Background on Saul to Paul

Potential avenues for discussion: 
 
Is it possible for people to change?  Paul’s dramatic change suggests “Yes”! 
Although we obviously know the direction that Paul’s life took after his conversion, it’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of those within the early church movement after Paul’s conversion.  This was a man who was hunting down Christians and putting them to death, only to suddenly claim that he had a change of heart and wanted to preach the Gospel.  Would we have been able to trust him?  What if he was just doing this as a way to learn more about when/where Christians met?  Could his past actions be forgiven?  These are all valid and important questions, but the transformation of Saul into Paul calls to mind past transformations that God has sparked in both the Old and New Testament.  Is it possible for someone to truly change?  The biblical answer is “Yes” – even though that can sometimes be a struggle for us skeptics out there. 
 
Saul’s blindness as a metaphor for not seeing the damage he was causing. 
Paul being blinded by the light of Jesus’ appearance certainly has some religious connotations (outside of Moses, human beings aren’t described in the Bible as being capable of seeing God – that’s why angels typically serve as intermediaries) but for kids old enough to think about metaphor, the idea of Paul’s blindness should be an accessible one.  When Paul had been persecuting Christians, he had been blind to the damage that he was causing – and blind as well to the truth that Jesus was sharing.  In his interactions with Ananias, an otherwise unknown disciple in Damascus, Paul comes to recognize Jesus’ identity as the Son of God – and recognize that he had been called to bring Jesus’ good news to the Gentiles. 
 
The tireless energy Paul had after his conversion. 
We’ll continue speaking about Paul next week with his conversion of Lydia, but since we’re only spending a short time on Paul it’s worth mentioning how remarkable his subsequent missionary work was.  Paul was beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and chased out of cities by mobs.  Paul was exhausted and hungry on the road, uncertain of where his next meal or roof over his head might be.  Despite those constant setbacks, he is thought to have travelled almost 10,000 miles spreading the Gospel in a little over a decade.  That dedication is absolutely remarkable – and speaks to the depths of Paul’s conviction in the work that he had been called to do. 
 
Digging Deeper: 
 
The shift in Christianity from Jerusalem to the wider Roman empire. 
Although Jesus almost exclusively preached in and around Judea, by the end of the 1st century the vast majority of Christians lived outside that area!  So, how can we account for this fairly surprising shift in the “center” of the early Christian movement: 
 

• Early evangelists in Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica by 40 CE 

Although Paul is certainly the best known missionary, there seem to have been several early Christian communities outside Jerusalem before Paul even began his missionary work.  These communities may have been developed from within Jewish synagogues in those cities at first, but there was clearly a shift outside Judea from early on. 
 

• Paul’s Missionary Journeys, ranging from 46 to 60 CE  

As noted above, Paul was not the first to create communities outside Judea, but he was certainly prolific!  Paul is widely understood to have taken three major missionary journeys, spreading the Gospel and planting fledgling churches, even as controversy was brewing about the degree that Gentiles should adhere to Jewish Law. 
 

• Mission to the Gentiles is approved by the Jerusalem Council in 49 CE 

The Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15, led by Peter and James the brother of Jesus, was perhaps one of the most important moments for how Christianity would grow and evolve – at issue was whether Gentile (aka non-Jewish) converts should observe traditions like circumcision, dietary restrictions, etc.  The Jerusalem Council eventually decided to not force Gentiles to adhere closely to Jewish Law. 
 

• First Jewish-Roman War and Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE 

Although there are some debates around when the early Jewish-Christian community fled Jerusalem, there is no doubt that the Jewish revolt against Rome that broke out in 66 CE, and eventually led to the destruction and siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, contributed to the diasporic movement away from what had once been the center of Christianity.  As Jerusalem waned, places like Rome, Antioch, and others would assume leadership in the earlier church – and that prominence would continue in subsequent decades. ​