1. St. Paul’s Work: Churches Established, Not Merely Converts Gathered
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), chapter I, “Introductory”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.
In little more than ten years St. Paul established the Church in four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before 47 A.D. there were no Churches in these provinces; in 57 A.D. St. Paul could speak as if his work there was done, and could plan extensive tours into the far West without anxiety lest the Churches which he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support.
The work of the Apostle during these ten years can therefore be treated as a unity. Whatever assistance he may have received from the preaching of others, it is unquestioned that the establishment of the Churches in these provinces was really his work. In the pages of the New Testament he, and he alone, stands forth as their founder. And the work which he did was really a completed work. So far as the foundation of the Churches is concerned, it is perfectly clear that the writer of the Acts intends to represent St. Paul’s work as complete. The Churches were really established. Whatever disasters fell upon them in later years, whatever failure there was, whatever ruin, that failure was not due to any insufficiency or lack of care and completeness in the Apostle’s teaching or organization. When he left them he left them because his work was fully accomplished.
This is truly an astonishing fact. That Churches should be founded so rapidly, so securely, seems to us to-day, accustomed to the difficulties, the uncertainties, the failures, the disastrous relapses of our own missionary work, almost incredible. Many missionaries in later days have received a larger number of converts than St. Paul; many have preached over a wider area than he; but none have so established Churches. We have long forgotten that such things could be. We have long accustomed ourselves to accept it as an axiom of missionary work that converts in a new country must be submitted to a very long probation and training, extending over generations, before they can be expected to be able to stand alone. To-day if a man ventures to suggest that there may be something in the methods by which St. Paul attained such wonderful results worthy of our careful attention, and perhaps of our imitation, he is in danger of being accused of revolutionary tendencies.
Yet this is manifestly not as it should be. It is impossible but that the account so carefully given by St. Luke of the planting of the Churches in the Four Provinces should have something more than a mere archaeological and historical interest. Like the rest of the Holy Scriptures it was certainly “written for our learning.” It was certainly meant to be something more than the romantic history of an exceptional man, doing exceptional things under exceptional circumstances—a story from which ordinary people of a later age can get no more instruction for practical missionary work than they receive from the history of the Cid, or from the exploits of King Arthur. It was really intended to throw light on the path of those who should come after.
But it is argued that as a matter of fact St. Paul was an exceptional man living in exceptional times, preaching under exceptional circumstances; that he enjoyed advantages in his birth, his education, his call, his mission, his relationship to his hearers, such as have been enjoyed by no other; and that he enjoyed advantages in the peculiar constitution of society at the moment of his call such as to render his work quite exceptional. Here I simply wish to insist that however great these peculiar advantages of St. Paul may have been, they cannot be so great as to rob his example of all value for us. In no other work do we set the great masters wholly on one side, and teach the students of to-day that whatever they may copy, they may not copy them, because they lived in a different age under exceptional circumstances and were endowed with exceptional genius. It is just because they were endowed with exceptional genius that we say their work is endowed with a universal character. Either we must drag down St. Paul from his pedestal as the great missionary, or else we must acknowledge that there is in his work that quality of universality.
2. How St. Paul Chose His Centres
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), chapter II, “Strategic Points”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.
I cannot help concluding then from this brief review that St. Paul did not deliberately plan his missionary tours, but I find it equally difficult to believe that he was not guided by some very definite principles in his selection of his mission stations.
1. The object which he set before himself was the establishment of the Church in the province rather than in the city or town or village in which he preached. Thus he was called not to Philippi or to Thessalonica but to Macedonia. So Apollos is said to have passed over into Achaia when he went from Ephesus to Corinth. So both St. Paul and St. Luke constantly speak of the provinces rather than of the cities. In other words the unit in St. Paul’s view was the province rather than the city. This may account for the fact that he delayed so long in attacking Ephesus: Ephesus was of more importance than Philippi or Thessalonica as a strategic centre for the propagation of the Gospel, but Asia was not of more importance than Macedonia. This principle is worthy of notice not only because it witnesses to the largeness of his vision and of his faith, but because, as we shall see later, it greatly influenced him both in his choice of the cities in which he should preach, and in his method of presenting the Gospel.
2. Secondly he confined his work within the limits of Roman administration. It is perfectly clear that in preaching in South Galatia, St. Paul was evangelizing the Roman province next in order to his native province of Cilicia, in which there were already Christian Churches. Between these two, there lay the great territory of Lycaonia Antiochi, and across this territory St. Paul must have passed every time he went from Tarsus to Lystra or to Iconium. Yet we are never told that he made any attempt to preach in that region. From this fact we must certainly infer that St. Paul did deliberately consider the strategic value of the provinces and places in which he preached. The territory of Antiochus—Lycaonia Antiochi—was not so important from the view of the propagation of the Gospel as the region of Lystra. The one was a centre of civilizing influence, the other was not. St. Paul deliberately chose the one and rejected the other.
3. Thirdly, St. Paul’s theory of evangelizing a province was not to preach in every place in it himself, but to establish centres of Christian life in two or three important places from which the knowledge might spread into the country round. This is important, not as showing that he preferred to preach in a capital rather than in a provincial town or in a village, but because he intended his congregation to become at once a centre of light. Important cities may be made the graves of a mission as easily as villages. There is no particular virtue in attacking a centre or establishing a Church in an important place unless the Church established in the important place is a Church possessed of sufficient life to be a source of light to the whole country round. It is not enough for the Church to be established in a place where many are coming and going unless the people who come and go not only learn the Gospel, but learn it in such a way that they can propagate it. It has often happened that a mission has been established in an important city, and the surrounding country has been left untouched so far as the efforts of the native Christians have been concerned, because the Gospel was preached in such a form that the native convert who himself received it did not understand how to spread it, nor realize that it was entrusted to him for that purpose. By establishing the Church in two or three centres St. Paul claimed that he had evangelized the whole province. Ten years after his first start from Antioch, he told the Romans that he had “fully preached the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum” and that he had “no more place in these parts.” In that single sentence we have the explanation and the justification of St. Paul’s establishment of the Churches in important centres in a province. When he had occupied two or three centres he had really and effectually occupied the province.
3. The Gospel St. Paul Preached
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), chapter VII, “The Preaching”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.
If we cannot accept the speeches at Athens and Lystra as typical of St. Paul’s address to heathen people, still we are not left wholly to the guidance of the few scattered statements concerning his main doctrines which I have quoted above. We have as a witness the Epistles to the Thessalonians. The first Epistle was written about a year after St. Paul’s first preaching in the city, where, according to Prof. Ramsay’s calculation he had laboured for only five months. Thus his stay had not been long enough for him to do more than teach the fundamental truths which seemed to him of the first importance; all the circumstances of his visit were still fresh in his memory, and he was recalling to the minds of his readers what he had taught them by word of mouth. Now in that Epistle we get an extraordinarily clear and coherent scheme of simple mission-preaching not only implied but definitely expressed. Briefly that teaching contains the following elements: (1) There is one living and true God (i. 9); (2) Idolatry is sinful and must be forsaken (i. 9); (3) The wrath of God is ready to be revealed against the heathen for their impurity (iv. 6), and against the Jews for their rejection of Christ and their opposition to the Gospel (ii. 15, 16). (4) The judgment will come suddenly and unexpectedly (v. 2, 3); (5) Jesus the Son of God (i. 10), given over to death (v. 10), raised from the dead (iv. 14; i. 10), is the Saviour from the wrath of God. (6) The Kingdom of Jesus is now set up and all men are invited to enter it (ii. 12). (7) Those who believe and turn to God are now expecting the coming of the Saviour Who will return from heaven to receive them (i. 10; iv. 15-17). (8) Meanwhile their life must be pure (iv. 1-8), useful (iv. 11, 12), and watchful (v. 4-8). (9) To that end God has given them His Holy Spirit (iv. 8; v. 19).
This Gospel accords perfectly with the account which St. Paul gives of his preaching in his last address to the Ephesian elders, and it contains all the elements which are to be found in all the sermons and in all the notices of St. Paul’s preaching in the Acts, except only the answers to the objections against the Gospel, and the proofs of its truth which would be manifestly out of place in writing to Christians. The nature of God, one, living, personal, loving: the facts of the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the death, the Resurrection: their meaning and their power to supply the spiritual needs of men: the folly of idolatry: the way of salvation: Repentance and Faith: the doctrine of the kingdom: the nearness of judgment: all are there, not one is omitted, and they form one connected whole of extraordinary power.
We can easily understand how such a Gospel would appeal to the minds of St. Paul’s hearers. To those who, among the conflicting claims and confused teachings of polytheism, were seeking for some unity in the world of nature and of thought, St. Paul brought a doctrine, at once simple and profound, of one personal God living and true, the Creator of all. To men who sought for some intelligent account of the world, its nature and its end, St. Paul revealed a moral purpose in the light of which all the perplexities, uncertainties, and apparent contradictions, resolved themselves into a divine harmony. To men of high moral instincts, appalled and dismayed at the impurity of society around them, St. Paul offered the assurance of a moral judgment. To men oppressed by the sense of sin he brought the assurance of pardon and release. To the downtrodden, the sad, the hopeless, he opened the door into a kingdom of light and liberty. To those who were terrified by the fear of malignant spirits he revealed a Spirit benignant, watchful and ever present, all-powerful and able at a word to banish the powers of darkness. To men dissatisfied with the worship of idols he taught the pure service of one true God. To people whose imaginations were overwhelmed by the terrors and darkness of the grave he gave the assurance of a future beyond the grave in the bliss and peace of the Risen Lord. To the weak who needed support, to sinners bound with the chain of vice, to people unable to cope with the depressed morality of their heathen surroundings, he brought the promise of an indwelling Spirit of power. To the lonely he offered the friendly warmth and society of a company all eagerly looking forward to a bright day when Grace would come and this world with all its perplexities and troubles pass away. It is no wonder then that this Gospel of St. Paul appealed to men, fired their imaginations, filled them with hope, and strengthened them with power to face persecution.
4. How St. Paul Appointed Elders
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), chapter IX, “The Training of Candidates for Baptism and Ordination”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.
Ordination. As with the admission of converts, so with the appointment of elders there was some responsibility recognized by the brethren. I cannot here enter upon the question of the meaning and form of ordination in the early Church; I am dealing only with the method which St. Paul practised in the appointment of elders in the Churches of his foundation. There is no doubt that he did appoint elders; and it seems to be equally clear that he did not appoint simply on his own initiative, acting on his own private judgment. This is borne out by the constant emphasis laid upon “good report,” and by the term which St. Luke employs to describe his action. As in the case of “the seven” at Jerusalem, so in the Four Provinces there was some form of election.
But it may be argued that the evidence for election is not sufficient, and that St. Paul did in the first instance appoint elders simply on his own authority and judgment. In that case the parallel to his administration of baptism will be even more exact. For, as we shall see later, the elders appointed by St. Paul had authority to ordain as well as to baptize. If then the first elders were appointed simply by St. Paul they must be compared with the first converts who were baptized by St. Paul. Just as he baptized three or four and then committed the responsibility for admitting others to those whom he had baptized; so he ordained three or four and committed the authority for ordaining others into their hands. There is not a shred of evidence that any congregation created its own elders by election alone. There is evidence that congregations did have some say in the election of elders. There is evidence that St. Paul did commit authority to appoint elders to others (notably to Timothy and Titus), and that this authority very early became concentrated in the hands of a single local bishop. But the right of the congregation to have some say in the appointment is manifest throughout the period with which we are dealing. By this means the principle of mutual responsibility was again made prominent.
Furthermore, this principle was maintained by the fact that St. Paul ordained as elders members of the Church to which they belonged. He did not establish a provincial school to which all candidates for ordination must go, and from which they might be sent to minister to congregations in any part of the province, at the bidding of a central committee or at his own. The elders were really of the Church to which they ministered. They were at home. They were known to the members of their flock. If they received any pecuniary support, they received it from men who supported them because they felt the need of their undivided and uninterrupted care. Thus the bond between the elders and the Church to which they ministered was extremely close.
This is of the utmost importance. It makes a great difference if the ministers feel some responsibility to those to whom they minister, and if the general congregation feels some responsibility for the character and work of those who are set over them. Where candidates for the ministry are selected by the superior order, where they are ordained solely on the authority of the superior order, and are appointed to their posts by the sole direction of the superior order, those who are so appointed are apt to lose any sense of responsibility to the congregation among whom they minister, and the congregation feels no responsibility for them. The result is an inevitable weakening of what should be the strongest support, both to clergy and laity. Where the superior order consists almost wholly of foreigners, the result is often deplorable. The catechists, teachers, deacons, and priests, so sent out, are wholly independent of the one authority which they really understand, native public opinion; solely dependent upon the one authority which they seldom can understand, the foreign missionary. Consequently they are always striving to act as they think will please the foreigners, they imitate them as closely as possible, they fear to take any independent action, whilst the members of the congregation on their side feel that they have nothing to do with their appointment. They accept their ministrations so long as they are not seriously offended; they tolerate, but they do not support them; and if anything goes wrong, they disclaim all responsibility.
The elders so appointed were not young. They were apparently selected because they were men of high moral character, sober, grave, men of weight and reputation. When St. Paul ordained younger men, as Timothy, he took them away with him to act as his assistants and ministers that they might receive from him deeper lessons of Christian doctrine and practice than they could learn at home; but, in the provinces, he ordained, to be the first leaders of the Church, men who thoroughly understood the condition and requirements of their congregations, men who were respected by the congregations for their moral and social position.
5. Gospel, Retirement and Faith in the Holy Spirit
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), chapter XII, “Principles and Spirit”. Assigned excerpt. The interpretations are the author’s.
The principles which seem to underlie all the Apostle’s practice were two, (1) that he was a preacher of Gospel, not of law, and (2) that he must retire from his converts to give place for Christ. The spirit in which he was able to do this was the spirit of faith.
1. St. Paul was a preacher of a Gospel, not of a law. His Epistles are full of this. He reiterates it again and again. It was not simply that he was a preacher of a Gospel in contradistinction to the preachers of the Jewish law, he was a preacher of Gospel as opposed to the system of law. He lived in a dispensation of Gospel as opposed to a dispensation of law. He administered a Gospel, not a law. His method was a method of Gospel, not a method of law.
This is the most distinctive mark of Pauline Christianity. This is what separates his doctrine from all other systems of religion. He did not come merely to teach a higher truth, or a finer morality than those who preceded him. He came to administer a spirit. Before St. Paul many teachers had inculcated lofty principles of conduct and had expounded profound doctrines. Men did not need another. They needed life. Christ came to give that life, and St. Paul came as the minister of Christ, to lead men to Christ Who is the life, that in Him they might find life. His gospel was a gospel of power.
So he taught, and for that all his life was one long martyrdom. If he would have admitted for a moment that his work was to introduce a higher law, a new system, he would have made peace with the Judaizers and he would have been at one with all contemporary reformers; but the Gospel would have perished in his hands. In his own words he would have fallen away from grace. Christ would have profited him nothing. That he refused to do and for that he suffered. Men called him an antinomian in consequence, but he was not.
We have seen this truth illustrated in his practice again and again. He did not establish a constitution, he inculcated principles. He did not introduce any practice to be received on his own or any human authority, he strove to make his converts realize and understand its relation to Christ. He always aimed at convincing their minds and stirring their consciences. He never sought to enforce their obedience by decree; he always strove to win their heartfelt approval and their intelligent co-operation. He never proceeded by command, but always by persuasion. He never did things for them, he always encouraged them to do things for themselves. He set them an example according to the mind of Christ; he was persuaded that the Spirit of Christ in them would teach them to approve that example and inspire them to follow it.
2. He practised retirement, not merely by constraint, but willingly. He gave place for Christ. He was always glad when his converts could progress without his aid. He welcomed their liberty. He withheld no gift from them which might enable them to dispense with his presence. He did not speak, as we so often speak, of the gift of orders, or the gift of autonomous government, as the gift of a privilege which might be withheld. He gave as a right to the Spirit-bearing body the powers which duly belong to a Spirit-bearing body. He gave freely, and then he retired from them that they might learn to exercise the powers which they possessed in Christ. He warned them of dangers, but he did not provide an elaborate machinery to prevent them from succumbing to the dangers.
To do this required great faith; and this faith is the spiritual power in which St. Paul won his victory. He believed in the Holy Ghost, not merely vaguely as a spiritual Power, but as a Person indwelling his converts. He believed therefore in his converts. He could trust them. He did not trust them because he believed in their natural virtue or intellectual sufficiency. If he had believed in that, his faith must have been sorely shaken. But he believed in the Holy Ghost in them. He believed that Christ was able and willing to keep that which he had committed to Him. He believed that He would perfect His Church, that He would stablish, strengthen, settle his converts. He believed, and acted as if he believed.
It is that faith which we need to-day. We need to subordinate our methods, our systems, our selves to that faith. We often speak as if we had to do simply with weak and sinful men. We say that we cannot trust our converts to do this or that, that we cannot commit the truth to men destitute of this or that particular form of education or training. We speak as if we had to do with mere men. We have not to do with mere men; we have to do with the Holy Ghost. What systems, forms, safeguards of every kind cannot do, He can do. When we believe in the Holy Ghost, we shall teach our converts to believe in Him, and when they believe in Him they will be able to face all difficulties and dangers. They will justify our faith. The Holy Ghost will justify our faith in Him. “This is the Victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.”