Recently, I attended a men’s weekend
retreat, and during one of the presentations the speaker said, “Before his
conversion, St. Paul, known then as Saul of Tarsus, persecuted Christians
relentlessly, even to the point of having some believers sentenced to death. He
was a real jerk.”
Then the speaker said, “But after his
conversion, St. Paul became sweet and kind and lovable, and never said a harsh
word to anyone ever again, right? Right?!”
No one in the room said anything. We
weren’t quite sure where he was going with this. Some of us thought, “Well, umm,
I guess that’s true, since saints are supposed to be kind and loving and holy.”
Others thought, “Hmm, when I read the Acts of the Apostles, it doesn’t seem
like Paul was all that sweet and kind.”
However, before anyone could say
anything, the speaker answered his own question. “No! He was not sweet and kind,”
he declared. “St. Paul was the same loud and brash and zealous guy he was
before his conversion. During his entire Christian ministry, during all of his
missionary journeys, St. Paul was still a jerk! But he was a ‘Jerk for Jesus,’
and that made all the difference.”
Now, before you misunderstand—as most of
the guys in the room did—and think the speaker was bad-mouthing St. Paul and
minimizing his effectiveness as a saint, the whole point was not that Paul was
an irredeemable jerk. The point was: God can use people to do His will despite
their flaws. He sometimes even uses people’s so-called flaws to make them more
effective ministers of the Gospel.
St. Paul is a perfect example. If you
read the Acts of the Apostles, and then read between the lines in Paul’s many
New Testament epistles, a portrait emerges of a man who was intense and driven
and blunt. The average person who observed Paul in action might conclude that
he was one of the most obnoxious and annoying persons ever; in other words, a real
jerk.
But think about the situation at that
moment in time. It had only been a handful of years since the Resurrection
occurred. The entire Christian church consisted of a bunch of uneducated
fishermen in Jerusalem and the folks who followed their teaching. In order for
the faith to spread, God needed someone who was intelligent and well-spoken, as
well as brash and relentless and completely immune to criticism from others.
(How many of us can make that claim? Come on, be honest. In the face of
criticism, most of us quickly change our behavior because we’re afraid other
people won’t like us.)
Saul of Tarsus was the perfect man for
the job. When he was relentlessly persecuting Christians, he didn’t care what
other people thought about him. His only desire was to do God’s will. When
Jesus appeared to him on the Road to Damascus—and informed him that he was in
fact NOT doing God’s will—the mission completely changed, but the person did
not. Now known by the Greek version of his name, Paul was just as relentless
and unconcerned about what others thought of him. That is, he had the perfect
personality to spread the Christian Gospel all over the known world, even if many
considered him to be a jerk.
The message the retreat speaker was
tying to get across is this: if we submit ourselves to the Lord, He can use our
strengths and weaknesses and personality traits to do His will.
If God has called you to preach the
message of Christ in a place that’s never heard the Gospel, then maybe you need
to be relentless and zealous and completely immune to criticism. If God instead
has called you to be a witness for Jesus to your family and friends and
coworkers, then maybe the most effective technique is to dial back the
jerkiness.
We should start a new Christian Men’s
Group, called “Jerks for Jesus.” I know someone who would make a good member.
He’s the guy typing this sentence.
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