A Pharisee from Tarsus who hunted the church and then spent thirty years building it. His name never changed at conversion, and Scripture never records his death.
Ask who was Paul in the Bible and the shortest true answer is a Pharisee from Tarsus who set out to destroy the church and then spent thirty years building it.
Audrey West puts it plainly: “he now proclaims the faith he once tried to destroy”. Thirteen letters carry his name, more of the New Testament than anybody else wrote, and Scripture never records his death.
Two sources tell us about him, his own letters and Luke's account in Acts, and they do not always line up. That is worth knowing rather than smoothing.
Born in Tarsus, a Roman citizen from birth in Acts 22:28, trained under Gamaliel, a Pharisee by conviction and by family. Present and approving at Stephen's execution in Acts 8:1.
Acts 9. Light, voice, blindness, and a reluctant believer named Ananias sent to a man everybody knew was coming to arrest them. He preaches in Damascus almost immediately.
Galatians 1:17 and 18 has him going to Arabia, then Damascus again, and only reaching Jerusalem after three years. Then fourteen more before another visit. The gap is long.
Cyprus, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, Asia. Acts 13 to 20. Riots, a prison in Philippi, the Areopagus in Athens, two years in Ephesus, and a running collection for the poor in Jerusalem.
Arrested in Jerusalem, held two years in Caesarea, appeals to Caesar, shipwrecked, and reaches Rome. Acts 28 leaves him under house arrest preaching without hindrance, and stops.
2 Corinthians 11:23 to 28 is his own summary, and it is almost entirely a list of beatings, shipwrecks, sleepless nights and the daily pressure of concern for the churches.
These differences are real, they are not fatal, and you should meet them here rather than from somebody hoping to use them.
Acts 9, 22 and 26 all narrate the Damascus road with small differences about what the companions saw and heard, and about how much is said on the road.
Galatians 1 and 2 count visits in a way that is hard to line up exactly with Acts. Paul is under oath in Galatians 1:20, which suggests his count is the careful one.
A speaker retells his own story differently for different audiences, and an author selects. Both are ordinary features of ancient narrative rather than signs of invention.
That he persecuted the church, that something on that road reversed him, that he took the message to non-Jewish people, and that the Jerusalem leaders agreed with it.
A faith that needs all four accounts to match word for word is a faith held together by a claim nobody can defend. The variations are the sort that turn up whenever real people tell a real story more than once.
Every post here is free to read. If this one helped you, you can help keep it that way. Pick an amount and finish on Stripe's secure checkout.
Change your amount, update your card, or cancel anytime. Enter the email you give with and Stripe sends you a secure link.
Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
First, his name did not change at conversion. This gets preached constantly as a picture of the old man becoming new, and Acts will not support it. Luke keeps calling him Saul for four more chapters. The switch comes in Acts 13:9, which says Saul, who was also called Paul, and it happens as he moves into Roman contexts. Saul was his Hebrew name and Paulus his Roman one, and a Jewish Roman citizen having both was completely normal. It is a lovely illustration built on a claim that is simply not there.
Second, he did not invent Christianity. The charge is that a simple Galilean teacher got turned into a religion by a man who never met him. His own letters answer it. In 1 Corinthians 15:3 to 5 he quotes a fixed summary of the gospel using the standard language for handing on received tradition, and that formula is generally dated to within a few years of the crucifixion, well before Paul wrote anything. Galatians 2 has him laying his message before the Jerusalem leaders and them adding nothing to it. He was carrying something, not composing it.
Third, the passages used to silence women. 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12 are in the Bible and we are not going to pretend they say something else. But the same man writes Romans 16, which names ten women as coworkers, commends Phoebe as a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, and calls Junia outstanding among the apostles. Priscilla is named ahead of her husband and takes Apollos aside to explain the way of God more accurately. Galatians 3:28 says there is neither male nor female. Whatever a person concludes about the restrictive texts, they have to be read as part of the same body of writing as those, and any reading that treats Paul as flatly opposed to women teaching has to account for the letters where he thanks them for doing it.
What we will not do is use his name as cover. The caricature of Paul as the joyless legalist who ruined Jesus' movement is produced mainly by people who have read two verses of him and none of Romans 8.
When does Acts start calling him Paul?
Saul is his Hebrew name and Paulus his Roman one, and he had both from the start. The switch tracks his move into Roman settings rather than his conversion.
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”
1 Corinthians 15:3Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Essentially nobody across the spectrum questions these.
Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians and the three Pastorals. The arguments are about vocabulary, style and situation, and Christians hold different views in good faith.
1 Thessalonians is usually dated around AD 50, which makes it older than any of the Gospels. The letters are the earliest Christian writing we have.
Every one of them answers a specific situation in a specific city. He never sat down to write a theology textbook, which is why he is easy to quote out of context.
On the disputed six, our position is the same one we take everywhere: state the debate accurately, receive the letters as Scripture, and do not build a defence on a claim about authorship that a first-year student could unpick.
Decades in, with churches across the empire and letters being copied and passed around, he keeps mentioning the same thing about himself.
1 Corinthians 15:9, the least of the apostles, because I persecuted the church of God. Galatians 1:13, how intensely I persecuted the church. 1 Timothy 1:13, a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man. He brings it up himself, unprompted, in letters where nobody was asking.
That is not self-flagellation, because in the same sentences he says by the grace of God I am what I am. He is doing something else. He is keeping the two halves of his life in the same frame so that neither one gets forgotten.
Which is probably the most useful thing about him. The New Testament's most productive figure is somebody whose past would disqualify him from most modern ministries, and the only person who never stopped mentioning it was him.
For related ground, see how Paul died, when Acts was written, the apostle definition, who the Pharisees were, who wrote the Bible, righteousness and grace.
A Pharisee from Tarsus and a Roman citizen who approved of Stephen's execution and then spent thirty years planting churches, whose name never changed at conversion, who quotes a creed older than himself, who names ten women as coworkers in a single chapter, and whose death Scripture never records.
He is the New Testament writer people wrestle with most, usually over two or three passages. Send your questions in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will work through them with you.
A Jewish man from Tarsus in Cilicia, trained as a Pharisee, who held the coats at Stephen's execution and set out to destroy the early church. After an encounter on the road to Damascus he spent roughly thirty years travelling the Roman world planting congregations. Thirteen letters in the New Testament carry his name, and Audrey West notes that he now proclaims the faith he once tried to destroy.
No, and this is one of the most repeated mistakes about him. Acts keeps calling him Saul for chapters after Damascus. The switch happens in Acts 13:9, which reads Saul, who was also called Paul, and it happens as he begins working among non-Jewish people in a Roman setting. Saul is his Hebrew name and Paulus is his Roman one. He had both all along, which was ordinary for a Jewish Roman citizen.
Nobody knows. 2 Corinthians 12:7 says a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment him, and gives no further detail. Guesses across the centuries have included an eye condition, malaria, epilepsy, persistent opposition and a speech difficulty. All of them are guesses. The passage is not about the diagnosis, it is about the answer he gets, which is that grace is sufficient.
No, and his own letters are the evidence. In 1 Corinthians 15:3 to 5 he quotes a summary of the gospel that he says he received, using the technical language for passing on existing tradition, and most scholars date that formula to within a few years of the crucifixion. Galatians 1 and 2 record him checking his message with the Jerusalem leaders. He was handing on something already there.
Scripture does not say. Acts leaves him under house arrest in Rome, preaching without hindrance, and stops. Early Christian tradition says he was executed in Rome under Nero, probably in the mid sixties, and as a Roman citizen by beheading rather than crucifixion. That tradition is old and may well be accurate. It is not in the Bible, and it should not be quoted as though it is.