Paul—The Apostle Shaped in Cilicia

After being run out of Arabia, Damascus and Jerusalem, Paul returned home to Tarsus in Cilicia. He was a citizen of Tarsus (Acts 21:39; 22:3), and this probably meant Paul’s family was at least moderately wealthy, because the civic reforms introduced there cir. 15 CE took away the status of citizenship from all householders who had not accumulated considerable land and wealth.

 

Paul’s Initial (Un)Success

Everyone I read, who writes about Paul’s early years, generally agrees that he was the ‘great’ Apostle from the very start of his ministry. The whole idea in metaphor has him leaping tall buildings in a single bound, first running headlong persecuting every believer in Jesus, then doing a 180 on the head of a pin. Immediately he is turned into Christianity’s superhero, Paul, the evangelist and great Apostle we have come to know and love.

 

Saul in Damascus

Luke divides Saul’s visit to Damascus into a few days in Acts 9:19 and into “many days” of preaching and debating with those having an opposing point of view concerning Jesus in Acts 9:20-23. Luke doesn’t mention Saul’s time in Arabia, but Saul claims he spent over two years there (Galatians 1:18), before returning to Jerusalem three years after he originally left for Damascus and this two-plus-year period comes between verses 19 and 20 in Acts 9.

 

Paul’s Conversion

Paul never really speaks of being ‘converted,’ that is, he never applies the word to himself. However, he often speaks or writes of his transforming experience in meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. He wrote of it at least three times in his epistles. Luke records this event another three times in Acts. He first records it as an historical event chronologically following on the heels of a very great and cruel persecution throughout Judea (Acts 8:1; 9:1-19). His second and third mentions of it occur in two of Paul’s speeches. The first of these occurred on the steps of the Antonia where Jesus was judged by Pilate. There Paul spoke with an angry Jewish mob who wanted to slay him just as Paul had done to Christians when he was a young man (Acts 22:1-21); and the third was before King Agrippa and Bernice (Acts 26:1-20).

 

Paul on the Damascus Road

Have you ever stopped to consider the astonishing suddenness of the great persecutor of the Church of God becoming the great Apostle of Jesus Christ? Paul had been making havoc with the body of believers in Judea (Acts 8:3). After about a year and a half after Stephen’s death, Paul sought extraditions orders from the high priest to arrest believers of the Way in Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial (Acts 9:1-2). He and a few others from the elders probably traveled with a caravan going north following the Jordan River.

 

Saul the Persecutor of the Way

Did you ever wonder what it was like in Judea just after Stephen was martyred? The persecution was leveled at the liberal branch of the Way—the Hellenist believers, but this doesn’t mean other believers escaped. The Apostles were beaten in Acts 5 for preaching the Gospel and this would have been no different. When the persecution broke out, Saul entered house after house dragging off both men and women to prison and to appear before the council (Acts 8:3). Many scattered throughout Judea and Samaria and along the coast of the Mediterranean (Acts 8:1)

 

Background for Saul of Tarsus

We aren’t certain why Paul came to be born in the capital city of Cilicia, but it may have been that his ancestors were among those that Antiochus IV resettled from Galilee cir. 171 BCE with the promise of immediate citizenship there. The Syrian rulers often colonized recently conquered territories with their own citizens in order to solidify their authority there. Jewish citizens were often seen as a preferred group for colonization, perhaps because they also had such strong religious allegiance to the Seleucid province of Judea as well. Paul’s father was a Pharisee and probably a master tentmaker living in Tarsus. “The black tents of Tarsus were used by caravans, nomads, and armies all over Asia Minor and Syria.”[1]

 

“Life Is Queer with its Twists and Turns”

That’s a line from probably my favorite poem “Don’t Quit” written by one of my favorite authors—anonymous! It sort’a, kind’a fits Paul’s life in many ways at various times in his walk with Christ. However, through it all Paul didn’t quit, rather he committed his way to the Lord, and God made all things work together for his, that is, Paul’s own good as he, himself, testifies (Romans 8:28).

 

Who Was Paul of Tarsus, Really?

It is difficult to gauge the importance of Paul to Christianity, but, without doubt, his conversion is the most important event to occur in the early Jesus’ movement after the Pentecost blessing of 31 CE. Paul is personally responsible for at least ten epistles and fourteen if one counts Timothy, Titus and Hebrews as Paul’s work. Try to imagine what our New Testament Scriptures would look like had God not intervened in Paul’s life and called him for the work of Christ.