Bible Studies in the Life of Paul, Historical and Constructive

by Henry T. Sell

I. PAUL'S PREPARATION

STUDY II

CONVERSION

PAUL, THE PERSECUTOR

Order of Events.—It seems to be quite evident, when Paul finished his studies in Jerusalem, that he left the city and engaged in work somewhere else, during the years when John the Baptist and Jesus were preaching and teaching. In all probability he did not return until after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

Paul first appears in the narrative of the Acts, under the name of Saul, at the martyrdom of Stephen, where he takes charge of the clothes of the witnesses (Acts 7:58, 59).

From the Ascension of Christ to the martyrdom of Stephen is an important period in the history of the infant church. On and after the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) the apostles and followers of the risen Lord assumed a very bold attitude. They did not hesitate to speak openly in the temple (Acts 3:12-16) of the crime of putting "The Prince of Life" to death and asserted that He was risen from the dead. The priests and Sadducees strongly objected to this kind of preaching (Acts 4), laid hands upon the preachers, and put them in prison. When they were examined the next day before (Acts 4:5-13) the Jewish tribunal, the apostles spoke even more boldly of Jesus and his resurrection and refused to be silenced (Acts 4:13-20, 33). Again an attempt was made to stop the preaching of the apostles, but they refused to keep still (Acts 5:16-33). A remarkable prison deliverance by the "Angel of the Lord" (Acts 5:19, 20) gave them great courage in proclaiming "all the words of this life."

At this point Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-42) proposes in the Jewish council a new policy, which was to let the followers of Christ alone, arguing that then they would speedily give up their preaching. This policy was adopted (Acts 5:40). But with the election of Stephen as a deacon (Acts 6:1-8) the followers of Christ began to multiply with great rapidity and it was soon seen that "the let-alone policy" was a mistake (Acts 6:9-15). Persecution again breaks out which results in the death of Stephen (Acts 7), the bringing out of Saul as the arch persecutor, and the scattering of the church (Acts 8:1-4).

The Inevitable Conflict.—Had the early Christians been content to have proclaimed Jesus Christ to be but a great teacher and prophet, they would in all probability have become a Jewish sect and been speedily lost to sight. But extraordinary claims were put forth that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah (Acts 2:25-40), the Son of God (Acts 3:26), the Forgiver of sins (Acts 2:38; 5:31), that He was risen from the dead (Acts 4:33), that obedience to Him was above that to the Jewish rulers (Acts 4:18-20), that the Jews had wickedly slain Christ (Acts 3:14, 15), and that salvation was only through Him (Acts 4:12). Further than this they wrought miracles in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 3:2-8, 16; 2:43; 5:12).

It was very soon plainly seen that Christianity could keep no truce, and proposed to keep no truce, which called in question or denied the supremacy of Christ.

The Cruelty of the Persecutor.—To a man of Paul's temperament and zeal there could be no half way measures in a case like this. He could not be content to bide his time. Either the claims of Christ were true or false. If false, then they were doing harm and His doctrine and teaching must be eradicated at any cost. All the aggressive forces of the Jews found a champion in this Saul of Tarsus. Drastic measures were at once inaugurated. There was to be no more temporizing. The cruelty and thoroughness of the persecutor, in his work, are shown in his instituting a house to house canvass seeking for the Christians and sparing neither age nor sex (Acts 8:1, 3).

In the first persecutions the Jews had been content to arrest and imprison those who publicly preached Christ, but now the policy was changed and Christianity was to be exterminated root and branch. All believers in Christ were to be hunted out.

The character of Saul, the arch persecutor, is shown in the characterization of him by Luke, when he represented him as breathing out, "threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1).

CONVERSION

Cause.—The book of the Acts, opened at one place, shows a fierce hater and persecutor of the Christians (8:3), opened at another place it shows this same persecutor as an ardent and enthusiastic preacher of the faith in Jesus Christ (13:16-39) We seek for the cause of this remarkable change. Luke tells us that Saul was on his way to Damascus, seeking victims for his persecuting zeal, when Jesus suddenly appeared to him and Saul was changed from a persecutor to a believer in Christ (Acts 9:3-7). The account is very brief. For an event which has had such tremendous results, the narrator is very reticent; a light from heaven, a voice speaking, and a person declaring that He is Jesus. Paul gives us two accounts of his conversion and how it took place (Acts 22:6-15; 26:12-18). The men who were with Paul saw a light and heard a voice, but not what was said. It is impossible to describe or exaggerate what took place in Paul's mind in those brief moments while Jesus talked to him; but his beliefs, and his whole life plan were radically changed. It had been well if no explanation of this conversion had been attempted and the great fact had been left to stand as it does in the Acts. Attempts, however, have been made to minimize the power of this conversion and the marvelous and sudden change it wrought in the character and life of Paul. Some critics seeking a natural, rather than a supernatural, cause have attributed to Paul certain compunctions of conscience and misgivings about his persecution of the Christians, together with a hot day and a certain temperament, which led him to have a subjective experience, which he thought was real. But there is no recorded evidence forthcoming that Paul ever had any compunctions of conscience about persecuting the Christians. Paul was an honest man to the very core of his being; in the two accounts he gives us of this conversion, and in incidental references to it, he never even hints at any such state of mind. The expression used by Jesus, "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9-5), of which so much has been made, means no more than that Saul's opposition and hard work against the Christians (Acts 8:3; 9:1), would be of no avail. In doing what he did Paul thought he was doing God's service. Again the language which Paul uses and the references which he makes to this appearance of Christ forbid us to think that it was only a mere vision of Christ which he saw. "He ranks it as the last of the appearances of the risen Savior to His disciples and places it on the same level as the appearances to Peter, to James, to the eleven, and to the five hundred" (1 Cor. 15:1-8). In these appearances Jesus had eaten with his disciples and been touched by them (John 20:24-31; Luke 24:36-43), appearing as a real being, according to the narrative.

"It was the appearance to Paul of the risen Lord, which made him a Christian, gave him a gospel to preach, and sent him forth as the apostle of the Gentiles."

The time of Paul's conversion was about 36 A.D.

Effects.—There is no question as to the very marked results which followed the appearance of the risen Lord to Saul on the way to Damascus.

1. Physical. He was smitten with blindness (Acts 9:8), and was without food for three days (Acts 9:9). His sight was restored by Ananias at the command of the Lord (Acts 9:15-18).

2. Mental and spiritual. His whole outlook upon life and its significance was changed. He received baptism and was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17). From being a persecutor he became an enthusiastic witness for Christ (Acts 9:20-22).

3. Penalty. The consequences of his former course of action were visited upon him; for the Jews sought to kill him and the disciples of Christ were at first afraid of him (Acts 9:23-26). But Barnabas vouched for his sincerity (Acts 9:27).

4. The relief to the Christians at Damascus, when Saul was converted, was very great. They had looked forward to his coming with dread.

5. The triumph of Christ. In Paul Christianity won its most efficient missionary and, next to Christ, its greatest thinker, preacher, and teacher.

6. The estimates of the results of this conversion of Saul cannot be too large; they are world wide.

PERIOD OF WAITING

Retirement of Paul.—From the conversion of Paul (Acts 9:3-7) to his call to the missionary work (Acts 13:2) is a period of about ten years. During this time we have only incidental notices of him and what he was doing. When we think of it there is nothing strange in this retirement. It is the divine method, as in the case of Moses, when a man is to do a very large work for God that he should be well prepared for it. The chief scripture notices of this period of retirement are found in Acts 9:19-30; Gal. 1:15-24; (Acts 11:25-30; 12:25). From these notices it is quite plain: (a) That Paul retired into Arabia. (b) That he preached in Damascus and Jerusalem, but was compelled to flee from both cities on account of the persecutions of the Jews, who sought his life. (c) That he went to Tarsus and "into the regions of Syria and Cilicia." (d) That he came to Antioch, where there was a great revival (Acts 11:25-30), at the solicitation of Barnabas. Luke in his account (Acts 9:19-30) does not mention the trip to Arabia spoken of by Paul in his epistle to the Galatians (1:15-24). It must be remembered however that each is writing from a different point of view. Luke is a historian recording only the most salient facts and passing over the mention of many events. We see this in the compression in eight and a half short chapters of the events of the three missionary journeys. Paul writing to the Galatians is anxious to establish the fact that he received his commission, as an apostle, not from man, but from Christ himself (Gal. 1:1); hence he enters more into details and we get from him the inside view. The accounts of Luke and Paul if read carefully, keeping in mind all the circumstances, are seen not to be in any way antagonistic, but to supplement each other.

Reasons.—Many reasons have been given for the retirement of Paul to Arabia, and what seems to be the period of comparative inactivity that followed it.

1. Fierce opposition on the part of the Jews whenever Paul attempted to preach, as in the cities of Damascus and Jerusalem.

2. A preparation of mind and heart for his great work. As a thinker he needed to look upon all sides of the gospel, which he was afterwards to preach so effectively to the Gentiles.

3. A careful rereading of the Old Testament. As a Jew he had read the Scriptures in one way, now he reread them seeing Christ there.

4. System of doctrine. He may at this time have wrought out that magnificent system of Christian doctrine which he afterwards presented to the churches in his Epistles.

The Gospel for the Gentiles.—While Paul was waiting for the call to his great missionary work there came a new crisis in the history of the early church, and a new era was inaugurated. In the tenth and eleventh chapters of the book of Acts Luke tells us of the conversion of the Gentile Cornelius, "a centurion of the band called the Italian band" (Acts 10:1-8), and of the instructions given to Peter to receive him (Acts 10:9-44).

Cornelius was the first Gentile convert and we note here the beginning of the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, which was to have such large results. "The day of Pentecost, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the call of Cornelius and the foundation of the Gentile church at Antioch are, if we are to pick and choose amid the events related by Luke, the turning points of the earliest ecclesiastical history." How great and epoch making was this new departure of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, and receiving them into the church, is shown in the eleventh chapter of the Acts (11:1-18) where, when Peter goes up to Jerusalem, he is put on the defensive and compelled to explain why he received Cornelius into the church. When however the matter was fully explained the early disciples rejoiced over the fact that to the Gentiles was granted by God repentance unto life (Acts 11:18).

Paul Brought to Antioch by Barnabas, on account of the revival that had broken out in that city, is another step which he takes up to his work as the great missionary to the Gentiles (Acts 11:25-26). It was here that the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). It was from this city that Paul went forth on his missionary journeys and it was here that he returned (Acts 13:1-3; 14:26; 15:24-41; 18:22; 18:23).

"Antioch was the capital of the Greek kingdom of Syria, and afterwards the residence of the Roman governor of the province. It was made a free city by Pompey the Great, and contained an aqueduct, amphitheater, baths, and colonnades. It was situated on the Orontes about twenty miles from the mouth of the river. Its sea-port was Seleucia. It was intimately connected with apostolic Christianity. Here the first Gentile church was formed" (Acts 11:20, 21).

QUESTIONS

Give the order of events which led to the persecution in which Paul was so prominent. Why was the conflict between Christianity and Judaism inevitable? What can be said of the cruelty of Paul, the persecutor? Give the cause of Paul's conversion. What were some of the effects? What can be said of the period of waiting; the retirement of Paul? What are some of the probable reasons for this retirement? What can be said about the beginning of the gospel to the Gentiles? By whom was Paul brought to Antioch and for what purpose? In what relation does Antioch stand to the missionary journeys of Paul?