Theological Musings of a Thirty-Something

I sometimes wonder about the way we Christians tend share the gospel.
Is it the way St. Paul shared the gospel?

A common method I’ve seen involves trying to convince another person that they’ve broken one or more of the the 10 commandments. After you do that, you then proceed to tell them that they need a Savior, then bingo, we’ve arrived at Jesus.

The only problem I have with this method of evangelism is that I don’t see it used in the New Testament. This fact leads me to wonder: how did the Apostle Paul proclaim the gospel? More specifically, what was the problem he saw the Gentiles had that he was bringing a solution to? Did he simply view his hearers (the Gentiles, aka: non-Jews) as law-breakers in need of a Savior?

Gentiles: Not “Law-Breakers”

The theory I want to propose for people to consider is this: I don’t think Paul primarily saw the Gentiles as people who had broken the Mosaic Law. I think Paul, in general, saw the Gentiles as having a deeper problem they needed a solution to. Here’s why I think this: the pre-Damascus Road Saul of Tarsus (along with every other Pharisee and Jew in the first century) knew and would have proudly reminded their wider world that it was precisely the people of Israel, and not the Gentiles, who were given the Mosaic commandments. The Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) was the unique covenant marker that set Israel apart from the Gentiles, a fact ancient Israel clung to dearly, to the point of it becoming a boast (see Romans 2). For Jews like Paul, the Torah was the unique covenant marker that set Jews apart from the Gentiles.

My thought is that Paul would never have labeled the Gentiles as ‘Torah (Law)-breakers’ since these Gentiles were never given a law to break in the first place. Consider the following:

Firstly, the Torah was Israel’s law, and she broke it.

Secondly, non-Jews (Gentiles) would never have asserted that they were in any way a part of Israel’s special covenant – their uncircumcision would have reminded them of this daily.

Therefore, the problem the Gentiles had wasn’t that they had broken Israel’s covenant law; their problem was that they were never a part of this covenant in the first place! Paul didn’t see the Gentiles as “law-breakers,” but instead had a different problem. This, I think, is blindingly evident in the sections when Paul most clearly addresses the “Gentile-problem.” We shall turn there now.

The “Gentile-Problem” in Paul’s Writings

The first section I want to look at is in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, where he looks out over the greater pagan landscape he sees and, writing about Gentiles, says:

“What can be known about God is plain to [the Gentiles], because God has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made….Though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four footed animals, or reptiles.”

Romans 1:19-23

(I should point out that 6 verses later, Paul does indeed go through a list of moral sins that Gentiles commit as a result of their ‘debased minds.’ I’m not suggesting in this blog that Paul thinks Gentiles have never sinned, he definitely thinks they have, he just doesn’t view them as having violated Israel’s covenant (the 10 commandments), their violation stems from another source, a source which the gospel he proclaims remedies)

The second section where Paul describes what he sees as the ‘Gentile-problem’ is in the letter to the Ephesians.

“You must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

Ephesians 4:17-19

We see in both these sections that Paul never accuses Gentiles as being ‘covenant Law-breakers.’ That would be an absurd accusation on his part since, as I mentioned before, Gentiles were never given the covenant-Law, only Israel was. Paul considers the main ‘Gentile-problem’ as this: that the Gentile mind has become ignorant to the knowledge of the One True God in whose image they were created, and, as a result, they have crafted elaborate idols/gods that reflect themselves and the unpredictable nature around them, dehumanizing themselves in the process. This, in turn, leads them to sin.

In the Background: The Prophet Isaiah

Before coming to my final point, I want to theorize where Paul probably gets this idea from. I think some of his thinking must come from Isaiah 40-55 (a section which Paul quotes numerous times in his letters). In Isaiah 40-55, the prophet Isaiah repeatedly condemns idol worship, declaring that Yahweh is the One True God and that one day all the nations will realize this. This is made most plain in Isaiah 44:9-20 of which I have extracted a few statements:

“All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know…the carpenter makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine…they do not know, nor do they comprehend; for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand….he feeds on ashes, a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”

Isaiah 44:9, 13, 18, 20

I think it’s no stretch of the imagine to assume that when Paul looks out into the broader pagan Greco-Roman world full of idols and idol-worshippers, he has this denouncement of Isaiah 44 firmly in the back of his mind, shaping his worldview and directing his mission.

My current thinking is that when Paul thought of Gentiles in general (to whom he was called to proclaim the gospel) he didn’t primarily consider them as Law-breakers, instead, he considered them as lacking the knowledge of the One True God in whose image they were made—the One True God who revealed himself to Israel through Israel’s unique covenant.

When Paul proclaimed the gospel/good news, he proclaimed the death and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-4; 2Tim 2:8). In Paul’s eyes, the promises of Isaiah 40-55 were fulfilled within this astounding resurrection event: Israel’s true exile had ended. Israel was finally vindicated and victorious. God had finally restored Zion and established his Kingdom on earth. God had done his new exodus event and had brought about his new creation, all in the Messiah. A new age had dawned, one free of sin and death. Paul was proclaiming that Israel’s God was faithful to his promises, which leads me to my final point.

Isaiah promised that when God was finally faithful to his promises to Israel, then through Israel all the nations would finally know the One True God and be restored to him. As the LORD said: “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isaiah 45:23).

The way I think Paul saw his ministry was that as he shared the story of the faithfulness of his covenant God, now realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, Gentiles were finally beholding the true identity of the One True God. Their minds were becoming a little less darkened through the Gospel by the power of the Spirit working in them.

I want to say I might be completely wrong on this of course, but I don’t ever see Paul calling Gentiles: ‘Law-breakers.’ Instead, I see him calling them ‘futile in mind’ and ‘darkened in understanding,’ which all leads me to conclude that Paul’s main dispute against paganism wasn’t its adherents’ breaking of the commandments (which they were never given in the first place), but idolatry, a complex system that traded the knowledge of the One True God for a distorted substitute. This was what the gospel remedied. Through the gospel proclamation, the Gentiles were beholding who the One True Creator God was and casting off their idols in allegiance to this Him, now fully revealed in Jesus of Nazareth