Paul’s Missionary Journey Essay

The Apostle capital of Minnesota was the expectant leader in the significationous passing which characterized the apostolic age, the transition from a prevailingly Jewish to a prevailingly gentile christianity. beneath his guidance Christianity was saved from atrophy and death, which threatened it if it remained confined in Palestine.At the said(prenominal) succession, by reason of his insight into the truth of the Gospel and fidelity to it, as well as by his devotion to the Old will and loyalty to the highest Jewish ideals in which he had been re ared, he saved Christianity from the chaste and religious degeneracy to which it would surely move over been brought if it had broken with its past, and had tried to home al bingleness and helpless amid the whirl of Greek religious movements of the first and trice Christian centuries. In capital of Minnesota a great force of onward movement and a profound and conscious radicalism were combined with fundamentally unlesst match lessd-up principles.capital of Minnesota appears to have been born at not far from the same time as Jesus Christ. According to Acts, capital of Minnesota was born in Tarsus (Acts 911 etc. ), real the double name capital of Minnesota/Paul (139), and through his family possessed Tarsian and roman citizenship (2225-29 (Murphy-OConnor 32-33). Overall, Paul can be described as an able and thoroughly trained Jew, who had gained from his residence in a Greek city that degree of Greek education which end familiarity with the Greek language and the habitual use of the Greek translation of the Scriptures could bring.At bottom he ever remained the Jew, in his feelings, his background of ideas, and his mode of vista, provided he knew how to make tolerably intelligible to Greek readers the truths in which, as lie came to desire, lay the satisfaction of their deepest needs. At Jerusalem Paul entered ardently into the pursuit of the Pharisaic ideal of complete conformity in any particular to the Law. He was, he tells us, found blameless (to every substance but that of his take in conscience), and, he says, I advanced in the Jews pietism beyond many of mine protest age among my countrymen, being more(prenominal) exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.With fiery passion he entered into the persecution of the Christian sect, was attest and took a kind of part at the murder of Stephen, and undertook to carry on the work of suppression outside of Palestine at Damascus, whither he expeditioned for this subprogram with letter of introduction from the authorities at Jerusalem (Murphy-OConnor 52-57). At this time took place his conversion.That he was converted, and at or near Damascus, his own words leave no doubt. I persecuted, he says in writing to the Galatians, the church building of God. . . But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my m new(prenominal)s womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, th at I might vaticinate him among the gentiles straight air I conferred not with flesh and blood neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me but I went away into Arabia and again I returned unto Damascus (Gal i. 13-17). The change evidently presented itself to Pauls intellectual as a direct divine interposition in his purport.It came to him in a revelation of Jesus Christ, whereby (and through no human intermediary) he received the Gospel which he preached, and the commission to be an apostle. He refers to it as to a single event and an absolute change of direction, not a gradual process and development the cardinal parts of his demeanor stood precipitously contrasted, he did not conceive that he had slid by imperceptible stages from one to the other. What things i. e. his advantages of birth and Jewish attainment were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ . . . or whom I suffered as if in a single moment the loss of all things (Phil. iii. 7. 8).From Pauls own words, then, we k today that he was converted from a persecutor to a Christian, at a clear time and at or near Damascus, by what he considered to be the direct interposition of God and it seems to be this experience of which he aspect as a vision of the risen Christ (Hubbard 176-77). After Pauls conversion, which took place in the latter part of the reign of Tiberius (14-37 a. d. ), round fifteen years passed before the missioner career began of which we have experience from Acts and from Pauls own epistles.During this time Paul was first in Arabia, that is in only about part of the empire of which Damascus was the most historied city, then in Damascus, and recentlyr, after a brief visit to Jerusalem, in Cilicia, doubtless at his old home Tarsus. In this period we may suppose that he was adjusting his whole system of thought to the new middle which had established itself in his mind, the Messiahship of Jesus. With the new basis in mind every part of his intellectual world must have been thought through. Especially, we may believe, will he have studied the relation of Christian credence to the old dispensation and to the ideas of the prophets.The fruit of these years we have in the matured thought of the epistles. They show a steadiness of view and a readiness of resource in the use of the Old Testament, which testify to through work in the time of preparation. Epistles written years apart, like Galatians, Romans and battle of Philippians, surprise us by their uniformity of thought and unstrained similarity of language, in spite of the vastness and vivacity of Pauls thought and style. So, for the most part, the characteristic ideas even of Epliesians and Colossians are found suggested in germ in Corinthians and the earlier epistles.Pauls epistles represent the literary flowering of a mind prepared by years of study and reflection (Murphy-OConnor 90-95). At Pauls missionary journey and the beginning then made of churches in Asia M inor we have already looked in a previous chapter. After his return to Antioch followed that great and pivotal occasion of early Christian history, the so-called Council, or Conference, at Jerusalem, described in the fifteenth chapter of Acts and by Paul in the cooperate chapter of Galatians.At that time Paul established his right to carry on the work of Christian missions in accordance with his own principles and his own judgement of the Christian religion. His relation with the Twelve Apostles seems then and at all quantify to have been cordial. His difficulties came from others in the Jewish Church. To this we k right off of only one exception, on the face of it just aboutwhat subsequently than the Conference, the occasion at Antioch when Peter under squelch from Jerusalem withdrew from fellowship with the gentile brethren, and called out from Paul the severe manducate of which we read in Galatians. there is reason to believe that the rebuke consummate(a) its purpose. At any rate, at a later time in that location is no evidence of a continued breach. The idea of missionary belong had evidently taken possession of Paul, for after returning from Jerusalem to Antioch he soon started out again, and was incessantly occupied with missionary work from now until the moment of his arrest at Jerusalem. Leaving Antioch on his second journey he and his companions hurried across Asia Minor, stopping only, it would appear, to revisit and inspect churches previously established.They were led by the Holy Spirit, as the writer of Acts believed, to direct their pedigree westward as rapidly as possible to Greece, which was to be the future(a) stage in the path to the capital of the world. In Macedonia and Achaia Paul and his companions worked with variable success at Philippi, Thessalonica, Ber? a, Athens, Corinth. At Corinth, the chief commercial city of Greece, the Christians arrived in the late autumn. The work opened well, and Paul remained at that importan t core until a year from the following spring.The date of his arrival cannot be on the button determined, but is probably one of the five years between 49 and 53 a. d. While at Corinth he wrote the First and (if it is genuine) the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. someplace about this time, maybe before leaving Antioch for this journey, the Epistle to the Galatians was written. The churches of Galatia, to which it is addressed, were probably the churches known to us in Acts as Pisithan Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.After a flying sparkle to Syria and perhaps to Jerusalem Paul returned to Ephesus in Asia Minor, where he settled down for a stay of three years. A few incidents of this period have been record in the Book of Acts, and are among the most striking and realistic that we have. They embroil a remarkable number of points of contact with facts known to us from archeologic discoveries, and in no chapters of Acts is our confidence more fully reassured in the cont emporary knowledge and the trusdeucerthiness of the writer of the book.While at Ephesus Paul had much communication with Corinth, and wrote I Corinthians, which had clearly been preceded by another letter. There are indications in II Corinthians that after this he found the difficulties in the church at Corinth such that he wrote them at least one letter which has been lost, and made a short, and in its outcome exceedingly painful, trip to Corinth and back to Ephesus. Finally he was impelled by danger to his life to leave Ephesus, and went through Macedonia to Corinth.On the way he wrote, to prepare for his own presence, the epistle we call II Corinthians. Arriving at Corinth in the early winter he stayed until spring. His literary impulse continued active, and to this winter we owe the Epistle to the Romans. Earlier letters had been called out by special need in one or another church in Romans Paul comes nearer to a dogmatic exposition of his theology than in any of his earlier wr itings. He knew the magnificence that would surely belong to the Christian Church of capital of Italy.He had made up his mind to go there. But first he must go to Jerusalem, and there were dangers both from the risks of travel and from hostile men. Of each hind his life had had many examples. Accordingly he provided for the Roman Christians a clear avouchment of his main position, together with a reply to several of the chief objections brought against it, notably the allegations that his presentation of Christianity involves the abrogation of Gods promises to his chosen people, and that it opened the way to moral laxity.This letter Paul sent as an earnest of his own visit to Rome. He had been for a year or more lapse the collection by the churches of Asia Minor and Europe of a contribution for the vile Christians at Jerusalem the gentile churches should thus make a repayment in carnal things to those who had made them to be partakers of their spiritual things. This contribution was now ready, and Paul himself with a group of representatives of the chief churches took ship at Philippi and Troas for Jerusalem.The voyage is narrated in detail in Acts, evidently by one who was a member of the company. At last Paul reached Jerusalem, and was well received by the church but, followed as he was by the hatred of Jews from the airing who had recognized the menace to the Jewish religion proceeding from the new sect, he was set upon by a mob, rescued only by being taken in custody by the Roman authorities, and after a series of exciting adventures which will be found admirably told in the Book of Acts, was brought to Csarea.There he stayed a prisoner for two years and more until on the occasion of a change of Roman Governor his case was brought up for trial, when he exercised the right of a Roman citizen to appeal from the jurisdiction of the Governor to that of the imperial court at Rome. It was late autumn, but he was dispatched with a companion whom we may well believe to be Luke the beloved physician, and from whom our account certainly comes.The narrative of Pauls voyage and shipwreck, of the winter on the island of Malta, and the final arrival at Rome early in one of the years between 58 and 62 a. d. is familiar. It is the most important document that antiquity has left us for an arrangement of the mode of working an ancient ship, while the picture which it gives of Paul as a practical man is a delightful supplement to our other knowledge of him(Murphy-OConnor 324).In Rome, while under guard awaiting trial, Paul probably wrote Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and the circular letter, seemingly intended for churches in Asia Minor, known to us as Ephesians. They show some new development of ideas long present with him, and some new thoughts to which his other writings give no parallel, and the style of some of them has changed a bit from the freshness of Galatians and Romans but these are not adapted reasons for denying that Paul wrot e the letters.They are, indeed, as it seems to me, beyond reasonable doubt genuine. The Book of Acts ends with the words, And he Paul abode two whole years in his own engage dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the churchman Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him. This period of two years is sufficient to include the composition of the four epistles to which reference has just been made, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Epliesians, the so-called Epistles of the Captivity.What happened at the expiration of the period? Apparently Pauls case, long postponed, then came to trial. Did it result in his release or his doing? The evidence is meager and conflicting, and opinions differ. It is perhaps a little more seeming that he was released, and entered on further missionary work, probably carrying out his legitimate purpose of pushing on with the proclamation of his Gospel to the west, an d establishing it in Spain but of this period there is no narrative.If after two years Pauls imprisonment at Rome ended with his release, as the absence of well-founded charges against him would lead us to expect, he must have been later again apprehended, probably in connection with the persecution artfully turned against the Christians at the time of Neros fire in July of the year 64. It is probable that he was beheaded, to which privilege his Roman citizenship entitled him, and that he was ultimately buried on the Ostian Way at the spot where now stands the splendid basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.