Contradictions?

Acts 16:1-5

¹Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.

²He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

³Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

⁴As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

⁵So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.

One of the charges that have been leveled at Christianity for centuries is that our Bible contains contradictions. Today’s reading is a case in point. Here we find Paul on his journey throughout the cities that he has visited before to teach against the false beliefs of those who would say you have to come through Judaism (and thus circumcision) to be saved. And now he picks up a young man to follow in his footsteps and the first thing he does to Timothy is circumcise him. Isn’t that a clear contradiction?

Let’s expand the conversation. Here in Acts we find that Paul chooses to circumcise Timothy. The text explains that it was because he was going to be in Jewish territory and Paul didn’t want Timothy’s heritage as a Greek to hinder the Gospel. Now let’s read a passage from Galatians that goes in the opposite direction.

Galatians 2:3–5

³But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.

⁴Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—

⁵to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

This time, Titus is not circumcised because Paul did not want to cave into the heretical demands of the Judaizers. Does this equal a contradiction? I don’t think it does. Since we are a people who always allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, let’s look at one more passage where Paul actually explains these seeming contradictions.

I Corinthians 9:19-23

¹⁹For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.

²⁰To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.

²¹To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

²²To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.

²³I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Paul will do whatever it takes in order to keep people open to hearing the Gospel while not allowing those choices to separate him from the freedom that is found in Christ. None of these constructions are important in the salvation of a soul so he makes a unique choice based on where he is in ministry in the moment. To the Jews he is a fellow Jew. To the Greeks he is a fellow Greek and so on. Paul is always more focused on the people to whom he is speaking than he is upon himself.

As happens almost every day, I am forced to look upon my own life and ask where I’m willing to surrender my own preferences for the sake of the Gospel. I wish I could say I am like Paul, willing to bend to the ways of another in order to sweeten the conversation. But I fail in this effort more often than not. But I am challenged to adjust my actions and attitudes and I pray that God will open the door for me to share with those who are not “just like me.”