ST. PAUL: The Man. The Missionary

Fr. JC Rapadas, SVD
Sep 4, 2018
9 min read

Why do we call the persecutor as the second founder of Christianity?

Saul is the Hebrew of Paul, a name he lived from his commissioning mentioned in Acts 13:9 until he died in Rome. Saul is mentioned for the first time in the entire Bible at the stoning of Stephen, the first Martyr of the Church.

BIBLICAL SAULS

He is the namesake of the first King of Israel, who in turn persecuted David, the man after God’s heart. (1 Samuel 23:1-14). At this point we are led to see that the two Sauls in the Bible were persecutors. In the Old Testament, here is King Saul who triumphed in repelling the Philistines at first but turned out to be a tyrant in the end, and lost communication with God, and thus resorted to contacting the dead. (1 Samuel 28:2-20). While the Saul of the New Testament is a Roman Citizen with great eloquence in Judaism and the Law. He was one of those who guarded the Law with great fervor, and by fervor we mean his readiness to do violent things for the sake of the Law. This he did to the infidels of Judaism, -the members of the new movement, the springing Christianity.

Both Sauls were Benjaminite, belonging to the tribe of Benjamin. The tribe of Benjamin belonged to the southern Kingdom of Israel when Israel split into two. However, the flow of God’s intervention differ in each case. God stopped communication with King Saul because of his disobedience and arrogance. His Kingship was the product of the Israelites’ haste for a King; asking God for a King at the right time for wrong reasons. On the other hand, Jesus communicated to Saul from Tarsus on his way to Damascus because of his persecution of the members. (Acts 9:18). Here we see God’s action to tyrants in the old testament, with no instrument to sway them. In the New Testament, the risen Lord is God’s instrument of conversion and commissioning. He was prepared for this all his life.

THE PREPARATION FOR PAUL

Paul was being prepared for a mission he did not understand and tried to stop at first and violently opposed at first. We see that Paul lives in Tarsus, in Asia Minor (now Turkey), and had the chance to encounter diaspora Jews, the Jews who lived outside the mainland. Diaspora Jews are more receptive to foreigners, pagans and Gentiles alike since they lived among them. Here is where we find Paul’s calling to be fitting to the apostleship to the Gentiles.

Paul is an educated Jew, a student of Gamaliel. He knew the Law and the Patriarchal Tradition like the back of his hand. Pharisees believed in the after life, the resurrection of the dead, unlike the sadducees. His zeal to persecute comes precisely from this. His first mention in the Bible was at the stoning of Stephen, the first Martyr (Acts 7:58), where he apparently was approved of the martyrdom of the apostle and seemed to have some involvement with it by the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of the young man named Saul. It is a sign of respect and accomplishment of what is believed to be Paul’s project to persecute everyone.

Is this not the case in all of God’s instruments throughout the Bible? Were their hearts not hardened at first?

PAUL’S ROLE TO CHRISTIANITY

According to James Dunn, a world renowned Biblical scholar specialized in corpus paulinum, and a Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham, England, Paul made Christianity that it is today. Paul’s missionary activities made the movement of the Nazarenes more than just a first century messianic group, more than just a mere renewal movement, that it was thought of by the first members, particularly by Jame and Peter. It is by Paul’s initiatives that the Greeks became comfortable with it and thus made it Gentile in composition. We can say that the expansion of this renewal movement was led by hellenists, the most unlikely of all people to do so. It is also in these series of missionary travels for 8 years of Paul, the so called Agean Mission (Acts 16-20) that all his writings were written.

WHAT LED PAUL TO PERSECUTE JEWS?

It is chronologically right to refer to the persecutions waged by Paul to followers of the The Way as persecutions of early Jewish-Christians because they were still not Christians nominally until in Acts 11 26, after Paul’s conversion.

It was the “Pharisaic Zeal and Righteousness that he regarded as garbage, not as being a Jew. Contrary to previous perception of Paul, he did not disavow his Jewish identity. Instead, he used it positively, and he did not find it as a matter to differentiate from other foreigners.

Paul considers “Jew” as a role which one can disregard or put on depending on the circumstance. It’s not so much about ethnicity but of conduct, an attitude.

THE SET-APARTNESS OF ISRAEL

Important to understanding Paul’s antagonism to the believers of The Way was the Theology of the Set-Apartness of Israel. The identity of Israel is not defined by by physical descent but solely on the calling of God. God has chosen Israel for his own, and the Pharisees as a people set apart, having their own interpretation of the Patriarchal Tradition starting from Abraham. Paul attempted to redefine the “seed of Abraham”, and of “Israel” into something which transcends the the ethno-religious distinction of being either a Jew or a Gentile, and absorb ethnic and social diversity.

HE THOUGHT OF HIMSELF AS A PERSON “IN CHRIST”

“In Christ” is an address which locates where he belongs. It appears 83 times in his entire works. He never coined the word Christian, but “in Christ”. For him, what determines Christians state is the indwelling of the Spirit, or the “Christ in you.”

Paul’s past is of important value (as Judaism is important for Christianity) but only to be redefined. His ethnicity does not define his relationship with God. Instead, his identity was determined by his relationship to Christ.

Do our identities determined by our relationship to Christ? Does Christ live in us?

CHRISTIANITY FROM ISRAEL

Christianity came from Israel, and Jesus Christ is the only Messiah of Israel. All the first members of Christianity were Jews, and a quarter of the Bible are Israel’s Scriptures. We find the story of God in Jesus through the scriptures, from which we can see the fulfillment of the saving promise of God in Christ. Thus, the Jewishness of Christianity is integral to Christianity (just as Saul is valuable to Paul), that Christianity belongs with Israel. Our identity is in Christ.

FROM WHAT WAS HE CONVERTED?

Paul converted from being a “traditionalist Jew” to a “Jew in Christ.” He converted from upholding the Law and maintaining the Holiness of Israel, away from impurity. Integral to this is the understanding of his ZEAL about the observance of the ancestral Law, the Patriarchal Tradition of Israel. He thought of Jesus as a crucified criminal (Galatians 3:13), a non-sense messiah, a stumbling block for the Jews (1 Corinthians 1:23).

Paul was a zealot. He was a Pharisee who gained eloquence in Judaism from Gamaliel. Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word Perushim which means ‘separated ones’ -parash (to separate). Hence they are people set apart, separated from the rest by their level of Holiness or purity. Hence they should not be infiltrated by impurities from other nations. They safeguard the protective bounderies formed by the Law, the purity of Israel from other nations, and from unwilling Jews.

They did not want to be mixed up with someone who is unclean in order to maintain their set apartness. And even Jews who do not follow their interpretation (halakhoth) of the law are considered law-breakers Paul must have shared this view and must have lived within the framework of the Law, upholding the righteousness within the Law. This is where his zeal or fervor come from, and is directed to.

PAUL’S ZEAL

Paul’s zeal is a passionate concern to protect Israel’s Holiness over against other nations. It means jealousy. Zeal and Jealousy are used interchangeably. The zeal or fervor of Paul is characterized by Israel’s perception of God as a jealous God, a zealous God who demands exclusivity, asking Israel to be his alone. The vulgate refers to God as zealot. Thus, If God is a jealous God, then the same zeal must be followed by Israelites. For them, holiness means being set-apart FOR God alone, and it is readily implicative of set-apartness FROM other nations.

In Israel, being hostile to foreigners is considered heroism. Paul thinks Stephen as a Hellenist, and their attitudes and actions are threat. Paul perfects a certain feature of persecution to erring Jews in times of threat to Israel. His persecution is always towards the conniving Jews. There are three features of zeal for the Torah:

1. When a fellow Jew disregards the Law. The set-apartness to God, and from defilement of other nations and their gods are becoming a threat.

2. Involvement of a fellow Jew to the breaching of the boundary of Israel perpetuated by foreigners.

3. When there is violence and bloodshed involved in the danger to Israel’s holiness and set-apartness.

TO WHAT WAS HE CONVERTED?

Paul came to the conclusion that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. He converted to what he previously denied, and transformed them into active mission, the openness of the Hellenists and Gentiles.

His transformation from his previous life into the new life as Apostle comes from:

1. The wonder of gaining Christ.

2. The Hope of being found in Him.

3. The sharing fully in his death and resurrection.

THE CONVERSION AT DAMASCUS

He was converted to openness to the Gentiles. It was a turning from his previous way of life. This conversion was of a commissioning character, commissioning to “take the Gospel to all nations.” He is an apostle because he has seen the Lord on the road to Damascus, and he has seen a risen Christ, and not a cursed criminal. His apostleship is to the Gentiles, an apostle indeed not FROM Israel but OF Israel. The Commissioning of Paul is also the commissioning of Israel to be the light to the gentiles.

As I have said, Pharisees believed in the resurrection, but not necessarily of the body or the flesh. Thus, Paul saw a glorified Christ on the road to Damascus. It was not a dead Christ, but a glorified one. Christ appeared to him not as a resurrected body but someone who seem to have come from the after life. In the three accounts of the phenomenon in Acts, 9, 22 and 26, Paul spoke of the great light, light from heaven as he spoke to this Christ. He was blinded but he was definitely disturbed and could not resist.

Christ speaks to us according to our convictions and our weakness. When he calls, isn’t he too audacious and irresistible?

FROM PAUL’S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The basic logic of the Gospel of Paul is the “Righteousness of God” (tsedaqah), and it is always directed towards the Jews and Gentiles. His proclamation is always “to the Jews first, but also the Gentiles. (Romans 1:16). Righteousness means the meeting of the obligations in and through relationship. God’s obligation/righteousness was accepted by God:

1. When he created man.

2. When he chose Israel to be His people.

This obligation is a saving obligation for people and creation, and is revealed in the Gospel which is the power of Salvation. Hence, God has the obligation to save us. And this salvation is for all, not only Jews and Gentiles but all. If God is one, then he is the God of Jews and Gentiles. God justifies the Gentiles through their Faith, not circumcision.

Martin Luther claims that God’s righteousness is attained by grace and sheer mercy. Not given at the paschal sacrifice. We need faith first.

PAUL’S MISSION AS CONFIRMATION OF THE GRACE

God justifies the Gentiles in matters of their faith, not on circumsition. God works for all, both the circumcised and those who were not. This is proclamation of Paul of the purpose of God:

1. The confirmation of the promises to the fathers about Israel’s irrevocable calling. Israel’s calling is hers alone, even if she falters.

2. The Gentiles must praise God for his mercy.

Central to the proclamation of Paul is the theme of Communion, that the Gentiles and Jews praise and give thanks to God together, all nations embraced by the one rule of the Messiah, the hope of the Gentiles. They are no longer considered strangers but citizens with the saints. Paul believes so much that if God is One, then He is not simply the God of the Jews but also of the Gentiles, and therefore of all.