Introducing Paul

 

Rex Banks

 

 

 

Lesson 11

Most of us recognize the truth of the old adage that it is easier to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk.  The apostle Paul did both.  When called upon to defend his mission, the apostle did indeed speak boldly of the work that God was doing through him (because the gospel was at stake) but from the time that he accepted Jesus Christ as Lord until the day that he died in the Saviour’s service, Paul’s life backed up his words. 

 

On one occasion, Paul defended himself and his mission against detractors by making the remarkable claim that God had set him apart for a special work from his mother’s womb, that God had in due time called him through His grace, and that God had revealed His Son in him so that he might then preach the message of salvation to the gentiles (Gal 1:15-16).  We have only to read the book of Acts and the 13 or 14 New Testament epistles written by Paul to see that his magnificent obsession with the mission entrusted to him absorbed his whole being and dominated his every action.  He was indeed a vessel for honourable use (Rom 9:21) and it is useful to know something about him as we prepare to study the Pauline epistles.

 

 

A Thumbnail Sketch

 

In his book The Mind of St Paul, William Barclay makes this excellent comment:

 

“Christianity began with one tremendous problem. Clearly the message of Christianity was meant for all men...  But the fact remained that Christianity was cradled in Judaism (and)...the Jews were involved in a double hatred - the world hated them and they hated the world...  (Christianity) had a message for all men; and yet in the eyes of the world it was a Jewish thing, and the Jews were the most bitterly hated and hating people in the ancient world...

 

Clearly one thing was necessary - a man who could somehow form a bridge between the Jewish and the Greek worlds... (and) in the providence of God, the hour produced the man - and that man was Paul...

 

To the end of his life Paul was proudly, stubbornly, unalterably a Jew...  How did it come about that this member of the Jewish racial and intellectual aristocracy could be specially fitted to take Christianity to the Gentiles?

 

If a man was destined to be a missionary to the world at large, there was no better place in all the east for him to grow to manhood than in Tarsus...  It was a city so cosmopolitan that none could walk the streets without coming into contact with the ends of the earth...(a city) with such a desire for knowledge, such a respect for scholarship and such an intellectual ferment of thought that no thinking young man could entirely escape the contagion of the thronging ideas which crowded the air.

 

But Paul had an even more valuable qualification to be the apostle to the Gentiles, for he was a Roman citizen.

 

Here indeed was the man prepared by God to be the bridge between two worlds…”

 

Barclay is surely correct that a confluence of factors equipped Paul for the task for which he had been set apart from his mother’s womb (Gal 1:15).  Briefly:

 

 

Paul was a Jew

 

Paul describes himself as a “Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil 3:5) likely meaning that both parents were Jews, and he tells us that he was of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5). There is some debate as to whether Paul’s words in Acts 22:3 mean that he was “brought up” in Tarsus or Jerusalem.  Are these words to be read in connection with his early training from his parents or in connection with his sitting at the feet of Gamaliel?  Either way, Paul was thoroughly Jewish in his orientation.  Gamaliel was a great teacher of the Law (Acts 5:34) and Paul the Pharisee (See our First Century Setting) was also a “son of Pharisees” (Acts 23:6).  As such he would have been well acquainted with the tenets of Judaism even before beginning his training under Gamaliel in his teens.  According to his own account, he advanced in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries and was “extremely zealous” for his “ancestral traditions” (Gal 1:14 cf Phil 3:6; Acts 26:5).  The fact that the Lord spoke to Paul in Aramaic (Acts 26:14) and that he was able to address a Jerusalem audience in this language (Acts 21:40; 22:2) suggests that his parents were careful to observe Jewish customs.  As was customary among the Jews, Paul was taught a trade, that of tent making (or leatherwork) which was useful to him as a missionary (Acts 18:3; 20:34; 1 Cor 4:12; 9:6-15; 1 Thess 2:9).

 

Thus Paul was very familiar with the Jewish mindset, and this coupled with his deep love for his Jewish brethren, equipped him to reach out to them with the Gospel.

 

“Throughout his letters Paul exhibits a passionate devotion to his Jewish heritage (Rom 11:1-6; Gal 1:13, 14; Phil 3:4-6).  He was always at pains to demonstrate that his understanding of the gospel was quite consistent with biblical faith, and that Christian believers were spiritual heirs to ancient Israel.  Toward the end of his ministry, he invested much time and energy in maintaining good relations between gentile Christians and the church in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:1-15; Rom 15:25-33).  It was his insistence that gentile churches give financial aid to the church in Jerusalem that ultimately led to his arrest and transportation to Rome (Acts 21-28)” (The Oxford Companion to the Bible Bruce M. Metzger Michael D. Coogan).   

 

 

Paul was a Roman Citizen

 

We are not told how Roman citizenship was conferred upon Paul’s family, but we do know that he was born a Roman citizen (Acts 22:26-28).  Possession of this favoured status stood him in good stead during his missionary journeys throughout the Roman Empire, enabling him to avoid detainment and punishment when his message was not well received (Acts 16:37-39; 22:23-29) and to appeal to Caesar for justice when it was denied him (Acts 25:10-12).

 

“(Paul’s Roman citizenship) placed him amid the aristocracy of any provincial town. In the first century, when the citizenship was still jealously guarded, the civitas may be taken as a proof that his family was one of distinction and at least moderate wealth. It also implies that there was in the surroundings amid which he grew up, a certain attitude of friendliness to the Imperial government (for the new citizens in general, and the Jewish citizens in particular, were warm partisans of their protector, the new Imperial regime), and also of pride in a possession that ensured distinction and rank and general respect in Tarsus” (William M. Ramsey St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen).

 

 

Paul was familiar with things Greek

 

Paul’s connection to Tarsus is mentioned three times (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3).  It is not clear from Acts 22:3 if Paul was “brought up” in Tarsus or Jerusalem (Acts 22:3) but likely “this city” refers to Jerusalem.  Nevertheless, Paul’s association with Antioch would have exposed him somewhat to the culture, traditions and customs of Hellenism.

Tarsus was the chief city of Cilicia which was the south eastern portion of Asia Minor and in Paul’s day, was a centre of Greek culture.  It had the status of free city and was exempt from imperial taxation.  Paul describes Tarsus as no “mean” or insignificant city (Acts 21:39) and Strabo, writing about 19 AD, has this to say about it:

 

“The people at Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly, not only to philosophy, but also to the whole round of education in general, that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where there have been schools and lectures of philosophers…  Further, the city of Tarsus has all kinds of schools of rhetoric; and in general it not only has a flourishing population but also is most powerful, thus keeping up the reputation of the mother-city. (Geographica 14.5.13).

 

Strabo goes on to list various well known Stoic philosophers who were natives of Tarsus.  Given Paul’s heritage and education, it is likely that the pagan influences of the Greek world were kept at bay, but he would have had some exposure to Hellenistic philosophy and culture (Acts 17:28; Tit 1:12).  Too, given the cosmopolitan population and variety of religious options available to the citizenry, Paul would had had some knowledge of pagan religious practices, including the rites of various mystery religions (see our First Century Setting).  However, Greek philosophy, values and prejudices never affected the Gospel message which he preached to the Hellenes, despite the fact that many scoffed at the idea of a crucified saviour (1 Cor 1:18 ff).

 

 

From Persecutor to Persecuted

 

Paul sorely persecuted the church (Acts 9:1-2; 22:20; 26:9-11; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6; 1 Tim 1:13) until his dramatic conversion to Christ (Acts 9:22, 26) while still a “young man” (Acts 7:58).  From that moment on Paul’s values, aspirations and ambitions changed dramatically.  He tells his friends at Philippi:

 

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:7-11).

 

F. F. Bruce is not exaggerating when he says that “No single event, apart from the Christ-event itself, has proved so determinant for the course of Christian history as the conversion and commissioning of Paul” (Paul Apostle of the Heart Set Free).  Paul is adamant that the Lord’s appearance to him on the road to Damascus (Acts 22:6 ff) was equivalent to the appearances granted to Peter and the others (1 Cor 15:5-8; 9:1).  His conversion was also a call to service and when necessary, he vigorously defended his apostleship and his claim to possess a divinely-inspired message (1 Cor 9:1 ff; Gal 1:6 ff).

 

Scripture describes Paul as “...a chosen instrument of God...to bear (His) name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts 9:15).  It was to him that the “gospel to the uncircumcised” was entrusted (Gal 2:7) and thus he describes himself as “a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles” (Ron 15:16), “an apostle of Gentiles” (Rom 11:13), and a “teacher of the Gentiles” (1 Tim 2:7).  However, as we have seen, he had great concern for the salvation of his Jewish countrymen (Rom 10:1 ff) which leads him to say:  “Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them” (Rom 11:13-14).  It is evident from Acts that his usual practice was to go to the local synagogue first.

 

As Barclay points out, in the providence of God the hour produced in Paul a man “who could somehow form a bridge between the Jewish and the Greek worlds.”

 

 

Post Conversion Activities

 

Following his Damascus Road experience a sightless Paul is brought into the city of Damascus by his travelling companions (Acts 9:8; 22:11) where he was “three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:9).  Then “a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there” (Acts 22:12) was directed by the Lord to visit Paul and to lay his hands upon him so that he might regain his sight (Acts 9:10-12).  Ananias informs Paul that he was a divinely appointed “witness…to all men of what he had seen and heard” (Acts 22:15) and urges him to “Arise and be baptised and wash away (his) sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16).

 

Our information about Paul’s early years as a Christian is scanty but we do know the following:

 

 

Paul spent some time in Arabia and Damascus

 

Luke tells us that following his conversion, Paul was “for several days…with the disciples who were at Damascus” (Acts 9:19).  We are not surprised that “immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). Luke goes on to say that “(after) many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with (Paul)” (Acts 9:23).  Because the Jews were watching the city gates day and night in order to apprehend Paul and put him to death “his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a large basket” (Acts 9:25).  Paul informs us that this took place during the days of King Aretas (2 Cor 11:32- 33).

 

In the Galatian Epistle, Paul tells his brethren that following his conversion he “did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor…go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before (him); but…went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus” (Gal 1:16-17).

 

·        Some think that Paul escaped from Damascus (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor 11:32), went to Arabia for an unspecified period of time and then returned to Damascus.

 

·        Some think that Paul left Damascus after several days (Acts 9:19), went to Arabia for an unspecified period of time, returned to Damascus and then escaped in the basket. 

 

 

Paul visited Jerusalem

 

In Galatians, Paul tells us that his first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem occurred three years after his encounter with Christ (Gal 1:18 cf Acts 9:26 ff).  Paul was in Jerusalem for fifteen days (Gal 1:18) and Peter was the only apostle whom he met on that occasion.  Perhaps Luke’s reference to “apostles” (Acts 9:27) is to be understood as a generalising plural.  Luke may include James among the apostles (Gal 1:19) but this is less likely.

 

Paul later refers to his having fallen into a trance while praying in the Temple at Jerusalem (Acts 22:17) and having been instructed by the Lord to leave Jerusalem immediately (Acts 22:18).  He recounts that the Lord told him:  “Go!  For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”  Some believe that this vision occurred during this first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem (Gal 1:18 cf Acts 9:26 ff).  Others have a different view:

 

(This) revelation suits excellently the state of matters which we have just described at the conclusion of the second visit (Acts 11:30 Rex).  Paul was tempted by the favourable opportunity in Jerusalem; and his personal desire always turned strongly towards his Jewish brethren (Rom. IX 1-5).  He prayed in the temple:  he saw Jesus: he pleaded with Jesus, representing his fitness for this work:  and he was ordered to depart at once, “for I will send thee forth far hence to the Nations.”  Thereupon he returned to Antioch; and in a few days or weeks a new revelation to the Antiochian officials sent him on his mission to the West, and opened the door of belief to the Nations” (Ramsey).

 

We will discuss Paul’s other visits to Jerusalem in our study of the Galatian Epistle. 

 

 

Paul spent time in the regions of Syria and Cilicia

 

Paul’s life was threatened by the Hellenistic Jews (Acts 9:29) and his brethren “brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus” (Acts 9:30).  Tarsus was the chief city of Cilicia, and in recounting this event Paul says:

 

“Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.  I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy’” (Gal 1:21-23). 

 

Clearly Paul was active in evangelism during this period of time, and later we read of “the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles” (Acts 15:23).

 

 

Paul at Antioch and Jerusalem

 

About 40-42 AD, Barnabas travelled to Tarsus and brought Paul to Antioch of Syria to help him with the work in that city.  Barnabas a native of Cyprus (4:36) had been sent by the Jerusalem church to help the church at Antioch of Syria, and “for an entire year (he and Paul) met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch” (Acts 11:26).  

 

“In the early history of Christianity, Antioch occupies a distinguished place.  The large and flourishing Jewish colony offered an immediate field for Christian teaching, and the cosmopolitanism of the city tended to widen the outlook of the Christian community, which refused to be confined within the narrow limits of Judaism…

 

Antioch was Paul’s starting-point in his three missionary journeys (Act 13:1; Act 15:36; Act 18:23), and thither he returned from the first two as to his headquarters (Act 14:26; Act 18:22)” (International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia).

 

Warned by prophecy of an impending famine “all over the world” (probably meaning throughout the Roman Empire) “the disciples…determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea” and “this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders” (Acts 11:27-30).  Luke records five trips to Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-30; 11:27-30, 12:25; 15:1-30; 18:22; 21:15-23:35) and most take the position that the visit described in Galatians 2:1-10 is either the second (Acts 11:27; 12:25) or the third (Acts 15:1-30).  We will consider some of the arguments in our study of Galatians.  Having accomplished their mission “Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem…taking along with them John, who was also called Mark” (Acts 11:25).

 

Missionary journeys and journey to Rome

 

We read in Acts 13:1:4 that following his return from Jerusalem, the church at Antioch sends Paul out with Barnabas upon what we usually call The First Missionary Journey.

 

Tenney tells us:

 

“The church at Antioch was important because it possessed certain distinctive features.  First, it was the mother of all the Gentile churches...from the Antioch church went the first recognised mission to the unevangelised world...  The church at Antioch was distinguished also for its teachers...  Of those mentioned in Acts 13:1, only Barnabas and Paul were known from later references, but their ministry must have made the church famous as a centre of teaching.  Antioch virtually superseded Jerusalem as the home of Christian preaching and as the head-quarters of evangelistic missions.”

 

Luke tells us that Paul undertook two more missionary journeys, and our Acts study contains a brief outline of these three important journeys along with a summary of the events which resulted in the apostle’s incarceration at Rome for a period of two years (28:30-31; ca 61-63 A.D).

 

 

Post Acts

 

There is no reason to suppose that Acts takes us up to the time of Paul’s death. Luke’s account closes with Paul’s imprisonment at Rome, but it is clear from the Prison Epistles that Paul anticipated release from prison on that occasion (Phile 22; Phil 1:25-27; 2:24).  Certainly neither Festus nor Agrippa found Paul worthy of death (Acts 26:30-32). It is also clear that the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) contain details of Paul’s travels which do not do not fit into the historical account as recorded by Luke in Acts.  In our study of the Pastorals, we cite extra-Biblical evidence for Paul’s release and subsequent missionary activity.  There is every reason to suppose that Paul was released from prison and resumed his missionary activities making his planned trip to Spain (Rom 15:28) before being arrested again.  Tradition has it that Paul was beheaded in the last year of Nero’s reign late in the 60’s.

 

 

Conclusion

 

“For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me...” (Rom 15:18).

 

Paul’s contribution to the spread of Christianity throughout the ancient world was immense.  As apostle to the Gentiles, he aspired to go where others had not gone with the gospel (Rom 15:20), establishing churches in key areas especially in the Provinces of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia and Achaia from which the good news could radiate out to adjacent communities.

Bruce reminds us that Christianity arose “as a movement within the Jewish community,” that its Founder (Jesus) was Jewish and that Jesus’ Jewish disciples initially proclaimed the good news only to fellow Jews.  However, “in little more than a generation after (Jesus’) death, Christianity was recognised by the authorities of the Roman empire as a predominantly Gentile cult.”  Bruce also reminds us that although Christianity arose “in south-western Asia, among people whose vernacular was Aramaic …its foundational documents have come down to us in Greek, the language in which they were originally written.”  He concludes:

 

“Both of these phenomena…are due principally to the energy with which Paul, a Jew by birth and upbringing, spread the gospel of Christ in the Gentile world from Syria to Italy, if not indeed to Spain, during the thirty years or so which followed his conversion to Christianity …”

 

Paul cared for his converts “as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children” (1 Thess.2:7); he rebuked error without respect of persons (“But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face...” - Gal 2:11); he inspired great love (Acts 20:37) and great hatred (Acts 22:22); he knew but one Master (“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” - Phil 1:21).  The great apostle loved his fellow countrymen (Rom 10:1 ff) and preached first to God’s prepared people (Acts 13:14) but the focus of his attention was always the receptive heart (“we are turning to the Gentiles” - Acts 13:46).  Always and everywhere his own likes and dislikes were subordinated to his mission (“I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more” - 1 Cor 9:19).

 

Paul’s letters make up a quarter of the content of the New Testament and they are an important source of information about the earliest period of church history and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.  They also provide a fascinating insight into the apostle’s multi-faceted character.  As we begin our study of the Pauline epistles, we can certainly say of the writer:  “(Though) he is dead, he still speaks” (Heb 11:4).