paul, or his travel companions acting on his authority, made it a general practice to baptize all the early converts. Professor Henry Swete, for example, says that it is probable that Paul's companions generally baptized, and this opinion is commonly taken for granted. But there is really no evidence to support it.

In Corinth, we know that Paul baptized only three or four people, one of whom was a man of influence and authority. We know that when a brother was excommunicated, Paul did not act alone, and that he did not ordain without first obtaining the approval of the brethren (1 Corinthians 5:9-13; Acts 14:23). The inference seems to me irresistible that Paul and his fellow workers admitted the first few people of known reputation, who showed unmistakable signs of faith. Thereafter, he left the duty of accepting candidates largely to these men, who were in a position to possess or to acquire sound knowledge of the character and motives of those candidates. But whether he did this while he was present or not, it is perfectly certain that his speedy departure threw this responsibility upon the local church.

I cannot help thinking that here we find one of the most important elements of his success. By leaving the church to make decisions, he established firmly the great principle of mutual responsibility. The church was a brotherhood, and the brethren were to fulfill their part in the body. In this matter of mutual responsibility, a little practical experience is worth a great weight of verbal teaching.

In our modern missionary practice, we have constantly violated this principle. We have thrown the whole responsibility for the administrative decisions on a foreign teacher, and by so doing we have done much to weaken the sense of mutual responsibility among our converts. We have taught them that the church is a brotherhood, and they must all work together for the good of the whole, but in practice, we have denied their right and their duty to exercise that responsibility.

It is true that we commonly require native sponsors. But it can hardly be said that we have by that requirement succeeded in throwing the real responsibility of admission upon the local church. If a man has been prepared, or examined, and accepted by the minister in charge, the mere fact that he has been accepted exercises an overwhelming influence over the minds of an oriental congregation. They will not appear to resist the authority of their spiritual masters, and where, as is sometimes the case, the minister claims, or readily accepts, sole responsibility, they naturally allow the claim. It is an extreme action to oppose the baptism of a man whom the minister in charge has declared his willingness to accept.

Many men have been baptized who would not have been admitted if the whole body of the church had realized that the responsibility for his admission rested with them, and they had opportunity to express their opinion in their own way. Even as it is, men sometimes fail to find sponsors, though we can perceive no reason why they should fail; but such cases are rare. I cannot see what we gain by assuming the responsibility and acting on our own authority in these matters. We are often left to act in much doubt and perplexity. The unworthy are not always rejected or sent back for further teaching; the worthy are not always accepted. We do not avoid the dangers of mistaken judgments; we rob the people of the right and duty of expressing themselves, exercising and realizing their mutual responsibility one for another. I should like to see it accepted as a general principle that converts should be presented by members of the church to the church and be accepted by the church, and baptized on the authority of the whole local church acting as a church.

As with the admission of converts, so with the appointment of elders, there was some responsibility recognized by the brethren. I cannot address the question of the meaning and form of ordination in the early church; I am dealing only with the method Paul practiced in the appointment of elders in the churches he founded. There is no doubt that he did appoint elders, and it seems to be equally clear that he did not appoint simply on his own initiative, acting on his own private judgment. This is borne out by the constant emphasis laid upon "good report" and by the term Luke employs to describe his action. As in the case of "the seven" at Jerusalem, so in the four provinces there was some form of election.

But it may be argued that the evidence for election is not sufficient, and Paul at first appointed elders simply on his own authority and judgment. In that case, the parallel to his administration of baptism will be even more exact. For, as we shall see later, the elders appointed by Paul had authority to ordain as well as to baptize. If then the first elders were appointed simply by Paul, they must be compared with the first converts who were baptized by Paul. Just as he baptized three or four, so he ordained three or four and committed the authority for ordaining others into their hands.

There is not a shred of evidence that any congregation created its own elders by election alone. There is evidence that congregations did have some say in the election of elders. There is evidence that Paul did commit authority to appoint elders to others (notably to Timothy and Titus), and this authority very early became concentrated in the hands of a single local bishop. But the right of the congregation to have some say in the appointment is manifest throughout the period with which we are dealing. By this means, the principle of mutual responsibility was again made prominent.

Furthermore, this principle was maintained by the fact that Paul ordained as elders members of the church to which they belonged. He did not establish a provincial school that all candidates had to attend and from which they might be sent to minister to congregations in any part of the province at the bidding of a central committee or his own. The elders were really part of the church to which they ministered. They were at home. They were known to the members of their flock. If they received any financial support, they received it from men who supported them because they felt the need of their undivided and uninterrupted care. Thus, the bond between the elders and the church to which they ministered was extremely close.

This is of the utmost importance. It makes a great difference if the ministers feel some responsibility to those to whom they minister and if the general congregation feels some responsibility for the character and work of those who are set over them. Where candidates for the ministry are selected, ordained, and appointed to a post by the superior order, the ones appointed are apt to lose any sense of responsibility to the congregation, and the congregation feels no responsibility for them. The result is an inevitable weakening of what should be the strongest support, both to clergy and laity. Where the superior order consists almost wholly of foreigners, the result is often deplorable. The teachers, deacons, and priests who are sent out are wholly independent of the one authority they really understand, native public opinion, and solely dependent upon the one authority they seldom understand, the foreign missionary. Consequently, they are always striving to act to please the foreigners; they imitate them as closely as possible and fear to take any independent action, while the members of the congregation on their side feel that they have nothing to do with their appointment. They accept their administrations as long as they are not seriously offended; they tolerate, but they do not support them. And if anything goes wrong, they disclaim all responsibility.

The elders so appointed were not young. They were apparently selected because they were men of high moral character, sober, grave, men of weight and reputation. When Paul ordained younger men like Timothy, he took them away with him as his assistants and ministers, that they might receive deeper lessons of Christian doctrine and practice than they could learn at home. But in the provinces, he ordained men who understood the condition and requirements of their congregations to be the first leaders of the church, men who were respected by the congregations for their moral and social position.

These were not necessarily highly educated men; they could not have had any profound knowledge of Christian doctrine. It is impossible that Paul could have required from them any knowledge of Hebrew or any foreign language. From the evidence set forth above, it seems unlikely that he could have required any great acquaintance with the life and teachings of Christ. It is not probable that he expected or demanded any profound knowledge of Greek philosophy. He must have been satisfied with a somewhat limited general education and a more or less meager acquaintance with the Septuagint, a brief knowledge of Christian doctrine as set forth in the epistle to the Thessalonians, and some instruction in the meaning and method of administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The qualifications of an elder were primarily moral. If they added to moral qualifications intellectual qualifications, so much the better, but high intellectual qualifications were not deemed necessary. Very early, a class of teachers developed who, by virtue of their spiritual insight into the Old Testament or the words of Christ, occupied a place of great importance in the church, but they were not necessarily elders. Their duty was to look after and care for the general well-being of the body. Baptism and the Lord's Supper unquestionably were administered in the churches founded by Paul, and they were not administered indiscriminately by any convert. In saying this, I do not deny that prophets and inspired men celebrated and exercised very wide powers. I am simply asserting that the elders, either appointed by Paul or under his direction, did exercise these powers. The importance of the ordination of elders lay in their responsibility for the spiritual life of the local church.

They were indeed of an order different from that which we now call bishops, pastors, and ministers in one respect higher. They were able to ordain others; for there is no suggestion that Paul ever ordained a second time in any church that he founded. Moreover, we read that the churches grew in Paul's absence, and we know by name at least one organized church of which Paul himself says that he had not seen the members. There is no reason to suppose that these new churches were destitute of ministers, nor is there any account of special ordinations of ministers for them. Either they received baptism and the Lord's Supper at the hands of spiritual persons who were recognized as pastors by virtue of their charismatic gifts, or their ministers were appointed by those whom Paul had ordained in the churches directly established by him. Without excluding the possibility of the former alternative, the evidence inclines us to accept the latter as the general rule. Later in his career, Paul appointed Timothy and others to exercise the functions in the church, but in the ten years now under consideration, we hear of no such apostolic bishops. Nevertheless, the practice of Paul himself and the inference from known cases of ordination lead us to believe that that authority in the church was not left to the individual claim of any person but was conferred by those who had been appointed by the Lord. Consequently, it seems to be an irresistible conclusion that the elders appointed by Paul were appointed with power to add to their number and secure to new churches a proper order.

Finally, Paul was not content with ordaining one elder for each church. In every place he ordained several. This ensured that all authority should not be concentrated in the hands of one man. The infant church was not left to depend upon the weakness of a single individual. Responsibility was divided and many were enlisted in the service of the church. Thus, the whole body grew together. As the general knowledge increased and the older men died, the younger men had grown up with the new generation and shared their education and experience. They gradually became the natural leaders and ordained successors of their fathers, while young teachers who had a gift for preaching found their opportunities and their experience in the open services of the church.

In our day, on the contrary, there has been a tendency to concentrate all functions in the fewest possible hands. The same man is pastor and teacher and administrator, and sometimes architect and builder as well. We have set up a purely artificial standard of learning as the necessary qualification for the ministry. We have required a long and expensive college education as a preparation even for pastors and bishops. We have taken the youngest men and trained them to occupy the position of authority, a very limited authority that a native may exercise under the supervision of a foreign minister-in-charge.

The system of selecting ministers and pastors by examinations has long been tried but is being seriously questioned at home, because it does not seem to appeal to oriental minds as reasonable. In an address presented to the Lieutenant Governor by the leaders of the Muslim community of the Punjab in 1904, they said:

We presume that you English had your reasons for imposing such tests: we do not know and cannot guess them. The system is repugnant to our traditions, and we cannot consider the results of examinations as furnishing sufficient evidence of a man's aptitude to govern or to dispense justice. Our history has shown us that there are other criteria. To cursory examinations, in which memory plays a predominant part, we prefer the presumptions which arise from the social position of the candidate, the service rendered to the State by his family, his own character and demeanor, and his aptitude to obey and command.54

54 archive.org/stream/administrativepr00chai/administrativepr00chai_djvu.txt.

Of course, in our selection of candidates, we do not rely wholly upon examinations. The candidate must bear a good moral character. But the fact remains that we have made too much of the intellectual test. That objection has been repeated by many missionaries – not only evangelistic, but also educational. When we are constantly engaged in criticizing the method of our civil governors in such a matter as this, it seems absurd that we should continue to imitate what we so often condemn.

Four very serious consequences have followed upon our action:

(1) The people have been deprived of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Our mission ministers often have large numbers of communicants scattered over a very wide area, entirely dependent upon them, with the result that the people have rare opportunities to be baptized or celebrate the Lord's Supper. These ministers often have many excellent and devoted teachers under them who cannot be ordained, solely because they have not had a college education. It requires no great education to be able to celebrate the Lord's Supper. We have placed top priority on intellectual qualifications, with the result that the congregations starve while we educate a few young men.

(2) The young men so educated are sometimes, by that very education, out of touch with their congregations. They return to their people with strange ideas and strange habits. They are lonely, and they have to struggle against the perils of loneliness. They are not even the best teachers of people from whose intellectual and spiritual life they have been absent for so long. They do not know how to answer their difficulties or supply their necessities. They know so much Christian doctrine and philosophy that they have forgotten the religion of their country. The congregation has not grown with them, nor they with the congregation. They come, as it were, from outside, and only a few exceptional men can learn to overcome that difficulty.

(3) The grave men of the church, the natural leaders of the village life, and the natural leaders of the church are silenced. The church is not led and administered by the people to whom all would naturally turn, but either by a foreigner or by a young man who has come with a foreign education. In this way, a great source of strength is lost. The real elders of the community are not elders in the church, and the whole church suffers in consequence.

(4) The natural teacher, the divinely gifted preacher, is silenced. The only teacher is the foreign-educated minister. There is no opportunity for the church to find its prophets, nor for the prophets to find themselves. The prophet is in danger either of losing his gift or of leaving the church in order to find opportunity for its exercise. This is not to say that there is no place for the foreign-educated teacher. He may be said to resemble in some respects the young ministers whom Paul educated in his own society by constant association with himself. Carefully selected and diligently trained, these men might go about as preachers and teachers of deeper truths and higher knowledge. They might become the messengers of, and fellow workers with, the white missionary, who is relieved of the overwhelming burden of personal ministration to numbers of small congregations over a vast area. They could constantly be in touch with his churches and yet have opportunity to open up new centers of work. The founder of churches must keep in close touch with the communities he has established, so he may be able to intervene in any crisis or serious difficulty that arises.

Paul needed Timothy and Titus, and we sorely need zealous and capable lieutenants whom we can dispatch with haste to any point of our missions where the less-educated and less-trained leaders may be in danger of falling into error. We need such fellow workers not only to help us in directing the infant communities, but we need them also to help us in breaking new ground. In working with them in evangelistic tours, we can best train them both before and after they leave college, and they may be of great service in instructing inquirers.

Four things, then, we see Paul deemed necessary for the establishment of his churches, and only four. A tradition or elementary creed, baptism and the Lord's Supper, ordination, and the Holy Scriptures. He trained his converts in the simplest and most practical form. He delivered these to them. He exercised them as a body in the understanding and practice of them, and he left them to work them out for themselves as a body while he himself went on with his own special work. He was ready at any moment to encourage or direct them by messengers, letters, or personal visits, as they needed direction or encouragement, but he neither desired nor attempted to stay with them or to establish his ministers among them to do for them what he was determined that they must learn to do for themselves. He knew the essential elements, and he trained his converts in those and in those alone, and he trained them by teaching them to use what he gave them.

PART IV

Paul's Method of Organizing Churches

  1. Authority and Discipline. How much of Paul's success was due to his manner of exercising authority and discipline?
  2. Unity. How did he succeed in maintaining unity?

CHAPTER 9

Authority and Discipline

Paul's process of setting up authority was complete with the appointment of elders in the churches. They were fully equipped. They very soon became familiar with all the orders of ministry both permanent and charismatic. They no longer depended necessarily upon Paul. If he went away, or if he died, the churches remained. They grew in numbers and in grace; they were centers of spiritual light by which the darkness of surrounding heathenism was gradually dispelled. In Galatia, the congregations were established in the faith and increased in number daily (Acts 16:5). From Thessalonica, the word of the Lord has been divulged not only in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thessalonians 1:8). From Ephesus, the gospel spread throughout all the neighboring country, so that many churches sprang up, the members of which had never seen Paul's face, and he himself could write to the Romans that he had no more place in these parts (Romans 15:23 KJV).

They were no longer dependent upon the apostle, but they were not independent of him either. When there was occasion, he did not hesitate to assert authority over the churches he had founded and to claim that he had received that authority directly from the Lord. For though I should glory somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord has given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed (2 Corinthians 10:8). When he thought it necessary, he could stop the mouth of an objector with the assertion, we have no such custom (1 Corinthians 11:16). He laid down the general principle, But as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let them walk, and added, And so I ordain in all the congregations (1 Corinthians 7:17). He gave certain directions for public worship and concluded, I will set the rest in order when I come (1 Corinthians 11:34). When people resisted his authority, he proposed to set up a court in which every word should be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, with the threat, If I come again, I will not spare (2 Corinthians 13:1-2).

Now with regard to these assertions of the apostolic authority, it is necessary to observe that they all occur in the epistles to one church, and they were called forth for the most part by the outrageous conduct of unreasonable and disorderly men. They certainly do not represent Paul's general attitude toward his churches. They do not even represent the attitude of Paul toward the Corinthians as a body. In the very epistles in which these threats are used, he repudiates the idea that he had dominion over your faith (2 Corinthians 1:24). Though they certainly prove that the apostle recognized that he possessed a power upon which he could fall back in case of necessity, they also prove how sparingly he used it. He had to deal with some of the most pressing and difficult problems that can agitate a church, many of them problems most easily and effectively solved by an appeal to authority, yet he scarcely ever lays down the law, preferring doubt and strife to an enforced obedience to a rule. It is important that we examine these cases carefully, because they give us a most valuable insight into the method of the apostle and greatly help us to understand the secret of his success.

The most important questions that came before him were those of personal purity, litigation, and the eating of things offered to idols.

(1) Fornication. The prevalence of sexual immorality in the Gentile world was one of the difficulties which most grievously vexed the Jewish party in the church. They argued with perfect reason that if Gentiles were admitted into the church without being compelled to keep the law of Moses, the moral condition of the church would soon be dragged down to a very low standard. And when they failed to enforce the duty of observing the whole Mosaic law upon the Gentile Christians, they succeeded in making this offence the subject of one of the four solemn decrees of the Jerusalem Council.

The event proved how just their anxiety was. Paul had scarcely ceased preaching at Thessalonica; he had been in constant communication with the church when he wrote his first epistle. Yet the sins of fornication and adultery occupy the first place in his exhortations. He had not been absent from Corinth more than two and a half years when he wrote the first epistle to the Corinthians, yet in spite of the fact that the church had enjoyed the instruction of Apollos and was notorious for the wealth of its spiritual gifts, it is perfectly clear that fornication was a common offence.

How then did Paul deal with this very serious difficulty? There is not in his letters one word of law; there is not a hint that the Jerusalem Council had issued any decree on the subject; there is not a suggestion that he desires a code of rules or a table of penalties. He does not threaten offenders with punishment. He does not say that he shall take any steps to procure their correction. He beseeches and exhorts in the Lord people to whom the Holy Spirit has been given to surrender themselves to the guidance of that Holy Spirit. He pleads with them to recognize that the Holy Spirit is given to them that they may be holy in body and in soul and that uncleanness necessarily involves the rejection of that Spirit and incurs the wrath of God.

In the epistle to the Thessalonians, for instance, this is his argument. He reminds his readers of his personal teaching when he was among them. He reminds them that God's will for them is sanctification. He suggests there should be a difference between the conduct of Christians and that of Gentiles who don't know God. He warns them that the Lord is the avenger of such misdeeds. He reiterates the truth that the purpose and will of God in calling them from the heathen world was that they should be made holy. Finally, he warns them that the rejection of his teaching on this subject is the rejection of the Holy Spirit.

Precisely similar is the language he uses in the epistle to the Corinthians. It has indeed been argued that in one verse he does apparently recommend that fornicators be excommunicated when he says, I have written unto you not to associate with anyone calling himself a brother if he is a fornicator (1 Corinthians 5:11). But this certainly does not refer to formal excommunication, because it includes not only fornicators, but also the covetous and revilers and extortioners, as well as drunkards and idolaters. The same word is used in association with the heathen and with Christians. It is an exhortation to good Christians to use their private influence to correct the faults of their brethren by the silent rebuke of avoiding their company. It is to be compared with the exhortation in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, Now we charge you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walks out of order, and not after the doctrine which ye received of us (2 Thessalonians 3:6), rather than with the direction to purge out therefore the old leaven and to let such a one be delivered to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:7, 5). The one is an exhortation to send a man to Coventry, which is a type of shunning; the other is to expel him.

Setting aside then this point, the language Paul uses elsewhere in the epistle to the Corinthians is exactly the same in character as that which we found in the epistle to the Thessalonians. He argues that fornication is a violation of the true use of the body, that it is contrary to the glorious hope of the resurrection, that it is a desecration of the members of Christ, and that the body is not the Christian's own to use as he pleases but is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Surely, it is very strange that Paul does not even hint at the fact that this sin had been condemned by the Jerusalem Council. It is strange that in speaking of fornication in close connection with a flagrant case of incest, he does not even suggest that it is a breach of the Ten Commandments. It is plain that Paul did not appeal to law at all. He did not seek the source of the moral life in any command or any exercise of authority. His gospel was not a gospel of law but of spirit.

In this he was following the example of Christ. It has often been pointed out that Jesus' method was to inculcate principles and to leave His disciples to apply them. But it may be said that the church in Corinth was of such an independent spirit and so conscious of its own capacities that it would not have tolerated any more autocratic method of government. The Corinthians were in no temper or disposition to accept directions simply on the authority even of Paul. That is, of course, true. But the question is how did they come to that mindset? If at conversion they had been admitted to a church and initiated into a religion of which the most marked requirement was observance of law as laid down by authority, they would have understood that they could not be Christians unless they submitted to authority. Submission and obedience would have been the chief duty inculcated. Observance of the rules would have been the first duty of every convert. If Paul had from the very beginning insisted upon this aspect of the church that it is a body governed by rules, which everyone who enters must keep, the Corinthians and all his converts would never have thought of it in any other way.

But that would have been precisely what Paul did not believe and therefore could not teach. If he had begun in that way, the difficulties which arose in Corinth could not have taken the form that they did, and Paul could not possibly have dealt with them in the way in which he did deal with them. There might have been an insurrection against authority, but it would have been a revolt against the whole church system, and Paul would have had to suppress it by authority, or the church would have lost Corinth.

(2) Litigation. Some of the Corinthian Christians had apparently been prosecuting their brethren in the heathen law courts. Obviously, this was an offence likely to bring the Name into disrepute. The simplest way to deal with it would have been to forbid it by decree and to threaten any offender with penalties. But that is not how Paul deals with it. He reasons with the whole body and sets before the brethren his argument, and there he leaves the matter. He puts before them the glaring inconsistency between their conduct and their position as Christians. It is, he says, unworthy of men who are called to be judges of the world and of angels, to drag their brethren before a heathen judge. It speaks ill, he says, of the wisdom and moral tone of the church if there cannot be found in it one who can decide questions in dispute. He instructs them that it would be better to suffer injury than to publish the immorality of the church; to injure and defraud the brethren is to make themselves as the heathen. He warns them that such shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:1-10).

What could be less like legislation for the church? It is not the part of a legislator to argue or exhort the injured party to suffer in silence rather than bring discredit upon the body. Paul does not legislate, nor does he urge them to legislate; he appeals to the Spirit in them. He does not suggest that he will take any action if they refuse, as some of them certainly would refuse, to listen to his arguments. He gives them no threat of action, only a warning that sinners will be excluded from the kingdom.

(3) Eating of things offered to idols. At the Jerusalem Council, it had been decreed that the Gentile Christians abstain from things sacrificed to idols. At Corinth, some of them not only ate things sacrificed to idols, but they also attended feasts in the idol's temple, a far more flagrant offence and one which brought many other offences with it. A feast in a temple was associated not only with idolatry, but too often with impurity also. Surely, on such a subject it would be right to appeal to the decree of the Council and to close all mouths with the word forbidden.

Paul, on the contrary, not only does not legislate, but he also makes no reference to any law on the subject. No one who was not acquainted with the decree of the Jerusalem Council from some other source would guess from Paul's treatment of the subject that such a decree existed. He not only does not quote it, he also does not even maintain it. In Corinth, it was a disputed point whether it was lawful to eat of the sacrifices. Paul does not decide the question. It is quite plain that he does not approve of the practice. I would not that ye should be participants of demons (1 Corinthians 10:20). But he speaks, as to wise men; judge ye what I say (1 Corinthians 10:15). He appeals to the spirit of charity. Some, he says, have knowledge and know that the idol is nothing and they can eat things sacrificed to idols without acknowledging the idol as a god. They are not conscious of the idol; they feel themselves superior to such vanities. But others still retain something of their former superstition. They cannot escape from the sense that the idol really is something to be feared. They cannot escape from the sense that when they share in an idolatrous feast, they do actually bring themselves into communion with the idol deity. Their conscience revolts and is distressed, but they are ashamed to refuse to do what other bolder and more enlightened brethren do. They eat, but suffer the pangs of an evil conscience. They feel that they have sinned against Christ by sharing in the service of an idol.

Paul then appeals to the highest Christian virtue in his readers. He contrasts knowledge and charity. He says that to rely upon knowledge, to seize the liberty of pure enlightenment of the mind, and to demonstrate the truth at all hazards and in every way and by any means is not Christian. He places knowledge lower than charity. He argues that charity must come first, and that if acts based upon knowledge injure and mislead the weak, they are not only not praiseworthy, they are also sinful. To injure the consciences of the weaker brethren is to sin against Christ (1 Corinthians 8:4-13).

We cannot even imagine a modern European missionary acting like that. If any of his converts showed a tendency to kowtow to the tablet of Confucius on the grounds that they knew quite well that Confucius was only a man, and that the act was only one of respectful recognition of his virtue as a teacher of the nation, would he write a letter leaving them to judge on principles of charity whether they should continue to do so or not? Or would he rather hasten to judge the question in consultation with his fellow European missionaries, perhaps not even consulting any native Christians at all, and issue a rule for the church?

In our dealings with our native converts, we habitually appeal to law. We attempt to administer a code that is alien to the thought of the people we're dealing with. We appeal to precedents, which are no precedents to them, and we quote decisions of which our hearers do not understand either the history or the reason. Without satisfying their minds or winning the consent of their consciences, we settle all questions with a word.

This is unfortunate because it leaves the people unconvinced and uneducated, and it teaches them the habit of unreasoning obedience. They learn to expect law and to delight in the exact fulfilment of precise and minute directions. By this method we make it difficult to stir the consciences of our converts, when it is most important that their consciences should be stirred. Bereft of exact directions, they are helpless. They cease to expect to understand the reason of things or to exercise their intelligence. Instead of seeking the illumination of the Holy Spirit, they prefer to trust formal instructions from their foreign guides. The consequence is that when their foreign guide cannot, or will not, supply precise commands, they pay little attention to his godly exhortations. Counsels that have no precedent behind them seem weak. Anything that is not in open disobedience to a law can be tolerated. Appeals to principles appear vague and difficult. They are not accustomed to the labor of thinking them out and applying them. If a missionary explains to his converts that some act is not in harmony with the mind of Christ, his words fall on deaf ears. If he tells them that it was forbidden in a council of such and such a date, they obey him, but that is the way of death, not of life. It is Judaism, not Christianity; it is papal, not Pauline.

Paul could not have believed that by his appeal to charity the question would be settled. He must have foreseen strife and division. He must have deliberately preferred strife and division, heartburning, distresses, and failures to laying down a law. He saw that it was better that his converts win their way to security by many falls than that he should try to make a shortcut for them. He valued a single act of willing self-surrender for the sake of the gospel above the external peace of a sullen or unintelligent acceptance of a rule.

By this refusal to prejudge the question of the presence of Christians in idol temples, Paul avoided one great difficulty, which constantly besets us in our work. He made it possible for converts to continue to work at their trades as members of a heathen guild or society. It is perfectly clear that many Christians in the four provinces, if not the majority, were of the commercial or artisan classes and did not abandon their labor in workshops where heathen rites were performed. As slaves, some of them could not escape from their attendance at heathen functions and probably most of those who were free men could have done so only at great loss. They were present, but they did not partake. Tertullian, in his treatise De Idolatria, shows that there was scarcely a trade or business in which a Christian could engage without being mixed up with idolatry in some form or another, but there was not any immediate break in the four provinces.55 Christians did not feel it their duty to live in idleness and beggary rather than work at their old trades. Paul did not feel it necessary to forbid them from continuing at their trades out of fear that they should be drawn back into the gulf of heathenism from which they had only hardly escaped. Newborn Christians and their children were not withdrawn from their heathen surroundings into the seclusion of a select society which had nothing to do with the outside world. They did not establish Christian villages from which idolatry might be excluded. They did not withdraw their children from heathen schools out of fear that they might be led astray into idolatry.

55 www.tertullian.org/works/de_idololatria.htm.

There must indeed have been some who in those early days sacrificed their living rather than continue in trades that were directly and definitely associated with the practice of idolatry. Very soon, the church began to make some provision for such persons left penniless by their adherence to the doctrine of Christ. But for the most part, it was not necessary for Christians to forsake their work, because idolatrous rites were practiced in their workshops.

With us, there is a tendency to encourage that kind of separation, a physical separation from a heathen society. Our converts often cease to live in a heathen society. Sometimes this is involuntary, because they are expelled by the heathen; but sometimes it is voluntary. They congregate in Christian villages; they are put into Christian workshops; they cease to work under heathen masters. Christian schools are provided for their children, which heathen scholars may indeed attend, but where the teaching is strictly Christian.

By this we have gained something, and we have lost something. We have gained an immunity from temptation. Our converts enjoy the privileges and support of Christian communication; it is easier to watch over them; the children grow up as Christians without being called upon to face the fiery ordeal of the heathen school and workshop. But on the other hand, we have lost something: the Christians cannot so leaven society when they are on the outside, as they can when they are in it, living the same life, sharing the same toil, the same gains, and the same losses as their heathen fellows. They and their religion are peculiarly the care of the foreign missionary; they are looked upon as having separated themselves from the life of the nation; their religion does not appear to belong to their people.

Of course, I know that this criticism has been directed against Christians in every age. They cannot escape from it, however much they live in their nation. They must always be a peculiar and suspect people. But if they are separated and collected in little groups of their own, that criticism has a keener edge and bites more sharply, and they do not, and cannot, so readily influence their fellows. Besides this, the converts themselves, separated from their fellows, tend to lean more heavily upon the foreign missionary. They learn to imitate him more closely, to expect more and more support from him, and to adopt more and more Western habits. They get out of touch with their heathen neighbors. The missionary also suffers somewhat. By ministering constantly to Christian communities, he too fails to attain or to maintain a close connection with the heathen around him. It is easier to deal with his converts in groups and to keep a close hold upon them, but it is harder to avoid the danger of too much direction. It becomes easier to minister, more difficult to evangelize. I do not wish to lay too much stress upon this or to exaggerate it, but, seeing that the besetting sin of European missionaries is the love of administration, I wish to suggest that this tendency to separate converts into groups apart from the native life around them is not without its dangers and disadvantages. I also wish to point out that Paul laid stress upon a spiritual separation rather than upon a physical separation from an idolatrous society.

(4) Marriage and divorce. But it may perhaps be said that there is one subject of first importance upon which Paul does very distinctly lay down the law. It may be argued that the whole of the seventh chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians dealing with marriage is written in a tone of authority. In answer to this, it must be observed first, that the chapter is expressly written in answer to an appeal for guidance; secondly, that Paul is extremely careful here to distinguish between the command of the Lord and his own judgment; and thirdly, that the treatment of the marriage question is very incomplete and on some points singularly inconclusive.

For instance, he seems to set down as a principle that if widows marry again, it must be in the Lord, that is, presumably, to Christians, but he does not address this in dealing with the marriage of virgins, though he does later instruct believers not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14). Finally, where he most distinctly lays down a law and claims for it the authority of Christ, he yet issues directions for the conduct of the person who acts contrary to the law he has just asserted. Thus, it would appear that throughout the chapter, he is expressing his own view of what is desirable rather than legislating for the church. Though he expresses himself in definite clear-cut directions, for the most part, he does so with reasons given which he evidently intends to be weighed as arguments tending to support his expression of opinion.

I cannot help concluding from these characteristic notes that this chapter is not really an exception to the general rule, which we have found to dominate the apostle's attitude to the church. He avoids in every possible way making clear-cut, legal demands, which must be obeyed in the letter. Rather, he suggests principles and he trusts the Spirit who dwells in the church to apply them.

After the setting up of authority, discipline became necessary when individuals broke through all bounds and committed flagrant offences. Paul did not hesitate to insist upon the need for this discipline. There is a point at which the conscience of the whole church ought to be stirred to protest, for when the church passes over an offence in silence, it denies her claim to be a moral society. It is in just such cases that the church is often slow to act. Comparatively small offences are sometimes visited with stern severity, but horrible crimes shock the whole congregation, and no one dares to move.

Such an offence was committed at Corinth. Christians who wrote letters to Paul to inquire about what they should do in the case of members of the church who wished to live a life of abstinence against the will of their partners took no action themselves and apparently did not mention the individual's names to the apostle. Paul could not avoid moving in the matter, but he obviously did so with great reluctance. It is quite clear that he was determined to take action himself as a last resort, but it is equally clear that he was most anxious to avoid it. He wished the church to realize its responsibility and to act as a body. In his epistle, he did not tell the church what penalty it ought to enforce; he did not write to exhort the offender to submit. He wrote to accuse the church of its failure to realize its duty in the matter. In a case of this kind, according to his view, the church, as a church, had a duty to perform, a duty to the offender and a duty to itself. To shirk that duty was criminal. Therefore, he waited to see if the church would do its duty before he interfered. In the result, the church did respond to his exhortation, the offender was excommunicated by the majority, he accepted his discipline, he repented, and he was restored.

With us today a very different rule generally exists. If a serious offence is committed, the foreign minister in charge of the district, with or without the assistance of a local committee, inquires about the case; he reports to the bishop. The bishop either hears the case or accepts the report, excommunicates, and issues a sentence, which is published in the church. But the church in which the offender lives feels little or no responsibility, and the man is not excommunicated by the majority. Consequently, the act has little effect. It does not come home to the offender; it does not come home to the church. A man can afford to present a stubborn front to the accusations of a foreigner, who is perhaps only an occasional visitor and is always a foreigner. He cannot so treat the excommunication by his neighbors.

We look upon the sting of excommunication as exclusion from spiritual privileges, but the man who so acts as to incur excommunication is often the last person to feel that sting. His spiritual apprehension has already been deadened before he falls into sin. What he needs is the public censure of the majority of his fellow churchmen to awaken his conscience. If the majority of his fellow churchmen do not avoid him and cast him out, there is little use for a formal sentence of exclusion from church privileges to be issued against him and carried out by the officials of the church alone. That does no good; it very often only does harm. It hardens the man without humbling or instructing him.

Moreover, an act of this kind is done not only for the good of the offender, but also for the good of the church. It is meant to clear the church's good name, which has been sullied by the act of one of its members. It is meant to be a real clearance of the church. But if the majority feel that they have not a real share in the action of the church, if they do not heartily and sincerely realize that the act is their own act, and if they consequently do not support it, then there is no real clearance of the church. Nominally, the man is excommunicated; nominally, the church has repudiated his act; nominally, it has cleared its good name. But if, in fact, this has only been the act of a few officials, then in reality there is no clearance. Christians and heathen alike recognize that the leaders of the church have expressed their disapproval. Christians and heathen alike recognize that the body has done nothing of the kind.

In this case at Corinth, we see Paul's principle of mutual responsibility again enforced, and he enforced it by staying away from Corinth until the church had realized and executed its duty and had cleared itself of complicity in the crime of this offender. The difficulty with us is that we cannot appreciate this doctrine of mutual responsibility. If a member of a church commits a serious offence, we cannot hold the church responsible for his action. We are so individualistic that we cannot understand the practical meaning of Paul's doctrine of the body and the members. Spiritually we accept it, but when it is a question of a single man's crime, we ourselves cannot realize, and we cannot bring home to others, their real unity. To punish the body for the offence of the one would seem to us almost unjust.

But Eastern people more easily appreciate the corporate aspect of life. To them Paul's action would not appear at all strange. A Chinese church would not be surprised if the apostle upbraided them with complicity, if they failed to excommunicate an offender. But it is quite impossible to exercise any real discipline unless the common conscience of the church is really injured by the offence. That conscience needs to be quickened. By throwing the responsibility on the majority, Paul stirred and educated the conscience of the whole Corinthian church. If he had sent a letter of excommunication to the elders, and the elders had read it in the church, none of those effects would have followed.

Thus, his exercise of discipline was in exact accord with his exercise of authority. Just as he appealed to the corporate conscience to inhibit serious and growing evils in the church, arguing and pleading that the Holy Spirit might enlighten and strengthen his converts, Paul set forth the principles. He persuaded them that the Holy Spirit in them would show them how to apply the principles and strengthen them to use them. So in discipline he showed them the right way, but left them to discover how to walk in it. He told them what they ought to do, but not in detail. He threw upon them the responsibility and trusted them to learn in what way it was to be fulfilled. As the last resort, he threatened to intervene if they refused to do their duty, but only after he had exercised all his powers to make his intervention unnecessary.

Therefore, Paul succeeded through failure where we often fail through succeeding. We exercise discipline and leave the church undisciplined. He disciplined the church; we discipline individuals. He left the church, and it stood, tottering on its feet, but still standing; we leave the church without any power of standing at all.

How different would be the action of a modern missionary in dealing with such a state of affairs as that which Paul encountered at Corinth. His first action, when he discovered the real state of the case, would be to remove the minister in charge, proclaiming him incapable. Then he would substitute another with orders to deal personally with the individual offenders. The errors would be corrected by authority, but the principles would remain unknown and untaught.

I know that someone will say that this is an absurd comparison, that our Eastern converts are infants, and that talking about principles and leaving the people to find out how to apply them would be to court disaster. But this argument, so convenient for the masterful man, is not really as powerful as it appears. The Easterners are not such infants. They are people who can understand principles. They understand corporate responsibility in many ways better than we do. Or even if they are infants, infants can only be taught by exercising their infant faculties. Dependence does not train for independence; slavery does not educate men for freedom. Moreover, they have the Holy Spirit to strengthen and to guide them. Christians are not only what they are by nature; they are also a Spirit-bearing body. It is not a question merely of our faith in them; it is still more a question of faith in the Holy Spirit. We look too much at our converts as they are by nature; Paul looked at his converts as they were by grace.
CHAPTER 10

Unity

We have seen that Paul did not set out on his missionary journeys as a solitary prophet, the teacher of a solitary, individualistic religion. He was sent forth as the messenger of a church to bring men into fellowship with that body. His converts were not simply united to one another by bonds of convenience arising from the fact that they lived in the same place, believed the same doctrine, and thought it would be a mutual assistance to form a body. They were members one of another by virtue of their baptism. Each was united to every other Christian everywhere by the closest of spiritual ties, communion in the one Spirit. Each was united to all by common faith. Each was united to all by common dangers and common hopes.

In like manner, the churches of which they were members were not separate and independent bodies. They were not independent of the apostle who was their common founder; they were not independent of one another. In Paul's mind, the province was a unit. So, when his churches were established, he distinctly recognized the unity of the church in the province. He constantly spoke of the churches of Macedonia, Achaia, Galatia, Syria and Cilicia, and Asia as unities. For the purpose of the collection he made for the poor saints at Jerusalem, the churches of Macedonia, Achaia, and Galatia were each treated as a separate group, and officers were appointed by each group to act on behalf of the province they represented in the administration of the collection.

This unity was more than a convenient grouping. The same bonds that united individual Christians to one another united the churches. They were not simply groups of Christians who, for mutual assistance and convenience, banded themselves together in the face of a common danger. They were all members of a body that existed before they were brought into it. They could not act as if they were responsible to themselves alone. What? writes Paul to the Corinthians in rebuking them for allowing women to speak in the church, Did the word of God come out from you? or did it come unto you only? (1 Corinthians 14:36). Or again, in laying down the rule that women should be veiled in the church, he concludes, If anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the congregation of God (1 Corinthians 11:16). For him, the church was prior to the churches. The churches did not make up the church, but the church established the churches.

We have seen that Paul established his churches at centers of Greek and Roman civilization and they were bound to one another by great trade routes. They were consequently in frequent communication one with another. Visitors passed easily from one to another, and prophets soon began to spend their lives journeying from place to place, preaching and expounding the faith. The evidence of this frequent communication is abundant. It is quite clear that not only Paul's own converts, but also emissaries from Jerusalem were constantly passing from church to church. It would seem that there was a regular system of commendation by letter, and that anyone who was recognized as a believer was welcomed and shown hospitality. Thus, the churches were united by many bonds of personal interest.

But they were not united only by bonds of personal interest. As the individual converts, as the city churches, so the provincial churches were united by the most real of all bonds – spiritual unity. They were all members of one body. That body was a visible church liable to all kinds of attacks from very visible enemies. It was held together not merely by convenience, and not merely by common faith, but also by common submission to a common founder. The unity of the churches in the different provinces was expressed not only in constant communication one with another, but also by their common recognition of the apostle's authority as the messenger of Christ to them.

Furthermore, the churches in the four provinces were not independent of churches of which Paul was not the founder. The churches of God in Judea were in Christ before them. Paul had been sent forth by the church in Syria. The churches in the four provinces were united to them. The same bonds that made converts members of Christ, made them members of the church, and the church was not the church in their city only. The same bonds that united the churches in the four provinces to one another, united the churches everywhere to one another.

Paul began with unity. In his view, the unity of the church was not something to be created, but something which already existed and was to be maintained. Churches were not independent unities; they were extensions of an already existing unity. There could be no such thing as two churches in the same place, both holding the Head, yet not in communion with one another. There could be no such thing as two churches in different places, both holding the Head, yet not in communion with one another. There could be no such thing as a Christian baptized into Christ Jesus who was not in communion with all the other members of the body of which Christ was the Head. If a member was united to the Head, he was united to all the other members.

There was a spiritual unity as Paul explained to the Ephesians, being diligent to guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all (Ephesians 4:3-6) There was an external unity in common participation in common religious rites and common enjoyment of social connection. There was no such thing as spiritual unity expressed in outward separation. Spiritual unity is unity, it means unity, and it is expressed in terms of unity. Outward opposition is a certain sign that spiritual unity does not exist. Spiritual unity in proportion to its perfection and fullness issues in common, united, harmonious expression, whether in word or deed; or else the soul may be God's and the body the Devil's at the same time.

This unity was to be maintained. Paul wrote much to his churches about unity, but he never spoke of it as of something they had created. He always spoke of it as a divine fact, and to damage it was sin. Unity could be broken. Spiritual pride might express itself in self-assertion; self-assertion might cause open schism. The body might be divided, but that was a sin against the Holy Spirit; division destroyed the temple of the Lord. The act of schism implied and expressed a divisive, uncharitable spirit. So long as charity had its perfect work, differences of opinion could not create schism. The rending of the outward meant the rending of the inward. The separation of Christians meant the dividing of Christ.

That unity might be broken. The dangers by which it was threatened were of the most profound and serious character. The church began in Jerusalem as a body of Jews who carefully maintained their Jewish tradition and observed the custom of their fathers. The church in the four provinces consisted almost entirely of Gentiles ignorant of that tradition. Consequently, if a Christian from Macedonia or Achaia went up to Judea, he would have found himself in a strange atmosphere, in a community as unlike that to which he was accustomed as it is possible to imagine. Circumcision was practiced; Sabbaths were kept; meats were avoided as unclean; the Law was the practical rule of everyday life. There was a strictness and a reserve that would have oppressed and dismayed him. Christianity in Jerusalem must have seemed to him a thing of rules hardly distinguishable from pure Judaism. Many of the Christians shrank from the Gentile or tolerated him only as a sort of proselyte. In the meetings of the church, the prayers were modeled on Jewish patterns and expressed Jewish thought in Jewish speech with which he was not familiar. The only point of real contact was a common devotion to the person of Jesus, a common recognition of the same apostles, and a common observance of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

On the other hand, when a Christian from Jerusalem went down to Corinth, the shock must have been even more severe. The Corinthian in Jerusalem found himself in a society stiff, uncouth, severe, formal, and academic. The Jewish Christian in Corinth must have thought the church there was given over to unbridled license. Uncircumcised Christians attended the feasts of their pagan friends in heathen temples. Every letter of the ceremonial law was apparently broken every day without rebuke. Even in the meetings of the church, preaching and prayers were built on a strange system of thought, which could hardly be called Christian, and there was a most undignified freedom of conduct. He must have welcomed the presence in the church of a party led by men from his own city who argued that in dealing with a people like this, it was useless to compromise matters; the only possible course was to enforce the observance of the whole Law throughout the whole church. To omit anything would simply be to admit the thin end of a wedge, which would split Christian morals into fragments. If a man wanted to be saved, he must keep the Law.

Even among themselves, the Greeks were not at one. In doctrine and practice, there were different schools of thought. Some inclined to maintain that there was some importance in the directions in the Old Testament concerning clean and unclean meats. Some maintained the common conviction that idols were really the instruments by which spirits of superhuman beings came in to intercourse with men and enabled men to approach them with prayers and offerings, or that the disregard of holy days was really a serious offence. Others laughed all these things to scorn, arguing that it was precisely from that kind of religion that Christ had come to set men free, and the gospel did not depend upon any outward acts or facts. Some went so far as to say that even the resurrection of the Lord was to be regarded by spiritual men as a spiritual rather than as a material fact, and if it was understood as a spiritual fact, which Christians spiritually share by faith, then it was not necessary to believe that any actual resurrection of any actual body took place. Or if Christ's body rose, it was not necessary to conclude that other men's bodies would rise, because spiritually, men were already risen by virtue of their faith in Christ.

Thus, there was not only a danger of division in the churches of the provinces, there was also an even greater danger that the churches of Judea might repudiate and excommunicate the churches of the four provinces altogether. To preserve unity under such circumstances was a task of no small difficulty. How then did Paul overcome this difficulty?

Unity might be maintained in two ways. The church in Jerusalem might be regarded as the original church, the body of Christ established and organized by His apostles. The converts in the four provinces might be regarded as joining that church. In that case, the new members must be willing to accept the rules and regulations, the laws, and the customs of the body they joined, and any rebellion against those laws and customs must be treated as an act of schism. The authorities in Jerusalem must be regarded as the final court before which every act of disobedience must be tried. There must be a highly centralized organization. That is the Roman system, a system that has dominated the modern world. Even those who repudiate the papal claims for themselves cannot resist the temptation to adopt it in principle, when they establish missions among other peoples.

On the other hand, new churches established in the provinces might be regarded equally with the first, as parts of a still incomplete whole, which must grow up by degrees into its completeness. In this case, the new additions would at once be recognized as members of a Spirit-bearing body, equally enjoying the inspiration of the Spirit with the older members. The rules and regulations of the older members of the body could not then be regarded as final and of universal obligation. The first had the customs natural to its own habit of thought, designed to satisfy its own needs. The last might equally have its own customs natural to its own habit of thought to meet its own needs. The first had no right, simply on the ground that it was the first, to impose its laws and its customs upon the last. In a word, unity did not consist in outward conformity to the practices of the earliest member, but in incorporation into the body. It would thus be as distinct an act of schism for the earliest member to claim a right to dominate the last member, as for the last member to assert its own independence of the earlier member.

It was the second of these two policies that Paul adopted. He refused to transplant the law and customs of the church in Judea into the four provinces. He refused to set up any central administrative authority from which the whole church was to receive direction in the conduct of local affairs. He declined to establish "a priori tests" (a test done prior to study) of orthodoxy, which should be applicable for all time, under all circumstances, everywhere. He refused to allow the universal application of particular precedents.

(1) He refused to transplant the law and the customs of the church in Judea into the four provinces. For that, he went in daily peril of his life as he endured slander, persecution, and disparagement, risking everything. He himself kept the law, but that availed him nothing. He was pursued from province to province and from city to city by the most cruel and malicious opponents. His work was hindered, his converts perverted, his labors multiplied, and his strength worn out. Yet he held onto his course, and the establishment of Christianity throughout the then-known world was his reward.

(2) He refused to set up any central administrative authority from which the whole church was to receive directions. Once, and only once, he supported an appeal to the Council in Jerusalem to settle a question that arose in another province. The church of that province was not one he founded, and it seemed good to the brethren to appeal. But from the four provinces there was no such appeal made. When the same or similar difficulties arose in these provinces, he treated these difficulties as questions that each province, if not each church, must settle for itself. He gave his advice and trusted the church to arrive at a right conclusion. When emissaries from Jerusalem attacked him in Jerusalem, he proceeded to not attend a council that might override the provinces, but to maintain the orthodoxy of the provinces and to defend their liberty.

(3) He declined to establish a priori tests of orthodoxy. We who are eager for such tests, who always want to have it clearly defined beforehand precisely what a church may or may not do, what it may or may not put aside, seek earnestly in the records of the apostolic acts for such a test. And we fail to find it. We know what Paul taught positively. We have seen how he passed on the tradition and the Scriptures, how he established the orders of the ministry, how he insisted upon the due administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper. But negatively, nothing is defined. It is very strange how difficult it is to find any clear guidance. There was a point beyond which a church could not go without being excluded, just as there was a point of moral conduct beyond which an individual could not transgress without being excommunicated. But as at Corinth, the law was not laid down beforehand, because the offences, which would necessitate the excommunication of an individual convert, were not defined, so the point at which irregular conduct on the part of a church would imply apostasy and would demand exclusion were not defined beforehand.

Paul never tells us what would happen if something were to be done, which had not actually been done. His great strength lay in his power to refuse to define or to anticipate any heresy or schism. He foresaw that there would be, that there must be, heresy, but he refused to prejudge the matter before the offence was actually committed.

(4) He refused to allow the universal application of precedents. When a question had arisen and a judgment had been given, he did not apply that judgment as of universal authority. The decrees of the Jerusalem Council were addressed to the churches of Syria and Cilicia. Paul carried them as far as Galatia, but he carried them no farther. He did not enforce them in Macedonia or Achaia. Precedents are not of universal application. The conditions in Corinth or in Thessalonica were not the same as in Antioch in Syria or even in Galatia. What was vital and natural in Syria would have been artificial in Achaia. It would not have been a precedent to the Corinthians or the Thessalonians. It would have been a purely arbitrary ruling. Questions are not settled once for all. They recur in each age and in each country in different forms. They have to be restated, and the answers must be revised and restated by the church on the spot. Nothing is more dangerous than to substitute judgment with precedent for judgment by conviction, and nothing is easier. To appeal to Jerusalem, or Trent, or Lambeth, or Westminster is easy, but it is disastrous. It makes for an appearance of unity; real unity it destroys. Definitions and precedents have created more divisions than they have healed. If definitions and precedents are dangerous necessities at home, when they are transplanted abroad, they become dangerous luxuries. If it is a true doctrine that everyone shall bear his own burden, it is equally true that every age must produce its own definitions and every church its own precedents (Galatians 6:5).

Paul's conception of unity was so spiritual that it could not possibly be realized by a mere maintenance of uniform practice. It was so spiritual that it could not fail to create vital agreement. It was so spiritual that it could not be enforced by compulsion. It was so spiritual that it demanded that it be expressed in outward unity. The only thing that mattered was the spiritual unity; outward unity, which did not express an inward unity, was an empty husk. But inward unity was the only thing that mattered, because inward unity that did not express itself in outward unity, was the negation of unity.

Hence, Paul laid great stress upon unity.

(1) He taught unity by taking it for granted. He taught men to realize it as a fact of their Christian experience. He taught his converts to recognize every Christian as a brother. He taught them, as we have seen again and again, the duty of mutual responsibility for one another. He taught them by constantly recalling to their minds their common difficulties and sufferings, referring in his letter to the sufferings of other churches and comparing them with their own. He taught them to practice hospitality to one another. At all times, by all means, he kept the fact of the unity of the church before their eyes.

(2) He used to the full his position as intermediary between Jew and Greek. He was a Pharisee with a Greek education and was in perfect sympathy with the Greek mind. He carefully kept the law when he was in Jerusalem while he strenuously advocated the liberty of the Greeks. He was trusted by all the leaders of the church, and he constantly used that influence. In ten years, he went up to Jerusalem three times. After his first journey through Galatia, he returned to Antioch and then went up to Jerusalem for the Council. After the second journey, he considered his presence in Jerusalem of such importance that he refused an urgent entreaty to stay in Ephesus, which was a center in which he had long hoped to preach. At the end of the third journey, he insisted on going up to Jerusalem in spite of earnest and repeated warnings in which he himself believed. The only possible interpretation of this care is that he knew it was only by his personal intervention that he could hold the churches of Judea and the four provinces together and counteract the machinations of the party that would bind the Gentiles with the burden of the Jewish Law, and thereby either create a schism or destroy his work.

(3) He maintained unity by initiating and encouraging mutual acts of charity. The collection for the Jewish saints of Jerusalem was at once a proof and a pledge of unity. It has been universally recognized that Paul's eagerness to secure this collection was due to his sense of the gravity of the situation and his conviction that this sign of fellowship in the gospel would be an immense source of strength to him in the coming struggle with the Judaizers in Jerusalem. No assurance of orthodoxy in the face of contentious questions is so powerful as a single act of charity. The real unity, which lies at the back of external agreement, is common participation in the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of charity. One sign of that Spirit moves men to suppress their grievances and recognize the rightness of others more than many assertions of orthodox practice. And the influence of the collection is apparent in the refusal of the church in Jerusalem to take the side of the Judaizing missionaries.

(4) He encouraged the constant movement of communication between the different churches. He encouraged his churches in common action for a common end. The collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem was not a series of separate collections made in Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia; it was a collection made by all these churches together. If it helped to bind the church in Jerusalem to the churches in the four provinces, it also helped to bind the churches in the provinces to one another. They all sent representatives with the apostle to Jerusalem. When he went up, he went as the head of a large body. It was the presence of a Greek with him in the city that was the immediate cause of the riot. To counteract distorted statements, nothing is more valuable than many witnesses. Some may see the worst side of things, but among many, some will see the best side, and the evidence of the many will tend toward sound judgment. Hence, the value of the growing communication becomes evident between the churches abroad and the church at home; each helps the other to understand the unity of the church.

In all these ways Paul taught his converts to realize the fact of unity.

Today, unity is maintained in our missions by a very different means. We have had a long and very bitter experience of division at home, and all our missions have been planted and organized with the fear of splits always before our eyes. Our attitude towards our converts is largely the result of this fear, and our methods are largely the offspring of it. We have not established abroad anything that can be compared with the church in the four provinces. We have simply transplanted abroad the organization we are familiar with at home. We have maintained it by supplying a large number of European officials who can carry it on with the idea that sooner or later, we shall have educated the natives to such a point that, if they eventually become the controlling power in the church, the change will be nothing more than a change of personnel. The system will proceed precisely as it did before, natives simply doing exactly what we are now doing. In other words, we have treated unity mainly as a question of organization.

When we establish a mission abroad, we make a European the bishop of an enormous diocese, and the diocese is ruled by him essentially in the same way as a diocese is ruled by a bishop at home. He has a certain number of white ministers under him who are in charge of districts, which they habitually call their parishes, and they govern their parishes on essentially the same principle as the parishes at home. Externally, there are certain differences. Their flocks are widely scattered, and therefore, ministers try to move about as much as they can, and they hold more evangelistic services for those who are not churchgoers. They have other ministers, deacons, or teachers under them who minister to little groups of converts at mission stations larger or smaller, and these individuals answer to them in very much the same way as clergymen and lay readers answer to the higher authority at home. They conduct their services in precisely the same way as their brethren at home. They use the same prayer book and the same ritual.

If a traveler returns from visiting our Indian or Chinese Christians, the first thing he tells us is that he was delighted to find himself worshipping in a church where the language indeed was strange and the worshippers of another color, but in every other respect he felt quite at home. He found the same sort of ornaments, the same service, the same prayer book, and the same hymns he was familiar with at home. If a Chinese or an Indian convert comes to England, he finds, of course, that England is not the Christian country that he imagined it to be. The majority of people do not observe many of the rules he has been taught to keep, but within the circle of the church, he finds the same things he was familiar with in his own home. In all the outward forms of religion, there is practical uniformity.

There are, of course, divisions, but they are our divisions transplanted into a foreign soil. We have our own groups, and distinctions are allowed at home and abroad; but there are no divisions between the church at home and the church abroad. We import our own divisions, high and low, ritualistic and anti-ritualistic; but we do not admit the possibility of variation in manner between East and West. We have nothing to compare with the differences that separated the church in Jerusalem from the church in Corinth or in Ephesus. To find a parallel to our modern missions in the churches of Paul, we should have to imagine a Judaistic church in Macedonia or Achaia divided into Pharisaic, Sadducean, and Grecian parties. In fact, we should have to imagine that Paul and his fellow workers were all Judaizers.

No emissaries from Europe or America ever return to accuse some native church of violating the law and the customs. No bishop ever hastens home to claim spiritual liberty for the church that he founded and to assert its right to disregard a mode of conduct. No one ventures to maintain the equality of one church with another, as equally with it a member of the Spirit-bearing body. A rule is made in London by a conference of Western bishops and is applied indiscriminately to China and to Africa. No one dares to say that the Chinese have already settled this question for themselves in their own way, and though their decision may not be approved by Englishmen, it is certainly not a sufficient reason for breaking communion.

With the alteration of a few titles, the same description would be equally applicable to the missions of other Christian bodies. They too carry abroad their own organization and forms. They too Judaize in exactly the same way.

The unity, therefore, which we maintain is practically uniformity of custom. It is essentially legal in its habit. When questions arise, they are settled by the missionaries, and the missionaries have but one test and that test is agreement with Western practice. If a precedent can be found, that precedent settles the question. If a rule of the Western church in any way applicable to the case is to be found, that rule must be followed. If no law or no precedent seems applicable, then some rule or precedent is established which seems most in harmony with the genius and history of the Western church.

By this means, we admit to having succeeded in maintaining a kind of unity. Division and heresy are almost unknown in our missions. But at what a price have we succeeded! If there has been no heresy, there has been no prophetic zeal. If there have been no divisions, there has been no self-realization. If there have been no schismatics, there have been no apostles. If there has been no heresy, there has been no native theology. If there has been no schism, there has been no vigorous outburst of life. If there has been no danger of a breach between the new missions and the church which founded them, there has been no great advance in the religious life of the church. The establishment of new churches in the East should bring to us as great a gain as the establishment that Greek churches brought to the church in the first century. But how can that be, so long as we persist in thinking of the conversion of Eastern people simply as the making of so many proselytes for the communion to which we happen to belong?

PART V

Conclusions

  1. Principles and Spirit
  2. Application

CHAPTER 11

Principles and Spirit

If we look out over the mission field today, we see that we have made most amazing progress, and our labors have been more than abundantly blessed. We see that we have established missions all over the world through which great numbers of heathen have been brought into the fold of the church, civilization has been introduced into barbarous countries, immoral customs have been abolished, and education and culture have been extended far and wide. On all sides we see steady and increasing progress. It is impossible to have even the most superficial acquaintance with the history and present condition of our foreign missions without being convinced that we have been instruments in the hands of God for the accomplishment of His divine purpose to sum up all things in Christ.

Nevertheless, three very disquieting symptoms are everywhere:

(1) Everywhere, Christianity is still an exotic religion. We have not yet succeeded in planting it in any heathen land in a way that it has become indigenous. If there is one doubtful exception to that rule, it is a country where from the very beginning Pauline methods were followed more closely than elsewhere. But, it remains true that Christianity in the lands of our missions is still a foreign religion. It has not yet taken root in the country.

(2) Everywhere, our missions are dependent. They look to us for leaders, instructors, and rulers. They have shown little sign of being able to supply their own needs. Day by day and year by year, an unceasing appeal comes to us for men and money for the same missions we have been supplying with men and money for the last fifty or sixty years, and there seems little hope that the demand will change its character. If we do not send men and money, the missions will fail, the converts will fall away, and ground painfully won will be lost; that is what we are told. If the day comes when the demand is for men and money to establish new missions in a new country, because the old are capable of standing alone, the end of our work will be in sight. But at present, that day still seems far distant.

(3) Everywhere, we see the same types. Our missions are among people of the most diverse characteristics, but all bear a most astonishing resemblance to one another. If we read the history of a mission in China, we only have to change a few names, and the same history will serve as the history of a mission in Zululand. There has been no new revelation. There has been no new discovery of new aspects of the gospel, and no new unfolding of new forms of Christian life.

These symptoms cannot but cause us grave anxiety. There was a day when we expected these effects to follow our preaching, and prided ourselves upon the fact that no strange elements had produced new and perhaps perplexing developments of Christian thought and life. But today we are living in an atmosphere of expectation. We look forward to new and startling forms of progress. We begin to think that signs of dependent uniformity are signs not of success, but of failure. We desire to see Christianity established in foreign areas, putting on a foreign dress and developing new forms of glory and of beauty. So far then as we see our missions exotic, dependent, and uniform, we begin to accuse ourselves of failure. The causes of that failure are not hidden. We have allowed racial and religious pride to direct our attitude towards those whom we have been accustomed to call "poor heathen." We have approached them as though we are superior beings, moved by charity to impart our wealth to destitute and perishing souls. We have used that argument at home to wring grudging and pitiful donations for the propagation of our faith, and abroad we have adopted the attitude of missionaries of a superior religion.

We have not learned the lesson that it is not for our righteousness that we have been entrusted with the gospel, but that we may be instruments in God's hands for revealing the salvation of His Son in all the world. We have not learned that as Christians we exist by the Spirit of Him who gave up the glory of heaven in order to pour out His life for the redemption of the world. We have not learned the lesson that our own hope, our own salvation, and our own glory lie in the completion of the temple of the Lord. We have not understood that the members of the body of Christ are scattered in all lands, and that we, without them, are not whole. We have thought of the temple of the Lord as complete in us and the body of Christ as consisting of us, and we have thought of the conversion of the heathen as the extension of the body of which we are the members. Consequently, we have preached the gospel from the point of view of the wealthy man who casts a mite into the lap of a beggar, rather than from the point of view of the husbandman who casts his seed into the earth, knowing that his own life and the lives of all those connected with him depend upon the crop that will result from his labor.

Approaching them in that spirit, we have desired to help them. We have been anxious to do something for them. And we have done much. We have done everything for them. We have taught them, baptized them, and shepherded them. We have managed their funds, ordered their services, built their churches, and provided their teachers. We have nursed them, fed them, and doctored them. We have trained them and have even ordained some of them. We have done everything for them except acknowledge any equality. We have done everything for them, but very little with them. We have done everything for them except give place to them. We have treated them as dear children, but not as brethren.

This attitude of mind is apparent everywhere, but it shows itself most distinctly when it is proposed that we submit any of our actions to the judgment of the native councils we have established as a training ground for independence. The moment it is suggested that a council in which natives are in a majority should have the power to direct the action of a white missionary, the moment it is suggested that a native, even though he may be a man of the highest devotion and intellectual ability, should be put into a position of authority in a province where white men still hold office, the white missionaries revolt. They will not hear of such a thing. We acknowledge that the Spirit of God has fitted the man for a position of authority, but he cannot occupy it because we are there.

Want of faith has made us fear and distrust native independence. We have imagined ourselves to be, and we have acted as, indispensable. In everything, we have taught our converts to turn to us and accept our guidance. We have asked nothing from them but obedience. We have educated our converts to put us in the place of Christ. We believe that it is the Holy Spirit of Christ who inspires and guides us; we cannot believe that the same Spirit will guide and inspire them. We believe that the Holy Spirit has taught us and is teaching us true concepts of morality, doctrine, and ritual, but we cannot believe that the same Spirit will teach them.

The consequence is that we view any independent action on the part of our new converts with anxiety and fear. Long experience of difficulties, dangers, heresies, parties, and divisions has made us overly cautious and has undermined our faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. We see the boisterous waves and we are afraid. If anyone suggests giving to the natives any freedom of action, the first thought that arises in our minds is not one of eager interest to see how they will act, but one of anxious questioning. If we allow that, how shall we prevent some horrible disaster, how shall we avoid some danger, and how shall we provide safeguards against some possible mistake? Our attitude in such cases is naturally negative.

This is why we are so anxious to import the law and the customs. This is why we set up constitutions containing all sorts of elaborate precautions against possible mistakes. We sometimes hope to educate the native in self-government by establishing councils, or synods, on which they are represented, but we hasten to take every possible precaution to avoid the possibility of their making any mistake or taking any action, even in the smallest matters of ritual or practice, which may be contrary to our ideas of what is proper.

In the councils we give an overruling authority to the foreign minister; in conferences we make provision for dividing by orders on any question about which the foreign missionaries feel keenly. By all means, we try to secure that the real authority and responsibility remain in our own hands. We are so familiar with difficulties that we make elaborate preparation to meet every conceivable kind of difficulty and friction before it arises. In so doing, we often prepare the way for a difficulty that would never arise if we did not open the door for it to enter. The natives see this and resent it. They see the preparation for overruling them; they see that only when they advise what the foreigner approves will their advice be accepted, and they say, "It does not matter what we think or say; if we suggest anything the foreigners do not like, all the power is in their hands, and they will do as they please." So, even when there is perfect agreement, there is no real harmony; and even when the advice of the native representatives is followed, they feel no responsibility for the consequences. It is surprising how carefully the native Christian will consider a question, how eagerly they will seek the advice of their teacher, and how willingly they will listen to his suggestions when once they realize that he really trusts them to do what is right and intends to let them go their own way even against his own judgment. It is sad how sullenly they will do what they themselves would approve and naturally do of their own accord, when they think that they are being commanded. It is most sad when they do nothing, because they feel that they have no responsibility. It would be better, far better, that our converts should make many mistakes, fall into many errors, and commit many offences than that their sense of responsibility be undermined. The Holy Spirit is given to Christians that He may guide them, and they may learn His power to guide them – not that they may be stupidly obedient to the voice of authority.

Moreover, the systems we import are systems that we acknowledge to be full of imperfections and the source of many difficulties and dangers at home. We bind the new converts with a burden heavy and grievous, a burden that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear; and we bind it upon a people who have not inherited it. To us the burden is in a sense natural; it is the result of our own mistakes and sins. We know its history. It has grown upon us. It belongs to us. It is our own. But it does not belong to our converts in other lands. They do not know its history, nor is it fitted to their shoulders. They will doubtless make their own mistakes. They will create their own burdens, but they need not be laden with ours.

In acting in this way, we have adopted a false method of education. Slavery is not the best training for liberty. It is only by exercise that powers grow. To do things for people does not train them to do them for themselves. We are learning more and more in education that the first duty of the teacher is not to solve all difficulties for the pupil and present him with the ready-made answer, but to awaken a spirit and to teach the pupil to realize his own powers by setting before him difficulties and showing him how to approach and overcome them.

The work of the missionary is education in this sense; it is to reveal to his converts a spiritual power they actually possess but are dimly conscious of. As the converts exercise that power and yield themselves to the indwelling Spirit, they discover the greatness of the power and the grace of the Spirit; in so doing they reveal it to their teacher. But we are like teachers who cannot resist telling their pupils the answer the moment a difficulty arises. We still live in the age of Mangnall's Questions – learning by questions and answers. We cannot resist the temptation to do for them whatever we can do for them. We cannot sit by and see things done imperfectly – or imperfectly in our view. That may be a form of government, but it is not education. The work of the missionary cannot be done by imposing things from without. The one result he desires is the growth and manifestation of the Spirit from within.

We sometimes acknowledge this, but we excuse ourselves by saying that it is inevitable. We adopt a curious theory about missionary work. We argue that there are three stages of missionary work. In the first, the missionary must proceed by introducing the system in which he has been educated, because he must have a system, and that is the only possible system for him. In this stage, the missionary must do everything for his converts, because they are infants incapable of doing anything for themselves. Then there is a second stage in which the converts, educated in the missionaries' system, learn to understand and practice it. Finally, there is a stage in which they may conceivably modify it.

With regard to this theory, it must be said that as a theory, it is untrue, and in practice, it is pernicious. In fact, there is no such first stage. There is no stage in which converts cannot do anything for themselves. There is no stage in which it is necessary that they be slaves of a foreign system. The moment they are baptized, they are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is power. They are not as incapable as we suppose.

It is often said that the people to whom we go lack initiative and moral force, that they cannot and will not do anything for themselves, and consequently, in the early stages, it is absolutely necessary to provide everything for them and govern them until they acquire a character capable of meeting their own problems. But some of the people are seen every day to be capable of carrying on great commercial enterprises. They do not really lack initiative; if they did, as Christians, they should begin to find it. The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of initiative. If they had no initiative without Christ, with Christ they should not fail to have it. That power is in them by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It should be jealously guarded and hopefully encouraged to find larger and larger fields for its activity. But it often fails to find its proper sphere; it is hindered and discouraged and stifled in a system in which everything is done under foreign direction. It is exactly because we believe in that power of the Lord that we go. It is the revelation of that Spirit that we seek. To deny it is to deny our hope; to discourage it is to hinder the attainment of our end.

Again, it is said that we are not now living in the first age of the church's history. We cannot go back and act as though these twenty centuries had not been, and we cannot and ought not rob the new churches of today of the experience of the past, of all that we have learned from centuries of struggle and labor. That is true. We cannot teach less than the full truth which we have so learned. But to introduce the fully developed systems in which that truth has expressed itself among us is to attempt to ignore differences of race and location and to omit necessary stages of growth. It is impossible to skip stages of growth. But with guidance and help, our new churches might learn the lessons speedily and painlessly, which the church of old learned with the pain and labor of centuries. But it is one thing to pass through stages quickly; it is another to try to omit them.

Again, it is said that methods must change with the age. The apostle's methods were suited to his age; our methods are suited to ours. I have already suggested that unless we are prepared to drag Paul down from his high position as the great apostle of the Gentiles, we must allow his methods a certain character of universality. Now I venture to say that since the apostle Paul, no other has discovered or practiced methods for the propagation of the gospel better than his, or more suitable to the circumstances of our day. It would be difficult to find any better model than the apostle in the work of establishing new churches. At any rate, this much is certain: the apostle's methods succeeded exactly where ours have failed.

But, important as I believe it to be in the very early stages of our missions to follow the apostolic practice which led to his astounding success, it is of comparably greater importance that we appreciate the principles in which the apostle's practice was rooted and learn the spirit which made their application both possible and fruitful. Those principles are applicable to every stage of the church's growth, and that spirit is the divine spark, which should inspire every form of method in order to make it a means of grace. It is scarcely possible to imagine the apostle in other countries or in another age using a different method; it is quite impossible to imagine him inspired by a different spirit or adopting other principles of action.

Two principles seem to underlie the apostle's practice: (1) He was a preacher of the gospel, not the law, and (2) he retired from his converts to give place for Christ. The spirit in which he was able to do this was the spirit of faith.

(1) Paul was a preacher of the gospel, not the law. His epistles are full of this. He reiterates it again and again. It was not simply that he was a preacher of a gospel in opposition to the preachers of the Jewish Law; he was a preacher of the gospel as opposed to the system of law. He lived in a dispensation of the gospel of grace as opposed to a dispensation of law. He administered a gospel, not a law. His method was a method of gospel (grace), not a method of law.

This is the most distinctive mark of Pauline Christianity. This is what separates his doctrine from all other systems of religion. He did not come merely to teach a higher truth or a finer morality than those who preceded him. He came to administer a spirit. Before Paul, many teachers had inculcated lofty principles of conduct and had expounded profound doctrines. Men did not need another. They needed life. Christ came to give that life, and Paul came as the minister of Christ, to lead men to Christ who is the life, and to teach them that in Him they might find life. His gospel was a gospel of power.

So he taught, and all his life was one long martyrdom for that message. If he would have admitted for a moment that his work was to introduce a higher law or a new system, he would have made peace with the Judaizers, and he would have been at one with all contemporary reformers; but the gospel would have perished in his hands. In his own words, he would have fallen away from grace; Christ would have profited him nothing. He refused to do that, and for that he suffered. Men called him an antinomian (one who claims Christians are free from the moral law) in consequence; but he was not.

We have seen this truth illustrated in his practice again and again. He did not establish a constitution; he taught principles. He did not introduce any practice to be received on his own or on any human authority; he strove to make his converts realize and understand its relation to Christ. He always aimed at convincing their minds and stirring their consciences. He never sought to enforce their obedience by decree; he always strove to win their heartfelt approval and their intelligent cooperation. He never proceeded by command, but always by persuasion. He never did things for them; he always left them to do things for themselves. He set them an example according to the mind of Christ, and he was persuaded that the Spirit of Christ in them would teach them to approve that example and inspire them to follow it.

(2) He practiced retirement, not merely by constraint, but willingly. He gave place for Christ. He was always glad when his converts could progress without his aid. He welcomed their liberty. He withheld no gift from them which might enable them to dispense with his presence. He did not speak, as we so often speak, of the gift of orders, or the gift of autonomous government, as the gift of a privilege that might be withheld. He gave, as a right to the Spirit-bearing body, the powers which duly belong to a Spirit-bearing body. He gave freely, and then he retired from them that they might learn to exercise the powers they possessed in Christ. He warned them of dangers, but he did not provide an elaborate machinery to prevent them from succumbing to the dangers.

To do this required great faith, and this faith is the spiritual power in which Paul won his victory. He believed in the Holy Spirit, not merely as a spiritual power, but as a Person indwelling his converts. He believed therefore in his converts. He could trust them. He did not trust them because he believed in their natural virtue or intellectual sufficiency. If he had believed in that, his faith would have been sorely shaken. But he believed in the Holy Spirit in them. He believed that Christ was able and willing to keep that which he had committed to Him (2 Timothy 1:12). He believed that He would perfect His church, and that He would establish, strengthen, and settle his converts. He told the Philippians that he was confident that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). He believed and acted as if he believed.

It is that faith which we need today. We need to subordinate our methods, our systems, and ourselves to that faith. We often speak as if we simply deal with weak and sinful men. We say that we cannot trust our converts to do this or that or that we cannot commit the truth to men lacking in this or that particular form of education or training. We speak as if we deal with mere men. We don't deal with mere men; we deal with the Holy Spirit. What systems, forms, or safeguards cannot do, He can do. When we believe in the Holy Spirit, we shall teach our converts to believe in Him, and when they believe in Him, they will be able to face all difficulties and dangers. They will justify our faith. The Holy Spirit will justify our faith in Him. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.
CHAPTER 12

Application

The question may well be asked: How much is it possible to follow the apostle's methods set forth in the preceding chapters? It is plain that our missions have so far proceeded on very different lines. Is it possible then to make any useful deductions? Is it possible to introduce into our missions any of these methods without destroying all that we have established?

We have seen that the secret of the apostle's success in founding churches lay in the observance of principles we can reduce to rules of practice in some form as this:

(1) All teaching to be permanent must be intelligible and so capable of being grasped and understood that those who have once received it can retain it, use it, and pass it on. The test of all teaching is practice. Nothing should be taught which cannot be grasped in this way and used.

(2) Likewise, all organization must be of such a character that it can be understood and maintained. It must be an organization of obvious necessity; it must be an organization they can and will support. It must not be so adorned or so costly that small and infant communities cannot supply the funds for its maintenance. The test of all organizations is naturalness and permanence. Nothing should be established as part of the ordinary church life of the people which they cannot understand and carry on.

(3) All financial arrangements made for the ordinary life and existence of the church should be such that the people themselves can and will control and manage their own business independently of any foreign subsidies. The management of all local funds should be entirely in the hands of the local church, which should raise and use their own funds for their own purposes, that they may become neither impoverished nor dependent on the dictation of any foreign society.

(4) A sense of mutual responsibility of all the Christians for one another should be carefully taught and practiced. The whole community is responsible for the proper administration of baptism, ordination, and discipline.

(5) Authority to exercise spiritual gifts should be given freely and at once. Nothing should be withheld that may strengthen the life of the church; still less should anything be withheld which is necessary for its spiritual sustenance. The liberty to enjoy such gifts is not a privilege which may be withheld, but a right which must be acknowledged. The test of preparedness to receive the authority is the capacity to receive the grace.

We have seen further that the power in which Paul was able to act with such boldness was the spirit of faith. Faith, not in the natural capacities of his converts, but in the power of the Holy Spirit in them.

Now if we are to practice any methods approaching the Pauline methods in power and directness, it is necessary that we should first have this faith, this Spirit. Without faith – faith in the Holy Spirit and faith in the Holy Spirit in our converts – we can do nothing. We cannot possibly act as the apostle acted until we recover this faith. Without it, we shall be unable to recognize the grace of the Holy Spirit in our converts; we shall never trust them, and we shall never inspire in them their own confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit. If we have no faith in the power of the Holy Spirit in them, they will not learn to have faith in the power of the Holy Spirit in themselves. We cannot trust them, and they cannot be worthy of trust; and trust, the trust which begets trustworthiness, is the one essential for any success in the Pauline method.

But if we make that great venture of faith, the application of the Pauline method is still beset with difficulties, because the history of our converts is very different from the history of Paul's converts. Most missionaries today find themselves in charge of mission centers in the midst of established communities of Christians with a long tradition of foreign government and foreign support behind them. Those communities will probably look to the missionary for everything. He is assisted by a number of native clergy and teachers whose work he must supervise. These converts will look to him for guidance and encouragement and probably for definite and particular orders in every conceivable circumstance that may arise, even if they do not depend upon his initiative and inspiration to save them from stagnation. In the center, he will almost certainly find a considerable organization and elaborate establishment, which the native Christian community has not created and cannot support without financial aid from abroad. He will find that they have been more or less crammed with a complete system of theological and ecclesiastical doctrines they have not been able to digest. He will find an elaborate system of finance that makes him responsible for the raising and administration of all funds in his district. He will find that the recommendation of candidates for office in the church and the exercise of discipline is laid upon his shoulders alone. He will find in a word that he is expected to act as an almost uncontrolled autocrat, subject only to the admonitions of his bishop or the directions of a committee of white men.

He cannot possibly ignore that situation. He cannot act as if the Christian community over which he is called to preside had another history. He cannot desert them and run away to some untouched field. He cannot begin all over again.

Nevertheless, if he has the same Spirit as Paul, he can in a very real sense practice the method of Paul in its nature, if not in its form. He cannot undo the past, but he can amend the present. He can always keep in his mind the truth that he is there to prepare the way for the retirement of the foreign missionary. He can live his life among his people and deal with them as if he will have no successor. He should remember that he is the least-permanent element in the church. He may fall sick and go home, or he may die, or he may be called elsewhere. He disappears, but the church remains. The native Christians are the permanent element. The permanence of the church depends upon them. Therefore, it is vitally important that if he is removed, they should be able to carry on the work as if he were present. He cannot rely, and he should not rely, on having any successor. In many cases, it must be literally true that he has none for some years. The supply of men from home is fortunately so inadequate that it is impossible to ensure a sufficient number of European recruits to man all the existing missionary centers. It is obvious that there will not be, and should not be, enough to man similar centers all over any great country. In some cases, it is probable that he will have no successor; in every case, it is desirable that no successor should be necessary for the existence of the church. Consequently, it is most important that he keep this in mind and strive by all means to secure that the absence of a foreign superintendent not result in that lamentable lapse from Christianity, which we have too often observed, with shame and grief. It is his first duty to prepare the way for the safe retirement of the foreign missionary.

He can do this in two ways: (1) He can associate the people with himself in all that he does, thereby making them thoroughly understand the nature of the work, and (2) he can practice retirement.

(1) He can associate the people with him in all that he does. He need not do anything without their cooperation. By that, I mean not merely that he can associate with a few individuals who seem suited to him, but that he can educate the whole congregation. In the past, we have associated with individuals of our own selection; we have begun our education from the top. What is needful is to begin from the bottom. Leaders must be raised up by the community, not dragged up by the missionary. It is necessary to make the whole body realize its unity and common responsibility. It is essential that he not allow and not encourage the whole body to abandon all its responsibility to others, as it will do if he deals only with a few people whom he has selected. He may avoid this danger by referring all business to the whole congregation in the first instance. In this way, he will force the whole congregation to understand its responsibility. But he will also compel those who are natural leaders to understand that, just as he cannot act as an autocrat, because he has been put over them by the bishop, neither can they so act, because they have attracted his attention by some display of intellectual or social superiority. It is essential that the whole body grow together. Now, in doing this we shall find that the missionary must follow the example of Paul very closely. Let us take four typical examples of the Pauline method: the management of funds, the administration of baptism, the selection of ministers for the congregation, and the exercise of discipline.

(a) Finance. It is important that the missionary educate the whole congregation in the principles of church finance, because this is an issue that touches every member directly in an obvious way. When the people learn to understand that the control of finance is in their own hands, they will more easily and quickly learn their responsibility in other matters. Even where a considerable proportion of the annual income is derived from foreign sources, we need not hesitate to take this course. The missionary can teach the congregation, as a congregation, the sources from which all money is derived. He can make them understand what money is wanted and why it is wanted. He can generally give them control of all local expenses. He need not take charge of any money collected by the congregation even if they desire him to. He can refuse to accept the administration of money for which he is wholly and solely responsible. The modern institution of church councils will greatly assist him in this, but in the actual administration of money in small communities, he need not even use a council. He can easily teach the whole community, for finance is a subject in which the whole congregation is naturally interested. If the people appoint a council to administer local funds, the council may be responsible to them primarily, and the use and abuse of funds may still be in their hands. Only here is it unfortunately necessary to remark that it is of no use to pretend. To consult with the people while the missionary intends to carry out his own plans to hand over money to them and to keep control over it at the same time is fatal. The people at once see the deception and resent it. They must be allowed to learn by making their own mistakes.

Of all local finance, the administration of charity is the simplest and most instructive. The relief of distress should be entirely in the hands of the congregation. The creation of a charity committee is not as good an educational method in a small community as is the alleviation by the whole congregation of individual cases when they arise. Cases of poverty may be referred at once to the whole congregation. Everybody knows everybody else. The congregation knows exactly what is needed. They can reject the appeal or subscribe to meet it on the spot. The missionary may donate along with the others. Nothing is more calculated to draw the congregation together and to help the people to realize their mutual dependence than the supply of special needs by special acts of charity towards one another. A poor fund, if it is administered by a missionary, only tends toward misunderstanding and discontent.

Even in such matters as the foundation of schools, the congregation ought to manage its own business. The first thing is to persuade the people of the need for a school. Until they desire it and are ready to support it, nothing is done. When they want it, they will certainly seek the missionary's help. He can give help, but why should he insist upon control? He and they, they and he, should think out the plans, seek for sources of supply, and engage the teacher. It is essential that the people recognize that the school is their own school, not simply his. If he does the work for them, even though he may induce them to subscribe, the work will be his work, not theirs, and they will feel no responsibility for its success or failure.

Similarly, if a school is to be enlarged, the missionary has another opportunity to teach his people the same lesson. The school is really their school, not his, even if it has been founded at first with foreign money. Their children are the ones to be educated in it. They are really more closely affected by the alteration than we are. Then they should be consulted, and their advice should be taken. It is a grievous loss to the whole church if the work is done simply by foreigners, when the whole community might be made to realize, as perhaps they never realized before, its importance to them and their responsibility for it.

In finance, as in other matters, the principle of throwing upon the shoulders of the native Christians all the responsibility that they can carry, and more than they can carry, is a sound one. If they have more than they can manage, they will gladly seek advice and help; if they have less, they will, sooner or later, begin to fight for more or to feel aggrieved that they are not given their proper place.

(b) Baptism. The admission of new converts is a matter which very intimately affects the whole church. It is vitally important that Christians learn to recognize this. The missionary can teach them and help them feel a proper responsibility in the matter. They will recognize the truth and feel the responsibility, if the truth is taught to them and the responsibility is thrown upon them. No convert should be admitted without the approval of the body, as a body. If a man wishes to be baptized, he must be accepted by the congregation. But some will say, "If we do that, men may be rejected whom the missionary is convinced are proper persons." If that is so, then the missionary must educate the congregation, but he will do that not by overruling them with a high hand, but by teaching them true principles. If the convert must go to the church, so must the missionary. He must entreat, exhort, and advise with all long-suffering. He may fail to obtain his end in a particular case; but the people may be right and he be wrong. Even if he is right, he may really gain more by allowing the people to overrule him than by overruling them. They will speedily see that they are dealing with one who earnestly seeks their welfare, but will not force his own views on them. They would certainly be in greater danger of erring through their desire to please him than through their desire to vex him, or even to drive him away.

(c) The appointment of ministers. If a man is to be trained at a central school as a religious teacher, it is most important that he feel he is sent by the whole community, not by the favoritism of a foreign missionary. He needs to know he is supported by the common assent and approval of the body, that he represents the body, and that he will be received on his return by the whole body. No missionary is compelled to recommend someone on his sole authority. It is not enough that he should consult the Christians; he may see that the real choice belongs to the whole congregation, or group of congregations, to which the candidate belongs. The missionary cannot go beyond that at the present time. The appointment of teachers, deacons, and ministers to centers is generally in the hands of the bishop or of a committee, and the people to whom the man is sent are seldom, if ever, consulted. So long as this is the case, the missionary is compelled to accept the nominee of that committee, and the people can scarcely be expected to understand the true relationship between the pastor and his flock. The situation is grievous, but in old established missions, it is at present unavoidable. For no one can expect a committee directed by foreigners to act on Pauline principles. The committee will inevitably make the bonds that bind the native ministers to itself as tight as possible, and the bonds that unite the minister to his flock proportionately weak. But if the missionary sees to it that no candidate is sent up from his district until he has really been selected and approved by the people to whom he naturally belongs, he will lay a foundation upon which a better system may one day be established. At any rate, he will remove the common complaint that candidates for ordination and clergy are at the mercy of one man, and that to displease the superintending missionary even accidentally is certain to result in the ruin of the man's career.

(d) Discipline. Cases of moral failure are more simple. In nearly every case, the missionary in charge is left much discretion in such matters. He can act as Paul acted. If a man falls into grievous sin, and an offence is committed which ought to shock the conscience of the whole Christian community, he need not deal with it directly. He can call the attention of the congregation to it and point out the dangers of leaving it unrecognized or unreproved. He can call upon them to decide what ought to be done. As a last resort, he can refuse to have any dealings with a congregation which declines to do its duty and tolerates gross, open immorality in its midst. He can entreat, exhort, and advise; he may even threaten the whole body, when it would be fatal to deal with the individual himself. If he can persuade them to do what is right, the whole community is uplifted; but he cannot put them in the right way by doing for them what they alone can do.

(2) He can train them for retirement by retiring. He can retire in two ways, physically or morally. He can retire morally by leaving things more and more in their hands, by avoiding pressing his opinion, or by refusing to give it, lest he lead them to accept his opinion simply because it is his. He can retire by educating them to understand all the work of the mission and by gradually delegating it. He can retire physically. He can go away on missionary tours of longer and longer duration, leaving the whole work of the center to be carried on without any foreign direction for a month or two. He can do this openly and advisedly because he trusts his people. He can prolong his tours. He can find excuses for being away more and more. He can even create such a state of affairs that he may take his furlough without their suffering any harm. At first, no doubt, he would be anxious, and he would have good cause for anxiety. Things could go wrong. But his people would know his mind, and though they might begrudge his absence, they would see that he was really helping them most by leaving them. Retirement of that kind, deliberately prepared and consciously practiced, is a very different thing from unwilling absence through the stress of business. Only by retirement can he prepare the way for real independence.

But the difficulty instantly arises that in many cases the retirement of the missionary would mean that the Christians would be deprived of baptism and the Lord's Supper. That is too often true, and it is apparently an insurmountable difficulty. The only way out of it is to persuade the bishop to ordain men in every place to carry on. There are plenty of suitable men. Everywhere there are good, honest, sober, grave men respected by their fellows, and capable of this office, and they ought to be ordained for that special purpose. But meanwhile, even at the risk of depriving the Christians at the center of that spiritual food which is their right, the missionary should retire at least for a few months in order to evangelize new districts and teach his people to stand alone.

But in every district, the missionary does not only deal with settled congregations. If he is an evangelist, he is always beginning work in new towns or villages with new converts. Then he can begin at the very beginning. He can make the rule of practice the rule of all his teaching. Wherever he finds a small community of hearers, he can begin by teaching them one simple truth, one prayer, one brief article of the creed, and leaving them to practice it. If on his return he finds that they have learned and practiced that first lesson, he can then teach them a little more; but if he finds that they have not done so, he can only repeat the first lesson and go away again, so they may master that one before they are burdened with another. If they learn to practice one act alone, they may make more progress than if they had learned by heart all the doctrines of the church and depended solely upon some outside teacher,

He need not take it for granted that if men are converted, there is no hope for the conversion of their wives and children until he can get women missionaries and teachers to instruct them in the rudiments of the gospel. He can tell his first converts that they are responsible not only for their own progress, but also for the enlightenment of their wives and families and neighbors. In some places, the difficulties of this are apparently insurmountable, but men apparently overcome such difficulties by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need not take it for granted that men or women must run away from home or cannot influence their households and teach them what they have learned. It is better to take it for granted that they can teach their households, even to the death. Slaves in heathen households in Rome were in an impossible position, yet they overcame that apparent impossibility.

He need not take it for granted that every small community of hearers must have a religious teacher settled amongst them. Where there are three people, one will inevitably lead. On his visits, the missionary, or his teacher, can give special attention and teaching to these natural leaders and instruct them to pass on to the others the special teaching which they have received. This can be done if the instruction given is given line upon line, and if there is no haste to complete a theological education. So these leaders will grow with their fellows, with those whom they teach. They will learn more by teaching than in any other way. If the missionary is fortunate, he may be able to induce his bishop to ordain some of these men of approved moral character and natural authority. In that case, the church will grow naturally into completion; otherwise, his converts will be compelled to wait for his visits to receive the Lord's Supper, the work will be slowed, and the people starved.

But even so, he can make them largely independent in all other respects. The visits of the missionary will be welcomed as the visits of a friend who can help them. They will eagerly seek his advice, as they will need his encouragement. But whatever they have learned, they will have learned such that they can practice it, even if he never came near them again. It would be better to teach a few men to call upon the name of the Lord for themselves than to fill a church with people who have given up idolatry, slavishly and unintelligently. They would have acquired a habit of thinking that it is the duty of converts to sit and be taught and to hear prayers read for them in the church by a paid mission agent.

The missionary can observe the rule that no organization should be introduced which the people cannot understand and maintain. He need not begin by establishing buildings; he need not begin by importing foreign books and foreign ornaments of worship. The people can begin as they can with what they have. As they feel the need of organization and external conveniences, they will begin to seek for some way of providing them. The missionary or his helper can encourage and assist them. They may even donate money, but if they do this, it should be a donation from them, freely given, and entirely in the control of the little congregation. Their finance, so far as they have any common finance, may be entirely in their own hands. It will obviously be small, and because it is small, it is very important that they learn to manage it themselves. They may be prepared to understand the larger finance of a wider area when they begin to find their place in an organization that covers a large district.

Similarly, with all church rules, it is not necessary to begin by insisting upon mere verbal assent to a code of law. The new converts may grow up into it. If they learn to pray in twos and threes, if they learn to read the Holy Gospels and discuss among themselves the lessons of the teacher, they will gradually perceive the inconsistency of that which they read or hear with heathen practices to which they have been accustomed. They will inquire among themselves and dispute; they will refer the question to the missionary on his visit, and he will have opportunity to explain how the custom in question is agreeable or otherwise according to the doctrine they have been taught. But he need not hurry them. They must learn to change because they feel the need to change, and to change because they see the rightness of the change, rather than to change because they are told to do so. If they change unintelligently by order, they will easily relapse, because they have never seen the principle on which the change is based. Artificial changes are not likely to be permanent until they have become habitual from years of repetition, and then they will still be unintelligent. Changes made under the influence of the Holy Spirit are reasonable and, made in this way, are the accepted changes of the people themselves. They can only fall away from those changes by deliberate apostasy. So we advance at home. We educate public opinion until that opinion is on the side of righteousness and then the change is permanent; that is how we put down slavery. We may deal with our converts in like manner.

Our past efforts have not been so fruitless, but that we now have a great number of Christians who, beginning by accepting Christian law as an external demand of the foreign teachers, have ended by seeing its true meaning and accepting it as a proper expression of the will of God; here we can have a powerful influence and example. New converts will speedily strive to attain the level of their fellows. They will see the great advantages. By setting the example before them of Christian communities more advanced than theirs, and by encouraging them to take their difficulties to their more educated brethren, we can encourage and help them without enforcing authoritative and incomprehensible demands. Some things they will speedily accept, because they are true and natural expressions of the mind of Christ in them. Some things they will accept only after a long struggle, because they are not easily understood. And some things they will never accept, because they are neither natural nor proper expressions of the mind of Christ in their lives. Such things have never been really accepted, even by those who have outwardly submitted to them.

But there would certainly arise cases in which the people would for a long time observe practices the missionary would be compelled to condemn as superstitious, immoral, or otherwise sinful. Still, the true method is purely persuasive. The missionary must use his judgment as to whether the refusal is a deliberate rejection of a truth which the people know to be truth and will not accept, or whether it is due to ignorance and immature ideas of the nature of Christianity. In the latter case, he can go on teaching, exhorting, and persuading, certain that as far as he is right, he will lead the people to see that he is right. In the former case, he has no recourse but to shake the dust off his feet and refuse to teach men who will not be taught. Compulsion is futile and disastrous. There are men who will be taught. He must seek those out and turn to them.

This applies to all missionary preaching. The one test the missionary should require of his hearers is openness of mind. If he teaches, he teaches as one who is making a moral demand, and if that moral demand is met with a flat determination to resist it, then he cannot continue his teaching. Willingness to send children to school in order to obtain material advantage, if coupled with a determination not to submit to the claims of Christ, is not a field in which the doctrine of Christ can be planted. Willingness to listen to the preacher in order to rise in the social scale by becoming Christian is very different. There is a willingness to accept the teaching. The motive is low, but the willingness to accept is present, and the teacher can plant seeds that will grow and purify the motive. This has happened again and again. Willingness to hear for the sake of advantage with a determination not to submit to the doctrine is one thing; willingness to hear for the sake of advantage with even a halfhearted intention of accepting the doctrine is another. There must be a willingness in the hearers, not only to hear but also to accept, if the missionary is to persevere with success. Everywhere there are those whose hearts God touches and those who bring prepared hearts. The missionary may concentrate his attention on those. For them there is hope. Everywhere there are those who refuse to hear with their souls, who close their hearts. These we must prepare to refuse to teach. We must be prepared to shake the dust from our feet.

So far, any missionary who chooses can go today without upsetting the work of his predecessors, but rather may build upon it. Many things may seem desirable, but this at least is possible.
EPILOGUE

A Present-Day Contrast

It may perhaps add reality to the argument I have tried to set forth in the preceding pages, if I illustrate it by examples taken from modern life. I have imagined two men working under similar circumstances. I have first made a composite photograph. All the details are taken from life, but no one missionary supplied me with all of them. The picture that results is consequently imaginary, but it will be at once recognized as representing a real type and not an uncommon one. The second illustration is not composite. It is the actual experience of one actual man, and the story is extracted almost verbatim from the diary of his work.

(1) The missionary was a good man, devoted to his work. He was sincerely desirous of building up the native church. He labored in a large district and tried hard to do the work of two or three men.

He began by building schools and churches. He saw that unless the children of his converts received some education, they could not progress as he desired to see them progress. He saw that their parents were poor and could not afford to do very much to promote education; they could hardly afford to lose the help of their children even when they were young. Consequently, he was driven to look elsewhere for support. He appealed to societies, he wrote letters, he enlisted the sympathies of his friends at home, and he collected donations. He exhorted and taught his converts until they began to understand that it was to their advantage to lend their help. Moreover, they knew that he pursued their welfare, and they were inclined to help him in any work he started. So out of their poverty, they donated money and labor, and in due course, the schools were built: primary schools in the villages and a high school at the center. The schools were built on mission property and belonged to the mission, and the mission supplied the teachers and relied upon the teachers to boost the interest of the church folk in them and induce them to send their children.

Similarly, the missionary provided churches for his people. He said that if corporate church life was to be a reality, the converts must have churches. These were provided in the same way and entailed no small labor and anxiety. In some cases he actually assisted in the building with his own hands; he exercised careful and constant supervision in all of it. He was very eager for his buildings be as good and as church-like as possible; he strove to have everything not only good but also attractive when complete, not just on the exterior but also with the internal fittings. With the help of his friends in England, he succeeded in providing some of them with bells and pump organs. He introduced robed choirs; he induced guilds of ladies in England to send him altar linen and frontals. He instructed his people in the use of the prayer book, and he managed by the power of persevering labor to teach them to conduct the service in good order. He even got them to sing translations of Hymns Ancient and Modern, for they were a musical people, though the tunes were unnatural and the translations imperfect and sometimes almost incomprehensible to them.

Thus, the services in his churches became the admiration of visitors from England. Yet he was not quite satisfied. Churches and schools alike required perpetual supervision. There was a tendency among the converts to let things fall into disrepair the moment that his inspiring presence was withdrawn even for a short time. The robes were allowed to get dirty and ragged; the altar frontals became moth-eaten; the very fabric of the buildings was neglected. The people preferred sometimes to meet in informal services to sing native hymns, which one of them had written to native tunes, to the neglect of the daily offices. The missionary was disheartened. He saw that it would take a long time to establish a habit of decent, orderly service, as he understood it. His converts had donated liberally, and he had boasted of their self-support. Yet they did not seem to look upon the fruits of their generosity as their own. They did not show any zeal to draw others from their heathen neighbors into the church.

Consequently, he eagerly welcomed a religious scheme for the establishing of native church councils, because he hoped that his people would learn to take a more intelligent and active part in the management of the church by this means. He immediately set to work to carry out the new plan. He directed his native pastors and helpers to see that the councils were elected. At first, neither pastors nor people understood. They saw simply a new method of getting money. One of the native pastors thus described his experience to a stranger: "The people come to us and they say, 'What does this mean? We do not want to be consulted. The missionaries are our father and our mother. Let the missionary tell us what to do, and we will do it.' And I say, 'The missionaries have directed this. They want you to do this. They think it will educate you in the management of affairs and will make you more self-supporting. We must do it.'" And they did.

By degrees, they began to find that it was interesting to be consulted, and they gained a new sense of importance. They not only donated money, but within certain limits, they also administered it. It was true that the missionary audited all their accounts and objected strongly to any expenditure that he had not authorized, but under his direction, they did administer some funds. They also learned to criticize the use of funds. They knew that much money came into the missionary's hands from mission sources, and they surmised that he administered more than they knew. They knew how much they gave. They knew that the missionary boasted of their generosity. They began to feel that they were doing a great deal. To strangers, their first remark was a modest boast that they were far advanced in self-support; their second was a hint that they did not receive so much out of the mission funds as they thought they deserved.

They were not, of course, allowed to go far in self-government. The missionary felt that it would be extremely dangerous if people who had not learned to walk were allowed to run. All their meetings were instructional in what the missionary thought should be done, rather than consisting of free proposal and discussion. "If they did what they liked," said the missionary, "what should I do if they wanted to do something of which I did not approve? I must keep the direction of affairs in my own hands." In this he was ably supported by his native pastors who were entirely independent of their congregations.

The missionary wanted to appoint a special teacher to work among children as a sort of special missionary for children. In one pastorate, the pastorate committee refused to see the wisdom or necessity of this, but the missionary had expressed a wish for it, and the pastor followed the missionary. The pastorate committee refused to support the plan, so the pastor vetoed their resolution. The district committee sitting under the chairmanship of the missionary accepted the plan. It was carried out. The pastorate committee thereupon passed a resolution to the effect that as the proposal had been carried over their heads and they disapproved of it, they would not vote any money for its support. The pastor vetoed that resolution also, and paid the money out of the church fund of which he was treasurer. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the committees did not always see eye to eye with their missionary, and consequently had to be overruled, their very existence did encourage the converts in self-support and did teach them the art of self-government to a certain degree. And the missionary was glad of that. He really wanted them to learn to manage their own affairs, but in the early stages, he felt it was vitally important that they not be allowed to go wrong.

Similarly, in cases of discipline he was most anxious to educate the people. He did not believe in the exercise of discipline at the mere decree of white missionaries. He thought the people should be represented. In cases of serious wrongdoing, he caused a committee of inquiry to be appointed, and if the case presented any peculiar difficulty, he went down and sat on the committee at the inquiry. No doubt justice was done. But it was disappointing to find that Christians often refused hospitality to a man who had been excommunicated when the missionary was present and then received him when the missionary was absent. They did not seem to realize the full responsibility of their action. If it was suggested that the case might have been different if the native body had acted in the first instance alone, the answer was conclusive: "It would be dreadful if the native committee condoned a moral offence."

Such was the missionary's energy and success in governing his native converts that he was appointed secretary of the Diocesan Conference of his mission. There he could exercise his abilities over a wider area. It was unfortunate that his knowledge of the language was not sufficient to enable him to write or translate papers quickly, because the rule of the Conference was that all business should be transacted in the native tongue; but the difficulty was overcome by allowing the rule to lapse. Fortunately, nearly all the native members of the conference, or at any rate all the more-influential members, could speak English, and speeches could be delivered on occasion in the vernacular for the benefit of those who could understand no other tongue.

But here too the missionary and his fellows felt the necessity of controlling the conduct of affairs themselves. One day, one of his own people rose at the conference to propose that a certain building, which had been originally put up as a residence for a foreign missionary, should be converted into a secondary school for the people of that district. The missionary heartily disapproved of this proposal. It struck directly at the position of the secondary school in his own center, which was under his immediate care. He rose to oppose it. Nevertheless, he could not convince the proposer, who got up again and began a long speech on behalf of his plan. He was very eager for it because he was himself a native of the place and a leading churchman there. Then the missionary broke in and abruptly cut him short. His argument this time was conclusive. "Well, anyhow," he said, "it is our building, it is not your building, and we will not let you have it for that purpose."

(2) The second missionary was in charge of a much smaller district. He began by approaching his bishop with a request that the usual grant given for the upkeep of his mission station be withdrawn. He desired that his own salary and the salaries of his three native teachers not be paid to them anymore. "If," he said, "we need money for any purpose, we will apply for it, explaining what we can do, what we propose to do, and what help we need; and you, if you think it good, can help us with mission funds. I will see that the work is done and will inform you when it is done. But I shall keep no mission accounts, for I shall never keep any mission money in my hands."

At the direction of his bishop and as part of the plan, he caused a council to be elected by the four little churches in his district, and he used that council. If anything needed to be done in the churches, the congregation discovered the need for itself, or the missionary suggested the need until the congregation felt it. When they recognized the need, they met as a congregation to discuss it (if the missionary was present, he was present; if he was not, he was not) and to consider what they could do to supply it. If they could supply it, they did so without any further question.

When the missionary came, they displayed their work with pride, and he congratulated them. If they needed help, they instructed their representatives to go to the district council to appeal for them. The representatives appeared at the council, set forth the case, and told how much the local church could guarantee towards the expense and how much they needed.

The district council had a small fund in the hands of its treasurer from which, if it approved the plan, it would vote a grant. If that was not enough to supply the need, the missionary then reported the matter to the bishop: "The local church wants such and such things done. It is prepared to donate so much; the district council is prepared to donate so much; they still need so much. I think the local donation is sufficient to justify the conclusion that the people are in earnest about it (or are not, as the case might be). I think the district council's grant is sufficient to justify the conclusion that the council is agreed that the work ought (or ought not, as the case may be) to be done. Can you supply the deficiency?" If the money was given, it was handed over to the district council, which then gave it with its own grant to the local church, and the work was done.

At first, this caused great amazement among the people. A local church wanted a school. The people appealed to the missionary and asked him to fund one in their village. They said, "We want a school."

"Then why don't you get one?" was the answer.

They were astonished. "What?" they said. "How can we get one?"

"How do your heathen neighbors get their children taught?"

"They donate together and invite a teacher."

"Well, why don't you do that?"

"But that has never been done. The missionary has always found the teacher."

"I cannot help that; I do not see why I should find your teachers. I have no teachers; you have. Is there not a single man among you who can teach a few little boys to read and write?"

"But may we do that?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"But how shall we pay him?"

"Look here," said the missionary, "you go away and think it out and talk it over. See what you can do and then come and report to me, and perhaps I will give you a donation out of my own pocket, if you have difficulties finding the payment." (Here he made a mistake; he should have told them to report to the district council; but it was his first case, and he had not thought things out.) So they went away, and in time the school was begun. It cost the missionary very little.

He said little about the church, the body, or unity; he always acted as if the church, the body, and unity were a reality. He treated the church as a church. He declined to treat individual members of the body as mere individuals.

Before he came to the district, there had been grievous troubles and disturbances, great persecutions, and afflictions. In fear of their lives, some of the Christians had fallen away. They did not, as far as I know, practice heathen rites, but they did not come to church, and they were unwilling to be openly associated with the Christian congregation. The missionary did not search out these people. He addressed himself to the church. He pointed out to the church the great danger these lapsed Christians were in and the seriousness of the evils that could result from their continued impenitence. He reminded the Christians that they formed the permanent element in the church, and that the good name of the church was vitally important to them.

He asked them what steps they proposed to take, and he left them to decide what should be done. They appointed some from their group to visit the lapsed Christians, in order to set before them the dangers of their state and ask them to choose on which side they would stand: with the church for Christ or with the heathen. They sent out their representatives with prayer. They received their report with thanksgiving. In a few days, most of the lapsed Christians were restored to the church.

One case was of a more difficult character. At the height of persecution, a prominent member of the church had driven his son's wife away and had contracted a marriage for him with the daughter of one of the leaders of the persecuting society. This had happened more than two years before the missionary arrived in the district. For two years, the offence had been passed over in silence. The offender and his son were both still Christians in name. As soon as the missionary found out about this, he called the church together. Again, he cautioned the Christians about the grievous and palpable dangers of condoning such an offence. Again, he left them to consider what ought to be done.

After a time, the teacher and one or two other members of the church came to tell him that the church agreed that the offenders should be excommunicated publicly. To that, he replied that it was not within the power of the local church to excommunicate any member. All they could do was to forward their resolution to the bishop with the request that he take action in the case. He said that he was quite willing to write to the bishop for the church in that regard. So he did.

But in the meantime, he met the offender and told him what the church was doing. The offender came to see him. He was very disturbed. "Why," he said, "can't you act as your predecessors have always acted? Before, if any one did anything wrong, the minister wrote a letter to the bishop; the bishop wrote a letter to the church; the letter was read in church; the man stayed away, and after that no more was said about it. Why can't you do that? Why do you stir up all the Christians in such matters?"

The missionary answered that public notorious offences concerned not only the minister in charge and the bishop, but also the whole church, and that it was right that the church should act in such cases as a body.

"But what can I do?" asked the man. "I cannot bear this."

The missionary replied that he did not know, but he thought that if the man was truly penitent, made public confession in the church, and then published his confession in the city so the name of the church was cleared, the Christians might be satisfied. He might remain in the church as a penitent, until God made clear the way for his full restoration. Then the man departed. Afterwards, the missionary met his teacher and told him what he had said and asked him whether he thought the Christians would be satisfied with such an act of penitence.

"It is of no importance," answered the teacher, "what they think. Such a thing has never been done since the world began. Whatever he may do, he will not do that."

Yet he did. It is one thing to be excommunicated by a foreign bishop; it is quite another to be excommunicated by one's neighbors. The whole church was in an uproar. Many of the Christians were connected by family ties with the offenders. They took the matter seriously to heart. Prayers went up to God night and day from individuals and from the whole church.

The offender read a confession aloud in church, which was couched in the simplest and most definite terms. In it he confessed that he had committed such an offence, that his action was contrary to the laws of God and the church, that he was persuaded that salvation was to be found in Christ, and that hereafter he would endeavor to conform his life to the law of God. He went out with two or three of the leaders of the church and posted that confession on the four gates of the city.

Soon the missionary learned that the secret of success in his work lay in dealing with the church as a body. When questions arose, he had but one answer: "Tell it to the church."

A man came to him one day with a long tale of persecution. His landmark, he said, had been removed by a heathen neighbor who, not content with robbing him, was accusing him of the very offence which he himself had committed. The injured Christian begged for assistance against his adversary. The only answer that he received was, "Tell it to the church."

Eventually he did so. After the service one Sunday morning, he rose and said, "I have business for the church." All gave him a patient hearing while he poured out his tale.

Then an old farmer in the congregation rose and asked, "Has your adversary taken the case into court?"

"No, but he threatens to do so."

"Then I propose that we adjourn this matter until he carries out his threat."

Not another word was said. Some weeks later, the same man came to say that his enemy had now taken the case into court, and he had come to appeal for help. Again, an old man rose. "I think that we had better not consider this matter anymore."

Again, the sentence was received in silence. In that silence the whole church had condemned their brother. They held him to be in the wrong. A question which might have perplexed and troubled a foreigner, one in which he might easily have made a serious mistake, was settled. No Christian in the congregation would have dared to tell a foreign minister that the man was wrong. None would have dared to advise him not to give his countenance to another. But none was ready to uphold the evil himself; none need break that silence of condemnation. They all knew every detail of the case, details which none would have ventured to utter even in private. The aged, respectable leader, illiterate, ignorant in many ways, dull though he might be, in the council of the church found his voice and fulfilled a duty which would have tried the wisdom of the best-educated and best-instructed teacher.

Very soon, the church began to realize itself. Sunday after Sunday the congregation sat discussing questions of church order or instructing one another in the faith. Most often, the missionary could not be present, and often when he might have been present, he felt that it was wise to leave his people to thresh out their questions and difficulties in their own way and report to him their decisions or send their questions to him, if they wanted his advice. He was not afraid that they would make serious mistakes or take hasty action behind his back. The more he retired from them, the more they turned to him in case of need, the more they sought his advice, the more they told him their plans, and the more they saved him from difficulties.

One day, on his return from an outlying village, he was met by his teacher with the familiar question, "Do you know what we have been doing today?"

"No. What have you been doing?"

"We have adopted a baby."

The children of a poor Christian playing in the fields had heard a cry. Seeing no one near, they searched about until they discovered a box lightly covered with soil from which the cry came. They broke it open and found a young baby. They took it home to their father. He was a poor man and utterly unable to satisfy another mouth. So next Sunday he went to church and told his tale. The Christians decided to give it into the care of one of their number and pay her a weekly allotment for its expenses. When the missionary heard this, he was glad. If he had not taught the people to "tell it to the church," the baby might have been put down on his doorstep, and he might have been forced to begin the foundation of a costly "Foundlings Home." But happily for him, the church had learned to manage its own business.

Sometimes it was his part to suggest acts of charity. One day the teacher told him that the husband of a poor woman was dead, and the family was hard put to arrange the funeral. "Get so-and-so to bring the case before the church."

After the meeting, the missionary asked the teacher what the church had done. The church had donated a certain amount. "Is that enough?"

"Barely."

Then the missionary, as a member of the church, could donate. He was not outside the church. He could act with the church, but not in place of it or without it.

All this may sound very trivial. But it led the teacher to see the hope of a native church before him as a reality more clearly than all the teaching he had received. And he learned that lesson in three months. All the cases recorded here happened in less than six months, and he and many others had grasped the truth of the situation long before the end of that time. One day he came into the missionary's house with a question. "Do you know what you are doing, sir?"

"Yes," answered the missionary, "I think that I know; but I should like to know what you think I am doing."

"Well, sir, if you go on like this, you will found a native church."
About the Author

Roland Allen (1868 – 1947) was a British deacon, chaplain, and priest, and after trips to India, Canada, and Africa, he became a writer and advocate for establishing self-supportive and self-governing churches, which adapted to local conditions as the Holy Spirit led individuals in their own localities. Allen spent the last years of his life in Kenya and wrote a book titled The Family Rite, advocating the family as the center of the Christian church and its ministry.
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Missionary Methods – Roland Allen

Revisions Copyright © 2017

First edition published 1912

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Jubilee Bible, copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010, 2013 by Life Sentence Publishing, Inc. Used by permission of Life Sentence Publishing, Inc., Abbotsford, Wisconsin. All rights reserved.

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RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Missions

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62245-402-0

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62245-403-7

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