Who is the Apostle Paul?
Philippians 1:1
Philippians Lesson #003
April 28, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Our Father, we are so very thankful that we have You to look to, to direct us, to guide us. You are the One Who has provided us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. We’re thankful that we have You as our protector, as our shield, as our strong fortress, as our tower.
“And that in a world that seems to have absolutely lost its mind, it clarifies for us what our mission is, and that is to teach the Word, to learn the Word, to assimilate and apply the Word.
“And to be a witness both with our lives and with our lips, to verbalize to friends and family, those we come in contact with, that You sent Your Son to die on the Cross for our sins. And that by believing, trusting in Him alone, we have everlasting life. We pray, Father, for that.
“Father, for others who are actively involved in Ukraine and Philippines, for Mark Perkins as he was telling us about his ministry in Tahiti the other night. We just pray for them that you’ll provide their logistical needs so that they can accomplish that which they have been tasked with in their particular ministries. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Slide 2
This afternoon, I got a phone call around noon. Igor called me, and we had a good conversation. He gave me an update on what he did the last week. Some of you may have received his email update which came out this afternoon.
He has a friend that’s a pastor in a village church, and this friend of his had volunteered to go into the army. The Ukrainian army does not have chaplains per se, but they realize the need for having chaplains.
I think that’s an important thing because even the other day, I saw an email from someone espousing Putin’s propaganda that Ukraine is corrupt, Ukraine’s anti-Semitic, there’s this Azov Brigade down in Mariupol that is neo-Nazi. So we shouldn’t have anything to do with them.
If those are your criteria, then you need to leave the United States and go move to a desert island where you’re the only person there in the middle of the Pacific somewhere, because you just don’t understand reality. This is a fallen world.
I have spent a lot of time talking with people who really know. I’m talking about Jews who are involved in ministry, whether they are Jewish and not Christians or Messianic Jews.
While there are some in Ukraine who harbor these horrible values of anti-Semitism, it’s not organized. It just isn’t there.
I talked to Idan Peysahovich who spent the first 16 years of his life in Siberia. Then he was in his 30s when I met him. He was the national director for the Jewish Agency for Israel, and he was all over Ukraine. If anybody’s going to know if there’s any kind of anti-Semitic movement in Ukraine, it would be he.
I also talked with Nina Grigoliya, who teaches Hebrew for us. When I first met Nina, I put her in contact with JAFI in Kiev. She started taking a lot of conversational Hebrew and did so well. She just absorbs languages like a sponge absorbs water. They were so impressed with her abilities.
They had her teaching children’s classes after about a year and a half. Then they started putting her on a scholarship and sending her to an Ulpan—that’s a language school in Israel—every summer for about the next three summers, and then she ended up moving there and living there for the last four or five years and teaching Hebrew for Word of God Bible College via Zoom.
She sees no evidence of anti-Semitic movement in Ukraine. You just need to set people straight when you hear these things because they are ill-informed, misinformed.
One of the greatest evidences that there is not a massive anti-Semitic movement in Ukraine is that over 70 percent of the people voted a little over a year ago for Zelensky to be President, and he’s Jewish. Two of the top people in the government are also Jewish.
So the answer to some sort of mass movement of anti-Semitism in Ukraine is, “You’ve got to be crazy. You’re smoking dope, and you’re listening to fake news on the Internet.”
They do have a great desire to have Christian chaplains in the military. That’s another plus. What happened with Igor’s friend is, they found out that he was a pastor in his civilian life, and they approached him and said, “We’re going to keep you in military intelligence, but what we really want you to do is to be a pastor to these men because they desperately need it. We need to take care of all of the different spiritual, psychological issues that are coming up with men who are facing combat all the time.”
That’s basically what his job became, a full-time pastor. He asked Igor to come over and to work with him over the Easter weekend—the three days—which is what Igor did. And he was in the front lines.
He describes the fact that at night they didn’t sleep much because they were under intense bombardment by the Russians. He sent me several pictures of him in his Kevlar vest, things of that nature.
They had a tremendous opportunity just speaking one-on-one. He said next time he goes, he’s going to try to arrange some times when they can have Bibles, so they have some kind of opportunity to have an audience and also have some evangelism.
They had a very good response. They had a lot of people who just had a smidgen of knowledge of Christianity or the Bible, asking for them to pray with them, to read Scripture for them, and other things of that nature. They had a lot of opportunities and a very positive response.
Igor was very excited about the opportunity that he had. One comment that he sent me when he was there was, “I thought it was bad when we were being bombed and missiles were coming into Zhytomyr. But that was nothing. Here on the front lines is the real war. This is absolutely horrible.”
He was just so excited about the ministry opportunities, he can’t wait to go back. In fact, he said in his newsletter that went out today, that he had written a goodbye letter to his family in case the Lord took him home. So, we just need to pray for him. Such great courage there.
I’m so proud of him and what they were able to do on their own initiative. That is being multiplied probably hundreds of times in the Ukrainian army. So we need to pray for them and straighten people out when they say, “Ukraine’s so corrupt, we don’t need to help them.”
We are doing many wonderful things, not the least of which is providing the most important information, and that is the gospel.
Slide 2
This is our third lesson in Philippians. What I want to do tonight is begin with Philippians 1:1.
One idea I have—and some of you may scoff at this, I scoff at it a little bit myself—is that Philippians is, in many ways, an excellent basic book. It has some really important passages that are critical to understand who Jesus is and what He did on the Cross in Philippians 2.
It has an excellent expression by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3 on the nature of righteousness: that we are not saved by our own righteousness, but we are saved by righteousness from God, and we get that by faith in Christ.
It has a great chapter in the Philippians 4 on the importance of how we think and the importance of prayer, and some of most Christians’ favorite promises. I think there are five or six at least in Philippians 4 that are frequently memorized by people.
Also in the Philippians 1, there are important passages that deal with important teaching related to the priorities of our life. For us, “to live as Christ, and to die is gain.”
So we will go through these. It’s a good basic book. I’m looking at this in terms of being able to answer questions that maybe young believers have.
I reflect back on my own experience when I was in college, having grown up in a strong Bible-teaching church, doctrinal church, also having gone through lots of extra Bible memory, etc., while I was going to a Christian camp growing up.
But then sitting in a classroom and having a professor attack the conversion record of the Apostle Paul. And I’m sitting there going, “I’m not sure I understand this, and I don’t know how to answer him”— quite an awakening for an 18-year-old—“and I don’t like not being able to answer this whether I say something in class or not.”
So, it’s important even though it gets into some details. I just want to talk about who is the Apostle Paul, and try to break it down in about four areas, and then fill in with a lot more detail, so that people can understand that.
Can you imagine if you’re not a knowledgeable believer, and you’re reading the Bible for the first time, and you haven’t read Acts, and you see all these Epistles by Paul? Who is he? Why is he important? What is God doing through the Apostle Paul? So that’s part of what we’re going to do.
Slide 3
There are six sections in the general outline for the whole Epistle. In the first part, we’re looking at Paul’s introduction, introductory prayer in Philippians 1:1–8, and then Paul’s joy over the expansion of the gospel in the remainder of Philippians 1. Those are the first two big divisions within the Epistle.
Slide 4
The Epistle opens, “Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishop and deacons …” We want to break this down a little bit because we have to address the terminology here. It’s unfamiliar terminology to the 21st-century ear.
The idea of bondservants. What is that? “Bondservants of Christ who are saints.” People think that saints are morally good people who are exceptionally righteous.
What about this place called Philippi and “bishops and deacons”? If you have no church background, you don’t know what a bishop or a deacon is. If you have a Baptist background, you’re not sure about this word “bishop.” And you do know something about deacons. All of these terms need to be broken down a little bit so that we can understand them.
Slide 5
First of all, we’re going to talk about Paul. I want to break this down, so we understand and get this overview of the life of Paul.
Slide 6
He was originally born with a Jewish name, the name that would have been given to him at his bris. Bris is a Jewish word, a Yiddish word that comes from the word berit.
You’re going, “It’s got an S on the end.” That’s because somewhere along the line in the Middle Ages, as Yiddish developed, when certain Hebrew words ended with a T, they pronounced it as an S.
If you’re among Eastern Europeans, they will say Shabbos instead of Shabbat, ending with a T. Any word that ended with a T, they put an S there.
The Hebrew word berit, which means “covenant,” was pronounced as beris, and it was shortened to bris. Bris comes from berit, and it means “covenant.” When a male child is eight days old, according to the Mosaic Law, he is to be circumcised, which is a sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. That shows that he has entered into the nation of Israel. He has become an Israelite, one with the Abrahamic Covenant.
And they’re given their name. His name was Saul. He’s from the tribe of Benjamin, as we will see, which was the tribe from which King Saul came. So that was a popular name among those in the tribe of Benjamin. His Greek name is PAULOS, which sounds similar to Saul, and was the name that he would have used in the Gentile community.
“From Saul to Paul: What the Bible Teaches About the Apostle Paul.” The key verses to read on this are Acts 9:1–30, which gives us the story of his conversion from one who was incredibly hostile to Christianity to his literal physical encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ and his salvation. Then in Acts 22, he recounts that.
In Philippians 3:1–6, he tells us a little bit about his background, as well as in Galatians 1:13–14. We will briefly look at the key passages from these chapters.
Slide 7
If you want to understand the life of Paul, break it down into something simple. There are four sections to Paul’s life.
- Paul’s early life, from his birth to his conversion. We don’t know a lot about it. We know that he was born and reared for the first part of his life, maybe until he was about 12, in Tarsus, which is a city in southeastern modern Turkey. That’s the first part. We don’t know a lot about it. We’ll hit a few things that he says in his Epistles.
- His conversion.
- His role as an apostle. That focuses on three missionary journeys.
- What happens on what I call “his fourth journey,” which is his trip to Rome, and then after it.
You have these four divisions in his life: birth to conversion, his conversion, his main ministry which was the three missionary journeys, and then fourth, his trip to Rome and after.
Slide 8
Here we have a map that shows his birthplace. Up here, this blue area is the Black Sea. This little thing that hangs down like a uvula is Crimea. That’s in the news a lot lately, so you can relate to what’s going on in Ukraine. The area just north of that, this blue line, is the Dnieper River. That is all modern Ukraine.
This area below the Black Sea is modern Turkey. In the ancient world in the Roman Empire, it was divided into several provinces, several areas, regions. Some of those were Roman provinces. Some of them were just historic territories. Tarsus was a major city down here in the southeastern part of Turkey. This was where the Apostle Paul was born.
Slide 9
We don’t know exactly when he was born, but we can guess that he would have had to have been born sometime between approximately AD 5 and AD 15. We can’t say for sure. There is nothing that we can really hang that on other than just a few statements about some of the circumstances of his early life.
We know his father was a Roman citizen. He was a wealthy merchant. We don’t know how he acquired his citizenship, but it was very important that he had this citizenship. And that would have been inherited by the Apostle Paul.
Paul, and his father, was likely a tent maker. Saul was given the praenomen—that’s the first name—of Saul, like we have first name, middle name, last name. His praenomen was Shaul, named for King Saul. His Greek cognomen was PAULOS. He would have gone by Shaul all of his life until about the first missionary journey. Then he begins to go by Paul.
The second thing is, if he’s born in AD 5, then he came to Jerusalem when he was about 13 or 14, and it would have been AD 19 at that time, which meant that he would have been 14 years older—so he would have been about 28 or 29—when the Crucifixion took place.
If he’s born in AD 15, then he would have arrived in AD 29, which would have been just at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
That’s always intrigued me, because here he’s showing up with this strong pharisaical background. He is in Jerusalem. He is in the most significant yeshiva. That’s a Jewish term for a rabbinical training school. And he is under Gamaliel, who was considered the greatest rabbi of that generation.
He would have arrived sometime during that decade; we can’t say exactly for sure. He would have not been ignorant of the public ministry of someone as significant as Jesus of Nazareth, Who claimed to be the Messiah.
So I have often wondered, “Was he ever in those crowds that are being talked about? What did he know and when did he know it?” We don’t know. I believe he was very much aware of who Jesus of Nazareth was.
We do know that he was sent to Jerusalem after his bar mitzvah, which would have placed him probably at the age of 13, or probably 14, to study under Gamaliel. There is some indication, some rumors, some speculation that he wrote segments of the Talmud, but that later his name was removed. There are indications that there was some well-known rabbi from Jerusalem who went rogue, and that his name is expunged from the records. We don’t know how much credence to put on that.
Slide 10
We do know that Paul had a sister who lived in Jerusalem, and that is who he would have lived with when he was sent to Jerusalem. Acts 23:16 refers to his sister. Most of us don’t think about Paul as having a sibling. We know he had at least one sibling, and that was his sister.
Slide 11
Here are some photos, showing some of the archaeological remains of Tarsus. This is a Roman road that is more than 20 feet wide, and it dates from the early 1st century BC. It’s made of black basalt with gutters of white limestone. The buildings which flank the thoroughfare also date from this period, so it would have been standing when the Apostle Paul lived there.
Slide 12
There is a gate in Tarsus called “Cleopatra’s Gate” that was built in the first century—we don’t know exactly when—and named for Cleopatra. She sailed into Tarsus to begin her romantic affair with Mark Antony. So this gate later, in memory of their clandestine meeting here, was named for Cleopatra.
Slide 13
This well is identified and called “St. Paul’s Well” and believed to mark the birthplace of the Apostle Paul.
Slide 14
There is a statement made by Joseph Klausner in his book From Jesus to Paul that came out in 1944, about the Apostle Paul and a possible reference to him in the Talmud.
He said, “It has indeed been thought that an unnamed pupil of Gamaliel who manifested ‘impudence in matters of learning’ and tried to refute his master was no other than Paul. If this is so (and it is quite uncertain), then the tradition reflects disapproval of Paul’s later departure from the rabbinical path; it preserves no reminiscence of Paul’s actual behavior while he sat at Gamaliel’s feet. But in one respect Paul did deviate from his master’s example: he repudiated the idea that a temporizing policy was the proper one to adopt towards the disciples …”
I’ve heard different references from different parts of the Talmud that seem to suggest this impudent disciple of Gamaliel who is quite brilliant and brought shame on the school of Gamaliel. There is speculation that was Paul, but we can’t really know.
Slide 15
We look at Paul’s early life from birth to conversion. We look at a couple of key passages that give us an idea of his background. In Philippians 3, we’ll look at this because his basic statement in Philippians 3:1–6 is that he is going to argue against any kind of works-based or ritual-based righteousness.
He uses himself as an example. He says, “I’m one who, if anybody had confidence that they had achieved righteousness in this life, it would have been me.”
He says, “… though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so ...” He had “checked all the boxes more than anybody else” is what he is saying.
He was “circumcised on the eighth day.” That’s when he would have entered into the Abrahamic Covenant.
“… of the stock of Israel …” According to the Pharisees, nobody is going to get to Heaven unless you are an Israelite.
“… of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee ...” One of the interesting things about Pharisees is, Pharisees were probably the closest to an accurate understanding of the Old Testament of any of the religious groups in Israel before Jesus came.
They were the conservatives. They believed in angels. They believed in miracles. They believed that Moses was given the law by God. They believed in Resurrection. They were hard workers.
They were mostly what today we would refer to as tradesmen or blue-collar workers. That’s what Paul is: a tent maker. Every Pharisee had to have a trade and work the trade to support himself. They had a high view of the importance of personal responsibility and labor and taking care of themselves. And then on the side, they would study the law.
So, he is a Pharisee. When he says, “concerning the law, a Pharisee,” the Pharisees had a high view of the Mosaic Law. They had a high view of the inspiration of the Law by God.
Their weakness was, they believed there were two laws. That there was on the one hand, a written law, which is what God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. But then, God also revealed to him an oral law on Mount Sinai. That oral law had been passed down from Moses via the prophet from one generation to another. That’s what the Pharisees believed was just as authoritative as the written law.
A lot of times when you read through the Gospels, you’ll read where Jesus says, “You have heard it said … but I say …” When he says, “You have heard it said,” He’s talking about the traditions.
Often, He’ll use the phrase “the traditions of men” or “the traditions of your fathers.” That’s a reference to the oral law. What Jesus does is, He takes them back to the written law and interprets the written law of Moses.
So, he is a Pharisee. He would be a conservative believer in the written law plus the oral law.
He says in Philippians 3:6, “… concerning zeal, persecuting the church …” He was hostile from the get-go to Christianity because he believed it was a perversion of the written and the oral law.
Remember in Matthew when you see the conflicts with the Pharisees. The reason they rejected Jesus is, He rejected their definition of righteousness. That goes back to the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus rejected their view of righteousness, that it was a view of righteousness that was produced by one’s own obedience to the law.
This is what Paul is referring to in the second part of Philippians 3:6. He says, “... concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” He has followed all of the pharisaical regulations on how to apply the law. So, this gives him his righteousness, that he can check off all these different boxes.
That would distinguish him also from the Jews who lived in the Diaspora because they freely adopted the ways of the Greeks. They were Hellenized—that’s the term that was used there.
He is saying that he has observed all of the traditions of the fathers. He has not become influenced by the Greek culture, and he is obedient completely to the Mosaic Law and to the oral law.
Slide 16
In Galatians 1:13 he says, “For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” How did he try to destroy it? We’ll see that in other passages. He said he was involved in the murder and the execution of numerous Christians.
Galatians 1:14 says, “… I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation ...” He is the valedictorian of his class. He is the most promising future rabbi in Israel.
He was “more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” See that phrase? That’s not referring to the Mosaic Law. That’s referring to the oral law.
Slide 17
In Acts 22:4, he said, “I persecuted this Way to the death ...” He is stating that he pursued Christians to the point of their death, their torture perhaps, and also being jailed.
The law would not have allowed for certain kinds of torture, but it would have allowed for whipping, flagellation of 39 lashes, because the law said, “no more than 40.” So, they always stopped at 39, in case they miscounted.
He was “binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.”
Slide 18
In Acts 7:58, “… they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”
Acts 7 takes us back to Stephen in Jerusalem, one of the first ones chosen to serve the church in the ministry to the Hellenic Jewish widows. If you remember the story, they were not being taken care of properly because it was just too much for the apostles to do everything. So, the apostles decided they would choose these assistants. They chose six of them, based on the fact that they were spiritually mature, they understood the Word.
Stephen was one of them. Due to his effectiveness, the Pharisees were going to arrest him. He gave a fire-and-brimstone sermon in Acts 7, tracing the history of the Jewish people rejecting and killing the prophets in the Old Testament.
It convicts them so much that instead of responding in faith, they start picking up stones to stone him. Acts 7:58 and following describes that: “… they—the Pharisees—cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.”
The witnesses would be the first ones to pick up the stones to stone him. In order to be able to throw accurately, they took off their outer robes, and Saul was the one who was watching their clothes.
Acts 7:59–60, “And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, received my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not charge them with this sin.’ And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
That doesn’t mean he went into soul-sleep. “Asleep” is a euphemism used only for believers. When they die, it is referred to euphemistically as “they have fallen asleep,” awaiting for the resurrection. But what is important for our study is, Saul was consenting to his death.
See in Acts 7:58 it says, “the feet of a young man named Saul.” In our culture, what’s a young man? Probably someone in their teens or maybe early twenties. Not so in a Jewish culture.
In a Jewish culture, a young man was between 24 and 40. So that is going to give us a time marker for Paul. He’s about 24 at this particular time, which is probably around AD 34, which would put his birth close to AD 10. He’s not going to be any younger than that.
Slide 19
In Acts 22:5, he is rehearsing his testimony. He says, “… as also the high priest—he’s witnessing here, standing before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem—as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren ...”
In other words, these were letters of commission. He was commissioned by the Sanhedrin back in early Acts 9 to go to Damascus to arrest these Jews who had become Christians and bring them back. This is what he is recounting. “… and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.”
He says in Acts 26:9–10, “Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.” So, he’s involved in executing untold dozens, maybe hundreds, of Christians.
Slide 20
So, what have we learned about Paul in his early life before his conversion?
1. He’s born into a strict Pharisee household, observing the Law of Moses as well as the oral law. He had at least one sibling, a sister.
2. We learn that his father had somehow acquired Roman citizenship, which Paul then inherited from his father.
3. He was arguably the most brilliant yeshiva student of his generation, and extremely hostile to the threat of Christianity.
4. His mission was to pursue Christians to persecute and execute them.
This is what we know of Paul prior to his conversion. The only real episode that we see is the episode with Stephen.
Slide 21
Now we come to the second part. The first part is Paul from his birth to conversion. Now we look at his conversion with two different depictions here of his conversion. You can see the horse here, and then, the horse is not in this picture. This is a Gustave Dore imprint that was in many Bibles for many years.
Slide 22
In Acts 9 we read the episode. “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ” And who is he persecuting? He’s persecuting the body of Christ. So, he’s persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ Who is speaking to him.
In Acts 9:5, “And he—Paul—said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ ” A goad is something that you use like a sharp stick to prod animals to move along.
He is ignoring all of these pricks against his conscience throughout all of this time period, and he keeps ignoring them and hardening his heart. And Jesus is saying, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” So internally, he’s already having serious conflicts within himself over what he is doing.
I made this point before, up until this point, two minutes before the Lord appeared to him, you and I would probably write him off as, “If anybody is going to get saved, it is not going to be him. He is in negative volition. He is never going to be positive. He hates Christians. Paul or Saul is never going to become a Christian.”
We have to take a lesson from that, because we may know people who are that way. We will not know until they are dead, when they are absent from the body and they are dead, that they will reject Jesus. Because any time up to the time they die, they may turn and trust the Lord. There are a lot of deathbed conversions that are just like that.
Acts 9:6, “So he,—Paul—trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do you want me to do?’ ” What’s interesting here is, the voice of God is self-authenticating. That means when God speaks, we listen because we know—there is something within us—that God is talking. And we do not question that authority.
That is true even with the Scriptures. There are manner of atheists and those who reject Christianity, reject the Bible. But they know—that is what Romans 1 talks about, that they know from the external evidence, the nonverbal witness, as well as internally, because they know within them, Paul says—that God exists. And they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
That is what Paul had been doing. Now he immediately responds. When he hears the voice of Jesus, he knows Who it is. He has already trusted in Christ in that instant. It just takes an instant. And his response “Lord, what do you want me to do?” indicates that, because he is submitting himself to the authority of Christ.
Now, this is not lordship salvation. Those who hold to lordship salvation go to Acts 9:6 and say, “He says ‘Lord,’ so he recognizes the lordship of Christ, and that is part of his salvation.”
The word “Lord” often was just a way of being polite toward somebody in authority and saying “sir,” as what we would say in English. This is not part of his gospel understanding. It is a result of the fact that he has already trusted Christ, and now he recognizes the authority of Jesus in his life. But it is not that he has to accept the lordship of Christ in order to be saved.
Slide 23
Here’s a map from the ESV Study Bible that shows the diagram of what has happened. Down in the lower part, you have Jerusalem, where he is commissioned by the Sanhedrin to go arrest Jewish believers. At this point the church has not expanded to Gentiles, but he goes to Damascus.
From roughly about where number 4 is, up to Damascus, is about 40 miles. So that is probably 120 to 140 miles from Jerusalem up to Damascus. At number 1, according to what they state on the side, Jesus appeared to him, and that is along the way. I think it probably was much closer to Damascus.
According to the ESV note, Galatians 1:17 makes it clear that soon after this, Paul spent time in Arabia, and that is number 2.
He goes to Damascus, where his sight is restored by Ananias. Then he leaves, and he goes into Arabia, which would be roughly everything to the east of Damascus and to the south, where he spends some time rethinking his theology. Then he returns back to Damascus, and then goes down to Jerusalem, where he meets the church leaders in Jerusalem (number 4). This would be Peter and the other apostles.
Then number 5 is, when some believers learned of a plot to kill Paul in Jerusalem, they took him to Caesarea—this should be number 5, but they don’t put a label there—and he returned to his hometown of Tarsus.
So basically: he is on his way to Damascus. The Lord appears to him on the way. He goes into Damascus. He is healed, his sight restored. He goes to Arabia for an unstated amount of time, rethinks his theology, comes back, goes back down to Jerusalem, meets with the church leaders. And then there is a hostile reaction, and he goes to Caesarea and then eventually back to Tarsus.
Slide 24
At the time of the Lord’s confronting him in Acts 9, this is Ananias (who) has been commissioned to go heal Paul, and he doesn’t want to do it. Acts 9:15, “But the Lord said to him, ‘Go for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.’ ”
He is commissioned to take the gospel to three groups.
- To Gentiles. It’s amazing how many people say, “Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles,” which is stated elsewhere. And they’ll stop right here. See? “To take the Lord’s name to the Gentiles …”
- Kings. That’s the second group.
- What’s the third group? The children of Israel.
I’ve heard people say, “Paul was wrong in going to the Jew first and then to the Greeks because he is the apostle to the Gentiles.” But according to what Jesus says here, he’s to go to “Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”
Slide 25
Later in Acts 22 when he is giving his defense before the Sanhedrin, he said that his response, when the Lord appeared to him, was, “‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do.’ ”
“Then he said, ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One and hear the voice of his mouth. For you will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.’ ”
The Just One (or the Righteous One). That gets its title from Isaiah 53:11–12. That is a reference to the Messiah.
This is Paul’s commissioning. He is going to be sent to Gentiles, kings, and Jews, and he is to take the will of God and be a “witness to all men—not just Gentiles, all men—of what you have seen and heard.”
Slide 26
In Acts 26, he is giving another defense before the king, and he says when Jesus appeared to him, “So I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes …’”
When He says, “to whom I now send you,” I would bet that is a plural. I would have to look at that in the Greek. He is sent to both Jews and Gentiles.
“‘… to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
Slide 27
What Paul realizes, he states in Philippians 3:8–9. Remember, we started with his attempts to gain righteousness on his own in Philippians 3:4–7.
Now he says, “… that I may gain Christ—that is his shift—and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith ...”
This is one of the greatest sections of Scripture explaining imputation of righteousness, and why we are saved by the righteousness that we are given. When we trust in Christ, we are given Christ’s righteousness, and that is the basis for our salvation.
Slide 28
What we have learned:
5. The risen Christ appeared to him on the way to Damascus. He believed in Jesus as the crucified, risen Messiah, and was commissioned by Jesus Christ as an apostle.
Specifically, he was commissioned to take the gospel to the Gentiles, proclaiming the new entity, the Church, the body of Christ, composed of Jew and Gentiles together as one.
That is referred to as the mystery doctrine. It was not revealed in the Old Testament.
Slide 29
That brings us to the third point. First point, looking at Paul from his birth to his conversion. Second is his conversion. Third is the main part of his ministry, which are these three missionary journeys from April of AD 48 until May of AD 57. This is roughly nine years for those three missionary journeys.
- In the first missionary journey, he went to Crete and then to southern Turkey, and then back to Antioch. And he wrote one Epistle: Galatians. First trip, one Epistle: Galatians.
- Then you have the second missionary journey. He revisits the areas in Turkey where he had visited the first time: Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe, where he had started churches. Then he tried to go into Asia and into Bithynia, but he couldn’t. The Holy Spirit is directing them to Troas.
They will cross over—we studied this in the background—they will cross over to Neapolis, the seaport by Philippi. That is where they will have their first planting of a church in Philippi. Then they will go through the rest of Greece and Achaia, and down to Corinth on that second missionary journey. And write two Epistles.
First journey, how many Epistles? One: Galatians. Second journey, how many? Two: 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
- Third journey, he is going to write three after the third journey. It is really easy to remember that way. He retraces his visit to Greece in the spring of AD 53 to May of AD 57, and then he writes 1 Corinthians, then 2 Corinthians, and then Romans.
Then he will go back to Rome, but that is what the fourth point is about.
Slides 30 and 31
The first journey is depicted here. (He) leaves Antioch, goes to Cyprus: Salamis and Paphos. Then it is Paul and Barnabas, and the young nephew of Barnabas, John Mark. They go up into the mainland, but John Mark is apparently whining, and it is too tough a journey for him. So they send him home. That is this dot and dashed red line. He is sent back to Jerusalem.
Then he and Barnabas go up to Antioch, which is in the region of Pisidia, so it is called Pisidian Antioch. They plant churches at Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, retrace their steps, and then they go back to Perga, and then back to Antioch. That’s the first journey.
Slide 32
On the second journey, they will leave Antioch, go by foot through the Cilician Gates into Cilicia, then across, and retrace steps in Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, where they pick up Timothy, going to Antioch and Pisidia. Then they are trying to go either into Asia or Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit prevents them. They end up in Troas.
They go across to Neapolis, the seaport, and plant a church in Philippi. Then in Thessalonica, Berea, down to Athens, and then to Corinth. Then they go back to Ephesus, and then back to Jerusalem. That is the second missionary journey.
Slide 33
The third missionary journey: they go from Antioch again, retrace their steps through Cilicia and southern Galatia. Then instead of going north and west, they go across Asia to Ephesus.
Then he will eventually go up to Troas, retrace the steps to the churches that he planted in Macedonia, and then go south again to Athens and Corinth, and retrace their steps. Then they finally head back to Jerusalem. That is his third missionary journey.
Slide 34
The fourth division is Rome and beyond. We looked at
- his birth to conversion
- his conversion
- the three missionary journeys
- Rome and beyond
He had gone to Jerusalem. There he was arrested, actually for his own protection. The Jews saw Paul, recognized him, and there was a riot. They were going to kill him. And the Roman soldiers arrested him to protect him. He was kept under arrest for two years.
Finally, he appealed to Caesar in Rome. He leaves by ship, headed for Rome. There is a shipwreck. Eventually he makes it to Rome, where he will be under house arrest for a couple of years. Those are called the prison Epistles. He writes four.
First missionary journey, he writes one: Galatians. Second missionary journey, he writes two: 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Third missionary journey, he writes three: 1 and 2 Corinthians and Romans.
Fourth journey is not called a missionary journey, but it was. Fourth journey, he writes the four prison Epistles: Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians, which is what we are studying.
He is released from prison. Liberal theologians do not think he is released—that is a whole other subject—but most conservatives believe that he was released. Then he will make his journey to Spain, probably to England and to France, visiting many parts of Europe, revisit Crete, Ephesus, Macedonia, Troas, Nicopolis. He writes 1 Timothy and Titus at this time.
Then he is arrested again, goes back to Rome from AD 65 to 67. He is found guilty. He is decapitated under Nero. But before he died, he wrote 2 Timothy. That closes out what he has written.
Slide 35
We have looked at the Apostle Paul under these four categories: his birth to conversion, his conversion, his main ministry—the three missionary journeys, and then from Jerusalem to Rome and after. Those are the four divisions.
The second person that is mentioned in the salutation is Timothy. It is interesting. Why does he mention Timothy?
Slide 36
The first reason is probably because Timothy was with him when he first went to Philippi and founded and established the church that is there.
This was described in Acts 16:1–3. He had picked up Timothy as he returned on that beginning of the second journey to Derby and Lystra, and picked up Timothy, who was of good reputation, who had trusted in the Messiah during the first missionary journey. That is the first reason.
Slide 37
- Timothy is mentioned here not because he wrote the Epistle or was an amanuensis—which is a term for a secretary, someone who would take the dictation—because throughout the Epistle, it is written in the first person.
You can just look down to Philippians 1:3, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” He says in Philippians 1:7, “… I have you in my heart …” Philippians 1:8, “For God is my witness …” Philippians 1:9, “And this I pray …”
All the way through this, it is Paul writing from the first-person singular. - He mentions Timothy because Timothy had been with him, as we just saw, on his first journey to Philippi, when he established the church.
- He is with Paul as Paul writes the Epistle to the Philippians. He is including Timothy because he is with him at that point.
- He mentions Timothy because he is well-known to the Philippians, because he had been there on two previous occasions.
- Paul is about to send Timothy to Philippi.
- He wants them to understand that by including Timothy in the salutation, he is putting his seal of approval on Timothy and indicating that Timothy agrees with everything that Paul is writing in the Epistle, so that when Timothy arrives, they can recognize him as a messenger from Paul himself.
That takes us through the first three words of Philippians 1:1. Things will go a little faster after that. But I think it is important for people, who are looking at this study for the first time or do not know a lot about the Bible, to know who these people are and why they are so important.
Next time, we will come back and look at the rest of the salutation, and then probably start to get into the prayer, where we will talk a little bit about the nature of prayer and the importance of prayer.
Closing Prayer
“Father, we thank You for this opportunity to study Your Word, to be reminded of Your grace as we study the life of Paul. We see the life of Timothy, who accompanied Paul, to whom two Epistles were addressed, and who had a tremendous impact on that congregation in Ephesus.
“Father, we pray for us that we might recognize that Your Word is alive and powerful. It is Your Word that changes people’s lives and changes people’s thinking. And that we need to hide Your Word in our hearts. We need to think biblically and not culturally. And we pray that you would challenge us to do that. In Christ’s name, Amen.”