![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/307\/2014\/03\/iStock_000027725139Small1.jpg\" "\\"Christ")
<\/a>If you want to make a million bucks as a Christian writer, you might want to script your own religion. However, you won\u2019t find the Apostle Paul standing in line to buy a copy of your best-selling book.<\/p>\nOne of the qualities I admire in the Apostle Paul was that his Christian faith owned him. It shows up in his writing. He wasn\u2019t a writer who happened to be a Christian. The faith scripted him and moved his pen.<\/p>\n
All too often I hear that Paul recreated the Christian faith. Certainly, Paul talks about his gospel\u2014\u201cmy gospel.\u201d In his swan song\u20142 Timothy, Paul writes, \u201cRemember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory\u201d (2 Timothy 2:8-10; ESV). Paul owned the gospel, but he did not control it. Rather, it controlled him.<\/p>\n
Paul owned the gospel in the sense that he took it to heart. The gospel was and is the good news of Jesus Christ who is the ground of faith as raised from the dead and the fulfillment of biblical hope as the descendant of David. Paul loved this good news. Because Paul found this good news worth living for, he believed it was worth dying for. If you and I who claim to be Christians don\u2019t find our faith worth dying for, maybe we shouldn\u2019t write about it until we do. Perhaps it is only\u00a0then\u00a0that we will\u00a0have something\u00a0worthy of the faith to write about\u00a0in contemporary culture.<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s life was wrapped up in Jesus and his message. In this sense alone, Paul owned the gospel. Ultimately, the gospel owned Paul, for as Paul writes, the good news is not bound. Its message of relational freedom in Jesus bound Paul so tightly that he was willing to be bound with chains as a criminal so that others could be set free by faith in Jesus. Paul faced death; soon he would be led away by Nero\u2019s forces to be martyred for the\u00a0faith. For Paul, the good news that he wrote about was worth it. I take Paul\u2019s words to heart because they flowed from his pen onto papyrus with blood, sweat, and tears. Unlike a modern day cult leader, Paul never claimed that the best way to make a million bucks is to start one\u2019s own religion. Paul lost his shirt and life for the faith that started him up and led him in pursuit of Jesus. That\u2019s why I want to read him. No matter how long ago he lived and how ancient Paul\u2019s writings are, they never get old.<\/p>\n
This weekend, I am speaking at the third annual Faith & Culture\u00a0Writers Conference<\/a>. I love the vision for the conference that my colleague Cornelia Seigneur <\/a>and her team have. The conference is all about the integration of faith and writing in contemporary culture. My hope is that all of us who gather for the conference will guard against using the faith to make it as writers. Hopefully, like Paul, our aim is to be undone and rewritten by the object of our Christian faith\u2014Jesus\u2014so that we have something worthy of the faith\u00a0to write about today.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you want to make a million bucks as a Christian writer, you might want to script your own religion. However, you won\u2019t find the Apostle Paul standing in line to buy a copy of your best-selling book. One of the qualities I admire in the Apostle Paul was that his Christian faith owned him. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1284,"featured_media":2530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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