PAUL, THE APOSTLE (Παῦλος, G4263, Rom. name meaning little; also called Saul, שָׁא֑וּל, Heb. name meaning asked for). A leading figure in the Early Church whose ministry was principally to the Gentiles.

A Jew of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil 3:5), Saul, “who is also called Paul” (Acts 13:9), was given the name of that tribe’s most illustrious member—Israel’s first king. His Heb. name Saul means “asked for,” while his Rom. cognomen Paulus means “little.”

I. Personal details

Paul was born in Tarsus in the region of Cilicia (Acts 9:11; 21:39; 22:3). Little is known about his family directly. Jerome records a tradition which suggests that his parents originally came from a town in Galilee called Gischala, and that they fled to Tarsus during the Rom. devastations of Pal. in the 1st cent. b.c. (Comm. on Philemon, 23). Probably the home was fairly well-to-do, for if he were born a Rom. citizen (Acts 16:37, 38; 22:25-29), his family must have possessed some wealth and standing. And from his rather self-conscious reference to “working with our own hands” in 1 Corinthians 4:12 and his somewhat awkwardly expressed word of thanks for a gift of money in Philippians 4:14-19, it may be surmised that he speaks as one whose natural place in society was quite the reverse of any proletarian status.

Jewish law prescribed that a boy begin the study of the Scriptures at five years of age and the study of the legal traditions at ten (Pirke Aboth 5:21). Josephus relates that both the Scriptures and the traditions were taught in every city to Jewish boys “from our first consciousness” (Contra Apion II. 18), and Philo speaks of such instruction “from earliest youth” (Leg. ad Gaium 210). Undoubtedly Paul was immersed as a boy in such a curriculum as well, being taught in the synagogue school and at home. Jewish sentiment also asserted the nobility of manual labor, and advised that intellectual prowess and physical activity go hand in hand. Gamaliel II is credited with saying: “Excellent is Torah study together with worldly business, for all Torah without work must fail at length, and occasion iniquity” (Pirke Aboth 2:2). An early Jewish tractate insists: “Whosoever doth not teach his son work, teacheth him to rob” (BT Kiddushin 99a). Thus, Paul was also initiated into the skills of a tentmaker, which, while a rather menial occupation to the modern mind, was then prob. considered a “clean and not laborious trade” (BT Berakoth 63a). Jewish education sought to produce a man who could both think and act; one who was neither an egghead nor a clod. And Paul’s later life indicates that he profited greatly from such a schooling.

At thirteen a Jewish boy became a bar mitzvah (“son of the commandment”) at which time he took upon himself the full obligation of the law and the more promising lads were directed into rabbinic schools under abler teachers. It was prob. at this age or shortly thereafter that Paul came to Jerusalem to further his training, perhaps living with the married sister spoken of in Acts 23:16. Some have suggested that Acts 22:3 may more appropriately be punctuated as follows: “Brought up in this city [Jerusalem], at the feet of Gamaliel educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers”; this would allow for a residence in Jerusalem prior to this rabbinic training and would tend to discount Tarsian influence in his rearing. But while such a reading is possible, prob. the better reading is: “Brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers” (as KJV and RSV); which directly associates his coming to Jerusalem with his rabbinic instruction. This later reading has the advantage of allowing all the participles in vv. 3 and 4 to begin their respective clauses uniformly. And it correlates well with Josephus’ reminiscence of his own intensive Pharisaic instruction beginning “about fourteen years of age” (Life 2). It is some indication of Paul’s youthful ability, and perhaps also of his parents’ importance, that not only was he selected for further rabbinic study, but that he came to Jerusalem to study under one of the greatest rabbis of the 1st cent.—Gamaliel I (Acts 22:3). And in the course of his studies, the young Jewish theolog came to excel over the majority of his contemporaries, becoming extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers (Gal 1:14).

As to his physical appearance, there are only indirect and rather allusive data from the NT. The fact that the residents of Lystra in their misdirected ardor identified Barnabas with Zeus, the chief of the Olympian gods, and Paul with Hermes, the winged messenger of the gods, possibly indicates the relative stature of the two missioners (Acts 14:12). Barnabas was prob. the more stately and imposing figure, with Paul being inferior in physique, though more active of temperament. This suggestion of an unprepossessing appearance is borne out by the contemptuous remark of his antagonists at Corinth: “his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak” (2 Cor 10:10). Paul himself refers to two matters which must have marred his appearance to some extent, at least in later life: (1) a “bodily ailment,” which he recognized as a trial to his converts and for which he prayed repeatedly for deliverance (Gal 4:13-15; 2 Cor 12:7-10); and (2) the “marks of Jesus” borne in his body, which prob. means the marks of physical abuse suffered as a minister of the Gospel and which he viewed as sacred brands signifying his relation to his Lord (Gal 6:17). In addition, the Corinthian letters offer evidence that Paul recognized his oratorical skills to be less than those of others (1 Cor 2:1-5; 2 Cor 10:10; 11:6). Yet his letters also reveal a man of keen intellect, sensitive nature, infectious spirit, immense vitality, strong determination, and a vast capacity for friendship. A presbyter in the province of Asia during the 2nd cent. described him as “a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel” (Acts of Paul and Thecla 3). While possi bly only inferred from the NT data itself, this description may well rest upon genuine recollections from an earlier day.

It prob. will never be conclusively settled whether Paul was ever married or not, though it seems most likely that he remained single throughout his life. The argument that as a member of the Sanhedrin (cf. Acts 26:10) he was required to be married and the father of children (BT Sanhedrin 36b) is not strong. This ruling, instituted in the interests of moderation in the face of rising zealot activity, dates from the time of Rabbi Akiba in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries a.d. The necessity for its inauguration indicates that prior to this time such was not the case. Similarly, the view of Clement of Alexandria that Paul was really married, but left his wife at Philippi so that she would not interfere with his travels, and that he addresses her in the words “true yokefellow” of Philippians 4:3 (Stromata III. 6), may be safely set aside. It would be incredible for Paul to urge the unmarried and the widows of Corinth to “remain single as I do” (1 Cor 7:8), if he had all the while been married. And that the Corinthian ascetics could point to him in substantiation of their views on continence suggests that he was unmarried rather than a widower.

Paul was distinctly a man of the city, with attitudes and experiences which prepared him to think broadly and minister widely. He had been raised in the thriving commercial and intellectual center of Tarsus and trained in the Israelite capital of Jerusalem; he concentrated his missionary activities on the great centers of Rom. influence; and he looked forward to preaching in Rome, the capital of the empire. His urbanized outlook is seen in his metaphors, most of which are drawn from city life: the stadium (1 Cor 9:24-27; Phil 3:14), the law courts (Rom 7:1-4; Gal 3:15; 4:1, 2), the processions (2 Cor 2:14; Col 2:15), and the market (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5). As one highly trained in the traditions of his fathers, who had also rubbed shoulders with Grecian culture and had inherited Rom. citizenship, Paul was able to speak easily within every sector of the Rom. world.

A. A Hebrew born of Hebrews. To understand Paul aright, reference must be made to his life in Judaism; that is, first of all to his place and standing, and then to his activity and religious experience in the religion of his fathers.

Paul explicitly claims to be a Hebraic Jew trained in the most worthy traditions of his fathers, whose Pharisaic qualifications could hardly be surpassed (Acts 22:3; 2 Cor 11:22; Phil 3:5). Such a claim, however, often has been disputed; many consider it evident by the circumstances of his life in Tarsus and the attitudes expressed in his letters that Paul really belonged to the more liberal side of Judaism. The issue of itself is of little direct consequence, for certainly God is able to accomplish His purposes regardless of the background of the man He chooses. Yet the implications which may legitimately be drawn from either an orthodox Hebraic background or a more liberal Hel. orientation are of great importance.

In the first place, the claim that Christianity is the fulfillment of Israel’s spiritual aspirations, as the apostle asserts, would be truly significant only if Paul were in a position to understand the deepest longings of the OT and orthodox Judaism. Likewise, his attacks against the Judaism of his day would be meaningful only if he had been in a position to have known Judaism at its best. If his pre-Christian religious experience can be explained on non-biblical and non-Hebraic grounds, his lack of fulfillment in Judaism and his coversion to Christianity could be attributed primarily to Hellenism. One’s attitude toward the validity of Paul’s Hebraic claims therefore has great significance in one’s evaluation of Paul’s Christian polemic and doctrine, and for this reason the issue is vital.

While Paul has been frequently viewed as a “Hellenist of the Hellenists,” many today have begun to take his Hebraic heritage more seriously. The old distinction between an orthodox homeland and a liberal Diaspora has not always held true, since the strength of Jewish orthodoxy varied not so much geographically as according to mental climate in a given community or home. Paul’s understanding of the unity of the law and his “pessimism” regarding man’s ability to keep it can be paralleled in a number of passages in the Jewish lit. of his day (e.g., Pirke Aboth 2:1; Mishnah Makokth 3:14; BT Shabbath 70b; Tosephta Shebuot 3:6; 4 Macc. 5:20, 21; 1QS 1.14; 4 Ezra 7:116-126). His rehearsal of human inability as a backdrop for the supremacy of divine mercy and grace is distinctly in the tradition of the better rabbis. Probably at no point does Paul reveal his orthodox training more than in his treatment of Scripture, where his usual practice is to reproduce the exegetical forms of the earlier teachers—not those of contemporary sectarian Judaism nor the excesses in atomistic treatment of the later Amoraim. And even his later Christian interest in Gentiles together with his doctrine of intimate personal union with God “in Christ,” while differing in degree and content from Judaism because of his Christian perspective, have affinities with the nobler and loftier expressions in the Talmud. The deeper a person goes into the apostle’s thought (allowing for differences effected by his risen Lord), the more one finds Paul’s unquestioned assumptions, mental temper, and ways of expression to be rooted in the nobler Pharisaism of Judaism prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.

This is not to deny the presence of Grecian ideas and terms in his writings. Without betraying any profound influence of Hel. philosophy on his thinking, he can still (1) employ its religious language to expound Christian truth (e.g., Col 1:15-20); (2) quote its authors (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12); (3) argue theistically in similar fashion (Rom 1:19, 20; 2:14, 15); and (4) use its diatribal form of presentation (e.g., Rom 2:1-3:20; 9:1-11:36). These are matters which could have been acquired in his rabbinic study at Jerusalem, where prospective rabbis were taught something of the thinking of the Gentile world. Or they might have been gained in personal contact at Tarsus, or on his later missionary journeys. But however accumulated, they were employed by Paul because they could convey his meaning, without necessary reference to what they actually signified in Grecian religious philosophy. And they appear in his letters as features obviously secondary, belonging to the surface rather than to the core of his thought and teaching.

B. A persecutor of Christians. Paul first appears in the NT in the role of a persecutor of the Church: officiating at the martyrdom of Stephen, imprisoning Christians in Jerusalem, and bringing believers back who had fled for safety to areas outside of Pal. (Acts 7:58-8:3; 9:1, 2; 1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6). Some have argued that such action would hardly have been worthy a pupil of so tolerant a teacher as Gamaliel I, whose words in Acts 5:34-39 are certainly an example of moderation in the midst of frenzy. But what must be noticed is that in Pharisaic eyes, at least, the situation faced by Gamaliel and that which confronted the young rabbi Saul were quite different. Previous to Gamaliel’s advice, it is recorded that the church’s witness concerned the Lordship, Messiahship, and Saviorship of Jesus—His heaven-ordained death, His victorious resurrection, and His present status as exalted Redeemer. The earliest Christians preached in terms mainly functional, without explicating the fullness of doctrine which lay in the substratum of their convictions. To the Sanhedrin, and esp. to the Sadducean and priestly element instigating the early suppressions (Acts 4:1-22; 5:17-40), such teaching not only caused turmoil to orderly rule, but, more important, impinged upon their own authority. To the more noble and tolerant of the Pharisees, however, the Jerusalem Christians were yet within the scope of Judaism and not to be treated as heretics. The divine claims for Jesus the Christ were yet to be explicated unequivocally, and the Jewish believers gave no evidence of laxness in the observance of the law because of their new beliefs. But between the time of Gamaliel’s advice and Paul’s action there appeared in the proclamation of the Christians what was to most Jews an ominous element of apostasy. In Acts 6 a nd 7, it is recorded that Stephen began to apply the doctrine of Jesus’ Messiahship to the area of Jewish law. He prob. was baited on this topic by returning Diaspora Jews who had moved to the homeland with a desire to keep the law more rigidly, and who now were concerned about the Christians’ attitude toward it. Undoubtedly Stephen had a real interest in the subject himself. But this was a dangerous path to tread. It was one which even the apostles were not ready to take, though it lay inherent in their commitment to Jesus as the Messiah. In Jewish eyes, Stephen’s message was apostasy of the foulest kind; esp. since it was voiced by one who prob. had returned to the Holy City earlier motivated by religious ardor, but who was now most vociferous against all that he had formerly professed. Had Gamaliel faced this aspect of Christianity earlier, his attitude would surely have been different. With the whole basis of Judaism thus threatened, Paul’s action could have been taken with the full approval of his honored teacher.

The rationale for such drastic action may be related to the prevalent view that while nothing could be done either to hurry or to frustrate entirely the coming of the Messianic Age, transgression and apostasy within the nation could delay it. Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai is credited with saying: “Like as when a man who brings together two ships, and binds them together with ropes and cords, and builds a palace upon them; while the ships are lashed together the palace stands; when they drift apart it cannot stand” (Sifre Deut, Barakah 346; cf. also 1QS 9.20-21). And the Pharisaic endeavor to “build a hedge about the Law” by means of spelling out in detail the various Biblical prescriptions was motivated in large part by the desire to keep Israel unified in its worship of God, esp. during the times of “Messianic travail” in which many thought they were living. Zealous for the law and eager to keep Israel united in days of approaching Messianic blessing, Paul early directed his efforts against Jewish believers in Jesus of Nazareth; for, as he saw it, their leader had been discredited by crucifixion and their schismatic preaching could only further delay Israel’s promised Messianic Age.

Paul’s action could also have been easily justified Biblically. Numbers 25:1-5 speaks of Moses ordering the destruction of the immoral Israelites at Baal-peor, just prior to the people’s entrance into Canaan. And Numbers 25:6-15 recounts the turning away of God’s wrath by one man, Phinehas, who received God’s praise for his zeal to put apostasy out of Israel—even to the killing of two of the chief offenders himself. To Paul, the situations then and in his day could have seemed analogous: Israel’s near-entrance into the land with the near-Messianic kingdom, and the similar apostasies which could but further delay God’s blessings. The activities of Mattathias and the Hasidim some two centuries earlier in rooting out apostasy among their own people (1 Macc. 2:23-28, 42-48) may also have been his model; and the exhortation of 2 Maccabees 6:13 may even have rung in his ears: “For indeed it is a mark of great kindness when the impious are not let alone for a long time, but punished at once.” With such precedents, coupled with the rising tide of Jewish Messianic expectancy, sufficient motivation was at hand for Paul to take upon himself the grisly task of uprooting what he believed to be apostasy. Much as one might recoil at the thought of so-called “righteous crusades” and “holy wars,” he cannot deny that Judaism has many examples of such purgings, and that Judaism looked upon those undertaken at strategic moments in the nation’s history as worthy of highest praise. But, though undoubtedly earnest and motivated by a desire to do God’s will as he understood it, Paul was actually—as he later came to realize—opposing God “ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim 1:13).

C. The tension of his Jewish experience. It frequently has been suggested that Paul had an unhappy adolescence, crushed under the legalism and casuistry of his religion and longing for something of love and inwardness. This supposition is based in large measure on an autobiographical interpretation of Romans 7:7-25, wherein Paul is viewed as describing a time in his boyhood when he came to realize the awful demands of the law and was therefore plunged into a perpetual and fruitless struggle with an uneasy conscience. It has sometimes also been supposed that this tension was the basis for his persecution of Christians: that he was attempting to externalize the conflict within by identifying what he detested in himself with some other body and was trying to silence his doubts by activity.

It is significant, however, that Paul’s discussion of the relation of the Old Covenant and the New in 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 does not present a contrast between a crushing legalism and a new prophetism. Rather, it is between what “once had splendor” and what is of “much more” and “surpassing splendor” (2 Cor 3:10, 11). It is true that he speaks of the Old Covenant as “the dispensation of death” (2 Cor 3:7) and “the dispensation of condemnation” (2 Cor 3:9). But he also insists that, though in relation to the surpassing splendor of the New covenant the law’s glory is passing, it “came with...splendor” (2 Cor 3:7, 11). In Galatians 4 he speaks of the Old Covenant as a bondage (vv. 1-7) and a slavery (vv. 21-31), but only in relation to the liberty found in Christ Jesus. Elsewhere, Paul talks as though his pre-Christian life had been entirely free from qualms of guilt and pangs of conscience, recalling for his converts his feeling of heady abandon in outstripping his fellow students in the rabbinic curriculum, his eager zeal for the traditions of his fathers, and his confidence of being blameless in the eyes of the law (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:4-6; Acts 22:3; 26:4, 5).

Therefore, it seems that Paul’s early religious experience must be interpreted along the lines of the normal Jewish response of his day: a rejoicing in the law of God and a self-congratulation on his place in the divine favor (Rom 2:17-20). He never speaks of his previous life in Judaism as one hideous mistake, nor as a bondage which anyone with an ounce of perception would have seen to have been in error. Rather, he continually measures it by the surpassing splendor and intimate communion found in Jesus Christ; and only on account of Christ was he prepared to call it, together with all human excellencies, something of the nature of rubbish (Phil 3:7-11). It was not dissatisfaction with the law which prepared the way for Christ, but Christ who revealed to Paul the inadequacy of the law and the ultimate futility of all human attainment.

What then was the tension which Paul experienced in Judaism, and which he found resolved in commitment to Christ? No doubt he had some appreciation of the inability of man to please God apart from divine mercy and strength, and prob. he was repelled in some measure by the rising tide of externalism in his day. But these were matters shared with the better rabbis of the time, and not sufficient of themselves to effect any basic alteration in earlier commitments. The primary tension of Judaism, which dominates all the OT and Jewish thought generally, is that of covenant promise and anticipated fulfillment. The religion of Israel is the religion of promise, with consummation reserved for the coming of the Messiah and the Messianic Age. And it was this tension, rather than any having to do with ethics, motivation or universalism, which Paul found resolved in commitment to Jesus of Nazareth as God’s promised Messiah—the Messiah rejected, crucified, risen and now exalted.

II. Conversion and early ministry

Rome had recognized the high priests of Jerusalem as the titular rulers of their people, and in alliances with the earlier Maccabean priest-kings, had included a reciprocal extradition clause (1 Macc. 15:21-24). While the Sadducean priests no longer exercised the civil authority of their predecessors, evidently they retained the right of extradition in cases strictly religious. Thus, Paul, seeking the return of Jewish Christians (principally the Hel. Jewish believers), “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1, 2; 22:5; 26:12).

A. The circumstances of his conversion. It was while traveling to Damascus to extradite Christians that Paul was confronted by the risen and glorified Christ in a manner which he considered comparable to the resurrection appearances to Peter, the other apostles and James (1 Cor 15:3-8). In Luke’s account in Acts 9 and the apostle’s speeches recorded in Acts 22 and 26, it is stated that at midday a light from heaven flashed about him and his cohorts, throwing them all to the ground and blinding Paul. Then a voice from heaven was heard to say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Paul asked regarding the identity of the speaker, and was told, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” He was then instructed to rise and enter the city, and he would be told what to do. Stricken with blindness for three days, Paul was residing at the home of a man named Judas who lived on “the street called Straight,” when a Christian disciple by the name of Ananias was sent by God to minister to him. It was through Ananias that Paul’s sight was restored, he was baptized as a Christian, and further instructions were given him concerning God’s purpose for his life.

A number of problems present themselves in comparing the accounts of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9, 22, and 26; problems of the type frequently found in a comparison of the synoptic gospels—and, for that matter, found in any correlation of two or more separate narratives of any one historical event. The first concerns Luke’s statement in Acts 9:7 that Paul’s associates “stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one,” whereas Paul is represented in Acts 22:9 as saying that “those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me” and in Acts 26:14 as saying only “I heard a voice.” This may be cited as a flagrant contradiction which the author of Acts unwittingly incorporated into his finished product; though prob. it was understood by all concerned in the 1st cent. to mean that while the whole group traveling to Damascus heard the sound of the voice from heaven, only Paul understood the articulated words. See Acts of the Apostles.

A second problem concerns the reporting of the words heard by Paul. Whereas all three accounts have the words “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14), if we accept the reading of the better ancient MSS only the third adds the phrase: “It hurts you to kick against the goads.” The problem here, of course, had to do with the exact words of Jesus. Now it is well-known that “to kick against the goads” was a Gr. idiom for opposition to deity (Euripides, Bacchanals 794, 795; Aeschylus, Prometheus 324, 325), and prob. it was known within Jewish circles that this was something of a catch phrase or byword employed by the Gentiles. It is well possible that in speaking to Agrippa II, Paul added this expression to the words of Jesus to make the king, whose native tongue and basic mentality were Gr., realize that correction by a voice from heaven meant rebuke from God Himself. It would hardly have been necessary for Paul (Acts 9) or for his Jewish audience at Jerusalem (Acts 22), since a voice from heaven (bath kol) had an unmistakable significance for any Jew. But in seeking to convey to a Gentile the revelation he had received—both in its explicit form and its implications—Paul seems to have found this Gr. idiom a judicious vehicle for the expression of the full meaning of Jesus’ words as he understood them.

The problem as to when Paul received his commission to preach to the Gentiles is somewhat more difficult to solve. Acts 9 indicates that it was through Ananias, who was sent to explicate the meaning of the Damascus road encounter. But Acts 22, though alluding to Ananias’ ministry, associates the words “I will send you far away to the Gentiles” with a later vision while Paul was in the Jerusalem Temple; and Acts 26 seems to imply that the commission came while he was on the Damascus road. For Paul, however, the meeting with Jesus, the ministry of Ananias, and the later vision of confirmation in the Temple were prob. all parts of the same event. In fact, when the details of that Gentile ministry were later spelled out more fully on his first missionary journey (see discussion below), he still viewed this as only an extension of that original charge. Probably, therefore, Acts 9 presents the actual sequence of events connected with Paul’s conversion, Acts 22 adds the confirming vision at Jerusalem some three years later, and Acts 26 is an abbreviated testimony before the king—abbreviated so that the step by step account would not seem overly pedantic to his audience and since for Paul the events were inherently one.

The immediate sequel to his conversion was a three years period spent partly in Arabia (Nabatea?) and partly in Damascus (Gal 1:17, 18). During this time Paul seems to have been re-evaluating his life and the Scriptures from a Christocentric perspective and witnessing to Jews that Jesus is “the Son of God” and “the Christ” (Acts 9:20-22). Nothing is told about the importance of this period for Paul personally, though undoubtedly it was a time when many of the implications of his commitment to Jesus as God’s promised Messiah and his commission to carry this message to the Gentiles were being spelled out under the guidance of the Spirit.

B. Conditioning antecedents. There is no evidence in the NT relative to whether Paul had ever seen Jesus during His earthly ministry or not—the statement of 2 Corinthians 5:16 about having known Christ after the flesh is correctly interpreted by the RSV to mean that this former estimate of Jesus had been based on worldly standards alone, and thus has no bearing on the question at hand. Certainly, however, he had a vivid impression of Jesus’ character and claims during these early days, as gathered from Jewish reports and Christian witnesses and as seen through Pharisaic eyes. No man carries on a campaign of persecution without having what he believes to be sufficient information to fan his hatred. Paul’s knowledge of Jesus prior to his conversion seems only to have inflamed his antagonism, being convinced as he was that Jesus was a discredited impostor and His followers actually dangerous to the nation’s future in preaching their delusions.

Many have suggested that Paul’s conversion was prepared for by his contacts with Christians, and that unconsciously he was being conditioned by the logic of their arguments, the dynamic quality of their lives, and their fortitude under oppression. Certainly Luke makes the historical connection between the martyrdom of Stephen, the persecution of believers, and the conversion of Paul. But the suggestion that a logical connection is involved is nowhere certain. It is, of course, impossible to speak with any certainty about what was going on in Paul’s subconscious mind, for psychoanalysis two millennia or so later is hardly a fruitful exercise. Yet it is probable that Paul had taken up his task of persecution with full knowledge of the earnestness of his opponents, the stamina of the martyr, and the agony he would necessarily inflict. Fanaticism was not so foreign to the Pal. of his day as to leave him unaware of these facts, and it is quite possible that he was prepared for the emotional strain involved in persecuting those he believed to be misguided and dangerous foes. Nor need we suppose that the logic of the Christian preachers greatly affected him. His later references to the scandal of the cross indicate that for him this was the great stumbling block, which no amount of logic or verbal gymnastics could remove (1 Cor 1:23; Gal 5:11; cf. Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho 32, 89).

While his life in Judaism and his contacts with Christians were later acknowledged to have confirmatory value, they seem not to have been factors which drove Paul inevitably to a point of crisis. Only the Damascus encounter with Christ was powerful enough to cause the young Jewish rabbi to reconsider the death of Jesus; only his meeting with the risen Christ was sufficient to demonstrate that God had vindicated the claims and work of the One he was opposing. Humanly speaking, Paul was immune to the Gospel. Although he was ready to follow evidence to its conclusion, he was sure that no evidence could overturn the verdict of the cross; that is, that Christ died the death of a criminal. But God gives sufficient evidence to the earnest to convince and lead them on. And therefore the eternal God “was pleased,” as Paul says by way of reminiscence, “to reveal his Son to me” (Gal 1:16). Thus Paul was arrested by Christ, and made His own (Phil 3:12).

C. Resultant convictions. Having been met by Christ on the way to Damascus, three convictions became inescapably obvious to Paul. In the first place, despite zeal, superior credentials, and an assurance of doing God’s will (Rom 9:4, 5; 10:2-4), his life and activities in Judaism lay under the rebuke of God. A voice from heaven had corrected him, and there was nothing more that could be said. He had held tenaciously to the Mosaic law as having intrinsic authority, but failed to appreciate that it also bore instrumental authority; that is, that it had been given as a custodian to lead men on to faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 3:19-24). But now that Christ had come and the Gospel message had gone out, to refuse Him of whom the law speaks and to venerate the letter above the Person who is its object, is to revert to “weak and beggarly elemental spirits” (Gal 3:25-4:11).

Second, he could not escape the conclusion that the Jesus whom he was persecuting was alive, exalted, and in some manner to be associated with God, the Father, whom Israel worshiped. He had therefore to revise his whole estimate of the life, teaching and death of the Nazarene, for God obviously had vindicated Him in a manner beyond dispute. Thus he was compelled to agree with the Christians that Christ’s death on the cross, rather than discrediting Him as an impostor, was really God’s provision for man’s sin and was in fulfillment of prophecy. And he was compelled to acknowledge that Christ’s resurrection, also in fulfillment of prophecy, was proof of these facts and provides life to those who will receive Him (1 Cor 15:3ff.). In commitment to this risen Lord, he found (1) the ancient tension of covenant promise and anticipated fulfillment brought to consummation; and (2) true righteousness and intimate fellowship with God.

A third conviction which was unmistakably clear to Paul was that he had been appointed by Jesus Christ to be an apostle to the Gentiles, delivering to them the message of a crucified and risen Lord and bringing them into the unity of one body in Christ (Rom 11:13; 15:16; Gal 1:11-16; Eph 3:8). There is no consciousness in Paul that he differed from the earlier apostles on the matter of the content of the Gospel. But there is the settled conviction reflected in his writings that he had been given a new understanding of the pattern of redemptive history. This he refers to as “my gospel” (Rom 2:16; 16:25), always asserting that it came to him via a revelation given by Jesus Christ (Gal 1:1, 11, 12; Eph 3:2, 3). Although in further visions and providential circumstances he was to understand more clearly that the Gospel involves full equality of Jew and Gentile before God and the legitimacy of a direct approach to the Gentile world in the Christian mission, it was his constant habit to relate his Gentile commission firmly and directly to his conversion.

D. Ministry to diaspora Jews. The three years following Paul’s conversion were spent in and around Damascus (Acts 9:19-22; Gal 1:17, 18), the Biblical “Arabia” prob. having reference to the area ruled by the Nabateans and of which Damascus was at various times the principal city. During this time Paul proclaimed the Sonship and Messiahship of Jesus (Acts 9:20, 22), and at the end of his residence in Damascus he was forced to leave by means of a basket let down over the city wall (Acts 9:23-25; 2 Cor 11:32, 33). His reference to this incident in 2 Corinthians indicates that it happened at a time when Damascus was ruled by the Nabatean King Aretas. Now Damascene coinage proves that the city was under the direct rule of Rome in a.d. 33-34. This means that Paul’s departure from the city, occurring as it did during the supremacy of Aretas, prob. took place in the final years of the Emperor Tiberius, though possibly after the accession of Caligula in a.d. 37. On this basis, Paul’s conversion may be dated somewhere between a.d. 32 and 35; though precision is manifestly impossible apart from further data.

Arriving in Jerusalem, Paul took up the ministry to Hel. Jews—a ministry that had been neglected since Stephen’s death. But he faced the same opposition which he himself once had led, and seems to have gotten into the same difficulty as that which cost Stephen his life (Acts 9:26-29). This was in all likelihood the visit of fifteen days of which he speaks in Galatians 1:18-20. Evidently the Jerusalem church did not care to go through another series of events such as followed Stephen’s preaching, for when they realized what was taking place “they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus” (Acts 9:30). Though it might seem to have been something of a personal rebuff from Paul’s perspective, such a departure was under divine approval, for in the Temple he received a vision which not only confirmed his apostleship to the Gentiles, but warned him to flee Jerusalem (Acts 22:17-21).

Paul is not mentioned in the period between these experiences in Jerusalem and his ministry at Antioch (Acts 11:25-30), though from his words in Galatians 1:21-24 it seems fairly certain that he continued his witness to dispersed Jews in Caesarea and his hometown of Tarsus. The cordiality of the Christians at Caesarea at the end of his third missionary journey lends some credence to an earlier association with Philip and the believers there. Many of the hardships and trials enumerated in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 may stem from situations faced at Caesarea and Tarsus during those days, for they find no place in the records of the later missionary journeys in Acts. Perhaps the ecstatic experience of 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 also comes from this period in his life.

E. Ministry to God-fearing Gentiles. In the expansion of the Church occasioned by the persecutions in Jerusalem, certain believers who originally came from Cyprus and Cyrene carried the Gospel to Antioch in Syria and included Greeks in the scope of their ministry (Acts 11:19-21). There is some textual uncertainty as to whether the “great number” who heard their message and believed is to be understood as Greeks in the sense of Gentiles or Greeks in the sense of Hel. Jews, as in Acts 6:1. But in that the evidence from the MSS slightly favors the former and they are distinguished from Jews in the passage itself, it seems best to conclude that these Christian missionaries carried on a witness to Gentiles as an adjunct to their ministry to Jews—that is, through the synagogues and to God-fearing Gentiles (“Proselytes of the Gate”). When news of this ministry to both Jews and God-fearing Gentiles reached Jerusalem, the church there sent Barnabas, a Levite originally from Cyprus (Acts 4:36), to check on conditions at Antioch. We read that “when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:22-24).

It was Barnabas who brought Paul to Antioch, having gone to Tarsus to find him (Acts 11:25, 26). Barnabas had earlier acted on Paul’s behalf when there was suspicion about his conversion among the Jerusalem disciples (Acts 9:27). And now, knowing of his commission to the Gentiles, remembering the impact of his testimony, conscious of his abilities, and needing help in the ministry among the Gentile converts, Barnabas involved Paul in the work at Antioch. Here Paul joined not only Barnabas, but also Symeon “who was called Niger” (a black man), Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been raised in Herod’s court (Acts 13:1). The Gr. construction of the passage suggests that Barnabas, Symeon and Lucius functioned as “prophets,” which prob. means that they were the ones principally engaged in the task of proclaiming the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus. Manaen and Paul were the “teachers,” which seems to signify that theirs was the primary responsibility of instructing the converts concerning Biblical foundations and implications. In this capacity Paul ministered for a year.

In such an enterprise, Paul was, of course, involved in a mission to Gentiles. And he may have thought this to be all that was involved in the commission received at his conversion. It is probable, however, that the Antioch mission in those early days was carried out exclusively in terms of the synagogue and as an adjunct to the ministry to Jews, without any consideration being given to whether it were proper to appeal more widely and directly to Gentiles. Believers in Jesus at Antioch were prob. related in some way to the synagogue; whether they were Jewish or Gentile in background. And thus in the eyes of many Jewish believers, the conversion of God-fearing Gentiles who had come under the ministry of Judaism to some extent prior to their allegiance to Jesus would have been viewed as somewhat similar to that of Jewish proselytes. However, others within the city, evidently non-believers with more perception regarding the Antioch church’s essential commitments and in anticipation of the later debates as to whether believers in Jesus had an identity of their own or belonged to the Jewish commonwealth, called them “Christians”—that is, “Christ followers” or “those of the household of Christ.”

During Paul’s ministry in Antioch, a Jerusalemite prophet by the name of Agabus prophesied of an approaching famine, and the church at Antioch sent aid to their brethren in the Holy City by the hands of Barnabas and Paul (Acts 11:27-30). The famine is spoken of in Acts as occurring during the time of Claudius (a.d. 41-54). It can, however, be dated more precisely at about a.d. 46, by (1) information from the Rom. historians Tacitus and Suetonius concerning a widespread famine about this time; (2) evidence preserved in the papyri concerning the high price of grain in Egypt also about this time; and (3) Josephus’ account of the Egyp. queen Helena. A convert to Judaism, Helena gathered supplies from Egypt and Cyprus for famine-stricken Jerusalem soon after her arrival on a pilgrimage to the city about a.d. 45 or 46 (Antiquities XX. 51-53).

The understanding of Paul’s activity at this time is heavily dependent upon the answer to the ancient conundrum of the relation of the two Jerusalem visits mentioned in Galatians to the three early Jerusalem visits reported in Acts. While most accept the first visit of Galatians 1:18-20 to be that of Acts 9:26-29 (as presented above), many feel that Galatians 2:1-10 is really to be identified with the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. The issues are complex and have far-reaching consequences. The simplest solution which results in the most satisfactory and convincing reconstruction and leaves the fewest loose ends, however, is that Galatians 2:1-10 corresponds to the “famine visit” of Acts 11:30. On this view, the temporal adverb “then” of Galatians 2:1 has the same antecedent as that of Galatians 1:18—both referring back to Paul’s conversion. His conversion would then have occurred (allowing some flexibility in rounding off the years) about a.d. 33; his escape from Damascus and subsequent visit to Jerusalem, about a.d. 36; and his “famine visit” to Jerusalem some fourteen years after his conversion, about a.d. 46. And on this view, the reference to having gone to Jerusalem “by revelation” in Galatians 2:2 and Agabus’ prophecy of Acts 11:28 could be related.

If the equation of Galatians 2:1-10 and Acts 11:30 is correct, Paul and Barnabas, having been sent by the Antioch church with aid for stricken believers of Jerusalem, then took the opportunity to hold a private discussion with James, Peter and John on the issues of the nature of the Gospel, the validity of a mission to Gentiles, and the relation of Gentile converts to the law. They also took along Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile Christian, whose presence might have been intended as something of a test case. He may, however, have been included with no thought other than the help he would be on the mission—and, perhaps, with some failure to appreciate fully the pressures that could be brought to bear because of him. Paul mentions the reactions of two groups at Jerusalem in his report of the conversations: (1) that of certain “false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage” (Gal 2:4, 5); and (2) that of the “pillar” apostles in the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:6-10). Whether the pseudo-brethren were Jewish spies sent to see what treachery the Christians were planning with Gentiles or whether they were angry Jewish Christian disputants who threatened to publish what was happening at Antioch unless Titus were circumcised, we cannot say. But the extremely important point to note is that, despite mounting pressures and possibly some uncertainties, the Jerusalem apostles agreed with Paul on the substance of the Gospel and the validity of a mission to Gentiles, though, admittedly, they felt themselves committed to a different sphere of ministry than his. Moreover, they made no demands as to the necessity of Gentile believers being circumcised. As yet, however, the issue of a direct approach to Gentiles apart from the ministrations of the synagogue did not come to the fore. That was to be raised on the first missionary journey, and would be the occasion for resurrecting the whole complex of issues again at the Jerusalem Council.

III. First missionary journey

The first missionary journey of Paul (Acts 13-14) often is treated as something of a “filler” inserted by Luke as a transition to get from the circumstances of the Jerusalem church under Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12) to the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), or relegated to the status of a displaced aspect of the Pauline missionary endeavors which presumably occurred much later. But to class this period of Paul’s labors as insignificant, invented or misplaced, overlooks an important advance in the preaching of the Gospel and destroys any adequate rationale for events which follow.

A. The course of the mission. While Paul and Barnabas were ministering at Antioch in Syria, the Holy Spirit directed that they be released from their duties in the church there and sent out to minister more widely (Acts 13:2, 3). The means by which the Spirit so directed them are not expressly given, though there are some hints that it was through the convergence of three factors: (1) an urging within the apostles themselves, for they were fasting at the time they received the explicit direction; (2) a prophetic utterance on the part of one of the members of the church, similar perhaps to Agabus’ word earlier; and (3) the assurance to the body of believers that this was indeed the will of God, which was given after fasting and prayer. The subject (“they”) of Acts 13:3 is somewhat difficult to determine grammatically, and may refer to the “prophets and teachers” of v. 1. On this reading, it was the other three leaders in the Antioch church who, after fasting and prayer, “laid their hands on them and sent them off.” On analogy with Acts 15:2, however, where there appears the same linguistic phenomenon of a pronominal suffix lacking an expressed antecedent and where the subject is later identified as “the church” (Acts 15:3), it is probable that the body of believers as a whole was involved in determining the will of the Lord, laying hands on the apostles and sending them out. “So,” Acts 13:4 concludes, they were “sent out by the Holy Spirit.” They took with them John Mark, a young man from Jerusalem (Acts 12:12) and the cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10).

Leaving Antioch and its port city Seleucia, the missionary party set out for Barnabas’ native Cyprus. And from Salamis on the E to Paphos on the W, they preached the Gospel throughout the island, though, always “in the synagogues of the Jews” (Acts 13:5). At Paphos, however, the proconsul Sergius Paulus requested that they present their message before him. The meeting may have been intended only as an inquisition into the nature of their preaching so that the proconsul might be in a position to head off any features which could cause disturbance within the Jewish community on the island. As a “command performance” of a somewhat devious type, it could hardly have been avoided. But despite the opposition of Bar-Jesus the magician, and impressed by the effect of the curse pronounced by Paul upon this “son of the devil,” Sergius Paulus believed (Acts 13:6-12). Here was something quite unexpected, for the Rom. proconsul seems not to have been related in any way to Judaism or its institutions. Here was a situation which could hardly have appeared otherwise to the apostles than the counterpart of the conversion of the Rom. centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:1-11:18); indeed, in some ways going beyond the case of Cornelius. But though the Jerusalem church seems never to have taken Cornelius’ conversion as establishing a precedent for its ministry, for its mission was to Israel, Paul, whose call was to the Gentiles, undoubtedly saw in this incident at Paphos something more of what a mission to Gentiles logically involved. At this point in the record, significantly, he begins to be called by his Rom. name, Paul, rather than his Jewish name, Saul (Acts 13:9); for from this point on he is prepared to meet a Gentile of the empire as himself a member of that empire, apart from any necessary common ground as supplied by the synagogue. And from this time on, with but two understandable exceptions (Acts 14:12; 15:12), Paul’s name always appears first in connection with that of Barnabas.

From Cyprus the missioners sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, on the mainland of Asia Minor (Acts 13:13). No account of a ministry in Perga at this time is given, though on their return visit they preached there (Acts 14:25). The usual explanation for this bypassing of Perga and moving on to Antioch of Pisidia is that Paul prob. was ill, perhaps with a case of malaria, and thus he redirected his mission to gain the higher ground of the plateau to the N. While this may be true, it can as readily be postulated that the ignoring of Perga at this time was largely because of uncertainty within the missionary party itself regarding the validity of a direct approach to Gentiles. Undoubtedly after Paphos the discussion among the missionaries concerning their further ministry centered on the implications of Sergius Paulus’ conversion.

It was at this time, the account in Acts tells us, that John Mark left the group and returned to Jerusalem. Perhaps it was this reconsideration of their mission, and the inferences being drawn by Paul from recent events, that were the real reasons for Mark’s departure. While Paul saw in the Paphos experience the explication of his original commission, John Mark may well have felt concerned for the effect such news of a direct Christian ministry to Gentiles would have in Jerusalem and upon the Jerusalem church—and wanted no part in it himself. Explanations of Mark’s defection which stress homesickness, the rigors of travel, a change in leadership within the group, or an illness of Paul necessitating a changed itinerary are at best only partial, and at worst unconvincing. They fail to account for the obstinate opposition of Paul toward Mark as recorded in Acts 15:37-39, which implies that Mark’s departure was for more than merely personal reasons.

At Antioch of Pisidia, Paul proclaimed to Jews and “devout converts to Judaism” assembled in the synagogue on the sabbath day that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior promised in Holy Writ (Acts 13:14-43). On the next sabbath, however, when a great number of Gentiles expressed their interest in Paul’s message, the Jewish community went on record as being in opposition to the Gospel; and Paul turned directly to the Gentiles in continuation of his mission in the city, finding great receptivity among them (Acts 13:44-49). Here the typical pattern of the Pauline mission was established: an initial proclamation to Jews and Gentile adherents to Judaism, whether full proselytes or more loosely associated, and then, being refused further audience in the synagogue, a direct ministry among Gentiles. This pattern was followed in every city with a Jewish population visited by Paul. We know this from Acts, with the exception of Athens.

Also at Pisidian Antioch the pattern of opposition to Paul w