What significance did the Apostle Paul play in Christianity?

Question

What did he do? Did he kill many Christians in his lifetime? I know that he was one of the only Jews in history to eventually come to accept Jesus.

Answer 1

Yes before he was converted to christianity in the bible he killed hundreds if not thousands of christians but when jesus saved him he became arguablly jesus most important disciple he he was with him all throughout the bile after that he was at or involved in every one of jesus miracles or interactions with roman government

Answer 2

He played a significant role in the early church. Yes, he persecuted many Christians and was present at the stoning of Stephen. Following his conversion, after an encounter with Jesus, Paul went on to preach the gospel to all who would have ears to hear.
As far as being one of the only Jews in history to eventually come to accept Jesus, I believe you are mistaken. There were/are thousands of Jews to recognize and accept Jesus as the Messiah. God Bless.

Answer 3

After the 4 gospel books -Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, Paul was the most important New Testament figure teaching about Jesus. He was formerly called Saul and was one of the leading persecuters of Christians and cheered on when St Stephen was stoned to death and martyred. Then one day on the road to Damascus Jesus appeared to him as a bright light that blinded him. He asked him why he was persecuting Jesus. After that, He recieved his sight back and became one of the biggest Prophets to ever live. He and his fellow apostles did countless miracles in the name of Jesus and never asked for fame or fortune. He was humble. His books are so interesting. His teachings about love and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are awesome in Corinthians.

Answer 4

Some people have suggested that "Jesus Christ" is a fiction, created by Paul, and advance as part of their argument the lack of referrence to Jesus in the contemporary record. While I agree that Paul's "Jesus" is fictionalized, I think that, all things considered, there is a factual person behind his fantasies -- Yeshua. Paul wasnt an idiot. If he had wanted to invent a god-man out of whole cloth, he would have done a much better job; coming up with something that had much more appeal to his Hellenistic and Roman audiences; somehow, a failed Jewish rebel doesnt cut it -- a point that Paul himself wasnt unaware of. That said, the "Jesus Christ" god-man he foisted on a gullible ancient world is certainly a pastiche, and only tenuously connected to Yeshua. He knew little, if anything about Yeshua, and probably only knew the Talmidin as adversaries. As Rabbi Samuel Sandmel said, Paul only quotes Yeshua once, and manages to get that wrong -- that doesn't speak to great familiarity. But overall, one is left with the feeling that there was a real Yeshua, with followers convinced of his rightousness, and that Paul wanted to take over this movement for his own purposes.

Answer 5

He did kill many Christians in his life and was on his way to arrest more to be persecuted when he saw an image of Jesus asking why he is persecuting him. The book of Acts talks about his conversion.

Paul played a huge role in bringing the message of Jesus to the Gentiles:

"But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, (Gal 1:15-17)"

The first Christian Council, the Council of Jerusalem, asked the question of whether Gentiles should be circumsized. Paul was against this and made an important case at that council. Read it in Acts 15.

An interesting commentary on Paul brought about the idea that he was probably supposed to be the 12th Apostle. Since Judas killed himself, there were only 11. In Acts 1, Matthias was chosen to be the 12th Apostle by simply casting lots. But we never hear anything about him again. Tradition offers only a handful of stories of what happened to him. So is it possible that the Christians jumped too soon to wait for their 12th Apostle? Could it be that Paul SHOULD have been that Apostle? (Just an interesting angle to take if you run out of things to say in your paper if this is for a homework assignment)

Matt

Answer 6

Wrong one your last count buddy.

I'm going to give you the answer from a early-christianity historians perspective rather than a theological perspective.

By the way i'm giving you my dates without checking them up, i know that's unprofessional but i learnt all this stuff many years ago, they are all 'about' right, give or take a little.

Take it or leave it :)

Paul brought christianity to the Gentiles.

Paul was a young pup or not quite born around the time that Jesus was crucified. As a teen and a young man he worked for the Pharisees to persecute Christians and other 'heretics'. After Jesus died, all of his followers, just about, were Jewish.

Christianity didn't become absorbed into the Roman, Gentile population until 60AD. You see, in 60ad, the Romans got fed up with the Jews, they stormed into jerusalem, they burnt the temple down and they kicked the Jews out of Jerusalem, Jews and Jewish Christians became dispersed, they fled to the middle east (introducing the pagan tribes there to judaism, and monotheism, which would, in centuries to come lead to the establishment of Islam) and the also were absorbed into the wider roman populace, whilst the roman populace moved into Judea. It was really this point that Gentile Christians started to emerge, at their peak, before the huge persectutions in the early 300's, Gentile Christians were at most about 10 percent of the roman pop- we can attest to this archaelogically, looking at graves and relics.

Christianity was, at first, distinctly Jewish, if you actually read Paul's letters, which feature at about 80-100ad, you can see that he was trying to reconcile gentile Christians and Jewish Christians, and also was concerned with reforming Jewish christianity into a more suitable religion for the wider roman world, He was universalizing the movement.

It is Paul that decides that Christians no longer have to keep the sabbath or circumcise, (try telling your roman pagan boss you need every saturday off and your wife why you chopped the head of your penis off) he softens the jewish aspects of christianity and allows more gentile aspects.

Even so, christianity did not become popular (over 10 percent of the pop) until after Constantine made it a state religion in the mid-4th Century. This is why there are no Jewish Christians today! Jewish Christians were at first a persecuted minority in Judea, then a tolerated minority in the middle east, until Gentile Christianity and Islam rose and more or less sandwiched their communities- whilst Gentile Christianity emerged as a state sanctioned, Imperial religion- easy to see who would win out and who would die out.

You will also find if you look at Jewish christian groups- a great example is the Essenes who left us the dead sea scrolls and see there are big differences in their beliefs. Jewish Christianity believed that Jesus was the Messiah, if you read the Gospel of Matthew, that is accepted as the oldest gospel and one that came out of a jewish christian community. You will see that Jesus is seen as more human, as the messiah, rather than as the son of a god- this is a more gentile perspective. They also revered Mary Magdalene as a teacher and recognised her partnership with their Messiah, and did not abhor her or see her as a prostitute.

So what did Paul do for Gentile Christianity? He had a role that could be said to be even more significant than the religions lead figure.

Answer 7

Paul, as Saul, was a Pharisee, well taught in the Jewish Scriptures. There is no record of him killing believers, he would arrest them and take them to the Jewish authorities. His life changed drastically on the road to Damascus. He heard the words of Christ, was converted and spent three years learning from Christ in the desert. He was the apostle to the Gentiles, and wrote most of the letters in the New Testament. He proclaimed salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ. He also taught the election of believers and the absolute sovereignty of God. Most of the early Church were Jews. His teachings are entirely consistent with Christ's teachings and the teachings of the other apostles.

Answer 8

Paul became into in charge for making Christianity greater obtainable to Gentiles who did no longer decide to would desire to transform to Judaism just to develop into Christian. He converted Christianity from a small Judaic sect to a faith in its very own top. Paul's theology is likewise closer to three Protestant teachings than the "Catholic" viewpoints interior the e book of Acts. So dissimilar Protestants, of various denominations, have a tendency to handle Paul with the aid of fact the proper early Christian. although, Paul's teachings often contradict those of the Twelve. to illustrate, study Ephesians 2:8-9 to James 2:14-26.

Answer 9

St. Paul started out as a zealous persecutor of Christians, but, was converted after encountering the Risen Saviour on the road to Damascus.

Ever after that, he was an exceptional preacher of the Gospel & was counted as one of the 12 Apostles.

Answer 10

Before Paul's conversion he persecuted and killed many Christians, including Stephen.

After Paul's conversion he was the engine room of the early Christian church, helping to spread the gospel to Israel, the Middle East and South-Eastern Europe.