The Apostle Pauls Contributions to Christianity - Essay Example

The Apostle Paul's Contributions to Christianity Introduction There is no figure, other than Jesus Christ, that is more popular in the history of Christianity than the Apostle Paul. This could be a controversial point among Christian believers but the New Testament part of the Bible is the living witness to this claim. Others claimed that based on the four Gospels St. Peter was the first person who was tasked to lead the church established by Jesus Christ and was the key person in the establishment of Christianity and Paul was not even among the 12 disciples. Whoever among them was the first head of the church is not the concern here. Our focus is on the contribution of St. Paul being an apostle of Christ to the organization he has left his followers. Review of the literatures available has led us to a point that St. Paul has the greatest contributions in the growth of the Christian faith from Jewish to the non-Jewish populace of the world. This essay is aimed to present the underlying support facts on this claim based from the books of the New Testament, which are the major source of information concerning the major inputs of St. Paul to the church. Other facts based on the succeeding history could be a good point to consider in evaluating the impact of these contributions. The identified contributions To strengthen the assertion mentioned above it is proper to mention the remarkable achievement of the Apostle Paul in the spread of the Christian religion throughout the world. Among which are: 1) more than 50% of the contents of the books comprising the New Testament can be connected to him, his works in spreading the Good News and the letters he wrote to the early believers and the doctrines these documents contained; and 2) he has traveled more places in the world to spread the Gospels which were instrumental in the conversions of a lot of non-Jewish people to the Christian faith. Because of this he was the key figure in establishing a strong foundation of Christianity and the institution of the Catholic Church in Rome and later throughout the world. The New Testament documents: Messages and doctrines based on early works The first remarkable point we considered as a great contribution of Saint Paul to the Christian society is the collection of books whose contents bear the messages and records of works of his ministry. Among the 27 books of the New Testament, which include the 4 Gospels, Acts, 21 epistles, and the Revelation, majority or about 15 (The Acts and 14 epistles) are accounted to St. Paul (Religious Facts, 2007). There are questions, however, on the authorship of the epistles as it is obvious that St. Paul did not write them personally but the contents were the issue considered here. Scholars who argued that some of these epistles were not written by Paul agreed that they are written by others who have heard Paul's teachings. The Acts only covered in the early chapters the works of the other disciples such as Peter, John, James, and others, and the rest covered the journeys of St. Paul from Jerusalem to other parts of Rome as he proclaimed the message of the Christianity. The Pauline epistles clearly conveyed the message from Apostle Paul, either alone or with other Christian believer with him, for the early believers or community of believers. This does not mean that the other disciples did not do their job. It simply means that Paul's ministry was able to use better means in conveying the message and took a medium that would be instrumental in preserving the teachings through written documents for use by future generations. Most of the teaching contained in the epistles of Paul and the Acts were used as basis of the practices and guiding principles of the early communities especially the non-Jews in the early part of Christian history and were adopted even by the later Christian churches. They were used as reference to clarify misunderstanding between Jew and gentile believers of Christianity. Among the famous teachings of Paul was justification by faith and the exclusion of the gentile believers from the Mosaic laws and practices specified in the Torah, the book of the laws of Judaism which they accepted as coming from God. The exclusion of the gentile converts from the Jewish practice has remarkable effects on the evolution of the practices of the Christian believers and it reinforced the practice of faith over practice of tradition. St. Paul's role in the conversion of the Gentiles One of the most important contributions of St. Paul to Christianity is his role in the conversion of non-Jews to the belief which was initially targeted for the Jewish race. The Apostle Paul was often referred to as the chosen disciple for the gentile people. His works were then followed by later day missionaries. The Messianic teaching was originally Jewish in character for it promised the descendants of Abraham a man who would be their coming ruler that would free them from the bondage of slavery. The signs foreseen in several text of the Old Testament were seen with the coming of Jesus. Chapters of book of Isaiah particularly Chapter 53 predicted what later actually happened with Jesus of Nazareth, such as he will be rejected, he will be crucified between two criminals, and other events. Likewise Psalm chapter 22 and other chapters also mentioned a lot of events that actually happened with Jesus. What really mattered is that these events were not interpreted after the events really occurred but it was discussed by the Jews even before the actual coming of Jesus. Most of the Jews were not convinced however by the facts and even accused Jesus of portraying to be the Messiah and he forced himself to fit the descriptions based on the prophecies. Because of these Jesus offered his teachings not only to the Jews but also to the non-Jews usually referred by the Jewish as gentiles. The goal to spread the teachings of Jesus to the gentiles was given to the early disciples but it was a man named Saul who was later renamed and known as Apostle Paul, a Jewish with Roman citizenship and an enemy of the early Christians who was converted through a controversial encounter with the resurrected Jesus, who was commissioned by Jesus himself to preach the gospels to the gentile nations (Acts Chapter 9). From then on the ministry of Paul was centered on teaching the ideals of Jesus Christ to the gentiles and Jews living in the gentile nations. Through his mission he traveled several times from Jerusalem to other cities and colonies within the Roman Empire and his final trip was to Rome. With coordination from the disciples in Jerusalem Paul and his missionary team was able to bring to the Christian faith people from different parts of the gentile world empire such as Galatia, Macedonia, Corinth, Ephesus, Achaia, Asia and others which earlier has no churches. Truly, he was "the most effective cross-cultural missionary the church has ever seen (Gilliland, 1983 as cited by Little, 2001) The last missionary trip recorded in Acts was that of the Paul's journey to Rome to see the emperor in connection with his violations. As a Roman citizen the authority to decide on his case was on the Roman court in Rome. This trip was the beginning of the spread of Christianity. There were no more details on what happened during Paul's stay in Rome but the epistles clearly showed that Christianity expanded and became influential in the Roman society through Paul's ministry. Paul was believed to have died in Rome on year between AD 62 and AD 67. The Apostle Paul's missionary works resulted to the growth of the community among the gentiles and the eventual spread of what others call as the Pauline Christianity. These groups are spread among the gentiles and co-exist with other Christian societies such as Gnostic Christianity and Jewish Christianity which also emanated from Jews in Jerusalem and other Jewish community in Rome. The adoption of the teachings and the integration of local customs resulted to wide variations in the Christian beliefs and practices during the early days. After the execution of Peter and Paul, and the growth of the different Christian movements in Rome a lot of influential people joined the community. The adoption of the Roman Catholic Church as the official church of the empire banned other groups thereby instituting what is now the largest Christian denomination in the world. However, small Christian communities, outside of the state-adopted religion, also exist within Rome and other territories as minorities. Conclusion A lot of controversies and disputes exist over the contribution of the Apostle Paul in the growth of the Christian religion. Views may differ on the position of St. Paul in the Christian mission. But the only living testament to the magnitude of the Apostles input is widely used and accepted by all Christian believers. The New Testament is the living witness of how Paul was able to translate the mission given to him by Jesus in spreading the Good News of salvation to the people both Jews and gentiles. The guidelines that most Christians follow today are based on practices and beliefs of included in the teachings of Paul. Furthermore, the gigantic achievement of St. Paul's technique - the Missionary approach- still being used today by different Christian missionary movements, is a sign of how Christian history was shaped by the Apostle Paul's examples. References: Encyclopedia Britanica Online. 2007. Saint Paul the Apostle,orSaint Paul,orSaul of Tarsus(Christian Apostle). Retrieved on Dec 4, 2007 from http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-447019/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle Little, Christopher R. 2001. Whatever Happened to the Apostle Paul An exposition of Paul's teaching and practice of giving. Mission Frontiers. September 2001. Retrieved on Dec 5, 2007 from http://www.missionfrontiers.org/2001/03/pdf/little.pdf Religious Facts. 2007. Overview of the Testament. Retrieved on Dec. 5, 2007 from http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/texts/NT.htm The Holy Bible. New King James Version. 1985. Thomas Nelson Incorporated Read More