The Apostle Paul - Essay Example

Profile of the Apostle Paul The life of the Apostle Paul is a fascinating addition to the New Testament. A man who had nothing to do with the life of Christ, nor had any relevance to the centrally important story of the resurrection, has had his writings included in a book that has the strongest influence in the world for a literary work on the structure of the Christian religion. According to Polhill, there is no way in which to write a biography of Paul as there are no references to his early life.

The historical resources that are available about his life start with his persecution of Christians (1). The story of his life is built upon traditions and through scraps of writing that tell the story of his conversion and rise in power in the Christian movement. The story of Paul is presented to the world through thirty verses in the Book of Acts. Readers of the Book of Acts discover that Paul was Greek and originally from the city of Tarsus which is in the province of Cilicia. When introduced to Paul, he is being attacked by an angry mob and blamed for desecrating a temple of Jerusalem.

He is pulled to safety by Roman soldiers, but he tries to talk to the mob, telling them that he is a Jew and that he is one of them as he had migrated to the city to study with Gameliel when he was young. However, the mob still desires his death (NIV Acts 22:28). However, his claims to Jewish heritage soon switches to his claims of the rights of Roman citizenship as the guards decide to interrogate him for the cause of the disturbance through the torture of scourging him which was illegal to commit against a citizen of Rome (Polhill 5).

At this point, the reader knows that Paul is Greek, Jewish, and a Roman citizen, his role in society split between three identities. It might be believed that his multi-cultural identity was vital in helping him to reach the widest audience after he had gone through his conversion. What this means for Paul is that he was influenced by both Hellenistic and Roman philosophies, his world an open space in which multiple culture formed his way of thinking. He was a perfect conduit through which to speak to a wide audience and to help to form the early Church (Porter 3).

When Paul had his vision, he was transformed, but like most transformation he had to translate what he had been given through what he knew. Therefore, According to Chilton “In his own mind and by his practice, he remained a Jew, yet his vision had changed his perception of what Judaism was (45). According to writings by Pope Benedict of the Catholic Church, there were two perspectives from which to understand the relationship that Paul had with Christ. The first perspective was in the absolutism of faith.

Pope Benedict quotes Romans 3:28 for Paul having written “We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of law” (114). The second perspective is through man being justified in his faith. Paul writes in Romans 3:24, “We are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Pope Benedict 115). Therefore, the two aspects of belief as they are identified through Paul are being justified by that belief which is justified through absolute faith.

After his transformation and his embracement of Christ as his savior, Paul began a ministry that took him throughout the Roman Empire as he spoke in synagogues trying to bring other Jewish members to belief in Christ. Because he understood that the message of Christ belonged to more than just the Jewish members of society, he spread his word to the Gentiles, the first missionary among that group of people. Paul is attributed with breaking from Jewish doctrine in order to form new doctrines for Christianity (Perry et al 177).

The ministry of Jesus created a new freedom for the oppressed. However, Paul began to frame the Christian life through tenets that are not present in the life of Jesus, but that he thought framed a higher state of Christian life. Paul is more than likely responsible for the widening of the spread of Christianity, but the question arises from his different perspective on how to live as a Christian created a difference from what was represented in the gospels and has profoundly affected the framing of Christian life.

References Chilton, Bruce. Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography. New York [u.a.: Doubleday, 2005. Print. Perry, Marvin et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print. Polhill, John B. Paul and His Letters. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1999. Print. Pope Benedict, . Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church: General Audiences, 15 March 2006- 14 February 2007. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2007. Print. Porter, Stanley E. Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman.

Leiden: Brill, 2008. Print. The Holy Bible: New International Version, Containing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1998. Print. Clients Name Name of Professor Name of Class Date Profile of the Apostle Paul The life of the Apostle Paul is a fascinating addition to the New Testament. A man who had nothing to do with the life of Christ, nor had any relevance to the centrally important story of the resurrection, has had his writings included in a book that has the strongest influence in the world for a literary work on the structure of the Christian religion.

According to Polhill, there is no way in which to write a biography of Paul as there are no references to his early life. The historical resources that are available about his life start with his persecution of Christians (1). The story of his life is built upon traditions and through scraps of writing that tell the story of his conversion and rise in power in the Christian movement. The story of Paul is presented to the world through thirty verses in the Book of Acts. Readers of the Book of Acts discover that Paul was Greek and originally from the city of Tarsus which is in the province of Cilicia.

When introduced to Paul, he is being attacked by an angry mob and blamed for desecrating a temple of Jerusalem. He is pulled to safety by Roman soldiers, but he tries to talk to the mob, telling them that he is a Jew and that he is one of them as he had migrated to the city to study with Gameliel when he was young. However, the mob still desires his death (NIV Acts 22:28). However, his claims to Jewish heritage soon switches to his claims of the rights of Roman citizenship as the guards decide to interrogate him for the cause of the disturbance through the torture of scourging him which was illegal to commit against a citizen of Rome (Polhill 5).

At this point, the reader knows that Paul is Greek, Jewish, and a Roman citizen, his role in society split between three identities. It might be believed that his multi-cultural identity was vital in helping him to reach the widest audience after he had gone through his conversion. Paul was raised within a family who were termed Diaspora Jews, which primarily means that they were Jews outside of Palestine. Little is known about the practices of Diaspora Jews, other than that they were strict and lived in Jewish quarters of a city within a community of their peers (Polhill 9).

What this means for Paul is that he was influenced by both Hellenistic and Roman philosophies, his world an open space in which multiple culture formed his way of thinking. He was a perfect conduit through which to speak to a wide audience and to help to form the early Church (Porter 3). When Paul had his vision, he was transformed, but like most transformation he had to translate what he had been given through what he knew. Therefore, According to Chilton “In his own mind and by his practice, he remained a Jew, yet his vision had changed his perception of what Judaism was (45).

According to writings by Pope Benedict of the Catholic Church, there were two perspectives from which to understand the relationship that Paul had with Christ. The first perspective was in the absolutism of faith. Pope Benedict quotes Romans 3:28 for Paul having written “We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of law” (114). The second perspective is through man being justified in his faith. Paul writes in Romans 3:24, “We are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Pope Benedict 115).

Therefore, the two aspects of belief as they are identified through Paul are being justified by that belief which is justified through absolute belief. It is in the justification of faith that the Christian engages his relationship with Christ, according to Pope Benedicts interpretation of the beliefs of Paul. After his transformation and his embracement of Christ as his savior, Paul began a ministry that took him throughout the Roman Empire as he spoke in synagogues trying to bring other Jewish members to belief in Christ.

Because he understood that the message of Christ belonged to more than just the Jewish members of society, he spread his word to the Gentiles, the first missionary among a people that had not been approached before for conversion to the beliefs concerning the one true God. Paul is attributed with breaking from Jewish doctrine in order to form new doctrines for Christianity. Paul was able to use the fact that the life of Jesus was a provable fact and that his death had provided salvation for all those who would believe.

Paul knew how to motivate followers, and thus began the revolution that was the Christian religion (Perry et al 177). The vision that Paul had began a ministry that provided for the spread of the information about the available salvation brought about by the resurrection of Christ. There is a marked difference between the way that Jesus presented life within his teachings and the ways in which Paul frames a Christian life. The ministry of Jesus created a new freedom for the oppressed, the poor, the shunned, and the plagued being drawn into his arms and embraced during his time on Earth.

However, Paul began to frame the Christian life through tenets that are not present in the life of Jesus, such as through abstaining from marriage and sex, in living a more acetic life, and through ideas that once again divided the genders into designated roles, the male role representing the dominant gender. The life of Paul is more than likely responsible for the widening of the spread of Christianity, but the question that more often arises from his different perspective on how to live as a Christian than was represented in the gospels has also affected the framing of the Christian life.

The life of the Apostle Paul had a great impact on the spread of Christianity, forming the religion that has spread across the globe. References Chilton, Bruce. Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography. New York [u.a.: Doubleday, 2005. Print. Perry, Marvin et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print. Polhill, John B. Paul and His Letters. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1999. Print. Pope Benedict, . Jesus, the Apostles, and the Early Church: General Audiences, 15 March 2006- 14 February 2007.

San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2007. Print. Porter, Stanley E. Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Print. The Holy Bible: New International Version, Containing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1998. Print.