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Paul’s background
By Mark Morgan | Paul
The narrative of the New Testament is dominated by two people: Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus.
The earthly life and preaching of Jesus fills the gospels, while the faith he fathered drives the rest of the New Testament, with Paul as the main advocate for that faith.
If we imagine life as a sport, one might say that Jesus defined the playing field, described the rules, placed the goalposts and took his God-given position as referee, while Paul explained different aspects of the rules and how the teams should be organised to play together on a day-to-day basis.
Of course, Paul was not alone in this follow-up work, but his untiring – in fact almost incomprehensible – work rate as a preacher and letter writer means that almost half of the books in the New Testament bear his name as author.
So what do we know about him as a man?
His writings tells us much about his ideas and attitudes, but what do we know about his background, nationality, family, early life, education, religion and marital status?
Let’s start from the very beginning, when Paul began life as “Saul”, presumably named after Israel’s first king. King Saul was a giant of a man, but his namesake probably wasn’t since he was later known to everyone as “Paul”, which means small or humble. We’ll use his later name from now on.
Paul was a Jew[1] of the tribe of Benjamin[2] and circumcised on the eighth day.[3] Yet he was not born in Israel, but in Tarsus in Cilicia[4] to a father who, though a Jew, was also a Roman citizen. This gave Paul Roman citizenship[5] by inheritance[6] – an unusual situation for a Jew.
We know nothing else about his parents, and regarding other members of his family we know only that he had a sister whose son heard of a plot to kill Paul and warned him.[7]
In one of his letters, Paul names three believers – Andronicus, Junia and Herodion – as kinsmen. Not only so, but Andronicus and Junia believed in Jesus before Paul, and were fellow prisoners as well.[8] Paul also says that the mother of another believer, Rufus, had been a mother to him as well.[9]
Young Paul was educated in Jerusalem under the tutelage of a famous Pharisee named Gamaliel,[10] a member of the Jewish Council.[11] The party of the Pharisees was the strictest of the Jewish religion,[12] but this training convinced Paul to become a Pharisee.[13]
As a very religious young man advancing quickly in Judaism, Paul genuinely tried to obey God with a clear conscience – but as part of that, he cruelly persecuted Christians[14] and was involved in the killing of Stephen.[15]
He was so fervent in his determination to exterminate Christianity that he sought to travel to Damascus and hunt for believers there. He asked for, and received, letters of authority from the High Priest and the Jewish Council to arrest and imprison any believers in Jesus that he found there.[16] However, the trip didn’t turn out as expected.
Although Paul’s persecution of Christians was done in honest ignorance,[17] it is obvious that by the time he met Jesus while travelling to Damascus, he was beginning to struggle. Jesus chided him with the observation that it was hard for him to kick against the goads.[18] Obviously Paul was having an internal fight against the evidence presented for Christianity and the Christians’ way of life.
After meeting a living Jesus, which left him blind for three days,[19] Paul was utterly convinced about Christianity and completely reversed the direction of his life. The Paul who regained his sight and immediately began preaching about Jesus with such conviction that he “turned the world upside down”[20] was a completely different man from the Paul men had known before.
What else do we know about Paul’s background? Firstly, we know that he was a tentmaker[21] which enabled him to support himself when necessary. Secondly, we know he had some sort of health problem that Jesus refused to cure – a problem that made his work more difficult, but helped to keep his ego under control.[22]
From that time forward, Paul led an astonishingly busy and productive life as Jesus’ apostle, yet suffered many terrible things – as Jesus had warned him he would. At one stage the disciples had to lower him in a basket out of a window in the wall of Damascus to escape the governor’s men,[23] while in Lystra he was stoned, dragged out of the city and left for dead.[24]
Paul was often imprisoned, suffered countless beatings and was often near death. Five times the Jews gave him “forty lashes less one”[25] and three times he was beaten with rods.[26] Shipwrecked three times[27] he was also adrift at sea for a night and a day. On his frequent journeys he suffered cold and exposure, hunger and thirst, in danger from rivers, robbers, enemies and even his audiences as he spoke to them about Jesus.[28] He was often the target of enraged crowds who hated his message of love and forgiveness.
Paul was a God-powered dynamo who only slowed down when he was thrown in prison and forced to swap energetic preaching for energetic letter-writing.
Three missionary journeys over 10-12 years were followed by two years in prison,[29] a harrowing six-month journey to Rome[30] and two years under house arrest.[31] Freed after a trial before the emperor Nero, he probably undertook another preaching tour before being arrested for the last time and, as tradition suggests, executed in Rome.
As far as we know, Paul never married and had no children, and we can only imagine the family problems that might have occurred when kinsmen like Andronicus and Junia became believers while Paul was persecuting Christians – or how others in the family may have responded to Paul’s acceptance of Jesus as Messiah, which dedicated Pharisees would have seen as a betrayal.
Harmony of Bible records of Paul’s conversion
Blue Letter Bible: Timeline of the Apostle Paul
Notes
| ↑1 | Descendant of Abraham, Hebrew, Israelite, Jew: Acts 16:20; 21:29; 22:3; Romans 3:9; 11:1, 14; Galatians 2:15; Philippians 3:5 |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Romans 11:1; Philippians 3:5 |
| ↑3 | Philippians 3:5 |
| ↑4 | Acts 21:39; 22:3 |
| ↑5 | Acts 16:37; 22:25-29 |
| ↑6 | Acts 22:28 |
| ↑7 | More than 40 men were involved in this conspiracy, but it failed when Paul’s nephew reported it to the Roman tribune (Acts 23:12-35). |
| ↑8 | Romans 16:7; 11 |
| ↑9 | Romans 16:13 |
| ↑10 | Acts 5:34; 22:3 |
| ↑11 | Also called the Sanhedrin. |
| ↑12 | Acts 26:5 |
| ↑13 | Acts 23:6; Philippians 3:5 |
| ↑14 | Acts 8:3; Galatians 1:13-14 |
| ↑15 | Acts 7:58; 8:1 |
| ↑16 | Acts 9:1-2; 22:5 |
| ↑17 | 1 Timothy 1:13 |
| ↑18 | Acts 26:14 |
| ↑19 | Acts 9:9 |
| ↑20 | Acts 17:6 |
| ↑21 | Acts 18:3 |
| ↑22 | See 2 Corinthians 12:7. This may have been a problem with his sight, as could be suggested by Galatians 4:13-15; 6:11. |
| ↑23 | 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 |
| ↑24 | Acts 14:19 |
| ↑25 | Deuteronomy 25:3 |
| ↑26 | One occurred in Philippi (Acts 16:22). |
| ↑27 | One is mentioned in Acts 27. |
| ↑28 | Paul gives an extensive catalogue of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28. |
| ↑29 | Acts 24:27 |
| ↑30 | Acts 27:1-28:14 |
| ↑31 | Acts 28:30-31 |