Reflection for Sunday August 14th 2011

As you know, Paul is not one of the 12 Apostles; he is not an original insider. He never knew Jesus in the flesh, and yet many would say he has had more influence than all the other Apostles put together. We also know much more about Paul than we know about the Twelve. Paul is a Jew who moves beyond and is rather hard on his own Jewish religious tradition. So we might say that Paul is the outsider who consistently takes over the inside—and redefines it.

He radically critiques the so-called new religion that at that time was not a religion at all (but will eventually be called “Christianity”). He speaks critically of the Twelve (2 Corinthians 11:5, 12:11) and even against Peter himself (Galatians 2:11). He was either crazy, courageous, arrogant, or very inspired. Maybe a bit of all?

Paul is called the “light to the Gentiles” because he decided that whatever this message is, it is much bigger than Judaism. His mission was to reach out and, in reality, preach this message to most of us reading this right now—to all races and religions. It is very truthful to say that Christianity became a universal religion, and not a reformation of Judaism, largely due to the influence of this one person we call Paul. Rather amazing when you think of it.