St Paul’s leadership challenge

God calls people in the circumstances of their lives, and every person has a duty to discover their purpose in life.

The American Republican politician and Christian youth minister Ron Boehme has correctly said that true greatness is “knowing your calling and developing the character to fulfil it”. Leadership is a calling, and God uses the kind of person one is to make one a leader.

Peter and his fellow apostles were mostly fishermen. Unlike Peter and any of the other apostles, Paul was an intellectual. He had a rich and illustrious background. He belonged to the tribe of Benjamin and was named after the first king of Israel, Saul, who was from the same tribe. He was a Roman citizen, and his father gave him the Latin name Paul. He was a trained Pharisee and an educated citizen of the world. He was a colossus, one of the most gigantic figures in human history. No wonder Jesus chose him to lay the foundations of Christian theology.

Though a great leader, Peter did not have the intellect required for this task. This article presents four dimensions of Paul’s leadership which pose a challenge to Christian leaders of our time.

The first challenge is that Paul demonstrated beyond any doubt that he was  acutely aware of his calling and was driven by it. Practically all his letters open with a declaration of his calling as an apostle. The Letter to the Romans opens with this address: “From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the service of the gospel that God promised long ago through his prophets in the holy scriptures”. His special calling was “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God” (Rom 15: 16).

As the apostle called to be a minister to the Gentiles, Paul laid the foundations of missionary work. In centuries to come, missionaries were to go all over the world to preach the Gospel. The foundations of that work are to be found in the book of Acts which has been described as “the world’s first missionary manual embodying both the history and philosophy of missions”.

In chapter 13 we see Paul going all over the Roman Empire and other lands. Everywhere he went he planted churches as is evidenced by his letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Colossians and so on. The challenge to us today is that only a third of the world has received the Gospel, and so we have the duty to imitate Paul’s missionary zeal.

The third challenge is Paul’s vision of the Church. One of the most scandalous things about the Christian Church today is how divided it is. Paul’s vision is that of a united church. In this church Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, slaves and free people are all brought together and reconciled to God the Father through Jesus. The Church is God’s household with Christ as the head: “There is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all” (Eph 4: 4-6).

Consequently, in 1 Corinthians 3 Paul severely rebukes those who divide the people by saying they follow Paul or Apollos. This vision is completely in line with that of Jesus who prayed earnestly and passionately that his followers may be one: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (Jn 17: 23).

Finally, we shall take a brief look at Paul’s view of leadership. Like Jesus, Paul saw the importance of leadership development. He gave guidelines on requirements for various categories of leaders: For Paul, exemplary character is essential for a Christian leader. His fellow-workers, such as Timothy and Titus, must “set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity”. The Presiding Elder (bishop) “must have an impeccable character. Husband of one wife, he must be temperate, discreet and courteous”.  Similarly deacons “must be respectable, not double-tongued, moderate in the amount of wine they drink and with no squalid greed for money”.

He himself was an exemplary leader, and that’s why he could declare: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1).