The word translated “tentmaker” is thought to mean a leatherworker. Paul accepted both employment and lodging from them because all were tentmakers. Why did Paul work as a tentmaker?ĭuring Paul’s second missionary journey, he proceeded to Corinth, where he met Aquila and Priscilla. Paul’s strategy is found in the answer to these six questions: A. He intentionally chose his plan for success. Paul did not use his craft to get work visas, nor even primarily for financial support, which he said he could receive from churches. His Spirit-guided tentmaking strategy was intentionally designed to produce missionary movements led by ordinary people everywhere. Paul, “like a skilled master builder”, devised an ingenious strategy to deal with the lack of funds and personnel: he produced both as he went along. He would need to find hundreds of mis-sionaries, but there was no church yet in Antioch, and he had just destroyed the one in Jerusalem. Paul was personally commissioned by Jesus to evangelize the Gentiles, which he un-derstood to mean the entire Roman Empire. Can his model in the first century have value for us in the twenty-first? I am convinced we cannot advance world evangelization unless we adapt and implement Paul’s larger strategy to our post-modern world.Īn overwhelming task remains, and we cannot do it without the model from Paul. Paul supported himself with his own manual labor when it was not necessary to do so. All used their vocations for missions just as Paul once used his craft to make Jesus Christ known. Graduate study gave another couple a foothold in India. A civil engineer and his wife planted churches in a Buddhist country, while he planned water resources and roads. An engineer founded churches in Israel, where his firms provided manufacturing jobs for Jews and Arabs. A linguist translated the Bible into the language of five million Muslims who never had it before, while he and his wife supported themselves teaching. So many Christians are using their professions to make Jesus Christ known abroad-as Paul used his tentmaking craft in the first century.Įxciting things can happen: English teachers merged two house fellowships in a Muslim city where there had been no believers six years before. The question arises because many countries in our “post-post-colonial” age restrict the entry of missionaries, but welcome people with expertise they need. “Why did Paul make tents?” may be the most important question to ask as we enter our 21st century of missions.
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