28 It is [Jesus Christ] whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
29 For this I toil & struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me. [Colossians 1:28-29, NRSV]
Statue of St Paul, St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.
The Cross Helped Paul Overcome His Ego
“The cross stands as the test and the standard of all vital Christian ministry,” declared Dr. D.A. Carson in his book, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians (p.9). Place this alongside what the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen had memorably said: “The more there is of the ego, the less there is of Christ,” our consciousness is at once alerted to a fundamental but commonly ignored challenge on our ego. It is the challenge of the cross of Christ to all who would be adherents of the Christian faith. So Carson continues, the message of the cross in 1 Corinthians “must be learned afresh by every generation of Christians, or the gospel will be sidelined by assorted fads” (p.10).
St Paul, as we have read, had felt wholly justified “to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Not only did he shut up many of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem, but he also punished them in all the synagogues. And “in raging fury,” he pursued them even to foreign cities. And, of course, he further declared at his trial before King Agrippa, when they were put to death, that he cast his vote against them (see Acts 26:9-11).
After conversion, however, Paul so intensely lived in the Spirit of the Crucified and Risen Christ to the point that he could say, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). From then on, he traveled from place to place, zealously fighting Jewish resistance and gaining converts to Christ, planting and strengthening churches. In his apostolate in the name of Christ Jesus, he laboured in “teaching everyone in all wisdom,” his singular aim being to “present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28-29).
So Paul, the most ferocious enemy of the Church became its most zealous son and missionary. He transcended self, as well as his false sense of ethnic superiority. He overcame the negative aspects of the ego and, with it, the concomitant but unconscious idolatry. By idolatry, we mean the substituting of God on top of one’s scale of values with other, more fashionable man-made “values”.
What happened to Paul to cause the 180-degrees change, to become such a towering figure in Christianity? In his words, it was quite simply because: “I was apprehended by Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:12), in the momentous encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-22). That encounter famously sparked a monumental shift in Paul’s value system. That stunning narrative of encounter and the Pauline inversion of values which follows deserves serious reflection.
Three Essential Elements in Ministry
Cutting through a massive list of commentaries on St Paul’s Conversion, one arrives at the understanding as to why Paul has to make a complete change in visions and in life. In sum, he did so in order to:
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serve Christ (not his own mistaken, death-dealing, agenda);
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suffer in service, and
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make immense sacrifices willingly.
These are the three essential elements (among other elements) observable in Paul’s authentic ministry of the cross. This is Paul’s Calvary of Service which combines the Apostle’s understanding of sacrificial service with the significance of the crucifixion on Calvary. It portrays a model of ministry and service that is self-sacrificial, devoted, and fully surrendered. It exemplifies Christ’s suffering and death on the cross to serve others and advance God’s kingdom.
In the days immediately after our class where we mentioned the above three essential elements in Paul’s Calvary of Service, a few participants spoke privately with us about their struggle in ministry and the two horns of an excruciating dilemma that confronted them. On the one hand, the prolonged and excruciating circumstances had all but rendered their work “impossible”. They realized that they were caught in a very unhealthy place spiritually and they wanted to quit. On the other hand, the thought of commitment, willing sacrifices and suffering held them back. Their pains were real, their pant-up emotions truly excruciating. They raised heart-felt issues. Serving in that local faith community. They came from three main groups of volunteers: (a) those who suffer from tyrannical ordained ministers; (b) those who suffer from difficult co-workers; and (c) those who suffer from the people that they serve.
What if you find it “impossible” to stay in your current ministry?
The million-dollar question is this: What if your engagement in this ministry at this time and place with these people has all but become impossible?
Of course our discussions include serious listening over a stretch of time. We knew them well personally. From them, we heard and felt that their pain was real, and their hurt was palpable. We felt deeply for them in their predicament.
- In some, their torture lied in having to cope with “impossible” pastors who behaved more like spiritual gangsters than true Christian leaders. In others, co-workers are “impossible” in their obstinate insistence on their own pet process and contents of a community programme. In the rest, the people they served were either inappreciative or non-co-operative or both. Over time, their spirituality of “sticking with it” has all but worn razor thin.
With these seriously “practising” and “committed” Christians, it is quite superfluous to peddle the Pauline “service, suffering, and sacrifice” trio; they know them all too well and have experienced them first hand. They know intimately that ministry often brings disappointment, sometimes pretty deep. Grave disappointment often culminates in deep discouragement as well. Still, there are several things we can do before we pack it in and call it a day, quit and go elsewhere. So we examined with each of them several possibilities:
- We considered casting away pessimism and mistrust, and “putting out to sea” afresh with Jesus.
- We tried Mother Teresa’s famous dictum – “the work is ours, the result belongs to God”.
- We discussed the Pauline insight of “strength in weakness” and “God’s grace is all you need”.
- We tested the feasibility of what spiritual writers from the New Testament till our own times never cease to tell us, which is to let go of pride, stay on the job, and persevering with humility.
- We even dug up the fact that the Lord Jesus faced rejection and crucifixion even from His own people, and St Paul wrote tearful letters, exposing the rejection and difficult relationship with people in churches which he planted. But the Lord Jesus and St Paul did not quit ministry.
In the end, the decision must come from these lay ministers themselves. It’s his or her life, in the goings-on of their specific space and time. Our advice, nevertheless, is firm and certain: If the situation is “impossible”; if staying on is so bad for you that it is spiritually suffocating you, then leave.
That, however, by no means suggests that you need to quit ministry. Quitting this particular ministry to this particular group at this particular time does not by any stretch of imagination mean you quit ministry altogether. You continue to serve; you just do it elsewhere, away from spiritual gangsters, “impossible co-workers”, and other tough nuts. Opportunity for service always awaits you. You can still put out to the deep, but do it all over, in places more conducive for honest services.
As a final point – and this may even be a spiritual tonic for some – it is well to remember that sometimes, and just may be, you are at a place and time of “holy interruptions”. At whatever age, so long as your heart is sincere and your desire to serve Christ is genuine, you will find the hands of God disguised as that holy interruption, yanking you off from your comfortable plans, so as to install you in a better, more suitable job where your services are needed, for your good and the good of others. “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). And may God bless you with abundant peace!
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, October 2025. All rights reserved.
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