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Ask NT Wright Anything
Bonus Episode: Tom Wright unravels the strategic choices of Paul in Acts 16
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- [00:02]
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Mike Bird
Ask NT Write Anything Podcast hello and welcome to another episode of Ask nt Write Anything, one of the bonus episodes where we're continuing to go through the Book of Acts. This week we're in Acts chapter 16, and Tom, we've got some great stories to go through in Acts 16. You've got the Paul and his team continuing to go on their mission. They're in Greece. You've got the conversion of Lydia and her household. And then, you know, Paul and Silas find themselves in prison in Philippi. And I should mention once again your cracking good little book, the Challenge of Acts, which you can pick up on any good bookstore. Or if you're really keen and you're and you don't have a lot of shelf space, you can get it on Logos, which is a great little digital reader for books that I use these days. Tom, when I read Acts 16, well, there's so many questions, but one of them has got to be why is it Paul was willing to have Timothy circumcised, which we get reported here, but not titus in Galatians 2? Is Paul fickle? I mean, what's going on? Like, over my dead body you'll circumcise Titus. It's like Timothy is like, yeah, sure, why not? Go ahead.
- [02:57]
Tom Wright
Yeah, it's a totally different situation and it's a classic example where if you make up a dogmatic framework isolated from its actual context, then you really will get into apparent contradictions. It's very clear in Galatians chapter two that the reason why the people in Jerusalem wanted Titus to be circumcised was that as far as they were concerned, this whole movement was a reaffirmation of the Jewish Torah. And as far as Paul was concerned, the whole point of the death and resurrection of the Messiah was that God had done a new thing and that a crucified Messiah means, as it were, that the whole system, the whole covenant from Abraham onwards is being turned upside down and inside out to fulfill the promises to Abraham. And the point there was that in order to be a member of the people of God, as far as Paul's Judean contemporaries were concerned, people who, like him in his previous life, had adhered to the Pharisaic way, then of course you had to be circumcised because that was part of keeping the Torah. That was your badge of membership. And so it was a way of saying, to be a member of the people of God, you've got to be a fully paid up Judean or Jew. And Paul says, absolutely not. Because that is predicated on the idea that Gentiles are idolaters and so they're sinners, so we cannot have fellowship with them. So until they get circumcised, then we can't have that fellowship. Now Paul's point then is very striking. Because of the cross of Jesus, the Messiah, those Gentiles who believe in Jesus and are baptized, they are no longer idolaters, they are no longer sinners. They belong at the same table with us. They therefore, no, Titus must not be circumcised because that would be to cave in to that idea which Paul sees as demolishing the effect of the cross. If this was to be allowed, it would mean that the Messiah wouldn't have needed to die. Galatians 2, 1121. Now, on the mission field, it's a completely different issue. Paul is on his way through southern Turkey and as we know from later in the story, he ends up going north and then west over into Greece. And he wants Timothy to. To be his assistant. But Paul's modus operandi, the way he went about his mission, was, as he says in Romans 1, to the Judean first and also to the Greek. And Paul's style was to begin in the synagogue and Then if and only if they threw him out, as they usually did, then he would go to the Gentiles. But in order to have credibility within the synagogue community, he has to start off as himself a Judean speaking to Judeans. And so his. He wants to be Judeans as well. So Timothy's father was a Greek, but his mother was Jewish. So actually Timothy counts ethnically, he just hasn't been circumcised. So he is not a proselyte, because Judean identity comes through the mother's line, for obvious reasons. You can tell who the mother actually was. You can't always tell who the father was. But. So Timothy then needs to be accompanying Paul on his mission. And Paul doesn't want the question of, well, who is this dirty pagan that you brought into our assembly being raised on the mission field? He wants then to be able to go in and talk about Jesus as Israel's Messiah. And then and only then, when they discover who Jesus really was and is and what happened through his death and resurrection, then they might be able to see that therefore he is now welcoming Gentiles. But it's for the strategy of the mission rather than for anything to do with whether Timothy is saved or not, whether he's part of the family or not. Obviously, he is already a faithful Christian believer, but this is part of the kit for the missionary movement to the Jew first and also the Greek thereafter.
- [06:55]
Mike Bird
So there's a big difference in defending the integrity of the gospel when someone wants to put on the requirement to obey the Torah for Gentiles, which is different from the more practical aspects of mission, where you've got to avoid offending people, choose the path of least resistance, and simply be able to work in different contexts without arousing too much suspicion or animus from people around you.
- [07:21]
Tom Wright
And I think this is what Paul says in First Corinthians 9 about to the Judean, I became as a Judean in order to win the Judeans. To the Greeks, I became as a Greek to this, to that, to the weak, to the strong. And people have sometimes said, so Paul is just trimming his message to suit his audience. No, it's not.
- [07:38]
Mike Bird
Is he being fickle? Is he being fickle?
- [07:39]
Tom Wright
Yeah, exactly. And the answer is, is no, because Paul has a robust theology of creational monotheism where God is the God of the whole world and God wants people to be part of his whole new creation. And so Paul is prepared to go this way and that way for the sake of the mission in order to get the message Across. The question of titus in Galatians 2 has nothing to do with getting the message across. It's all to do with a kind of a nervous defensiveness of, oh, dear, these are dirty Gentiles. And the answer is, sorry, Titus has believed in Jesus. He's been baptized. He's not a dirty Gentile. He is no longer an idolater. He is no longer a sinner. He is one of us.
- [08:23]
Mike Bird
Well, as the story continues, Paul ends up leaving that region because he has this amazing vision of a man in Macedonia telling him to come over and help us. So they go across the Aegean, they go over to there, and eventually they end up in Philippi. And that's where, down by the river, he encounters Lydia and the people there at prayer. Now, I've. I've recently been on a tour with some students from Ridley College, and we actually went to Philippi, and we went to a place that is regarded as maybe not the site where. Where Lydia was baptized, but it's a. You know, because, you know, all the creeks and the rivers tend to change their movement over. Over the centuries. But we went to a place just on the outskirts of the city of Philippi. It was lovely. There's a little sort of center there where you can check out a stream and there's a bit of an Orthodox church. It's loved. I've got some great pictures. I've got some great pictures. I should. I'll give them to our wonderful producer, Nancy. Maybe we can put them out there. But it's really good. But in this story about Lydia, a couple of things that stand out for me. One is that she's. She's a worshiper of God. So she's probably a God. Fear. She hears the message from Paul and it says her and her household were baptized. And in. In addition to that, it says the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. So what does it mean that the Lord opened her heart? Is this something like effective calling? And if everyone in her household was baptized, would that mean the children as well? I remember. I remember Jimmy Dunn saying, household means slaves and retainers, not children. So he was. Although he was a Methodist, I think he had a little bit of the Baptist tradition in him, did Jimmy Dunn. So what does it mean by the Lord opened her heart to respond to the message? And what should we make of that interesting phrase that she and the members of her household were baptized?
- [10:27]
Tom Wright
Yeah, I mean, this has often been discussed precisely because of much, much later controversies. It doesn't seem to be controversial at all in the first century, that here somebody who's the head of a household, she becomes a Christian, her household becomes Christian. Now, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 addresses the question, what happens when one partner in a marriage becomes Christian and the other one doesn't? And we know how difficult that was. Because in any first century house, a pagan household, there would be little statues of gods, little shrines, little niches in the wall all over the place, and people would offer gifts of flowers or incense or whatever. And if the Christian said, we're not doing that stuff anymore, the other partner might say, oh, yes, we are. And there might EAS have to be a parting of the ways. Paul doesn't want that, but he sees that it might have to happen. But if the head of the household says, we're getting rid of all those idols, we're going to worship the God we see in Jesus of Nazareth, then the household as a whole are going to be following suit. Not because she's bullied them, but because this is, you know, we in the modern west think in very individualistic terms. So you want to do a sort of a check round, every single member in the household. Are you happy with this? Are you happy with that? No, we work as a. There's that wonderful book by Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered. Donovan was a Catholic missionary in East Africa, and he went and lived with a particular tribe, I think it was the Maasai, for quite a long time, and talked to them about God, talked to them about Jesus, read the Bible with them, and eventually the head man of the tribe said, we are going to be baptized. And Donovan at once said, well, you know, I know who you all are. And there are some who really aren't ready yet, and others who actually, they're not quite clear about this stuff, et cetera. Some obviously are. And the chief said, no, you don't understand. We are going to be baptized. We will help those other ones. And Donovan realized that actually they thought as a community and that this was a decision taken by the community who then responsible for helping those who were still struggling with whether they could really believe this stuff or not. And that's a wonderful book, by the way. It's one of those books that I still don't have a copy because each time I have one I give it away to somebody, then I have to buy another one. So a quick plug for that book. But I think that's what's going on with the household here. The Lord opening Lydia's heart. There's a sense that this is one of the moments where Luke gives us a little insight into how he understands the process of conversion. Because we're told in say, Romans 10, that if you confess with your lips, Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Something about the heart at some point in the process has to be involved. And anyone who's, in Wesley's terms, had their heart strangely warmed, knows what that's about. And sometimes this happens some years after somebody has started to attend church. I've watched that happen with people who've been faithful, who've said their prayers. And then at a certain moment something new seems to happen to them and it all goes click. For other people, it happens with their very first acquaintance, as it seems to have done with Lydia. The Lord opens her heart, her household is baptized. I suspect that there were many in that household who then over the following weeks and months, as they became worshipers of the God revealed in Jesus as opposed to whatever they'd been worshiping before. Although, as you say, she was a God fearer, so she was probably worshiping in the Jewish or Judean tradition. But anyway, the warming of the heart or the opening of the heart is a very intimate way of describing how it feels for some people to come to faith. I must say, I remember once hearing a sermon long time ago where somebody was imagining a conversation between Lydia later on between Lydia and the Philippian jailer. The Philippian jailer, we'll get to him in a minute. He was converted when there was an earthquake and the walls fell down and the doors burst open. He was going to commit suicide and imagine him and Lydia talking later on he says, well, Lydia, how did it happen for you? Well, I heard Paul preach and I felt my heart being opened and I believed. And that was great. Well, you mean there wasn't an earthquake? You mean no walls fel feel that you had to kill yourself or something? And they just said no. It was really all quite simple. And then the jailer's thinking, I'm a bit worried about Lydia. I'm not sure she's had the full experience yet. And you know, the way Luke tells these stories makes it clear that not all people who come to faith come in the same way. For Lydia, it's very simple. The Lord opens her heart, she hears, believes baptized.
- [15:14]
Mike Bird
It's an interesting story. I mean, certainly compare what happens to Lydia and the Philippian jailer. It's very different about what happens to them. But you know, Paul's time in Philippi doesn't end up going all that well, because he find he finds himself in prison in Philippi. Now, I've been through the ruins of Philippi and there's a little section where Paul and Silas were allegedly imprisoned. The one thing the local tour guide said is that prison was pretty much built in the 13th century, so wherever Paul was in prison, it. It wasn't.
- [15:48]
Tom Wright
It wasn't there.
- [15:50]
Mike Bird
No, it probably wasn't there. But they. They do get in prison. You got the amazing story about, you know, the earthquake and the jailer who nearly wants to commit suicide. But then when the magistrates find out that they're, you know, Roman citizens and they shouldn't have been beaten, Paul really does make a big deal about it. And I'll read from the. The New Testament for everyone, your own translation, Tom. When they're told they can, they can go in peace, Paul says, we are Roman citizens. He said, they beat us in public without a trial, they threw us into prison and now they are sending us away secretly. No way. Let them come themselves and take us out. I mean, oh, boy. I mean, you've got to admire Paul's, you know, Hutspa here. I mean, he's not taking it down. I mean, everyone else saying, paul, let's get the heck out of here. I mean, don't stand on ceremony. You know, we may not get another chance to flee here. There could be another mob. Why do you think Paul really takes a stand on principle? Wouldn't it been just as easy to shake the dust of your feet and say, I do not want to die in Philippi. Let's go, guys.
- [17:04]
Tom Wright
Yeah, of course it would. There are other times earlier on in the story, in Acts 13 and 14, when Paul and his companions do have to get out of town fast. But Paul knows on this one that he's on very safe ground. As you will know, Mike, there's one of Cicero's speeches which is, in attacking a Roman governor who had had somebody in his province actually executed, crucified, despite the fact of the man shouting, I'm a Roman citizen. I'm a Roman citizen. And that was a real scandal which went right through the Roman world, that if you treat a citizen in that way, watch out. You may just be a local magistrate, but if you have a Roman citizen in front of you, then ultimately Caesar may get involved in this one, so jolly well watch out. And we see that happening later in Acts as well, when Paul is back in Jerusalem and the centurion gets worried that he's about to have him tortured and so on. But I think what's Going on here is quite significant in terms of the Lucan theme throughout Acts about the way that the authorities are to be treated, that the authorities are to be respected up to a point, but only up to a point. Cause we must obey God rather than human authorities. And the human authorities have to be reminded what their duty is. Looking ahead to Acts 23, there's one point when the high priest commands Paul to be struck and Paul says, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. You're supposed to be judging me according to the law, but you're just breaking the law. And people say you can't speak to the high priest like that. And Paul says, oh, oh, I didn't know he was the high priest. I mean, presumably he wasn't wearing his ceremonial robes and the high priest who'd changed from one to another, in other words. And Paul says, scripture says, you must not speak evil of the ruler of your people. In other words, Paul will respect the office, but he will hold the man to account. And Paul won't back off from that because he knows exactly the ground he's standing on. So here in Philippi he knows that if he plays the citizen card, then a shock wave will go through the magistrates. Oh my goodness, we had a Roman citizen here and actually Silas as well. It's one of the reasons that Paul and Silas team up. They can play this card together. We are Roman citizens, you don't treat us like that. So when the magistrates, having acted illegally, tell them to get out of town, Paul is making the point that the magistrates must be held to account. God is a God of order, not of peace. God wants his world to be wisely ordered, ordered, but where the people who are doing that wise ordering supposedly are getting it wrong, the Church has the responsibility to say, no, this is out of line. Now, of course it is typical of Paul. Paul will, as I say in one of my books, Paul will say boo to any goose that's going and then to all the swans as well. I mean, he just dives right in there. So it's very characteristic of Paul, but it's also spot on theologically in terms of how you look at God given authorities and how you have the right and responsibility to hold them to account when they're getting it wrong. And so the magistrates come shame faced and apologize and please be our guest and now leave the town, which then of course he does.
- [20:27]
Mike Bird
Yeah, well that's, it's an amazing story and a good example of speaking truth to power as it goes. The magistrates do apologize to them and what happens next is Paul leaves the prison. He goes to Lydia's house and they go on to encourage, encourage the brothers and sisters there before they go on their way in the rest of the mission. And I guess that leads us to Acts 17, another amazing passage about, you know, Paul in Thessalonica and in Athens. And there's some amazing parts that we'll look at, but that'll be in a future one of our bonus episodes. That's all we have time for this week. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We're going to continue going through the Book of Acts, but we're also going to begin doing a series on justification by faith. You won't want to miss that one either. And hey, if you're really enjoying this, don't forget to tell all your friends about a great experience you're having. But that's enough for us for now. I'm Mike Bird.
- [21:27]
Tom Wright
And I'm Tom Wright.
- [21:29]
Mike Bird
And you've been listening to Ask nt Write Anything until next time. God bless you and see you around. The podcast.