St. Paul knew a lot of 'theology' before he met Christ. In fact, all of his knowledge and training and expertise up to that point would be important for the mission God had prepared ahead of time for him. It was Paul who was destined to explain to the new Christians coming out of Judaism how the Old Testament and the Law fit into the revelation given in Jesus Christ. No one else could have fit together the puzzle pieces. The Apostles were good Jews, but they were fishermen, not scholars and teachers. They were equipped to call people into the kingdom of God, but they were not equipped to answer theological questions about the Law. Fortunately, God had prepared ahead of time all that was needed for the early church to survive. Christ had not come to set aside the Law, but to fulfill it. Without Paul's insight into the mysteries of God's plan, the bridge between the Old Testament and the New could not have been built.
Paul tells us how he came to understand these things: he was caught up to the 'seventh heaven' and received revelation. For three years after meeting the Lord on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert of Arabia, where he spent time communing with Jesus in the Spirit. In all that time, he had not met with Peter and the other disciples. His ministry to the Gentiles was being given to him through revelation, not through study.
From Genesis 12 forward, we find the same pattern: God calling people aside to receive revelation and understanding from Him, and then sending them back with a new understanding of the Truth He gives them.
Again, from Richard Rohr:
The fundamental experience of faith...is not having the right religion or the right doctrines, or the right theology; it's having the right direction in life. It's going where the Lord is leading you. It's being open to that call, trusting it, and following it to a new and unexpected life....It's about self-abandonment and God-discovery, which are the same.
(The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament: p. 94).
As Rohr points out, faith has nothing to do with common sense. Anyone seeing Saul before he met Christ could never have predicted how Saul would have become Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. When we are finally ready to abandon our "common sense," and to trust God with our lives, and to go where He shows us, we are ready to receive His revelation -- His 'theology." He will show us things we could not dream or imagine, and the adventure of our lives becomes even greater than common sense could ever have predicted for us.
Someone once said that the man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. Abraham's experience with God was the foundation of a faith that went beyond all reason; Paul's experience with the risen Christ gave the world a theology that shines out of the darkness of "common sense." The revelation given to all the saints (cannonized or not) down to our day is a light and a gift to those who walk in darkness. "Faith comes by hearing...." and what we hear from those who hear God is food for our bodies and drink to our souls.
Tomorrow, I'll share with you the revelation given to a woman who wrote about her journey from food addiction to spiritual fulfillment. During her journey, just like Abraham, she came to know who God was, who had called her out of darkness into His marvelous light, who had called her to leave "her people and her father's house and come to a land I will show you." Her journey brought her face to face with the living God, and in knowing Him, she was set free from the chains that held her bound for so many years.
If the Truth (our theology) does not set us free, it is not truth, but just another chain to bind us.
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