PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES - J. C. O'Hair

 

PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES

Pastor J. C. O’Hair

Note the testimony of the apostle Paul in Romans 11:13 and I Timothy 2:7: “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office.” “Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not,) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.”
In Acts 22:17 to 21 the apostle Paul told how he saw, in a vision, the Lord Jesus Christ in the temple in Jerusalem; and at that time Christ said to Paul: “Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.” (Acts 22:21).
With this command of Christ, read also Paul’s testimony in Galatians 1:15 and 16: “But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, To reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen (Gentiles); immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.”
From these Scriptures and many others, every student of the Scriptures should know that the apostle Paul was the Lord’s chosen messenger to the Gentiles, as was no other apostle.
This should cause us to stop and consider what was in the mind of the Lord Jesus when He told the other apostles (Peter and the Eleven) to “disciple all nations.” (Matthew 28:19 and 20). If that meant that the Twelve were to go all over the world preaching the gospel of grace, was not Paul rather presumptuous and egotistical when he called himself “the apostle of the Gentiles?”
Now read Romans 15:16 and Ephesians 3:8: “That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
After reading all of these Scriptures surely we should know that Galatians 2:9 means something more than that the twelve apostles should go to the Jews with the great commission of Matthew 28:19 and 20, and Paul should go to the Gentiles. Note Galatians 2:7: “But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter.”
Now read Acts 20:24 - Galatians 1:11 and 12 and I Corinthians 3:10. In these Scriptures we learn that Christ, by special revelation from heaven gave Paul His “grace” gospel and appointed him to be His general foreman, (His wise masterbuilder) during the period of grace when God is building-up the Body of Christ. Read I Corinthians 3:10 and Ephesians 4:9 to 13.
It is more than noteworthy that in the Book of Acts we find no record of any missionary journeys of the twelve apostles to the Gentiles outside of the land of the Jews. Several of Paul’s are recorded.
Let us carefully and prayerfully consider several other important and significant facts. 1 - Peter declared in Acts 10:28 that it was not lawful for the Twelve to go to Gentiles about 7 years after Pentecost. 2 - Then one mouth of the Twelve preached to Gentiles (Acts 15:7 - Acts 10:32 to 34), but not because of Israel’s unbelief and fall. (Romans 11:30 and Romans 11:11). 3 - Note that the “Church” leaders at Jerusalem objected to Peter’s eating with Gentile saints. (Galatians 2:10 to 14).
After Paul, in II Timothy 1:9 and 10, set forth God’s eternal purpose and grace he added that he was the apostle of the Gentiles. Then in II Timothy 4:16 to 18 Paul told us how Christ miraculously preserved him, so that the preaching, by him, might be fully known unto the Gentiles.
Peter with the Kingdom Keys, preached to the Gentile household (Cornelius and his house). (Acts 15:7). But then Peter and his associates were sent to the Jews (Galatians 2:9). Paul was the apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 11:13).

 

 

Posted By – Cecil Spivey

Cspivey1953@gmail.com

 

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