Frank Montalbano
The earliest New Testament writing begins with Paul’s words to the Thessalonians: “We give thanks to God always for all of you” (1Th 1, 2). Today I am especially grateful to Tom and Gayle Benson, for establishing the Chair of Scripture Studies in my name, and also to Father Ron Rolheiser who gently twisted my arm to make this presentation.
This presentation will attempt to share- Paul’s final reflections on life in Christ “I know him in whom I have believed” (2tim 1, 12). This presentation, I almost said “homily,” but then 20-30 minutes would be too long for a homily. This “presentation” will share reflections on Paul’s life in Christ, a life of suffering and witnessing to Christ from that unforgettable day of his Damascus experience in the year 33 until his death in Rome some 30 years later. It is all summed up in those very words to Timothy from a Roman dungeon. “I know him in whom I have believed” (2Tim 1, 12). This was Paul’s final reflections on a life in Christ.
There is no doubt that, quoting Father Raymond Brown, “Next to Jesus, Paul has been the most influential figure in the history of Christianity.” No Christian has been unaffected by what he has written. All Christians have become Paul’s children in the faith.”[1] Father Brown also informs us that in the letters attributed to Paul, there are some 32,350 words. Almost as many words as there are in the longest New Testament writing: The Acts of the Apostles, which has 37,800 words.[1]
We must remind ourselves that Paul did not intend to write theological treatises. Paul was a pastor at heart. His letters are “ad hoc” timely pastoral responses to the problems and questions of the churches he founded and to which he ministered.[1] Everything Paul did and wrote was pastoral and meant to build up the faith of his communities and co-workers like Titus and Timothy. My own love affair with Paul began sixty years ago in October 1949 at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute where Père Lyonnet lectured on the first eight chapters of Romans for an entire year. When invited by Father Rolheiser to make this presentation, I assure you that Paul’s letter to the Romans barely made the cut; the final four being Romans, 2Corinthians, Philippians, and especially 2Timothy 1, 12.
Paul writes: “I know him in whom I have believed.” (New American Bible) or perhaps in the better translation of the New Revised Standard Version “I know the one in whom I have put my trust.” These very words are those of the entrance antiphon for January 25th, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and are found engraved in four Latin words above an altar near the tomb of Paul in the Roman Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. “Scio ei cui credidi.” or “I know him in whom I have believed.”
The two letters to Timothy and one letter to Titus are called “pastoral.” This is because they were sent to Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete, as special collaborators with Paul in ministry. They reflect the inheritance of Paul by a new generation, especially in the second letter to Timothy. The writer’s words seem so authentic that they could only have come from the heart and lips of Paul in the 11th hour of his life. Although much of the pastoral teaching does not correspond to the realities of our 21st century church, we are challenged to find meaning that goes beyond their original context and is applicable to the church today. These are technically called “actualizations” because “the richness of meaning contained in the biblical text gives it a value for all times and cultures” as we are told in the 1993 Pontifical Biblical Commission document entitled: The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.[1]
The phrase, “I know him in whom I have believed” goes back to that event in the year of Our Lord 33 on the road to Damascus, when a blinding light enveloped Saul, the persecutor. Those who were with him saw him stagger and then fall in the dust on the road. When he finally opened his eyes, they met only darkness. Saul was blind. What was revealed to him would remain embedded in his mind and heart and he would compare it to the original light of creation. In 2Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 6 he writes:”For God who said, ‘let light shine out of darkness’ has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.”
Paul never used the word “conversion” to refer to that 180 degree turn on the road to Damascus. Cardinal Martini calls it a turning from”ideological violence, the fruit of fanaticism.”[1] So, when the Church speaks of the conversion of St. Paul, it does not imply a change of religion, for in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s own writings there is Paul’s passionate devotion to his Jewish heritage.
He calls them “my brothers, my kindred according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3). In Romans 9:1-4 he speaks of the nine privileges of Israel; later on in Romans 11:1 he writes: “I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” and in the letters to the Galatians 1, 13-14 and Philippians 3, 4-6 he speaks with pride of his Jewish upbringing. He was always at pains to demonstrate that his understanding of the gospel was consistent with his biblical faith, and that Christian believers were spiritual heirs to ancient Israel.[1] So in speaking of Paul’s conversion, we are not speaking in terms of changing religions, but of believing disciples, like you and me, rather than of non-believers. Paul’s call and conversion cannot be separated.[1] In his four major letters, Romans, 1-2 Corinthians and, Galatians, it is only in Galatians that he refers to the Damascus vision. For him it was like being set apart and called from his mother’s womb like the prophet Jeremiah (Gal 1, 15). For him it was a “revelation” (Gal 2, 2).[1]
When Paul writes “I know him” he was not speaking about his pre-Damascus days[1] as a young man who approved of the death of Stephen (Acts 7, 50), nor what he heard about Jesus at the feet of the Pharisee, Gamaliel, the Elder (Acts 22, 3), but he was speaking of personal knowledge dating back to his Damascus experience, when he was told by the Risen Lord,”I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9, 5).
The phrase, “in whom I have believed” is in the perfect tense in Greek, indicating a permanent and uninterrupted state since his first act of Christian faith. The object of Paul’s belief here is not a creed but a person, whom Paul knows through personal experience, the one in whom he has believed. It was at one and the same time “a vision and an allegiance.”
Paul the Jew was well aware that the Hebrew word for faith was derived from the verb ‘aman which means “to be firm, to be sure” from which comes the meaning “to believe” (NAB) or to trust” (NRSV).[1] Faith is solid and capable of sustaining pressure and Paul experienced pressures within and outside his communities throughout his missionary life. Faith is something one can lean against with confidence, like a solid stone wall as contrasted with a flimsy stage prop which might look strong but is most unstable (see 2Chr 20, 20).[1] Paul was convinced of the reliability of the one he has leaned on since encountering him on the road to Damascus. Thus, for Paul, Christ Jesus was the only reality that was truly trustworthy. “I know him in whom I have believed.”
Paul’s need of this solid faith and trust in all the trials of his missionary activity were declared by Christ, in a vision to Ananias the Christian disciple in Damascus who baptized him and restored his sight. To Ananias, Christ said:”…this man is a chosen instrument of mine, to carry my name before Gentiles kings and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name” (Acts 9, 15-16).
Not too long afterwards, Paul would realize that those words of Christ to Ananias would involve his ”filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church, of which I am a minister” (Col 1,24-25). To the Philippians, his first European foundation, he would write: “”I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3, 8-9).
In 2Corinthians 11, 23-29, Paul gives us a rare autobiographical glimpse of his life as a missionary apostle: five times he received thirty-nine lashes from Jews; three times he was beaten with rods; once stoned; three times shipwrecked; a night and a day in the sea; dangers from rivers, from bandits, from his own people, from Gentiles, sleepless nights, hunger and thirst and the daily pressure of ministering to the churches. The list of hardships concludes five verses later in verse twenty eight with his declaration: “And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.”
Paul realizes that his experience of weakness, failure and disappointment gave him a special sensitivity to all those experiencing human weakness and brokenness. His mysterious “thorn in the flesh” of 2Corinthians 12, 7 has an Old Testament or first Testament background. In the book of Numbers (33.55), where”thorns” are a metaphor for Israel’s enemies from within and in Ezekiel (28, 24) for its enemies from without. . Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” must have been the opposition he encountered in his ministry and the fact that none of his churches measured up to his expectations.
There was always someone in every community he founded who caused him grief: the lazy idlers in Thessalonica; Euodia and Syntyche at Philippi; those paralyzed by the old ways in Galatia, the resentful at Ephesus, the mystics at Colossae, and especially the conceited spirit people at Corinth. Paul, the apostle of unity of the Body of Christ felt that such divisions were opposed to the plan of God, for whom the church, the Body of Christ, should exhibit the organic unity of a living body. [1]
It was by a revelation of Christ that Paul realized that his vocation as an apostle did not lie in his mystical experiences (2Cor 12, 1-7), but in his weakness and in his suffering. This revelation came to Paul during the one and only time in his writings where he directly addresses Christ in a prayer, a prayer that echoes that of Jesus in Gethsemane.[1] Three times he begs the Lord that a thorn in his flesh be taken away (2Cor 12, 7-8). But, then, there comes what Paul recognizes as his most precious revelation from the Lord, namely that his weaknesses and failures are what empty him of any illusions of his own success, and create a space in which the power of the crucified and risen Christ can dwell and work in and through him”my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cor 12, 9).
Paul then realized all the more that the divine strength can work in human weakness when surrender to God’s will comes. “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.” The same “”dwell” is used in the Prologue oJohn 1, 14: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1, 14). The word translated as “dwell” here is literally: “pitched his tent/tabernacle.” Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2Cor 12,9-10). The “thorn in the flesh” becomes as it were sacramental, an effective sign, a channel of divine grace. It is only when we humbly admit our own weaknesses that we can glimpse God’s glory and be ready like Paul to stand up and lean against and be supported by our faith: “I know him in whom I have believed.”
In each of the four chapters of the Second Letter to Timothy, Paul recalls the sufferings he endured as an apostle: Immediately after saying: “I know him in whom I have believed” in
1,15: he tells us, “You know that everyone in Asia deserted me” (1,15). Her was deserted just as the Apostles, Christ’s friends, deserted Christ when he needed their support the most. In chapter 2,9: “because of this gospel I am suffering hardship to the point of being imprisoned like a criminal. The word of God however has not been imprisoned.
3, 10-11: “in persecutions, sufferings. What persecutions I endured!
4, 16. Finally, in the last chapter of the last writing attributed to him he states, “at my first defense no one stood by me.” Once more and finally: in, 2Tim 1,12: “I know the one in whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me.”
“More than any NT writer he draws out the implication of the Christ event for our lives.”[1] So in this letter there is a sense of finality – not the dread experienced by a prisoner on death row whose date of execution has arrived, but the recognition of a life well spent. Paul was about 70 years old at this time; his best years were behind him. In terms of the normal life span, he was living on borrowed time, since for so many years he had borne in his body the suffering and dying of Jesus. Each day was grace and he intended to make the best possible use of every moment. As he bared his neck for the sword of the executioner, he knew that his death would be the final proclamation and realization of the words: “I know him in whom I have believed.” or “I know the one in whom I have placed my trust.”
So, in this statement, Paul is now telling Timothy and us: farewell. “I know him in whom I have believed”, “scio ei cui credidi.” Today I dare say that Paul would add the words of the last three successors of St. Peter: John Paul I; John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It was John Paul I, who on the last day of his life. Thursday September 28, 1978 confided to Cardinal Gantin: “It is Jesus Christ we must present to the world, outside of this we have no reason to exist”; it was John Paul II who on Sunday October 22, 1978, at his inaugural Mass said: “Fling wide open the doors to Christ and you will find true life. It was Benedict XVI who said in his homily at the inaugural Mass of April 24, 2005: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.”[1] To these words Paul would add two words: in the language of his ancestors: “Hinneni”: “Here I am.” And “Amen” Amen, “I know him in whom I have believed.”
I am grateful to all of you, and thank you for your presence here today.
In the spirit of St. Paul’s life and writings, my prayer for you today is the closing prayer of Paul’ in the New Testament’s earliest writing, his First Letter to the Thessalonians. “May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will also accomplish it (1Thessalonians 5, 23-24). “I know him in whom I have believed.” Thank you!