Who is Paul, and where does he fit into God’s program for today? In his day there were those who thought him a false apostle, one who made an unwarranted claim to apostleship, self-appointed, fraudulent; a man who ran without being sent. Others thought him an apostle sent by the Twelve who abused his authority and changed their message. In our day some would make him one of the Twelve (Judas’ replacement), ignoring the divine appointment of Matthias in Acts, chapter one. Others would make him the thirteenth apostle, adding him to the Twelve arbitrarily.

Just who Paul is proves to be a very important consideration. If he is one of the Twelve, then the Jewish Program continues to be God’s program for today, only with some modifications. We call ourselves Christians instead ofJews, drop Temple worship for Church, omit animal sacrifice and its concomitants and seek to pursue the fulfillment of the "Great Commission" hoping that the enduement of power made available to Israel on that Pentecost of old, will somehow add some magic to our method.

If, however, Paul is distinct from the Twelve (1 Corinthians 15:5 cf v8), their program of world evangelization having been interrupted and set aside because of Israel’s refusal to accept Peter’s offer of the return of the King and the setting up of His Kingdom (Luke 19:11-14 w. Acts 3:19-21), then the Jewish Program is not in force today having been replaced by something totally new and different (Romans 11:11,15,25,30-31; Ephesians 3:1-9).

Lack of understanding on this point lies at the root of all the divisive confusion that plagues the Body of Christ today as it has done for nineteen centuries (2 Timothy 2:15). Christians try to live their lives on Jewish ground and fail because the life of the grace believer was never designed to be lived that way (Romans 7:6). Men try to carry out the "Great Commission" and cannot because it is part of a program which God has interrupted and is holding in abeyance for Israel’s future. Men look for Pentecostal power and can’t find it because it isn’t here, missing the marvelous and all-sufficient power that is here and is available to the believer for the conduct of life and ministry in the present Dispensation of Grace (Ephesians 1:19-23; 2:6).

Today’s believer belongs to the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and lives and ministers on resurrection ground (Romans 6:13) having been slain with Christ to the old Adamic order (Romans 6:6). To ignore the uniqueness of Paul’s apostleship (Romans 11:13; Ephesians 3:1-2; 2 Timothy 1:11), the distinctiveness of his message which was communicated specially to him alone (and through him to us) (Colossians 1:24-26), is tantamount to rejecting the new message of the risen, glorified Christ from Heaven (Acts 16: 14-15; Galatians 1:1). To find the marching orders of today’s believer in the message of Christ on earth (spoken by our Lord as a Jew under Law to Jews under Law), is to distort, if not totally destroy the message from Heaven addressed to and concerning God’s Heavenly people, the Body of Christ (Galatians 1:6-8).

That there are similarities between the two messages, the one addressed to Israel under Law and the one addressed to the Body of Christ under Grace, is beyond dispute. It is the dissimilarities that have escaped the attention of most in the pulpit and most in the pew, and these important differences demand and deserve our attention (2 Timothy 2:15). That we can and should learn from God’s message to another people for another time is certain (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:6,11). That we should distinguish the Pauline Epistles from the rest of Scripture (as God and Peter do) as being not only Scripture, but Scripture addressed to and written about us is equally certain (2 Peter 3:15-16).

The world looks at the Church and sees Christians in psych wards, living on pills, failing to relate peaceably to one another, failing at marriage and parenting, abandoning ethics, morally defeated, angry, frustrated, and depressed. How can the Body of Christ earn a hearing for Christ when we are usually as bad and frequently worse than those to whom we seek to minister?

God desires better things for His "Heavenly people on loan to Planet Earth" (Philippians 3:20; 2 Corinthians 5:8 "present", read literally "at home with" in the Greek) and has made a new and vastly superior provision for us to live and minister than that made for man in the flesh under Law (2 Corinthians 3:7-9). God repeatedly distinguishes between His Plan for Israel and His Plan for the Body of Christ. God also repeatedly distinguishes between the divine provisions He has made for Israel and the Body with an eye to carrying out those Plans (Deuteronomy chapter 28 cf Ephesians 1:3).

"Follow (Paul)" is a basic command God has given to us that He did not need to give to His favored Nation (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1). The Church has not followed Paul and that is why, in spite of all our arrogant boasting about success, we are in full scale retreat before the advancing Forces of Darkness. Completely ignorant of who we are and what we are here for, we blindly seek to carry out Israel’s mission while forsaking our own.

Who is Paul? The Administrator for the present Stewardship of Grace (Ephesians 3:1-2). Not one of the Twelve nor the thirteenth. Not simply another apostle. Paul is the Steward for the family of God in the present economy. We have not recognized him, understood him, followed him; and to the degree that these things are true of us, we have not followed Christ.