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By Root 1307 0

God, the “Most High,” did not live in houses made by human hands. Stephen was taken out to be stoned by a mob. But with his dying words, Stephen forgave his executioners. The death of Stephen sparked a round of persecution of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem and sent many of them fleeing to surrounding cities in Syria, where the early church began to flourish. It was in pursuit of the followers of Jesus, now called “the Way,” in cities like Damascus, that a zealous Pharisee named Saul was sent to seek out and arrest more of these “renegade” Jews.

BIBLICAL VOICES

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any that belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:1-4)

Barnabas then left for Tarsus to look for Saul and when he found him he brought him to Antioch. And it happened that they stayed together in that church a whole year, instructing a large number of people. It was at Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.” (Acts 11:25-26 NJB)

Was the apostle Paul a chauvinist, woman-hating homophobe?

For most Christians, Jesus is the centerpiece, the single figure to whom they owe devotion and faith. Even if they are confused by some of the things Jesus said and did, they basically believe in his life, death, and resurrection and his vision of the Kingdom of God.

Somewhat more controversial, especially in recent times, is the figure of Paul. Whether you call him the apostle or Saint Paul, this man with “meeting eyebrows and a rather large nose, bald-headed, bow-legged, strongly built, full of grace” was largely responsible for creating the Christian church. But in setting out many of the rules for Christian worship and life, Paul also stated views that, especially in a modern context, are hard for some Christians to accept. In particular, his views on women, sex, and his fellow Jews have come in for scrutiny.

Paul is introduced in Acts as Saul, named for the ancient Israelite king, who watches the coats of the crowd who stoned Stephen. A Pharisee from Tarsus in Asia Minor, the young Saul went to Jerusalem to learn from the esteemed rabbi Gamaliel, grandson of the legendary rabbi Hillel, the most prominent Pharisaic rabbi of the first century. Given authority by the high priest to arrest followers of the Way in Damascus for blasphemy, Saul experienced a transforming vision that brought about a dramatic change of heart, accompanied by the change in name. He took on the Latinized Paul. Baptized, Paul began to preach the gospel of Jesus, becoming the target of persecution by the Jewish religious authorities himself. In Damascus, he had to be lowered by basket from a window to escape the authorities sent to arrest or even kill him.

Because he had been such a vigorous enemy of the early Christians, Paul was not immediately accepted by the other Christians in Jerusalem. But he was clearly an ardent preacher, and wherever the church leaders sent him to preach he had success. Almost immediately, however, a conflict emerged between Paul and the members of the Way who believed that Gentile converts must obey Jewish Law. At a council in Jerusalem in 49 CE, the apostles and church “elders” agreed that Gentiles need not be circumcised or obey dietary law in order to become Christians. Peter himself had already expanded the mission to Gentiles when he told of a dream in which a sheet filled with “unclean” animals comes down from heaven. A voice told him to kill and eat. The voice tells Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Once this issue is settled, with Jesus’ brother James weighing in in favor of a compromise that opens the way for Gentiles to be converted, Paul is sent back to Antioch to continue spreading the word.

If only Paul