A Pharisee commissioned by Jesus Christ to preach the gospel
to Gentiles. His Jewish name was “Saul” (Acts 9:4; 13:9),
but he preferred using his Roman name, especially when he signed his
letters. Actually, “Paul” was his last name. Roman
citizens had three names; the last name was the family name, called
the “cognomen.” We do not know Paul’s first and
middle Roman name, but his last name is derived from the Latin Paulus
(Sergius Paulus, the proconsul of Cyprus, had the same family name
[13:7]). Most people were known and called by their last name because
group identity was more important in the first-century Mediterranean
world than individual recognition. For example, when speaking
publicly, Paul did not use his favorite self-designations, “apostle
to the Gentiles” or “slave of Christ Jesus”;
instead, he identified himself as a Jew, a citizen of Tarsus, a
student of Gamaliel (21:39; 22:3). His social identity was embedded
in his ethnicity, his nativity, his religion. However, even those
categories cannot adequately describe Paul. He was a Jew but also a
Roman citizen. Tarsus was his home (11:25–26), but he claimed
that he was brought up in Jerusalem. He spoke Aramaic but wrote Greek
letters. He was once a Pharisee but then preached a circumcision-free
gospel to Gentiles. In many respects, Paul is an enigma. Who was he?
What did he believe? Why did he think he had to leave his previous
life in Judaism to become the apostle to the Gentiles? Why is he one
of the major contributors to the NT even though he was not a follower
of the historical Jesus?
Paul’s
Life
Paul
as a converted Pharisee.
Paul spent the first half of his life as a Pharisee. The Pharisees
were a Jewish sect that emphasized obedience to the law of God as the
means of maintaining holiness. Practically all Jews believed that
they should obey the law, but what made the Pharisees unique was
their emphasis on applying all commandments, even those intended only
for Levites and priests, to all Jews. For example, priests were
required to keep certain rituals of hand washing before they ate
(Lev. 22:1–9; cf. Exod 30:19–21; 40:31–32). So the
Pharisees extended these requirements to all Israel in order to show
God how serious they were about obeying the law (Mark 7:3–4).
Obedience was crucial to God’s blessing; disobedience brought
God’s curse. Therefore, the Pharisees established many
traditions, going beyond the letter of the law, to ensure compliance.
To what extent the Jewish people followed the example of the
Pharisees is debated, but certainly it appeared to the people that no
one was more zealous for God and his law than the Pharisees—a
zeal that would compel them to join in the stoning of obvious
offenders (Lev. 24:14; Acts 7:58). As a Pharisee, Paul’s zeal
for the law led him to persecute Jewish Christians, not only in
Jerusalem but also outside Israel, in places such as Damascus (Acts
8:3; 9:1–3; 22:4–5; Gal. 1:13–14; Phil. 3:6).
Neither Paul nor Luke explains what the Pharisees found objectionable
about this Jewish movement known as “the Way.” In fact,
Paul’s teacher, Gamaliel, advised the Sanhedrin to ignore
members of the Way and not make trouble for them (Acts
5:34–39)—advice obviously not taken by Paul. Perhaps it
was Jesus’ reputation as a lawbreaker or the fact that he had
died a cursed death according to the law that convinced Paul to
imprison Jesus’ disciples (Deut. 21:23). Whatever the reason,
Paul saw his role as persecutor of the church as the ultimate proof
of his blamelessness under the law (Phil. 3:6).
After
Christ appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, everything changed:
his life, his mission, his worldview (Acts 9:3–30). Paul left
Pharisaism and immediately began preaching the gospel (Gal. 1:11–17).
Those whom he persecuted were now friends. His zeal for the law was
replaced by his zeal for Christ. It was a radical reversal. The rumor
spread quickly: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now
preaching the faith he once tried to destroy” (Gal. 1:23). Why
the sudden change? Some think that it is what Paul saw—the
glorified Messiah—that changed his perspective. The
resurrection of Christ turned the curse of the cross into a blessing,
death into life, shame into honor. The appearance of Christ
(Christophany) was a revelation, an apocalypse, an end-of-the-world
event for Paul. Old things passed away; everything became new (2 Cor.
5:17). What was divided under the old age of the law—Jews and
Gentiles, male and female, slave and free—was united in Christ.
Other scholars emphasize it is what Paul heard during the
Christophany that changed the course of his life. Paul interpreted
Christ’s charge, “Go, preach to the Gentiles,” as a
prophetic calling, perhaps even fulfilling Isaiah’s end-time
vision of salvation of the whole world (Isa. 49:1–7; Gal.
1:15–16). Thus, Paul’s westward push to take the gospel
to the coastlands (Spain) was by divine design (Rom. 15:15–24).
God commissioned Saul the Pharisee of the Jews to become Paul the
apostle to the Gentiles because “the culmination of the ages
has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
Paul’s
ministry.
By our best estimates, Paul spent about thirty years preaching the
gospel of Jesus Christ (AD 34–67)—a ministry that can be
divided roughly into three decades. The first decade of his ministry
(AD 34–46) has been called the “silent years,” as
we have few details from Acts or the Pauline Epistles about his
activities. For example, we know that he preached in Damascus for a
while and spent some time in Arabia (a total of three years [Gal.
1:17–18]). He made a quick trip to Jerusalem to meet Peter and
James the brother of Jesus. Then he returned home to Tarsus,
evidently preaching there for several years, until Barnabas brought
him to Antioch in Syria to help with the ministry of this mixed
congregation of Jews and Gentiles (Acts 9:26–30; 11:25–26).
In the second decade of his ministry (AD 46–59), Paul spent
most of his life on the road, an itinerant ministry of preaching the
gospel and planting churches from Cyprus to Corinth. For most of the
third decade (AD 59–67), Paul ministered the gospel from
prison, spending over two years imprisoned in Caesarea, another two
to three years in a Roman prison (Acts ends here), released for a
brief time (two years?) before his final arrest and imprisonment in
Rome, where, according to church tradition, he was executed.
During
his itinerant ministry, Paul traveled Roman roads that led him to
free cities (Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens) and Roman colonies
(Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Troas, Philippi, Corinth).
Founding churches in urban centers afforded Paul more opportunities
for ministry and for his work of making and repairing tents.
Traveling within the borders of the Roman Empire also provided a
better chance of protection as a citizen. At first, Paul and Barnabas
covered familiar territory: Cyprus (Barnabas’s home region) and
Anatolia (Paul’s home region). Then, with successive journeys
Paul and other missionary companions branched out to Asia Minor,
Macedonia, and Achaia. Some of the towns that Paul visited were small
and provincial (Derbe, Lystra); others were major cities of great
economic and intellectual commerce (Ephesus, Corinth, Athens). In the
midst of such cultural diversity, Paul found receptive ears among a
variety of ethnic groups: Gauls, Phrygians and Lycaonians, Greeks,
Romans, and Jews. Previously, Paul’s Gentile converts had
worshiped many gods (local, ethnic, and imperial), offered sacrifices
at many shrines and temples, and joined in all the religious
festivals (often involving immoral and ungodly practices). After
believing the gospel, Paul’s predominantly Gentile churches
turned from their idolatrous ways to serve “the living and true
God” (1 Thess. 1:9). Their exclusive devotion to one God
quickly led to economic and political problems, for both Paul’s
converts and the cities of their residence. No more offerings for
patron gods, no more support for local synagogues or the imperial
cult—Paul’s converts were often persecuted for their
newly found faith by local religious guilds (idol makers!) and civic
leaders courting Roman favor (Acts 17:6–9; 19:23–41;
Phil. 1:27–30; 1 Thess. 2:14–16). Indeed, Paul often
was run out of town as a troublemaker who preached a message that
threatened both the Jewish and the Roman ways of life (Acts 16:19–24;
Phil. 3:17–4:1). It is no wonder that Paul’s activities
eventually landed him in a Roman prison. It was only a matter of time
before his reputation as a “lawbreaker” caught up with
him (Acts 21:21). But that did not stop Paul. Whether as a prisoner
or a free man, Paul proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ until the
day he died.
Paul’s
Gospel
The
sources of Paul’s gospel.
Paul ministered his entire life without the benefit of literary
Gospels. Most scholars think that the earliest Gospel, Mark, was
written about the time that Paul was martyred. Since Paul was not a
disciple of Jesus and probably never heard him speak or witnessed his
earthly ministry, how did Paul know what to preach? Where did Paul
get his gospel? Paul mentioned four sources. First, he received oral
traditions about Jesus from other Christians (1 Cor. 15:1–7).
For him, hearing what happened during the Lord’s Supper from
those who followed Jesus was the same as receiving it from the Lord
(1 Cor. 11:23). Second, the Hebrew Scriptures were a major
source of Paul’s gospel (Acts 17:2). Illumined by the Holy
Spirit, Paul saw the gospel proclaimed in the law (Rom. 10:6–8)
and predicted by the prophets (15:12). Third, in addition to the
Christophany on the road to Damascus, Paul experienced revelations of
Christ as epiphanies of the gospel (Acts 18:9–10; 26:18). This
gave Paul the authority to claim that he received his gospel
preeminently from Christ (Gal. 1:1, 16; 2:2). Fourth, Paul saw life
experiences as a resource for the gospel (2 Cor. 12:7–10).
As Paul made sense of what happened to him, he shared these insights
with his converts as proof that “Christ is speaking through me”
(2 Cor. 13:3–4). Indeed, Paul’s ways of doing the
gospel were to be taught in all the churches as gospel truth (1 Cor.
4:17), because as far as Paul was concerned, the gospel of Jesus
Christ was the gospel according to Paul.
The
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The center of Paul’s gospel was the death and resurrection of
Jesus. The essence of what he preached was “Jesus Christ and
him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Furthermore, the resurrection
of Christ was indispensable to the gospel that Paul proclaimed.
Without the resurrection, Paul argued, faith in Christ would be vain
because believers would still be dead in their sins with no hope of
life after death—the resurrection of their bodies (1 Cor.
15:13–19). Exploring the center, Paul used several metaphors
drawn from everyday life to explain the significance of Christ’s
work on the cross. Paul used legal terms such as
“justification”/“righteousness,” “law,”
and “condemnation” when he explained how sinners are
justified by faith in Christ. Paul described the implications of
Christ’s death in religious terms, using words such as
“sacrifice,” “sin,”
“propitiation”/“expiation” (NIV: “sacrifice
of atonement”), and “temple,” which would make
sense to both Jews and Gentiles. He also borrowed words from the
world of commerce, such as “redemption,” “purchase,”
and “slave,” especially when he emphasized the obedience
of Christ, of Paul, of all believers. He even used military terms to
describe how God turned enemies into friends through the cross: the
“reconciliation” that came through the “victory”
of Christ’s death when he “disarmed” the “powers.”
Paul
also relied heavily on Jewish theology as he sorted out the work of
God in Christ Jesus. Paul was a monotheist but attributed divine
status to Jesus (Phil. 2:6). Paul believed that Israel was God’s
chosen people but maintained that his Gentile converts were the
elect, calling them the “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). Paul
affirmed the law was holy but argued that holiness came only through
the indwelling Spirit (Rom. 7:12; 1 Thess. 4:7–8). Paul
believed that the Messiah’s appearance would bring about the
end of the world but looked forward to Christ’s parousia
(“appearance”) at the end of time. In other words, the
person and work of Christ formed the lens through which Paul
interpreted the Bible and made sense of the world. Indeed, Paul’s
gospel was built on a foundation of Jewish doctrine, Jesus tradition,
and religious experience.
A
way of life.
For Paul, the gospel was more than a set of beliefs; it was a way of
life. To believe in Christ Jesus not only entailed accepting his
sacrificial death as atonement for sin but also meant following
Christ by taking up his cross—a life of sacrifice. Paul
believed that he experienced the cross of Christ every time he
endured hardship, every time he was persecuted, every time he
suffered loss (Phil. 3:7–11). And it was in the crucified life
that Paul found resurrection power (3:12–21). The gospel was
the divine paradigm for living. What happened to Christ is what
happened to Paul, and what happened to Paul is what would happen to
all his converts. “Follow my example,” he wrote, “as
I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). In fact,
Paul believed that all Christians were constantly being conformed to
the image of God’s Son (Rom. 8:29). He was convinced that God
would finish what he had started: the perfecting of his converts
until the day of Christ’s return and the resurrection of every
believer (Phil. 1:6; 3:21). The only thing that his converts needed
to imitate Christ was the indwelling power of his Spirit (the Holy
Spirit), the example of Paul’s life, and a letter every now and
then from their apostle.
Paul’s
Letters
Paul
sent letters to churches and individuals to inform his converts of
his situation, offer encouragement, answer questions, and address
problems that developed while he was away. There are thirteen letters
of Paul in the New Testament. Nine were written to churches or groups
of churches (Romans; 1 and 2 Corinthians; Galatians; Ephesians;
Philippians; Colossions; 1 and 2 Thessalonians) and four to
individuals (1 and 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon).
Paul
the apostle.
In most of his letters, Paul was on the defense: defending his
apostleship, defending his itinerary, defending his gospel.
Evidently, Paul’s opponents questioned whether Paul deserved to
be called “apostle,” since he had not followed the
historical Jesus and used to persecute the church (1 Cor.
15:8–9). According to Acts, when the first Christians decided
to replace Judas Iscariot as one of the twelve apostles, they
established the following criterion: the candidate must have been a
follower of Jesus from his baptism to his ascension (Acts 1:21–22).
Two men were qualified; one was chosen by divine lot, implying that
there could be only twelve. Did the early church’s decision to
recognize only twelve apostles define apostleship once and for all?
Paul did not think so. He recognized the significance of the Twelve,
but he believed that there were other apostles as well: Bar-na-bas,
James the brother of Jesus, and himself (1 Cor. 15:5–9;
Gal. 2:8–9). Paul knew that there were false apostles causing
trouble in the churches (2 Cor. 11:13), some even carrying
“letters of recommendation” (2 Cor. 3:1). But only
those who had seen the resurrected Christ and were commissioned by
him to preach the gospel were legitimate apostles (1 Cor.
9:1–2). The signs of apostleship were evident when the
commission was fulfilled: planting churches and dispensing the Spirit
(2 Cor. 3:2; 12:12; Gal. 3:5). Of all people, Paul’s
converts should have never questioned the authority of their apostle.
They were the proof of his apostleship.
Although
Paul never mentioned this, the fact that he sent letters is evidence
of his apostleship. Paul believed that the obedience of Gentile
converts was his responsibility, a confirmation of his calling (Rom.
15:18–19). So he sent letters to make sure that they were
keeping the traditions that he had taught them (1 Cor. 11:2).
Sometimes, all that his readers needed was a little encouragement to
keep up the good work (most of 1 Thessalonians and 2 Timothy
are exhortations to keep doing what they were doing) or a more
detailed explanation of what they already knew (Ephesians,
Philippians, 1 Timothy, Titus). Many times, Paul sent letters to
correct major problems within his churches. For example, some of the
Galatians were submitting to the law and being circumcised (Gal.
4:21; 5:2–7). Some of the Colossians were involved in strange
practices of asceticism and angel worship (Col. 2:16–23). Some
of the Thessalonians had quit working for a living (2 Thess.
3:6–15). And, worst of all, the Corinthians were plagued with
all kinds of problems: factions, lawsuits, incest, prostitutes,
idolatry. Some of the Corinthians were also espousing false
theological ideas, such as denying the resurrection (1 Cor.
15:12). Other churches had problems sorting out Paul’s theology
as well. For example, the Thessalonians were confused about life
after death, end times, and the return of Christ (1 Thess.
4:13–18; 2 Thess. 2:1–12), and the Romans needed,
among other things, instruction about the role of Israel in the last
days (Rom. 9:1–11:32). The fact that Paul felt obliged to send
his lengthiest letter, loaded with some of his most sophisticated
theological arguments, to the church in Rome, which he did not start
and had not visited, says much about the way Paul saw the authority
of his apostleship. Because he was the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul
operated as if he were the mentor of all churches with Gentile
members.
Church
unity.
Paul believed in the unity of the church. Indeed, he used several
metaphors to help his readers see why it was important that one Lord
and one faith should form one church. He described the church as a
temple (1 Cor. 3:16–17), a family (Eph. 2:19), and a
body—his favorite metaphor (1 Cor. 12:12–27). He
warned of desecrating the temple with divisive teaching and immoral
behavior (1 Cor. 3:1–6:20). He rebuked his children when
they refused to obey him as their father (1 Cor. 3:14–21)
or mother (Gal. 4:19–20). And, more than any other analogy,
Paul likened the church to a human body that could be maimed by
prejudice and threatened by sickness (1 Cor. 11:17–34). To
him, a dismembered body was an unholy body; a segregated church meant
that Christ was divided (1 Cor. 1:10–13). The ethnic,
religious, social, political, geographical, and economic differences
evident in one of the most diverse collections of people in the
first-century Mediterranean world made Paul’s vision of a
unified church appear like an impossible dream. Yet the apostle to
the Gentiles believed that the unity of the body of Christ was
indispensable not only to his mission but also to the gospel of Jesus
Christ (Eph. 4:1–6). So he collected a relief offering among
his Gentile converts to help poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem
(Rom. 15:26–27). He taught masters to treat their slaves like
siblings (Philem. 16). And he solicited Romans to fund his mission
trip to Spain (Rom. 15:24). As far as Paul was concerned, the gospel
brought down every wall that divides humanity because all people need
salvation in Christ (Eph. 2:14–18).
Conclusion
Paul
was a tentmaker, a missionary, a writer, a preacher, a teacher, a
theologian, an evangelist, a mentor, a prophet, a miracle worker, a
prisoner, and a martyr. His life story reads like the tale of three
different men: a devout Pharisee, a tireless traveler, an ambitious
writer. He knew the Scriptures better than did most people. He saw
more of the world than did most merchants. He wrote some of the
longest letters known at that time. To his converts, he was a
faithful friend. To his opponents, he was an irrepressible
troublemaker. But, according to Paul, he was nothing more or less
than the man whom God had called through Jesus Christ to take the
gospel to the ends of the earth.
