Great NT Profiles Part 20
Homework Tips Checklist for Parents
SAUL/PAUL
Related Scriptures:
Ø The Book of Acts
• A persecutor of the church, Saul of Tarsus experiences a vision on the road to Damascus and is transformed into Christianity’s foremost missionary, Paul.
• We follow Paul from Stephen’s martyrdom to his initial persecution of Jesus’ followers, address the three versions of his vision on the Damascus Road, then watch him develop his missionary role.
• Throughout Acts, we see Luke’s artistic portrait.
The Name
• Saul’s place of birth and his family history accounts for why Saul is also called Paul. Regardless of what you may have heard, the truth is that Saul was likely always called Paul and vice-versa, depending on what room he was standing in.
The City
• Tarsus was one of the most highly regarded cities throughout the Roman Empire. Tarsus is incredibly old, dating all the way back to 4000 BC according to some scholars.
The Persecutor
• The introduction to Paul in Acts is at Stephen’s martyrdom (7:58; 8:1).
• We see he ravaged the Church entering house after house (9:2-3).
• His motives are not clear.
• Did he think the followers of Jesus were guilty of blaspheming Temple and Torah?
• Were they a political danger in that they told those in the synagogues to worship gods other than Yahweh?
The Damascus Road
• Acts 9:3–5 recounts that as Paul was approaching Damascus, armed with letters from the high priest to the local synagogue, “suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’”
• The story is recounted differently in Acts 9, 22, 26 and Gal. 1:13–17.
In the Synagogues
• Paul proclaims in the synagogues of Damascus that Jesus is the “Son of God” (9:20), and the “Jews” seek to kill him. He escapes by being let down over a wall in a basket (9:25; see also 2 Cor. 11:32–33).
The Missionary
• When Paul returns from Damascus to Jerusalem and attempts to join the disciples, Barnabas testifies to his evangelizing and being persecuted for it in Damascus (9:26–27).
The Missionary Journeys
• How many missionary journeys did Paul take in the book of Acts? Traditionally, it is believed that Paul took three long missionary journeys through the Mediterranean, but it is possible that he went on four missionary journeys, even going as far as Spain.
The European Tour
• The conversion of Lydia, a “dyer of purple” from Thyatira and currently living in Philippi, marks Paul’s activity on European soil.
• While staying with Lydia, he performs an exorcism on a mantic slave girl who continued to follow him and his colleagues and to annoy them by shouting, “These men are slaves of the Most High God” (Acts 16:17).
In Troas
• In Troas (Acts 20:7–12), Paul speaks for so long that Eutychus (Greek: “good fortune”), falls asleep, falls out a third-story window, and dies. Paul quickly resurrects him, then continues to talk on until dawn.
Arrest and Final Journey
• Following a mob reaction against Paul’s insistence that he was divinely sent to the Gentiles, the tribune in Jerusalem orders that he be taken to the barracks and flogged to learn the reason for the outcry. Paul responds, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?” (22:25).
Distinctions from the Epistles
• Acts omits many of the Epistles’ major themes, such as the cross (Acts emphasizes Resurrection and final judgment), justification by faith, the relationship between sin and grace, and an eschatological urgency.
• However, the Epistles are addressed to people already in the church, while the missionary speeches in Acts are designed for conversion. Different audiences may prompt different emphases. Nor does Paul sound every theme in every letter.
