Part 1 (2/2)

+The Work of the Apostle.+--As John the Baptist preceded Christ and prepared the way for His coming, so Paul succeeded Christ and went throughout the heathen world proclaiming that the Christ had come, and calling upon all men, Jews and Gentiles, to repent and accept Him as their Lord and Savior. So wide was his work as a missionary of the cross, and an interpreter of the Christ, that a certain cla.s.s of critics have sought to make him the creator of Christianity, as we know it; a position which Paul would be the first to repudiate. He sought of himself, before he was apprehended by Christ on the way to Damascus, to drive Christianity from the face of the earth.

+The Leading Thought+ in Paul's mind, after his conversion, was personal devotion to Christ; this was the mainspring of every act. He said, ”I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”: (Gal. 2:20). ”For me to live is Christ”

(Phil. 1:21). In his letters to the churches which he founded, there are found no picturesque descriptions of cities or of scenery; his one thought is to make known the Christ.

He says, writing to the Corinthian church, ”and I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of G.o.d. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1, 2). In the evangelization of the heathen world, for which task he had been set apart by the Holy Spirit (Acts 13:2) and which he had accepted with all his heart, it is not only his leading, but his only thought to make known Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

To miss this supreme purpose of Paul in the study of his life is to miss its whole significance (Phil. 2:1-11; Col. 1:12-20).

BIRTH

+Place.+--The world is interested in the birthplaces of its great men. Some of these birthplaces are in doubt.

There is no doubt about the place in which Paul was born. He says, in making a speech to the Jews, ”I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia” (Acts 22:3). This city was the capital of Cilicia and was situated in the southeastern part of Asia Minor. It was but a few miles from the coast and was easily accessible from the Mediterranean sea by a navigable river. A large commerce was controlled by the merchants, on sea and on land. Tarsus, while one of three university centers of the period, ranking with Athens and Alexandria, was an exceedingly corrupt city. It was the chief seat of ”a special Baal wors.h.i.+p of an imposing but unspeakably degrading character.”

+Time.+--The date of Paul's birth is nowhere recorded, but from certain dates given in the Acts, from which we reckon back, it is thought that he was born about the same time as Jesus Christ.

+Family.+--We are left, in this matter, without any uncertainty. Paul says, ”I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee” (Acts 23:6). I was ”circ.u.mcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee”

(Phil. 3:5). Paul's father and mother were Jews of the stricter sort. The expression which Paul uses, ”An Hebrew of the Hebrews” is very significant. The Jews of the Dispersion were known at this time as Hebrews and h.e.l.lenists. The Hebrews clung to the Hebrew tongue and followed Hebrew customs. The h.e.l.lenists spoke Greek by preference and adopted, more or less, Greek views and civilization. Paul had a married sister who lived in Jerusalem (Acts 23:16) and relatives in Rome (Rom. 16:7, 11).

TRAINING

+Home.+--The instruction received in the home has often more influence and is more lasting than any other. Paul received the usual thorough training of the Jew boy accentuated in his case, in all probability, by the open iniquity which was daily practised in his native city. We never hear him expressing any regret that he received such thorough religious instruction at the hands of his parents.

+Mental, Moral, and Religious.+--Good teachers were employed to instruct the boy, who was afterwards to make such a mark in the world. After going through the school, under the care of the synagogue at Tarsus, he was sent to Jerusalem to complete his education. Paul, speaking in this chief Jewish city, says, I was ”brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers”

(Acts 22:3). It is very evident that He had a profound knowledge of the Scriptures from the large use he makes of them in his Epistles. He seems also to have been quite well acquainted with Greek philosophy and literature. He quotes from the Greek poets, Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander. No man ever studied men and the motives which actuate them more than he. His inward life was pure (Acts 23:1; 24:16). Paul differed from Christ in that he was a man who sought the cities and drew his ill.u.s.trations from them, while Christ was much in the country and drew his ill.u.s.trations from country life.

But in this study of and work for the city Paul was but carrying out the commands of Christ.

+Industrial.+--It was required of every Jew father that his boy should learn some trade by which he might support himself should necessity require it. It was a common Jewish proverb that ”he who taught his son no trade taught him to be a thief.” Paul was taught the trade of tent making. ”The hair of the Cicilian goats was used to make a cloth which was especially adapted for tents for travelers, merchants, and soldiers.” He afterwards found this trade very useful in his missionary work (Acts 18:3; 20:34; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8).

THE WORLD AS PAUL SAW IT

+This World+ was very different from the world as we see it to-day. This makes it difficult for us to appreciate his work at its full value. Now, Christianity is the great religion of the world; then it was unknown, outside a very limited circle of believers. The state and society were organized upon a different basis and were in strong opposition to the new religion.

+Political.+--The world was under the dominion of the Romans. They, in conquering it, broke down the barriers that had separated tribe from tribe and nation from nation. Yet it was a comparatively small world for all interests centered about the Mediterranean Sea. Before the Romans the Greeks had been in possession of a part of this world and had permeated and penetrated the whole of it, with their art, language, and commerce. With the upheavals of war and the tribulations that had befallen the Jews, they were everywhere scattered abroad and had their synagogues in most of the cities.

+Religious.+--For the Romans, Greeks, and conquered nations and tribes, it was an age of scepticism. While the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses in the great heathen temples still had their rites and ceremonies observed yet the people, to a large degree, had ceased to believe in them. The Roman writers of the period are agreed in the slackening of religious ties and of moral restraints. Yet it was the policy of the state to maintain the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. Any attack upon them or their wors.h.i.+p was regarded as an offense against the state.

+The Difficulties+ of the situation were threefold: (a) To seek to overturn the religion of the state const.i.tuted an offense which was punishable by stripes and imprisonment; (b) To rebuke men's sins and the evils of the times stirred up bitter opposition on their part; (c) To proclaim a crucified and risen Christ as the Messiah to the Jews, when they expected a great conquering hero, often excited and put them in a rage.

That Paul could preach Christ and establish churches, under all the opposition that he encountered, shows how fully and implicitly he believed in his Lord.

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