Paul’s Missionary Journey Essay Example for Free

capital of Minnesotas Missionary Journey EssayThe Apostle capital of Minnesota was the great leader in the momentous transition which characterized the apostolic age, the transition from a prevailingly Jewish to a prevailingly gentile Christianity. Under his guidance Christianity was saved from atrophy and death, which threatened it if it remained confined in heaven.At the same time, by reason of his insight into the truth of the Gospel and fidelity to it, as well as by his devotion to the Old Testament and the true to the highest Jewish ideals in which he had been reared, he saved Christianity from the moral and religious degeneracy to which it would surely have been brought if it had broken with its past, and had tried to stand alone and baffled amid the whirl of Greek religious movements of the first and second Christian centuries. In Paul a great force of onward movement and a heavy and conscious radicalism were combined with fundament everyy conservative principles.Paul appears to have been born at not far from the same time as Jesus Christ. consort to Acts, Paul was born in Tarsus (Acts 911 etc. ), received the double name Saul/Paul (139), and done his family possessed Tarsian and roman citizenship (2225-29 (Murphy-OConnor 32-33). Over every last(predicate), 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 raising which complete 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 legal opinion, scarce when he knew how to make tolerably intelligible to Greek readers the truths in which, as lie came to believe, lay the satisfaction of their deepest needs. At capital of Israel Paul entered ardently into the interest group of the Pharisaic ideal of complete conformity in every particular to the Law. He was, he tells us, found blameless (to every eye only when that of his confess conscience), and, he says, I advanced in the Jews religion beyond many of mine avouch age among my countrymen, being more super zealous for the traditions of my fathers.With blinking(a) passion he entered into the persecution of the Christian sect, was present and took a kind of part at the murder of Stephen, and undertook to carry on the work of suppression bulgeside of Palestine at Damascus, whither he journeyed for this purpose with letters 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 practiced Damascus, his own words leave no doubt. I persecuted, he says in writing to the Galatians, the Church of God. . . exactly when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mothers womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the gentiles straight flair 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 caput as a direct divine interpellation in his life.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 deuce parts of his life stood astutely 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, so, we know that he was converted from a persecu tor to a Christian, at a definite time and at or near Damascus, by what he considered to be the direct interposition of God and it seems to be this palpate of which he thought 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. ), about xv years passed before the missionary career began of which we have knowledge from Acts and from Pauls own epistles.During this time Paul was first in Arabia, that is in some part of the imperium of which Damascus was the most famous city, then in Damascus, and later, after a brief visit to Jerusalem, in Cilicia, doubtless at his old home Tarsus. In this boundary we may suppose that he was adjusting his whole system of thought to the new centre 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 studie d the relation of Christian trust 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 Philippians, surprise us by their uniformity of thought and unstrained similarity of language, in spite of the richness 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 early 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 Minor we have already looked in a previous chapter. After his return to Antioch followed that great and pivotal occ asion of early Christian history, the so-called Council, or Conference, at Jerusalem, described in the fifteenth chapter of Acts and by Paul in the second chapter of Galatians.At that time Paul established his adept to carry on the work of Christian missions in accordance with his own principles and his own understanding of the Christian religion. His relation with the Twelve Apostles seems then and at all times to have been cordial. His difficulties came from others in the Jewish Church. To this we know of only one exception, apparently somewhat later than the Conference, the occasion at Antioch when Peter under compel from Jerusalem withdrew from fellowship with the gentile brethren, and called out from Paul the severe rebuke of which we read in Galatians.There is reason to believe that the rebuke accomplished its purpose. At any rate, at a later time there is no evidence of a continued breach. The idea of missionary travel had evidently taken possession of Paul, for after retu rning 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 author of Acts believed, to direct their course westward as rapidly as possible to Greece, which was to be the next stage in the path to the capital of the world. In Macedonia and Achaia Paul and his companions worked with varying 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 historic centre until a year from the following spring.The date of his arrival cannot be exactly determined, but is probably one of the five years between 49 and 53 a. d. While at Corint h he wrote the First and (if it is genuine) the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. Somewhere about this time, perhaps 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 trip to Syria and perhaps to Jerusalem Paul returned to Ephesus in Asia Minor, where he settled down for a stay of terzetto years. A few incidents of this finale have been recorded in the Book of Acts, and are among the most striking and realistic that we have. They include a remarkable human activity of points of contact with facts known to us from archeological discoveries, and in no chapters of Acts is our confidence more fully reassured in the contemporary knowledge and the trustworthiness of the writer of the book.While at Ephesus Paul had much communication with Corinth, and wrote I Corinthians, which had clearly bee n 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 systematic exposition of his god than in any of his earlier writings. He knew the importance that would surely belong to the Christian Church of Rome.He had made up his mind to go there. But first he must go to Jerusalem, and there were dang ers 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 statement 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 supervising the order by the churches of Asia Minor and Europe of a contribution for the poor Christians at Jerusalem the gentile churches should thus make a repayment in animal(prenominal) 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 gunpoint in Acts, evide ntly 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 Dispersion 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 praiseworthily 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 last(a) 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 go forth us for an understanding of the mode of working an ancient ship, while the picture which it gives of Paul as a practical man is a delightful add 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 sufficient reasons for denying that Paul wrote 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 hired dwelling, and received all that went in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord 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 execution? The evidence is meager and conflicting, and opinions differ. It is perhaps a little more likely that he was released, and entered on further missionary work, probably carrying out his original purpose of pushing on with the proclamation of his Gospel to the west, and 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 charge s 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 apparent 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.