January 2 - Who is Paul?

January 2 - Who is Paul?

What do we know about Paul? The scriptures actually tell us quite a bit, it's spread throughout his letters and the book of Acts.

We find out right away that he is from Tarsus in Acts 9:11. Then he tells us in 21:39 that Tarsus is the capital of Cilicia. After his conversion, he returned to Tarsus (Acts 9:30) and Barnabas went there to retrieve him for the first missionary journey (Acts 11:25). His parents named him Saul (Acts 7:58-13:9; 22:7; 26:14), but when he became a Christian, he changed his name to Paul (Acts 13:9).

Tarsus exists to this day in southern turkey. Cilicia was a Roman province. Tarsus was the scene of the first meeting of Marc Antony & Cleopatra and was a very active juncture of sea and land trading routes. Paul would have grown up in this cosmopolitan city which was known for its schools and high cultural levels. In his time, the library of Tarsus held over 200,000 books.

In Philippians 3:5 and 2 Corinthians 11:22, Paul declares himself to be a Hebrew from the tribe of Benjamin and to be a Pharisee (Acts 23:6-9; 26:5). Because of his zeal for the Torah and Judaism, he believed that Jesus could not be the Messiah and began persecuting those who followed Him. (Acts 7:58, Galatians 1:13-14 and 1 Corinthians 15:9)

Acts 22:3 tells us that he trained at the feet of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was from the family of Hillel, one of the great Jewish teachers. He died 20 years before the destruction of the Second Temple. The Jewish Mishnah emphasizes that he was the head of the body that oversaw the Law and was head of the Sanhedrin for a time. Tradition has it that he became a Christian.

Not only was Paul Jewish, but because he had been born in Tarsus, a Roman province, he was also a Roman citizen (Acts 22:25-29; Acts 23:27). This incredible background made him a well-rounded leader for the things that God had planned for him.

He was bi-lingual, he spoke Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek. He was bi-cultural, living as a Jew in a Hellenistic (Greek) society. These things combined to make him the ideal choice for spreading Christanity from Israel throughout the Roman Empire.

Saul was the last man on earth that any of us would have chosen to be the author of God's Sword, but he was the first man on earth that God chose. His background, education and strength of character made him the perfect choice to go forward with spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ into the world.