Saul belonged to Tarsus, a Roman colony and automatically had Roman citizenship. Probably his family had a good financial standing that they could afford Saul a good education under Gamaliel, a Doctor of Law and an influential member of the Sanhedrin. Saul belonged to the tribe of Benjamin (the first king of Israel was from this tribe) and was brought up as a very religious person. He became a strict Pharisee and a persecutor of the early Christian church because of his zeal towards his religion which was being threatened by the believers in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Saul was a seeker of the truth and had come to realise that the law that he was trying to keep was condemning him daily and that he was unable to achieve the standard of righteousness that God demanded of him. Frustration overtook him.

He must have heard about Jesus while he was a student in Jerusalem. It is even possible that Paul was in Jerusalem when the Lord was crucified or at least shortly after that historic incident. Could this Jesus be the Jewish Messiah? It was a question that pricked his heart now and again.

Gamaliel, the senior member of the Sanhedrin warned the authorities against any drastic action meted out to the disciples probably because he had a hunch in him that Jesus was the Christ, the Jewish Messiah. This spark of faith in his teacher should have had a real impact on the religious faith of Saul, but he tried to suppress the inner voice that was sounding in him. He tried to quench this urge by indulging in more atrocities against the believers in Jerusalem. All the while the reality was hitting him hard – Could this Jesus be the Christ? Prick!

Saul was keeping watch of the clothes of those Jews who were stoning Stephen to death; in fact, he also had consented to the death of this first martyr of the church in Jerusalem. He, for sure, should have wondered why anybody would dare to give his life for a falsehood – the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Could the resurrection of Jesus be true? Could this Jesus be the Prophet the Jews were waiting for? Prick!

The Lord met him on his way to Damascus (Syria) where he was headed to, so that he could bind the believers and bring them to Jerusalem for torture and murder. The Lord asked him, “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks”. That was the last straw! Saul submitted himself to the Lord that very moment. He who went on a hunting trip ended up being hunted down. He had to escape for his life from that day onwards.
Saul began to be addressed as Paul by his fellow believers and was in good company – Barnabas, John Mark, Luke, Silas, Titus, Timothy and a lot more all along his ministry. He also felt the pinch of loneliness while left alone and was always yearning for the fellowship of believers wherever he went. He was always looking forward to being an encouragement to his fellow believers and would give them the whole truth for their spiritual growth. He said once that the care of all the churches was giving him more stress than the external pressures of this world.

The Jews kept pursuing him everywhere he went to thwart all his efforts to spread the gospel. They were after his life and sought to kill him many times. They sometimes provoked the Gentiles to murder him. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 2Cor 11:24-27.

The Jews plotted against him and put him in prison many times. It is noteworthy here that many of Paul’s epistles (letters containing Christian doctrine) of eternal value were written while he was in prison. Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good – the universal good of the Church of God. Satan licking dust again!

Paul handled sin in the church differently than the way Peter handled it. When Ananias and Sapphira sinned against the Holy Spirit by keeping a portion of their contribution to themselves (a lying heart that made them put up the hype of their sacrifice), Peter rebuked their sin openly and condemned them to death. Paul was a mature believer. He wanted the Corinthian believers to put away the sinful man who was openly committing the grievous sin of incest and to deliver him to Satan so that his body might be tortured but his soul be saved. He gave the sinner an opportunity to repent – a father’s heart indeed! And when the sinner repented, he wrote to the believers again to accept him into the congregation by forgiving his sin.

Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem and the believers discouraged him to proceed further. But Paul was determined to go there and was ready to face even death, not only face persecution by his own people. Such was his zeal for the gospel and for his own people that he was ready to risk even his life and become a curse for their sake. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh – Rom 9:3. Result? He was forced by the Jewish believers in Jerusalem to build that which he himself sought to bring down – pay for and participate in some Jewish rituals that he himself condemned, resulting in his being caught by the Jews and sent to trial by the Roman Government – this ultimately leading him to Rome and to his death although God foresaw this in His plan. Not a perfect example to follow!

Would God give all that His servants ask for? He certainly answers their prayers, but he would not give all that they ask for. Paul had a severe physical ailment that kept buffeting him as a messenger of Satan throughout his life. He prayed to God about it three times that the ailment would depart from him. There was an answer from the Lord but not the one Paul anticipated, wanted or wished. Paul also understood that there were valid reasons why God did not remove this ailment from him – (1) lest any man should think of me above that which he sees me to be, or that he heareth of me and (2) lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations – 2 Cor 12:6. And we must thank God for God not answering Pauls prayer the way Paul liked – he left behind a verse inspired by the Holy Spirit that has consoled, encouraged and built up believers in their faith over the centuries. “My grace is sufficient for you. For, My strength is perfected in weakness” – 2 Cor 12:9.

Paul was a man of great humility – he considered himself the least of all apostles (1 Cor 15:9), least of all saints (Eph 3:8) and a chief of all sinners (1 Tim 1:15). Though he was given more revelation about the Church than all other Apostles and could unveil mysteries for the Church, he said that he did not know everything. There were things that he was not sure about – celibacy, Christian widows remarrying, out-of-body experiences etc. He did not want others to think of him more than what he actually was; he did not want to generate hype about himself in the minds of his hearers, observers and readers; he did not want to create a halo around his head so that people would look up to him for advice, counsel and guidance. How different from the so-called servants of God today!

Be ye, followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. – 1 Cor 11:1. Is Paul worth following? Paul did not want believers to follow him. He wanted believers to follow Christ as he followed Christ. Only Christ is worth following – not any man. Every man has his own weaknesses but each of the apostles and men of God has left behind good impressions and best practices worth emulating in our Christian life. But, the ultimate model for every Christian is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why the author of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament writes that even though there is a cloud of faithful witnesses around us, we have to keep looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith in our Christian race that is set before us. This will enable us to obtain the crown of righteousness which the Lord Himself will give to us if we finish our course by fighting a good fight of faith.

Barnabas and Paul brought with them John Mark, son of Mary from Jerusalem (in whose house the church had gathered to pray for Peter who was in prison). Mark was a young man and was a nephew of Barnabas, a native of Cyprus. They took him on their first missionary journey. John Mark was probably running chores for these two. But when they had reached Pamphylia, John Mark left home (homesick?). Some time afterwards, when Paul wanted to go around as a follow-up to his first missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them. Paul thought that is was not good to take John Mark as he was not committed enough to go with them the entire journey the first time. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so, Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus; and Paul chose Silas, and departed. – Act 15:39, 40. Paul was growing in maturity and there came a time when Paul probably repented of this behaviour. That is why we see Paul mentioning in one of His letters to Timothy later in his life, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry”.

Did Paul leave behind a great pattern for preaching to the Gentiles? Yes. His discourse at Athens is a great model for today’s evangelists. He first did due diligence to understand the people and their religion by visiting their places of worship and discussing with them daily at the marketplace. Though he felt angry over their idolatrous lot, he did not offend them by speaking ill against those gods. Instead, he did personal evangelism, sharing the gospel of Jesus and His resurrection. As the people were familiar with gods and goddesses, and since “resurrection” was a strange thing which was not even in their vocabulary, they might have thought that Resurrection was the female consort of Jesus. (He seemed to do the same in Ephesus too). When the Athenians took him to the Areopagus – the stage on a hill named after Mars, meant for public discourses by knowledgeable people to the searchers of new philosophies, Paul preached a sermon that has remained one of the best over the centuries.

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. (religious, devotees to goddesses as in the Thamizh Bible). For, as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men everywhere to repent: Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead. – Acts 17:22-31.

Paul tried to relate the gospel message to the context. He commended them for their religious incline and their search for divine favour (by building altars for their gods). He said that the very same god that they had been worshipping in ignorance – they did not even know His name and so named Him “Unknown God” – was the One that he was presenting to them. Then, he set out to share the gospel of Jesus in a very structured way: he affirmed that God is and that He is the Creator – not only of all non-living things but also of all living things too – He gives them life and sustains them with all that is needed for their livelihood. Such a magnificent God who is the Lord of heaven and earth would not dwell in temples made of hands nor would He require service and worship from men – He does not need this at all. Paul was challenging their intellect and presenting a logical statement.

Paul also blasted the racist theory of evolution by stating that all mankind was made of one blood. God also determines boundaries for one’s dwelling and days for one’s lifespan on this earth. He has allowed mankind to live on this earth (not on Moon, not on Mars) so that they can find God in their own settings – God is not far from them and they can find Him because it is “in Him we live, move and have our being”. Paul also quoted one of their poets as saying that we are God’s children. This means God cannot be made of man’s hands using Silver or Gold or stone. He continues that all this while, they had been worshipping idols in ignorance but now God will bring everyone to judgement. For this, God has appointed a day and a Man He hath chosen to dispense judgement righteously to every man. The proof of this future event is that Jesus, the Man, was dead but was raised from the dead to prove that He is God. So also, every man would rise to stand for this judgement. It is useful to note that the full gospel was presented here – Jesus, His death, His resurrection, His return and the impending judgement.

Though Paul condemned idol worship in no ambiguous terms, he did not offend them (didn’t call them Satan and Devil, while it was true that Satan and his demons were behind these idols). It is an evangelist’s duty to present the gospel with love and wisdom in clear terms, but it is God’s part to convict the hearers of the truth. Even here, only a few believed and clave to Paul – and only two are mentioned by name! Remember the Chosen Seed…

Here are some of Paul's final words: For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. - 2 Tim 4:6. Secular sources say that Paul was beheaded by the Roman Government under Emperor Nero around AD 66.

While Satan could silence Paul by putting him to death, he could not prevent Paul’s letters from being read by the Church whether in its parchment form or printed form to this day. His writings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are considered Scriptures (endorsed by Apostle Peter) that have given hope to millions over the centuries. The doctrines in them form the walls within which all Christian teaching, preaching and exposition of the word of God must be confined.