The Genuine Article
Pastor Ricky Kurth
Have you ever used Romans 15:16 to point out to someone that
the Apostle Paul was “the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles,”
only to have them argue that no, he was just a minister of the Gentiles,
one of many who ministered to the nations? If you bump into someone
who really knows his stuff, he may even point out that there are more
verses that use the indefinite article to describe Paul as “a
minister” (Acts 26:16; Eph. 3:7; Col. 1:23,25) than the lone Scripture
that you can cite where he is called “the minister.”
If anyone has ever called you on this, as you’ve sought to press
the apostleship of Paul, you don’t have far to go to turn the tables and
give them pause and food for thought. You see, just a few verses earlier
in Romans 15, Paul referred to the Lord Jesus Christ as just “a minister
of the circumcision” (v. 8).
How can this be? How can the Son of God be anything other than
the minister of the people He came to save (Matt. 1:21; 20:28)? I believe
it is because, while the Lord Jesus was God in the flesh, He did not come
into this world to sit in an ivory tower and dispatch other men to
minister to the circumcision. He Himself was on the front line of the
battle for the souls of men, standing shoulder to shoulder with other
ministers of the circumcision, men like John the Baptist, the twelve, the
seventy, and any and all others who ministered to “the lost sheep of the
house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6) in the face of opposition that came from
men and devils alike.
In the same way, there is no question that the Apostle Paul was
the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, the preeminent minister of
the uncircumcision, as even an examination of the passages where he is
called “a minister” will show (Acts 26:16-18; Eph. 3:1-7; Col.
1:24-29). But like his Lord, Paul was in the trenches, duking it out with
the enemies of his gospel, standing shoulder to shoulder in the battle for
truth with men like Timothy and Titus and Aristarchus and Epaphras and
others.
So stick to your guns when it comes to standing for the
distinctiveness of the apostleship and message of Paul. In the face of
opposition from men and devils alike, continue to insist that whether
he’s called by the definite or indefinite article, the Apostle Paul was
the genuine article!
- King James Bible
The Preserved and Living Word of God
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