Mfonobong Inyang: Interrogating Paul’s Playbook For Shifting Culture

There is a certain hubris that our generation tends to have when exaggerating our innovation quotient. Somewhere in our heads, we have convinced ourselves that simply because we come up with exotic names for certain actions, events or phenomena, we must be special. I’m not so sure that people from a much earlier age would be entirely surprised to see aeroplanes because they saw birds flying in their time; they might marvel at the ingenuity of seeing a metal bird that transports people from one location to another, but something about those aircraft will always remain eerily familiar. Those in the Stone Age might blush to find out that what really happened when they started fires back then, by smashing two rocks against themselves was just kinetic energy turned into thermal energy owing to friction. Perhaps medieval businessmen might be impressed to learn that the horses they once relied heavily on for transportation and industry are now embedded in car engines.

Solomon had a point when he said, “There is nothing new under the sun”. The bible is quite fascinating, I don’t just read it merely for its religious content but as someone who is steeped in communications – I appreciate the brilliant storytelling. Also, while the bible is not a history book, it does contain historically accurate events, which provide us with archetypes. One of my favourite characters therein is Paul; about three years ago, I described him in the following terms: “a prelate, a tentmaker, a cultural connoisseur, a strategist.” In previous essays, I have shared insights on all but one of those four qualities – Paul as a strategist.

Sinner-In-Chief

Some context with Paul’s origin story is critical. Before his conversation, Paul, by his own admission, was “the chief of sinners”. Without being politically correct and to say the quiet part out loud, Paul was a terrorist. The principal weapon of terrorists is terror; that’s how they got their name – the material weapons are only used to advance that goal. Paul was “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples”. A terrorist’s goal is simple: use terror to change the culture of a people and ultimately their civilisation – any supposed socio-political and economic motivations are merely cover stories to be deployed for strawman arguments. Before communities of faith gained notoriety at Antioch, they were referred to as followers of “The Way”. If culture is defined as the way of life of a people, then Paul’s counter-cultural offensives prove my exact point.

It’s typical for a terrorist to attack soft targets through hit-and-run tactics, not Paul. He was systematic, or better put, strategic. As a state-backed terrorist, he went to the authorities and got both diplomatic cover (which provided him with security apparatus of the state for his protection, immunity and leeway to operate more freely) and arrest warrants against followers of The Way so they could be persecuted. While his actions were abominable, as far as that jurisdiction was concerned, those actions weren’t illegal. Even as a rookie, Paul held the outer garments for those who stoned Stephen. So this Damascus Mission was not his first rodeo; by this time, he had risen up the ranks. It was on that infamous trip that Jesus conducted a counter-terrorism operation against Paul and his marauding associates. During the debriefing, Jesus lets Paul know that he was engaging in a proxy war because by persecuting those following The Way, Paul was effectively persecuting Jesus, who identified himself as the way, the truth and the life. Jesus’ intervention was premised on Paul being too valuable to be playing for the opps – so his release clause had to be triggered. Whatever you think of Paul, he was a game-changer – that’s why I call him The Quarterback. As Paul transitions from being a hostile force to a human asset, the next step in the intelligence playbook is to assign him to a handler – that’s where Ananias entered the chat.

A False Flag Operation

Respectfully, Luke’s storytelling prowess is criminally underrated. His documentation of the Acts of the Apostles is top-tier. In one of his narrations, he shares a powerful episode that got me thinking. Many people know the story of Paul and Silas in prison, but not many have paid attention to the backstory. These two gentlemen were on their way to the temple for prayers when they ran into a damsel possessed with a spirit of divination. They did exorcize the spirit eventually, but not without consequences. Consider these three subtle points.

• “Made a lot of money for the people who owned her” – the first thing we see here is that not only was this lady under the spell of higher spiritual powers, but she was also a slave of people who made their economic fortunes off her personal misfortune. Sounds familiar, right? Whilst most people profit off their talents, business savvy and other competencies, we see here that they are those who only thrive when there is dysfunction. This presupposes that behind any dysfunction, whether politics, economics, social, religious, et al, there are people who are benefiting from such.
• “When her owners saw that their lucrative little business was suddenly bankrupt, they went after Paul and Silas, roughed them up and dragged them into the market square” – The second thing we see here is that when their economic gain was lost, they fought back by trying to make their private concern become a public concern. Sounds familiar, right? The marketplace here is a metaphor for the public, media and business hubs. Have you noticed that these two men were framed as public enemies via propaganda, but their original ‘sin’ was disrupting the business model of certain private interests?
• “These men are disturbing the peace” – The third thing we see here is the disingenuous narrative being spun. The puppet-masters of this lady know that they cannot overtly accuse these two men of sabotaging their illicit business, so they accuse Paul and Silas of subverting the law instead. Understand that this was at the height of Roman hegemony, where dissents were not tolerated; so these men knew what they were doing by playing the race card. Sounds familiar, right? Notice how quickly the story moved from private interests to public outrage? How do you know they succeeded? Was that “the crowd had turned into a restless mob out for blood”

Agba Strategist

Apostolos, from which the English word, apostle, is derived, is a Greek word that is loosely translated as “one sent out” – especially on an important mission. Paul understood his assignment; hence, he would declare that he was an “apostle (sent) to the gentiles”. The aftermath of Paul and Silas being arrested was that they were both thrown in jail, but what happened while in incarceration really underscores the type of ministry which was radically different from someone like Peter. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God – the prisoners heard them. It must have been challenging to shout hallelujah under those harsh conditions, but Paul knew exactly why he was there. What followed was a powerful earthquake that opened the prison doors and loosed both men from the shackles that their feet were fastened to.

There are a number of insights to extrapolate from this scene. Firstly, for Paul, this was not the great escape – it was a continuation of the great commission. Safe to say he wasn’t exactly planning to share a testimony at the next Sunday Service about some miraculous rescue, but one of soul-winning. Secondly, Jesus had told Ananias that Paul was his personal representative or special envoy to the Gentiles. Paul, being a cultural connoisseur, knew that demography wouldn’t merely be persuaded by doctrinal submissions but also through signs and wonders. Remember, at Malta, the islanders who initially accused him of being a murderer quickly changed their minds and called him a god after he survived a venomous bite from a viper. Even Paul himself gave away this game to the community of faith at Corinth when he said, “the kingdom of God is not merely in words but in (kratos) the demonstration of power”.

Thirdly, Paul was defiant anytime he was put in prison. That’s why Paul could sit in prison and do something as counterintuitive as writing to those on the outside to rejoice. Paul never asked anyone to help him lobby for a pardon or organise a #JusticeForPaul protest – rather, he asked Tim to bring him a winter jacket, books and more writing material. On the one hand, it could be argued that being a freeborn Roman citizen, he knew it was illegal for him to be beaten and imprisoned without a proper trial. More importantly, he knew his freedom didn’t come from any earthly government but from God. Finally, just as Jesus’ prayer at the tomb of Lazarus wasn’t for himself but for those around him, Paul’s decision to pray and praise in the hearing of others in jail was strategic. Amongst other things, it established cause and effect. When the jail doors broke loose, every person there knew that wasn’t happenstance – they could draw a straight line from Paul’s actions to the events that followed. This also explains why they didn’t instinctively escape but chose to stay with Paul, who ultimately converted all of them. In the end, those who arrested Paul played checkers, while he played chess.

Paulinus Maximus: Are You Not Entertained?

When Paul said he fought “beasts at Ephesus”, those who aren’t familiar with his writing style might think bro was really out there fighting T. rex. This is somewhat of a double entendre; on one hand, Paul makes a subtle reference to his native Rome – in the ancient capital, the Coliseum was a place where men literally fought wild animals. This wasn’t venatio (where gladiators would willingly partake in fighting or hunting animals for glory, entertainment or money) but damnatio ad bestias (a savage practice where those condemned to death are sent into the arena to be devoured by brute beasts). He also used that metaphor to point out how fierce and violent the opposition to his ministry was at Ephesus. Ephesus was like the Big Apple of its day; it wasn’t just the commercial nerve centre or a geopolitical powerhouse, but a place many considered the crown jewel of that civilisation. Paul, ever the effant terrible, once again left his calling card of disruption in the city. By winning over souls, Paul effectively destroyed the business model of Demetrius, a famous silversmith and his colleagues, who made a fortune off selling effigies of Artemis to the city people.

Predictably, they constituted themselves into a mob to attack Paul, but are disingenuous by framing economic losses as an assault on their religious sensibilities – a very familiar trope till this day. That visceral reaction was simply because Paul had the chutzpah to take kingdom culture and make it mainstream at Ephesus. It was in the same city that “the word of God grew mightily and prevailed”. Translation: Paul won the culture war through kratos (manifestation of power). Ephesus had so much value that part of Paul’s succession strategy was to ordain his protégé as the bishop over the ecclesia in that city; hence, the eponymous letters to Timothy are colloquially referred to in ecumenical circles as the pastoral letters. Paul would later submit in his specific epistle to the faithful at Ephesus, “put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil”. It is rendered in Latin as “adversus insidias diaboli” – meaning that the real contention isn’t with human entities but against agendas and organised evils which continually oppose faith by force and occasionally through fraudulent or pseudo submissions. In a world of smoke and mirrors, those who seek to shift the culture should always brace themselves when taking their message to ‘Ephesus’ (a metaphor for any place or platform considered mainstream). Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. Selah.

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