Experiences led by Paul

Paul is a unique apostle. He was not one of the Twelve, the select group that ministered alongside Jesus Christ, but Paul surpassed the Twelve in labors, patient suffering, and evangelistic outreach. That last accomplishment is what makes the Apostle Paul so important to our study--because this post is also about the methods of the greatest evangelists of all time and Paul very well may have been the greatest! (We'll find out after God's judgments are completed).

Paul was an evangelist to the core. He knew the message he preached, the Gospel of the Kingdom, was unique. And he considered it to be the centerpiece of his ministry.

The Kingdom message was so personal to him, he called it my Gospel. Let's listen to a doxology he composed to the Roman church in which he highlights how the Father establishes Christians in the Gospel, his Gospel:

Now to him who is able to establish you according to my Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ… to the Only Wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 16:25, 27; NASB).

Total Coverage

To God be the glory!

Paul could speak and write this way because he served God fully. Paul didn’t just share the Word of God here and there. He proclaimed a very specific message from the Scriptures, called the Gospel, to the fullest extent. And Paul did it in a vast expanse of geographical territory. His territory was, as he said, ‘from Jerusalem to Illyricum.’ That was Paul's evangelistic circuit--the geographic zone of his Gospel.

He stated:

… from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ (Romans 15:19).

Let's get a grasp on how extensive Paul's reach was. It started with Jerusalem.

Well--those of us who are students of the Bible know where Jerusalem is. It's the capital of modern day Israel. You'll see it on a map close to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. You also know about its strategic importance as the capital of ancient Israel in the region of Judah--the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

However, Illyricum is an ancient Roman territory not marked on maps today. To understand it, we need to know which countries Illyricum corresponds to today. If Illyricum existed today, it would include the modern states of Albania (just the northern part), all of Kosovo, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the coastal regions of Croatia.

Geographers call this region "the Balkans." It's the southeastern part of Europe, just north of Greece.

A Long Trip

If you were to travel by land, the distance between Jerusalem and Illyricum is the equivalent of a trip from New York to Los Angeles. That’s about 1,800 miles (2,900 km). It would take you around 35 hours to drive the Jerusalem to Illyricum route in a car without stopping. Consistent daily driving with hotel stays would take you five days.

Consider that! That was Paul's evangelistic perimeter! And let's appreciate the fact that Paul did most of his travel by foot or by sea.

Boldness

Regarding his bravery, Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel. With great boldness he preached repentance to sinners. That’s not easy!

Let’s see you go out there and declare to the leaders of false religions that their gods are nothing more than idols. That would just be the start. What if you're successful? Well, let’s see what you do when masses of people actually repent and the entire economy of large cities is overturned by the conversions to Christianity. The wrath of the businessmen, merchants, and false religious leaders will rise up against you.

If that weren't bad enough, Paul had to face the wrath of Jewish leaders also—the men who refused to believe in Jesus as their Messiah. These caused him more trouble than anyone else. Like the Pharisees who Jesus killed, the Jewish religious leaders from Jerusalem to Illyricum were particularly opposed to the Gospel.

Despite their antagonism, Paul approached the Jewish leaders first wherever he went—that was his ‘first to the Jews’ strategy. He learned it from Jesus himself! Paul said:

I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile (Romans 1:16).

Synagogues and Marketplaces

Paul’s method was to first go to the local synagogue where he could speak with people who knew the Bible well. There he could present his arguments that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. The result was that many Jews and some Gentiles believed. Why Gentiles also? Because there were often what the Bible calls God-fearing Gentiles attending synagogue to learn about the God of the Bible.

Many times there was a larger group of Gentiles than Jews who believed. Either way, Paul and his team (consisting of Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke, and others) gave the Jews preferential treatment. They rightly recognized that the Jews were God’s chosen people.

Like Jesus, Paul's approach was to preach the Gospel to the Jews first. That's why we read this:

As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the Dead.

‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women (Acts 17:2-4).

Paul would also go to the marketplace—that is, the city plazas. He always sought opportunities to speak in the forums available to him. For example, that would be the equivalent of going to a university today, and of holding a debate to argue for the Christian faith. Here's what we read:

… he [Paul] reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there… Paul was preaching the Good News about Jesus and the Resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus…

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! … [God] commands all people everywhere to repent. He has set a day when he will judge the World with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the Dead (Acts 17:17-22, 30-31).

Lydia of Philippi

The example from Athens is magnificent, and there are dozens of other examples of Paul promoting, preaching, and declaring the Gospel. But we want to look at another example to understand the place of baptism in salvation: Paul’s evangelization of Lydia in Philippi.

The Scriptures tell us:

… [Luke, Paul, Timothy, and Silas traveled] to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were spending some days in this city.

And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were thinking that there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled (Acts 16:12-13; NASB).

Why did Paul, Silas, Luke, and Timothy think that there may have been a place of prayer outside the city gate? What lead them away from the center of the city, the marketplace and plazas to an isolated riverside spot? The Scriptures say that they had spent some days in the city, so we are led to understand that during those days the missionaries must have noticed the idolatry and sinfulness of the citizens of Philippi.

We can safely assume that the missionary team attempted to evangelize people during those few days, but there was no fruit. Nobody within the city walls had enough faith to trust in the Gospel of the Kingdom. In spite of that, the four men must have gotten a lead from the city dwellers that there were female believers who would meet on Saturdays outside the city.

Paul and his companions went outside of the city gates of Philippi that Saturday and found that group of women. Now, it’s likely the women were Jewish since Sabbath-keeping is a Jewish practice and they were praying not to Zeus but to the True God, our Father. Regardless, whether the women were Jews or not, they wanted to get closer to the True God at that riverside prayer spot, and Paul helped them to do just that through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The effect was that God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia so that she would respond to what Paul said. So, what we have is a woman who, after listening closely, believed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures say that God opened Lydia’s heart was to respond to the Gospel, so what do you think she did once God led her to respond? Take a guess. If you haven't answered yet, read it in the Biblical text:

And a certain woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshipper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay’ (Acts 16:14-15; NASB).

Responding to the Gospel

As the Scriptures say, Lydia was ready to respond to the Gospel. But, how did she respond? She responded the way everybody in the first-hand record of the early Christian Church responded to the Gospel: She asked to be baptized.

Yes, everybody in the single most faithful testimony to what happened when the Church started, the Book of Acts, responded to the Gospel by seeking baptism. The biggest example of this was when 3,000 people got baptized on Pentecost.

Here's the record of that magnificent event, the birth of the Church:

… when they heard this [the Gospel], they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what are we to do?’ Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls… (Acts 2:37-38, 41; NASB).

Paul reached much less than 3,000 people when he went to Philippi, but he certainly was successful in his evangelism. What made his outreach in Philippi so successful? Well, it's because Lydia was such a dynamic matriarch. Her leadership was so persuasive that her whole household was baptized with her!

Lydia was the catalyst for group baptism. She was the first domino in the domino effect. Lydia was the first of many baptisms! And thus, at her house, the first Christian meetings in the history of Macedonia, and on the European continent, began to take place.

Responding to the Gospel

Let's put the lesson in black and white: Responding to the Gospel and getting baptized are synonymous. They are one and the same. The only correct way to respond to the Gospel is through baptism. There is no other way. You cannot respond to the Gospel with mere words. God is not looking for a verbal response. You cannot respond to the gospel with a simple prayer.

The Ethiopian eunuch, the 3,000 people who were present to hear Peter preach at Pentecost, the Samaritans who believed in Philip’s Gospel, Paul under Ananias’ evangelism in Damascus, the Philippian jailer, Lydia, and every other repentant sinner we read about in the Bible who heard the Gospel, responded to it the same way. They sought baptism. They asked their evangelist whether they were worthy of baptism.

There’s no alternative. There’s no other way of responding positively to the Gospel message. The only affirmative way to respond to the Gospel is by being baptized. You say “amen” to the Gospel by getting baptized.

But the passage above shows two additional truths:

1. After a person has been baptized, mature Christians assess their degree of sincerity.

In Lydia’s case, she asked Paul to judge whether she was someone who was faithful to the Lord or not. That is, Lydia knew that she was not the right person to assess herself. She knew that she needed to be evaluated by a mature Christian, herself being so new to the Faith.

And Lydia did not ask Paul to judge her level of devotion prior to her baptism. Before she was baptized, her devotion was completely untested, unproven, and theoretical. At that point, she had zero level of devotion. Lydia only asked to be assessed after she had been baptized.

Similarly, people who are entering into the New Covenant should not presume to be saved, to be Christians, or to be faithful to the Lord until those who are mature in the Faith have assessed them. They should, as little children, seek the approval of others, and not be presumptuous. Where is that kind of humility today?

It’s gone. And it gets worse. The Church is in dark times.

People in churches aggressively oppose baptism, and they will fight with someone who says that they must be baptized, acting as if their “prayer of faith” is enough. Others put themselves in leadership positions in churches, in small groups, or even in different Christian ministries. They dare to give their testimonies in church meetings making it sound as if they are right with God–even though they have never been baptized!

This is presumptuous arrogance. It’s the opposite of the Biblical model. It shows no humility because it contradicts the Word of God.

2. To integrate into Christian fellowship, a person must be baptized.

That is, prior to earning the precious bond of Christian friendship, a person must be baptized. There is no fellowship prior to that instant. Believers already in the Church do a great disservice to people who have not been baptized if they treat them like Church members.

They are not. They are still outsiders. And yes, outsider is a Biblical term. Let's see how it's used in these verses:

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside (1 Corinthians 5:12-13).

… he [a pastor] must be well thought of by outsiders… (1 Timothy 3:7; ESV)

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time (Colossians 4:5; ESV).

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? (1 Corinthians 14:23; ESV).

From the moment an individual is baptized, they cease to be an outsider. They become insiders. They become members of the Church. Remember what it says about the first tranche of believers who were converted on the day of Pentecost. What does it say happened to qualify them as being added to the Church's roll books? Baptism. It says this:

So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls… (Acts 2:41; NASB).

Baptism. That’s when you can call penitent converts believers—and not before their baptism. Why not? Because they have not yet entered Christian fellowship. They must not be counted as Church members until they are baptized.

A New Home

Finally, as the case was with a matriarch like Lydia (or a patriarch like the Philippian jailer), if the new convert is a head of household, their family leadership position will convert their home into Christian meeting place.

If a head-of-household new convert has opened their heart with all sincerity, then they undoubtably will also open their homes. Their home becomes a place to receive repentant neighbors or anyone who comes in the name of Jesus—that means evangelists like Paul or people like us.

Those people, and any brother or sister in Christ who is in need, all the sudden are welcome to eat, drink, or rest. A heart and a home get converted together when that heart belongs to a head-of-household.

Home is where the heart is, and if that heart is converted, the home becomes a place of fellowship. All of a sudden, it belongs to God. That's what happened after Lydia was baptized. Her home became the basis for the first church in continental European history.