The Pauline Epistles
The Writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles
Saul of Tarsus was going somewhere. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, he belonged to the honored tribe of Benjamin, he was raised by a faithful Hebrew mother who saw to it that he was circumcised on the eighth day according to the Law of Moses, and she saw to it that he sat at the feet of one of the greatest Jewish teachers of the day, Gamaliel. His father was a Roman, and that means that he was himself a Roman citizen with all of the sundry rights and protections that citizenship afforded. As a roman citizen, in addition to receiving a strict pharisaical education, he also received a liberal education wherein he was trained in the mastery of language, trained in the arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. In short, Saul of Tarsus was something of a force to be reckoned with. He was climbing the mountain of prominence, possibly already on the Sanhedrin (the ruling council of the Jews), and destined for the highest honors that a Jewish man could hope for among his people.
Saul of Tarsus was going somewhere, namely, he was on his way to Damascus. He carried with him letters from the chief priests, warrants to lock up and even put to death (if need be) any of those troublemakers who had lately been spreading wild stories. A growing number of people, almost exclusively Jewish at that point, had been proclaiming that a man named Jesus had risen from the dead after having been crucified to death under the order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Saul surely knew, by word of mouth, that Jesus had presented himself as a rabbi (a teacher) and had worked as an itinerant preacher, going from village to village, addressing large crowds in the wilderness, and that his followers had believed him to be the promised Messiah. But from Saul’s perspective, Jesus had just been a carpenter’s son. He had no formal rabbinic training. Besides, he had been put to death and that was the end of it. Enough was enough with these wild rumors that were disturbing his fellow country men, leading people astray, even causing some to think that this man was somehow God himself in flesh. Absurd.
Saul of Tarsus was going somewhere when all of a sudden he was struck to the ground with a blinding light and he heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”1 To his shock and horror (and eventually great joy) Saul of Tarsus encountered the risen and reigning Lord of Heaven and Earth to whom all authority has been given. Christ temporarily blinded Saul until he met a man named Ananias, a Christian, who prayed for him and the Lord gave Saul back his sight. Saul was baptized into Christ and began to preach the good news of Jesus the Messiah, boldly and articulately confounding those who denied Jesus’ messiahship, proving from the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus was the promised Christ.
Saul of Tarsus was going somewhere that no one expected, least of all himself. He was now better known as Paul and he was going on several major missionary journeys to preach the gospel message to the Gentiles people, to plant churches, to make disciples, and to suffer greatly under the persecution against the Christian which he had once led himself. The biblical book of Acts, starting in chapter eight and thereafter, tells the incredible story of Paul’s conversion and missionary journeys. His story, at least as far as the Bible records, ends in Rome with Paul on house arrest where he is awaiting his day to address the emperor himself with the good news of Jesus.
During his many journeys he established many churches and trained many men to be elders in the church. He equipped others to be missionaries as well and to help plant churches themselves. Over the years of his ministry Paul established many churches and supported many others started by fellow laborers in cities all across the Roman Empire. One the main methods at his disposal to provide his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ with encouragement was through the writing of letters to add to their instruction, to answer their questions, to formally articulate the gospel in clearly spelled out and systematic fashion, etc.
Doubtless Paul sent many more letters than we have today, but the ones we have are those the Lord saw fit to preserve for the sake of our continued instruction to this day. Through God’s providential and guiding hand among his people, his sacred word delivered through prophets and apostles, has been faithfully preserved throughout the ages. As Paul himself wrote, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”2 God gave his people his word in written form so they might always have with them all the instruction they need as to how to live holy and blameless lives before him. Paul was one of the conduits the Lord used to deliver his word.
Peter, another of the Lord’s apostles, who walked with Christ every day of his ministry from the Baptism of John until his ascension, affirms Paul as one of the men God was using to write the New Testament Scripture. In his second letter he states, “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”3
The testimony of Paul to the risen Lord Jesus and his power to change hearts is indomitable. What could make a man turn 180 degrees away from the direction of fame and laud toward a life of persecution, beatings, imprisonment, ill repute among his beloved people, and the danger of death at every turn? Only the risen Jesus makes sense of this. His reasoning from the Old Testament Scripture about the Messiah cannot be ignored because it just makes too much sense. He was welcomed with the right hand of fellowship by the apostles in Jerusalem and confirmed by them to be teaching an accurate message of the gospel (c.f. Galatians 1-2). He was numbered with the 12 as a true apostle, though one “untimely born.”4
The Lord uniquely prepared Paul to be a man of two worlds. He was equally Jewish and Roman. He know the Scriptures and he knew the Liberal Arts. He knew the customs and traditions of the Hebrew People, and he had read the Greek poets and philosophers. He could recall and make use of the Old Testament Scriptures to demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies concerning the Messiah and he could reason with the philosophers about the true nature of God. In Paul we have an incredible example to follow both in word and in deed and we should be thankful to Jesus Christ for our beloved brother Paul who continues today to show all of us how to go somewhere, how to get to Christ and cling to him for everlasting life.
Paul knew what we all must come to know, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”5
The Pauline Epistles total at 14 different letters. Some modern scholars do not think Hebrews was written by Paul, but very early attestation in the ancient church ascribed it to his authorship. As the study guides become available for each of Pauls letters the books listed below will gain hyper-links for you to click on which will take you to the study guides for each individual book. May the Lord bless your study of his word.
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
Acts 9:4-5
2 Timothy 3:16-17
2 Peter 3:15-16
1 Corinthians 15:8
1 Timothy 1:15