My hero Paul is bald!

You know, for years I’ve been saying that the Apostle Paul was my hero. I have studied his writings for various reasons under various circumstances. I have preached sermons on some of his epistles (Ephesians and 1 Timothy). I have studied what he says about leadership (both civic and ecclesiastical). I have struggled through some of his hard sayings like “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want…for id o not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no long I who do it, but sing that dwells in me”—whew! I feel what he’s saying more that I can explain it! or other hard sayings like “in Christ there is no male or female” but “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” Or, “women should keep silent in the church” but every “woman who prays or prophesies with he head uncovered dishonors her head.” or even…”greet each other with a holy kiss”. Truly Peter was right when he said that there are some things that Paul writes about that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16).

Recently, though I’ve come to appreciate something about Paul that is to some of less significance. My kids and I have been watching “Drive Thru History with Dave Stott” by the great people at Cold Water Media. Nearly every picture they showed of the Apostle Paul was of him being bald headed. As a visual person, the visual image of my long running hero created more of a bond even than I had felt before!

This morning I did a quick Google search of pictures of the Apostle Paul looking for bald representations of my hero. My results were mixed until I ran across Google’s results for “icon St. Paul”, then I scored with many images of a bald Paul. I also found in a Q&A section of Christianity Today’s Library (ctlibrary.com), the answer about Paul’s appearance being “bald, blind and single” say that “the only physical description of Paul,[comes from] in an early Christian document, the Acts of Paul. (Its author, a second-century church leader, was fired over the book because he attributed to Paul some unorthodox teachings such as sexual abstinence in marriage.) A more literal translation of the description of Paul in Greek reads, “A man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were far apart; he had large eyes, and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long.” This may be little more than imaginative writing from a century after Paul died, but it does not clash with the way Paul’s critics described him: “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive” (2 Cor. 10:10).

My late father (yes, he recently died; but while he was alive, he was always running late) used to say, “Bald is beautiful”. well, I’m still struggling with that, but I’m coming to discover that baldness, though inherited for some of us and a postmodern/Generation X trend for others of us, is a notable feature of various men in history that I’ve grown to appreciate. One of my closest spiritual mentors is bald! My humble but powerfully godly father was bald. His godly bass singing grandfather was also bald. Elisha one of the greatest prophets in the history of Israel was bald and I just occur to me that the Apostle Paul was very probably bald!

Now, lest you are prone to say, “Go up old bald man and get over it”, let me remind you of some young men who said that to one of my bald heroes about 4,000 years ago. As a bald hero of mine walked along the road, some young men from a local town began mocking and making fun of him. “Go up you bald head!” they chanted. “Go away you bald head!” This hero turned around and looked at them and cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two mama bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them (2 Kings 2:23-24)…hmmmm. Go Elisha!

None-the-less, Paul is the man! During some recent circumstances, I once again have been encouraged by the life and experiences and the commitment to the ministry and his passion for pursuing a personal relationship of Jesus Christ. I thought I’d begin to use this blog to process my appreciation for our Lord’s servant the Apostle Paul, the human author of most of the New Testament and the spiritual ancestor of most of us European Christians.

Some ways I appreciate Paul (besides the fact that he’s bald), include that Paul claimed to “be the compost”. I love the way that he pursues unity. I love his take on weakness. I love the way that Paul pursued Christ; the way that he knew his identify and calling in Christ. I love the way that he became increasingly aware of his condition without Christ as he got older. And I love the way that in so much more difficult ways than me he endured so much to follow Christ and to be faithful to His calling on his life at all costs. Finally, I love the way that he mentored individuals and groups.

More to come…but not about his baldness!