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Paul who?
From the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus, a Roman citizen, a pharisee who learned from Gamaliel—Paul introduced himself in his epistles with these words:
- Sha’ul, a slave of the Messiah Yeshua, and set apart for the Good News of God. [Romans 1:1]
- Sha’ul, an emissary — I received my commission not from human beings or through human mediation but through Yeshua the Messiah and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—also from all the brothers with me. [Galatians 1:1]
- Shaul, by God’s will an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua. [Ephesians 1:1]
- Sha’ul” an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua by command of God our deliverer and the Messiah Yeshua our hope. [1 Timothy 1:1]
- Sha’aul, an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua by God’s will, which holds forth a promise of life through being united with Messiah Yeshua. [2 Timothy 1:1]
- Sha’ul, Gods slave and an emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, sent to promote among God’s chosen people the trust and knowledge of truth which lead to godliness and which are based on the certain hope of eternal life. God, who does not lie, promised that life before the beginning of time but made public this word of his in its own season through a proclamation with which I have been entrusted by order of God, our Deliverer. [Titus 1:1-3]
- Shaul, a prisoner for the sake of the Messiah Yeshua . . . [Philemon1:1]—
- The Complete Jewish Bible
That is a tall order for someone who was not originally one of the 12 apostles! Paul never met the flesh and blood Jesus of Nazareth and did not follow him all over Galilea and Judea like the other apostles did. In fact casual bible readers are often clueless about who the other 9 apostles were, aside from Peter and John and Judas; many are surprised that Paul was not among the handpicked 12 who dropped everything they were doing to respond to Jesus’ call “follow me.”
While we might not know much about the 9 apostles, there is much to know about Paul from Paul himself. He is first introduced in the book of Acts as Saul the pharisee who witnessed the stoning of the “first martyr” Stephen; then there are repeated accounts of his Damascus encounter with the “Risen Lord” where he ends up blind but is enabled to see again through Ananias. If there is a model of 180 degree turnabout from being a zealous persecutor of Jesus-followers to being the chief spokesman for the Risen Christ, that would be Paul THE SUPER-APOSTLE! [Acts 8:1-3/9:1-20, NASB]
So what does Paul do after his epiphany? You would think he would not lose the opportunity to learn directly from living witnesses to the earthly life of Jesus. After all, these 12 assisted at the sermons, witnessed the miracles, heard the Father’s voice confirm the Sonship. Paul at least could have inquired why the 11 abandoned their leader from his arrest to his crucifixion, then regathered to meet the resurrected Christ in the upper room. You would think Paul would want to get the exact details of the Great Commission [which is a great omission in the Gospel of Mark].
If you were in Shaul/Paul’s sandals, wouldn’t you have so many questions to ask Peter, James and John, why pass up that prospect? Isn’t that the expected thing to do?
Well, Paul probably weighed the evidence: these are fishermen, tax collectors, none are of his religious stature, a Pharisee. What could he possibly learn from them? [This is not gospel truth, just speculation because of the strangeness of what Paul does next.] So what does Paul actually decide to do?
According to Paul himself . . .
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then 3 years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him 15 days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. . . Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” And they were glorifying God because of me. [Galatians 1:11-24, NASB]
In Ephesians 3 , Paul continues to spin his background:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of Gods grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places . . . therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. . . .
2 Corinthians 12:1-12
Boasting is necessary, though it is not profitable; but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man–whether in the boy or apart from the body I do not know, God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted tos peak. On behalf of such a man I will boast; but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me–to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent of apostles, even though I am a nobody. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.
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Read through the Pauline epistles and you will see a lot of “I, Me, and Myself” ad nauseum. But to be fair, we have to hand it to Paul to be willing to suffer and die for the sake of the gospel he preached. Unfortunately, the gospel he preached counters the message of the Scriptures of his own people who are the custodians of the original revelation. Some observant theologians claim that christianity did not arise from the teachings of Jesus who at least upheld the Torah, but from Paul who did away with the Law altogether and took off with a religion totally at odds with the Tanach. And he claimed this new revelation was made known only to him!
What is the difference between this “revelation” to Paul and the revelation on Sinai to Moses and the mixed multitude? On Sinai, God spoke to Moses and the masses who heard the same message all at the same time. Later on, because the masses could not stand hearing the Creator of the universe addressing them directly, they prevailed upon Moses to be their mediator. On the other hand, Paul is no different from all other cultic leaders who make claims to truths that are exclusively revealed to them alone by some divine being. Just because they claim so does not make it so .
But . . . who backs up Paul’s claims? For one, the early church fathers who base christian doctrines and teachings on Paul epistles. Textual critics today who have scrutinized the 14 epistles [including Hebrews] arrived at conclusions that not all epistles attributed to Paul were authentically his.
There is more to Paul than we can cover in this article, this simply jump-starts a series of questions relating to the teachings of Paul. We have never questioned them before, we would like to re-examine them now.
NSB@S6K