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Paul the Apostle

Feast: 06-29 First century

He was blameless under the law. And Christ said, “I counted it all as loss.”

Paul was born Saul in Tarsus, a citizen of Rome and a Hebrew of Hebrews. He was circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel in Jerusalem. As to righteousness under the law, he was blameless.

And he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

Paul did not persecute the church out of ignorance or moral failure. He persecuted it out of zeal for God’s law. He believed he was defending divine truth. When Stephen was stoned for blasphemy, Saul approved. When Christians were dragged to prison, Saul led the raids. He was not conflicted. He was confident, violent, and sure he was right.

Then, on the road to Damascus, a light from heaven struck him down.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

“Who are you, Lord?”

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

Three days blind. Three days fasting. Three days in darkness, the zealot realizing that everything he thought was righteous—defending God’s honor by destroying heretics—was the very thing Christ called persecution.

Saul the persecutor became Paul the apostle. But this was not a moral upgrade. It was a cognitive reversal.

What Paul thought was righteousness—his perfect law-keeping, his zeal for tradition, his violence against blasphemers—was revealed as sin. What he thought was blasphemy—a crucified Messiah—was revealed as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

The problem wasn’t that Saul was immoral. The problem was that Saul was blameless.

Paul’s entire theology flows from this: if the man who kept the law perfectly still needed grace, then no one is justified by works of the law. Righteousness must come from somewhere else. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” This is not a secondary doctrine for Paul. This is the gospel he received on the Damascus road.

Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles—the Jews’ historic enemies, the uncircumcised, the unclean. The Pharisee who had defended Jewish purity now preached that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

He planted churches across the Roman Empire: Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Thessalonica. He wrote letters that became half the New Testament. He argued with Peter, confronted false teachers, defended the gospel against those who wanted to add circumcision and law-keeping to faith.

And he suffered. Five times he received forty lashes minus one. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned. Three times he was shipwrecked. He endured danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from his own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea.

And when he asked God three times to remove the “thorn in the flesh”—some unspecified suffering that tormented him—God said no.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s refusal became the center of Paul’s theology. He didn’t become strong. He discovered that weakness is the place where Christ’s power rests. “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Paul’s authority as an apostle came not from the Twelve—he never walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry—but from direct revelation. “The gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

His letters are not systematic theology. They are occasional writings—responses to specific problems in specific churches. But through them, a consistent vision emerges:

Justification by faith: No one is made right with God by keeping the law. Righteousness comes through faith in Christ, who died for the ungodly.

The foolishness of the cross: God’s wisdom contradicts human wisdom. What looks like weakness (a crucified Messiah) is the power of God. What looks like foolishness (grace for sinners) is the wisdom of God.

In Christ: Paul’s mystical language—“in Christ” appears over 165 times in his letters. The Christian life is not imitation but participation. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

One body: The divisions that matter to the world—ethnicity, social status, gender—are demolished in Christ. The Church is one body, with Christ as the head.

Suffering as participation: Paul’s sufferings were not punishment but participation in Christ’s sufferings. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Paul was arrested in Jerusalem after his final missionary journey. Riots broke out when he entered the temple. He spent two years imprisoned in Caesarea under the Roman governors Felix and Festus. He appealed to Caesar—his right as a Roman citizen—and was sent to Rome.

The ship was wrecked off the coast of Malta. Paul survived and finally reached Rome, where he spent two years under house arrest, preaching and writing letters.

Tradition holds that he was beheaded in Rome under Nero’s persecution, around 64–67 AD. His final letter, written from prison, ends: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

The man who had breathed threats and murder died confident in the grace he had once opposed.

What God Did

God took a man who was blameless under the law and revealed that his righteousness was not insufficient—it was actively sinful when it led him to persecute Christ’s body, the Church.

The Damascus road was not a moral intervention. It was a cognitive reversal. What Saul thought was true—that righteousness comes from keeping the law—was revealed as false. What he thought was blasphemy—a crucified Messiah—was revealed as the power and wisdom of God.

God transformed Paul’s zeal, not by suppressing it but by redirecting it. The violence became mission. The confidence in the law became confidence in Christ alone. The persecutor became the apostle who wrote, “I am the foremost of sinners.”

God’s answer to Paul’s thorn in the flesh—“My grace is sufficient for you”—became the theological center. Paul didn’t overcome weakness. He discovered that weakness is where Christ’s power is made perfect.

The result: A theology that insists righteousness comes by faith, not works. That the cross is wisdom, not foolishness. That suffering is participation in Christ, not abandonment by God. That the Church is one body, where ethnic and social divisions are demolished in Christ.

Paul’s teaching is not abstract doctrine. It is the Damascus reversal articulated as gospel. What God did to Paul became what Paul preached about Christ: grace for the ungodly, power made perfect in weakness, the foolishness of the cross revealed as the wisdom of God.

Walk With This Saint

Practices suggested by his life:

Dispositions he models:

He is especially helpful for:

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, You struck Saul down on the Damascus road and revealed that what he thought was righteousness was persecution.

The man who was blameless under the law discovered he was the foremost of sinners. The man who defended your honor was attacking your body, the Church.

You did not erase his past. You transformed his zeal. The violence became mission. The threats became prayers.

When Paul asked you three times to remove the thorn in his flesh, you said no. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

When I trust in my own righteousness, show me it is loss. When I boast in my strength, teach me to boast in weakness. When I am blameless and still empty, remind me that justification comes by faith, not works of the law.

Through the intercession of Paul, who counted everything as loss for the sake of knowing you— let me find my righteousness in you alone, not in what I have done but in what you have accomplished.

When you say no to my prayers, let me trust that your grace is sufficient. When I am weak, let your power rest upon me.

Amen.

From His Own Hand

“I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” — 1 Corinthians 15:9

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” — Acts 9:4-6

“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” — Romans 3:28

“Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” — Galatians 2:16

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” — 1 Corinthians 1:18

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” — 1 Corinthians 1:22-25

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” — 1 Corinthians 13:1

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” — Galatians 2:20

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17

“As to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” — Philippians 3:6-8

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” — Philippians 2:5-8

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” — Romans 8:18

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” — Galatians 3:28

“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” — 2 Timothy 4:6-7

Sources

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