It was especially Saul, now called Paul, who argued against putting Christians under the Law. What kind of a person was Paul? This is what he says of himself: "I am a Jew, and was born in Tarsus. I was brought up in Jerusalem. I studied under the Pharisee Gamaliel and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors." After he tells how he persecuted the Way, was blinded on the road to Damascus, and was made to see again by Ananias, Paul says that Ananias then said to him, "The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know His will, to see the Just One, Christ, and hear His Own voice speaking, because you are to be His witness before all mankind, testifying to what you have seen and heard."
Paul wrote many letters to churches in different cities. One of these begins: "From Paul, an apostle who does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead.
“The fact is, brothers, and I want you to realize this: the Good News I preached to you is not of man. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God, how I stood out among other Jews of my time, how zealous I was for the traditions of my ancestors.
"But God Who had chosen me before I was born, called me through His grace and chose to reveal His Son to me, so that I might preach the Good News to the pagans. I did not stop to discuss this with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were already apostles before me, but I went off to Arabia at once. Even when after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter and stayed with him for fifteen days, I did not see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And I swear before God that what I have just written is the straight truth. After that I went to other countries, and the brethren in Judea still did not know me by sight."
|
