Who Was Paul?
A quick summary
“For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.” -
Paul the apostle was originally a man by the name “Saul of Tarsis”. A very prominent member of the Jewish Sanhedrin and a Pharisee.
“I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.” -
“But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.” -
Before Saul became the apostle Paul, he was like the majority of the Jewish nation which had forsaken God. Practically the whole Old Testament speaks of how stiffnecked and disobedient God’s chosen nation had become.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:” -
“Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.” -
Israel, God’s chosen people had, for thousands of years resisted the laws that God had given to them through the law and the prophets. The nation was stubborn to the point where they murdered not only their prophets but the Messiah that they were told to expect by hanging him on a Roman Cross. (The Lord Jesus Christ).
However, unbeknownst to Satan and his cohorts, Israel played directly into God’s ultimate plan to redeem man by the finished work on the cross.
Following the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ the believing part of Israel (known as the ‘Little Flock’) came under violent persecution from the nation of Israel. Leading this persecution was Saul of Tarsus (mentioned above).
“For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” -
One day when Saul was traveling on the road to Damascus (going about his business as the persecutor of the believers in Christ) he had a direct encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.” -
It is from this point that the church’s greatest persecutor became the Apostle Paul who was the front-
“Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:” -