How to Read Paul

Men in the Early Church, pt. 1

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

- 1 Corinthians 9:19-22

It may seem a strange choice to focus on men in the Christian tradition during Pride month. (And, of course, happiest of Prides to all my fellow LGBTQ folks, as well as our beloved allies.) But the roots of homophobia are in religious patriarchy, and I want to spend this sacred season of Pride digging deeper on how we got here, so that we can grow beyond our collective patriarchal hang-ups.

Regular readers likely have picked up my discomfort with Paul and his writings. The truth is, I have very few issues with Paul himself. I think Paul was doing the best he could with what he perceived to be his calling, as we’ll explore below. My strife is around the authority that Paul's works are given in Christian doctrine and practice—authority which I believe to be largely misplaced.

And the way we read Paul’s writings may change our very relationship with Scripture itself.

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We know as much about the apostle Paul as we do anyone from late antiquity, thanks in large part to his prolific letter writing. Born in approximately 5 CE in present-day Turkey, he was first known as Saul of Tarsus. Raised and Jewish Pharisee and deeply immersed in Roman culture, he originally persecuted Christians under Roman law before a conversion event on the road to Damascus. During this conversion experience, he claimed to have encountered Jesus in his resurrected state and to have been given instructions for Christian evangelism. He took the name Paul and began a decades-long apostolic ministry that spanned the length and breadth of the existing Roman empire.

His ministry included wide ranging journeys as far as modern-day Greece and Italy, and according to some legends, even as far as Spain. On these missionary trips he taught and preached, establishing relationships with converts and like-minded locals. He founded church communities that met in people’s homes, out of sight of anti-Christian Roman forces. He maintained relationships with individual church communities through letter-writing, which he used as a primary tool for teaching and community management.

Paul’s letters to his churches range in tone from theological, to practical, to inspirational, to admonishing, and beyond. His messages are carefully crafted for each community’s unique culture and needs. And this is done so intentionally. Paul speaks of himself as a flexible message-bringer, meeting his audience where they are so that they can appreciate Christ’s greatness.

Thirteen of Paul’s letters were canonized in the Christian Bible in the fourth century. (Originally, it was thought to be fourteen, but the authorship of Hebrews is now widely disputed. Three other texts are also thought to be “pseudo-Pauline” or written in Paul’s name by a different author, perhaps after his death.) They were included on the lists of early Church formers because of the perception of Paul as being led by the Holy Spirit and a need for formal theological guidance beyond Jesus’ documented ministry. Paul was certainly not the only apostle evangelizing after Jesus’ death, but he was one of the most prolific, and his letters amongst the best preserved.

And yet, a strange thing happened as Christian scripture was canonized: Paul’s writings were afforded as much authority as Jesus’ words in the gospels. In some cases, perhaps even more so, as people looked to Paul for guidance on how to formulate a nascent religion. Early Christianity and beyond became, in some ways, a faith in both Jesus and his apostle Paul.

And this phenomenon is not without consequence. When I talk to people about the theological roots of their Christian religious trauma, it is rarely the words of Jesus that were quoted to harm them. It is most often the words of Paul. Epistle passages about gender roles, sex, and sin so often accompany the shame-based religious enforcement many of us experienced. Which leads one to wonder:

Is Paul the problem?

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Here’s my hot take and Paul, and the thesis statement of this post: In the grand Christian organization, Paul was middle management and should be read as such. He should not now and never should have been afforded as much theological authority as Christ himself.

That’s not to say that Paul’s writing isn’t valuable. In fact, he’s doing something immensely powerful: He’s wrestling with his limited, human understanding of Christ’s message. He’s attempting to put words to his faith and inviting others to do so in their own ways. He’s trying to contextualize Jesus for people far removed from his original ministry, people who, like him, would never have the opportunity to experience Christ directly. He is perhaps one of the best documentarians in history of an authentic faith journey.

But reading Paul as a church authority is like reading the internal memos from the Director of Marketing of a start-up company and turning them into a manual on how to conduct business. He was a message crafter and relationship builder. He was never a visionary or transformational mystic.

And even Paul didn’t think he was writing with the level of authority he has been afforded by the Christian church. He thought of himself as an evangelist of someone else’s message. He wrote to the churches he had established relationships with in hopes of keeping them focused on the salvific message of Jesus. He knew he wasn’t writing the theology of Paul. He was writing what he understood to be the message of Christ.

As with so many aspects of the harm done in the name of Christianity, the problem is in our interpretation and application, and our inability to read scripture the way the original audience would have. The receivers of Paul’s letters would have known him as an intermediary for Christ’s message and a co-worker in spreading the gospel. Elevating him to the level of Christ would have been seen as a perversion, and against the virtue of humility Paul himself so often speaks of.

When I wrote about Women in the Early Church last year, my aim was to show how much authority was stripped from women over the history of Christianity. As we move through our Men in the Early Church series this month, I hope you see how much undue influence was handed to men as Christianity increasingly aligned with the politics of the Roman empire. Aspects of Paul’s letters served the Roman agenda, so he was elevated to authority far beyond what he deserved or intended. And today, the same could be said for so many men in positions of leadership in the mainstream Christian church.

And I think even Paul—who regularly praised his beloved female co-workers in the Christ movement—would say that we can do better than that.

Thank you for joining us! We’ll continue exploring Men in the Early church next week as we look at the critical moment when early churches moved from homes to public square, and what that meant for men's and women’s roles. Join us then!