Paul

Paul is a first-century Jew from Tarsus who began as a persecutor of the church, became an apostle of Jesus Christ, and is presented in Scripture as the leading missionary to non-Jews and the named author of thirteen New Testament letters. The text preserves two names for him: Saul, his Hebrew name, and Paul, which Acts notes he was "also called" (Acts 13:9); the narrative of Acts follows him from Damascus and Antioch through his journeys to his arrest and voyage to Rome (Acts 20–28).

Paul describes his own past plainly: "I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Timothy 1:13). He presents his commission as something given to him by the risen Lord — "to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins" (Acts 26:18) — and his standing as something received rather than achieved: "I, Paul, was made a servant" of the Good News proclaimed "in all creation under heaven" (Colossians 1:23). He calls himself apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13), and 2 Timothy 4:17 gives his aim as that "through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear."

A large share of what Scripture records of Paul concerns hardship endured for that commission. He tells disciples that "through many afflictions we must enter into God's Kingdom" (Acts 14:22), says he does not hold his life dear so that he may "finish my race with joy" in the ministry received from the Lord Jesus (Acts 20:24), and charges the Ephesian overseers to "shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). His letters set this suffering inside the love of Christ: nothing — "oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword" — can separate believers from it, and "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:35, 8:37). He speaks of being delivered "out of so great a death" and of hope set on God for further deliverance (2 Corinthians 1:10), and of the answer given him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness," so that he takes pleasure in weaknesses "for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Christian traditions read Paul differently at several points. Historically, the Catholic and Orthodox churches honour him as a saint with a shared feast on 29 June, while Reformation-era Protestantism made his letters, especially on justification, the interpretive centre of its theology; Pentecostal and charismatic readings often dwell on his theology of weakness and power (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Scholarly and confessional opinion divides over whether all thirteen letters bearing his name were written by him, and over how his teaching on the Mosaic law relates to his Jewish identity — debates that run through academic study and across denominations rather than belonging to any one. One way to read the whole corpus is to take Acts 20:24 and 2 Timothy 4:17 as his own summary of the ministry the letters serve.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.