The Pauline Letters

McDonald Expands Election Prayer to be like Paul

The Pauline Letters

Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine

to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

(Acts 9:15-16)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

The Apostle Paul wrote first about Jesus, yet himself only knew the risen Christ. He grew up in Tarsus in Asia Minor, not in Jerusalem or Galilee like Jesus’ other disciples, and he was an early persecutor of the church. Yet, he became the template for Christian converts and his conversion story appears three times in the Book of Acts (Acts 9:1-20, 22:4-21, 26:9-23). Because he was a highly educated Jew, he knew the Old Testament perhaps better than any of the apostles and wrote more than half of the New Testament. Without Paul, Christianity may have remained merely a sect in the Jewish faith. Without Paul, the divinity of Christ may not have been clearly articulated.

Paul’s Conversion

Before his conversion, Paul was known by his Jewish name, Saul of Tarsus. He was a student of Gamaliel, who was a member of the Council of the Pharisees (Acts 5:34; 22:3), which would make Paul one of the best-educated and best-connected men in Israel at the time. Paul would have fit the profile of the rich young ruler (e.g. Luke 18:18-23). His hometown of Tarsus in Asia Minor in modern-day Turkey is important because Paul was familiar with the region and local customs where he traveled on his first missionary trip.

The first mention of Saul in the Book of Acts is during the stoning of Stephen: “Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.”(Acts 7:58) Saul not only approved of Stephen’s stoning, he went on to lead the subsequent persecution of the church: “But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” (Acts 8:2-3) Note the word ravage—Saul was enthusiastic in his persecution.

A key verse in understanding the church’s development is:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Even in his persecution of the church, Saul could not help but advance the Gospel: ”Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” (Acts 8:4) When Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, the Gospel had already been preached in Judea and Samaria. After his encounter with the Risen Christ, only days later it was Saul preaching the Gospel in the Synagogue in Damascus and the Jews were plotting to kill him (Acts 9:20, 24).

Paul as Apostle

The dramatic nature of Paul’s conversion begs the question—How did it happen? The only people to evangelize Paul were those he arrested and threw in prison, except for Stephen. Paul must have heard Stephen’s testimony before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7). The key verses were:

“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’ You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.” (Acts 7:49-52)

The kicker for the Sanhedrin was the charge: “What kind of house will you build for me?” Things made by the hand of men is code language for idolatry. Restricting worship to the temple is analogous to charging a fee for admission to a petting zoo, but it was the source of income for the priests and high priests that populated the Sanhedrin.

The words of Christ on the Road to Damascus echo Stephen’s charge of persecuting the prophets:

“Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” (Acts 9:3-5)

Paul’s experience echoes the call of the Prophet Ezekiel (Eze 1:27-28). Significantly, Paul’s commission to evangelize the Gentiles appears in all three accounts of his conversion.

Paul’s Example

Paul’s sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and vast knowledge of scripture have blessed the church with a much deeper understanding of Jesus’ humanity and his divinity. Head and heart go hand-in-hand in Paul’s writing.

Immanence and Divinity

Paul serves as a template for the modern Christian. Paul is the only first-century disciple who claims apostleship based solely on a vision of the Risen Christ. Luke records that in replacing Judas Iscariot, the disciples considered selected two men, Barsabbas called Justus and Matthias (Acts 1:23), as suitable to replace him as an apostle because they had both been with Jesus and had witnessed the resurrection (Acts 1:21-22). Because Paul was the first to write about Jesus in the New Testament and wrote primarily about his divinity, which must have prodded other writers who knew Jesus in life to record revelations of their own.

Paul did not meet Luke’s criteria for an apostle, but neither do we. Our only first-hand experience of Jesus is to meet the Risen Christ.

The Pauline Letters

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