Underlying Paul's 'stories'

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was dealing with a Greek culture that placed a tremendous emphasis on the human wisdom of its philosophers—Socrates, Plato, etc.

An epistle is not just a letter. In the 1^st century in the Greek world, when an epistle was written it started with the name of the teacher, the topic and the subject and it was a formal communication from a teacher to his students. There’s this form in which they come, explains Richard Jordan.

People say about Paul’s writings, “Well, these were just letters he wrote.” These are letters, but they’re really letters from an authoritative teacher to communicate information and doctrine.

When you’re dealing with Paul’s ministry and the other epistles really, you’re dealing not just with stories that represent the doctrine but the doctrine that underlies the stories.

In Paul’s epistles there’s a fascinating thing. They’re not just syllogistic dissertations of doctrine. He takes the doctrine and wraps it in the experiences of the people he writes to, or his own experience. So, there’s this doctrine being communicated, but it isn’t like point A, B, C; 1, 2, 3.

Some people get frustrated and say, “Well, why does a book of theology look so different than these books of doctrine?” It’s because Paul doesn’t take the information out of the context of real life.

He’ll communicate the teachings in ways that always permeate the lives of the people he’s talking about—and mainly his own life.

I’ve said to you that II Corinthians is the most personal of Paul’s epistles. You can see into him the most, and he tells you something key about himself in verse 5 of the first chapter: [5] For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

He’s saying, “Just like the sufferings of Christ, the things that come upon me when I suffer things because of the work of Christ, if I suffer then there’s a consolation that comes to me. There’s a comfort that I receive from God in those sufferings.”

[6] And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
[7] And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.

You see how Paul recognized that he was made “an ensample” of what God wants us to understand about suffering? When he suffered, it was to be an example to you about how to handle that. And when he was comforted, it was an example for you about how God comforts the saints.

Paul’s Christian life was lived in an exemplary manner for us; it was lived out for our benefit as a pattern. So, when I read Philippians, he’s not laying out his testimony about his life just to tell you about him. He’s laying it out as a pattern for us.

Philippians 3:10: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

I want to know Him, and again, it’s not just come to know Him initially. I want to know Him more intimately, more fully. The greatness, the infiniteness of God.

You’re going to spend eternity getting to know more and more and more and more about Him because you can never come to the place where you say you know Him fully, completely, and there’s nothing more to discover.