Picture this. You are in your church’s auditorium, and the musicians have just finished playing. As they return to their seats, you flip to a fresh page in your sermon notebook and open your Bible expectantly. The pastor introduces the special guest speaker and the congregation applauds as the man walks across the platform and sets his Bible on the pulpit.
He looks at the congregation, a warm smile on his face, then says, “Thank you, my friends, thank you. It’s so good to be with you. Beloved, I come to you with grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, about your sin problem….”
How would you respond? Would you recoil at such a blunt and direct admonition? I confess, I might. But this is what it must have been like to hear, either in person or by letter, from the apostle Paul.
A Direct Messenger
He was an educated man, a seminary graduate, if you will, from the school of Gamaliel, who was one of rabbinic Judaism’s greatest minds. He was as comfortable quoting from the Tanakh (the Old Testament) as he was referencing Greek philosophers and poets. His pedigree, both genealogically and theologically, was impeccable.
But his boast was not in any of these things. Paul’s life was hidden in the Messiah because He had transformed this man from a murderous Pharisee into a zealous trophy of God’s grace.
Indeed, it was the love the Messiah had for him that compelled Paul to boldly love the church; and that love often meant dealing with local churches and individual believers in a very direct manner.
Speaking Hard Truths
Consider some of Paul’s more famous admonitions. He warned the Roman church to disassociate themselves from divisive, self-serving people: “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple” (Romans 16:17–18).
He chastised the church at Corinth for tolerating immorality in its ranks: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you,… deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:1–2, 5).
In the same letter to this church, he rebuked members for their disorderly and fleshly conduct at the Lord’s Supper: “For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you” (1 Cor. 11:21–22).
Paul passionately and pointedly called out the church in Galatia for turning to a gospel of works: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1–3).
Such reprimands must have been hard to take; and yet, Paul issued them in his apostolic authority, not to condemn them, but to lovingly push them to maturity in Christ.
Accepting Admonition
This is the testimony of all of Scripture. Whether to Israel or to the church, all throughout the Bible God spoke boldly through the prophets and apostles. Sometimes, He used them to remind readers that He loves them and has wonderful plans for them (Jeremiah 29:11; Romans 8:28); but He also used them to chasten His people for their sin against Him (Jeremiah 25:8–11; Acts 5:1–11).
What about you and your church? Would Paul be welcomed there? Would his loving admonitions be received or rejected?
As believers, it is important that we take seriously the whole counsel of God, not just those passages that make for nice wall art in our homes. Whether from the prophets, the Lord Jesus, or the apostle Paul, we must be quick to hear the hard things God has to say to us, because He chastens those He loves (Hebrews 12:6).
