THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
urn to the list of books given in the beginning of your New Testament. You will see that first come the four Gospels, or glimpses of the Saviour's life given by four different writers. Then follows the Acts of the Apostles, and, lastly, after the twenty-one epistles, the volume ends with the Revelation.
Now this is not the order in which the books were written—they are only arranged like this for our convenience.
The first words of the New Testament were written, not as we should have supposed by one of the twelve apostles, or by some one who had loved and followed the Lord Jesus Christ when He was upon earth. They are written by a Pharisee who had been one of Christ's bitterest enemies.
Though Saul had, as far as we know, never seen the Saviour on earth, what he had heard of His work and teaching made him feel that in stamping out all the followers of the so-called Messiah, he would be doing God service. But we remember how the Saviour Himself appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus, and how his heart was changed, and his eyes were opened.
We can scarcely imagine the transformation which came over his mind. Together with all the other learned Jews he had considered Jesus of Nazareth to be an impostor, and to blaspheme the words of God's Holy Book when He applied them to Himself. Now Saul the Pharisee understood that he and his countrymen, not Jesus of Nazareth, were at fault. As he read the old prophesies he understood their true meaning, 'and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.' (Acts ix. 9.)
Then the full tide of Jewish anger turned upon him. That he should join the followers of the despised Nazarene and forsake the sacred traditions of the Law made all the Jews scattered through the then-known world into his bitterest enemies.
Paul, as he was afterwards called, loved his countrymen with a passionate love. He would gladly have died for them,[[1]] and that he should be unable to show them what was so clear to himself, was certainly the greatest sorrow and disappointment of his life. But though he was unable to help his countrymen, as a nation, God made him the most successful missionary-traveller the world has ever known, and to him was given the privilege of writing a large part of the New Testament.
Before we think about his writings, however, let us look at the condition of the great heathen cities of the world at the time when he lived.