Paul's Presentation Style

I see an interesting pattern in the book of Acts. Paul had a penchant for arguing and debating which was how he was trained from childhood. This had made him very popular and had earned him the admiration of the establishment Jews. He worked his way up quickly to be a champion of the original faith delivered to the forefathers and was respected as a fierce defender of the truth that could not be resisted.

In the process however, he laid aside sympathy and compassion and humility as weak traits of character that would be liabilities to his cause. He believed in strength and boldness, that one has to be tough in the face of creeping error. He believed strongly that heresy and emotionalism were at the heart of the “new theology” that was sweeping many off the firm foundation of centuries of carefully cultivated and established truth.

Then he himself was confronted with the reality of the true condition of his own heart in the presence of Jesus. He saw the contrast between his dogmatic, fierce defending of didactic truth with the open, wounded pain he was causing in the heart and emotions of Jesus, the Son of God, and his own heart was re-awakened.

However, old patterns remain in the mind and for years Paul struggled with his habit of arguing and persuasion as the means of presenting truth. It often seemed so effective and seemed to satisfying that it was very difficult to let go. Yet the spirit of combativeness produced mixed results that eventually ended sometimes in physical attacks on his life.

The original new testament church had started out with the nearly undiluted passion of God in love and humility that was an unrestrainable power for a period of time. But as human methods and ideas began to be mixed in to the body of believers there came a subtle and imperceptible shift away from fully living from their hearts filled with the passion of God to reasoning and persuading and eventually arguing. This introduced an element foreign to th Holy Spirit and slowly began the descent toward the Dark Ages.

Notice the result in Corinth when Paul changed his presentation style from arguing and persuading and reasoning – the methods used in the previous cities – to immersing himself in the Word and going back to simply testifying as a witness as was the consistent pattern seen in the disciples early in Acts. Not only did he not het thrown out of Corinth violently, but he was affirmed by God directly and his Jewish opponents ended up being the ones who received the beatings and violence that he usually received.