Thomas Craughwell - 30 Days with Saint Paul

30 Days with

Saint Paul

2012 Thomas Craughwell

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ISBN: 978-1-61890-071-5

Cover design by Caroline Kiser.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Contents

Biography of Saint Paul

(DIED C. 67)

FEAST DAYS: JUNE 29 AND JANUARY 25

All of the apostles were important, but St. Paul was the indispensable apostle. He had a genius for taking the message of Jesus Christ, which was deeply rooted in Hebrew theology and religious practice, and making it accessible and appealing to Greeks and Romans. He is the founder of Christian theology, the man who built upon the gospel to formulate a coherent system that explained the impact of the coming of Jesus Christ into the world as God and man, and the salvation he achieved for us through his death on the Cross and his Resurrection. Like the rabbis who taught in the synagogues, Paul taught the first Christians in the house-churches where they met for the Eucharist. But he also imitated the Greek philosophers who button-holed passersby in the marketplace; by introducing questions about the nature of this world and hopes for the next, he brought the conversation around to the truth of the gospel. You will find an example of Pauls method in the Acts of the Apostles, in the speeches he delivered in Athens.

His Hebrew name was Saul, and he was born in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, and a Pharisee. His father was a citizen of Rome, and Saul inherited that citizenship. This does not mean he had been born in Rome, or had lived there. It was an honor the Roman administrators of the empire granted to conquered people as a way to foster loyalty to the regime. Roman citizenship brought with it a host of privileges, which St. Paul would invoke: if a Roman citizen were arrested, he had the right to have his case tried by Caesar; he could not be tortured (a standard part of the Roman judicial system at the time); if he were found guilty and sentenced to death, he could only be beheaded. The privilege of citizenship explains why St. Paul was beheaded while St. Peter, who was not a citizen of Rome, died the gruesome death of being crucified upside down.

Sauls father was a tentmaker, and he taught this trade to his son, but he also arranged for the boy to receive a solid religious education. When Saul was in his teens, his father sent him to Jerusalem to study under Rabbi Gamaliel, regarded as one of the finest teachers in the land of Israel. Paul may have been in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. Certainly he was there at the time of the first persecution of the Church. He witnessed and consented to the stoning of the deacon, St. Stephen, and watched over the coats of the men who gave Christianity its first martyr.

Saul was zealous in his faith, and volunteered to help in the round-up of Christians. Hoping to escape the persecution, many Jerusalem Christians fled elsewhere. Saul received letters from the high priest authorizing him to arrest Christians wherever he found them, and so he set out for Damascus, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.

Saul and his party of soldiers were not far from Damascus when a blinding light flashed around them. Pauls horse reared, throwing him to the ground. Stunned and frightened, Saul had a vision of Christ. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? the Lord demanded. Who are you, Lord? Saul asked. I am Jesus, whom you persecute. Lord. Saul said, what will you have me do? Christ commanded him to continue to Damascus and wait there for a sign. Then Jesus vanished.

The soldiers were as terrified as Saul. They had seen the flash of light and heard Christs voice, but they had not seen anyone. In the stillness that followed the vision, the soldiers climbed down from their horses and lifted Saul from the dust of the road. He was blind.

Helping him back onto his horse, the soldiers led Saul to Damascus, to Straight Street, to the house of a Jewish man named Judas. For three days Saul refused to eat or drink and barely spoke as he pondered what might happen to him next. Then he had a visitor, a Christian named Ananias, whom the Lord had sent to heal Saul, body and soul. Ananias was afraid to go anywhere near such a notorious persecutor of Christians, but Christ assured him he had nothing to fear; Saul was a changed man, who would be Jesus vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles. At Judas house, Ananias touched Sauls eyes and restored his sight, then he baptized him.

It is a widespread misconception that Saul took the name Paul after his Baptism as a sign that he had been reborn in Christ. In fact, for years Saul had used the name Paul when he was conversing or doing business with Gentiles. The Greek-speaking population of the Roman Empireand Greek was the dominant languageoften found it difficult to pronounce Hebrew names, so it was commonplace for Jews to adopt a Greek name for business purposes. In Sauls case, this was especially important, since his Hebrew name sounded very much like the Greek word saulos, which means effeminate. Paulos, on the other hand, is Greek for rest or calm.

The Christians of Damascus were uneasy with Paul the convert. Was this a ruse; a way to win their confidence so it would be simple to round up the entire congregation? If the Christians were wary, the Jews of Damascus were openly hostile. They looked on Paul as a traitor, and some plotted to assassinate him. When word of the plot leaked out, some Christians hurried Paul to a house that had a window cut into the city wall. After dark, Paul climbed into a large basket, and the Christians lowered him to the ground.

Back in Jerusalem, Paul encountered the same problemthe Christians did not believe his story. But the disciple St. Barnabas was convinced that Pauls conversion was sincere. Barnabas used his influence as one of the most trusted and respected disciples of the Lord to introduce Paul to the apostles. Once the apostles accepted him as a true Christian, the rest of the Church in Jerusalem accepted Paul, too. Nonetheless, Jerusalem was not safe for Paul; the apostles urged him to go back to Tarsus.

For five or six years Paul remained in his hometown, supporting himself as a tentmaker, waiting for God to reveal what he should do next. That revelation came through Barnabas, who called on Paul and invited him to join him on a missionary journey in Syria and the island of Cyprus. In two years they made a multitude of converts. Perhaps the most memorable experience of their journey occurred in Lystra, where Paul healed a man who had been crippled from birth. The people of Lystra rejoiced at the miracle, but they did not attribute it to Jesus Christ, rather they believed that Paul and Barnabas were the gods Jupiter and Mercury who had taken on human form. When the Lystrians tried to sacrifice an ox to Paul and Barnabas, the two disciples fled the city.

The two years Paul spent on the road preaching the gospel gave him a new understanding of how best to attract Gentile converts. Most Jews who had converted to Christianity continued to follow the kosher laws and have their male children circumcised. There was a faction within the Church that believed all converts, Gentiles included, should adopt the dietary regulations and circumcision, but St. Peter was not among them. Although he ate non-kosher food and did not require his male Gentile converts to be circumcised, he kept that to himself so as not to scandalize Jewish Christians. Paul had become convinced that requiring Gentiles to follow the Jewish dietary laws, and especially the requirement that adult male converts must submit to circumcision, would undermine his mission to the Gentiles. He was particularly frustrated with Peter: as head of the Church, Peter should have addressed the problem, instead he tried to avoid it, which Paul considered cowardly if not hypocritical. The issue was addressed at the first council of the Church, held in Jerusalem. All the apostles and most disciples attended and together they hammered out a compromise: Gentile males would not be required to submit to circumcision, but Gentiles were forbidden to eat meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods, meat from an animal that had been strangled rather than butchered, or food that contained animal blood. Paul accepted the compromise, but we do not know if he and St. Peter ever reconciled.