Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

Paul, more than any other man except Jesus, defined what it means to be Christian.  Through his many letters, journeys, preachings, and even prison terms, he described to us what it looks like when faith meets the road.

Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon, all undisputedly written by Paul, with six more books likely written by him.  He wrote the very first Christian writings we have, predating the Gospels.

He wrote about the sanctity of life, politics, marriage, the cross, loving our neighbor…religion.

And he was a disruptor.

Caesar was a god. The imperial cult was the religion of the empire, the worship of the divine Caesar. Temples to Caesar were erected in every city, including the ones Paul went to: Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica.

The very words he used as he wrote, and preached, deliberately chosen to ‘provoke’ the empire.  

‘Euangelion’, the Gospel.   This was the word used for Imperial proclamation, the word used when a new Caesar was born or enthroned and the good news was proclaimed throughout the world.

Kyrios-The Lord.  This was Caesar’s title.  That Paul used for THE Lord, Christ.

Soter-Savior.  Another imperial title used for the divine emperor.

Parousia- the coming of the Lord.  This was the term used when the Caesar came to town and the people went out to meet him.  Paul used it to describe the second coming of the Lord.

Ekklesia- this was the word used for a political assembly of citizens.  Paul used it as the gathering of the believers.

Pistis- faith or faithfulness.  It was used as a term for loyalty to Caesar, Paul made it loyalty to Christ alone.

And Rome noticed.

Paul was arrested multiple times for defying the law of the time.  Every single arrest that I looked at was, while ostensibly for preaching the gospel, in reality a political arrest.  He defied the laws of Caesar’s kingdom by primarily proclaiming another King whose laws superseded those of the Roman Empire.

He preached freedom from those laws.

He preached a higher authority.

In Philemon, we can see a gentle persuasion to set the slave free.

He preached equality, no slave or free, no male or female…

He preached love over everything else.

He stood in the face of everything that the political empire held dear and he taught Christians what it means to be ‘other than’.

He debated with civic and with religious leaders.  He traveled the world teaching about Christ.  He engaged politicians, Kings, governors, proconsuls, magistrates and city clerks. The Sanhedrin, chief priests, elders and synagogue leaders.

And he preached the Gospel to them.  He told them that their current government was not godly.  That Caesar was not God. That he was not the final authority. That there was another way, a better way. He broke the law every single time he opened his mouth or put stylus to parchment proclaiming Christ as King.

And in all of that…every single act of defiance against the state and the church at that time, he said, “I have determined to know nothing before you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

Every word, every discussion, every letter, every confrontation, first passed through the lens of Who Christ is and who He was in Him.

And this is my determination, too.

WWJD…remember?  What would Jesus do?  Knowing Him, living in Him, hidden in Him, being His people, His representatives in this world , what should we do?

This is the question, the inner debate, the prayer that I ask every day.  And in the asking I find that I must continue to bear witness, to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves, to stand for the fatherless, the poor, the weak, the disenfranchised…the muslim, the jew, the atheist, the woman considering an abortion, the LGBTQ persons, the ‘other than’.  Because, Christ and Him crucified was for all of them, for all of us.