Why did the Apostle Paul refer to himself as ????

Question

an apostle in some of his letters and as a bond servant in others? What is the difference?

I believe he wanted his readers to appreciate his authority as an apostle; therefore, he used his conversion experience of encountering Christ to that effect.

Later, as he matured (don't forget he was in training for 14 to 18 years - trained specifically by the Holy Spirit) - then, he wrote as a 'bond servant'.

Maranantha

Answer 1

Paul was attributed as being the apostle for the gentiles. He was not with Christ when Christ walked the earth. In fact, he was making great progress climbing the ladder of success within the Jewish faith. His job was to hunt down Christian Jews so they could be put to death. It as only after Jesus appeared to him, blinding him in the process, then asked him why he was persecuting His people that Paul began to understand that he was really screwing up in the God business. Because Jesus came to him and selected him to give the news to the gentiles so they could become the adopted children of God, then Paul was an apostles as opposed to a disciple which would be someone just learning the word or discipline of the faith.

A bond servant is someone that is bound to service without being compensated. So Paul was a bond servant because he took up the Great Commission to spread the news of salvation through the acceptance of Christ as the Messiah. He had no worldly gain to achieve; in fact, it cost him his life.

Answer 2

Luke 22:30 That ye could devour and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit down on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. There are 11 tribes with 2 a million/2 tribes of Joseph for a entire of 13 tribes of Israel to be judged. If Paul wasn't a real apostle then who could decide the thirteenth?

Answer 3

Well, you might be right in your conclusion, I would have to check whether all the bond servant references were made later than the apostle ones.

But the concept of a bond servant is very interesting. It was one who was a slave, and was given his freedom, but because he loved his master chose to stay and continue serving him.

Think of Saul, a Pharisee bound by the letter of the law. Then he is saved, and given freedom from that, but most likely still felt somewhat indebted because of his past sin. As he matured, it is also likely that less and less did he serve from guilt, and more and more from love. Calling himself a bond-servant, one who was free to walk away, but had too much love for his Master to do that.

Answer 4

It is all about submission... that is one sent in the authority of someone else. An Apostle is one sent. A bond-servant is one who recognizes that he is under someone, that he has a master. The Master Paul recognized was Messiah.

Answer 5

Paul was a fraud. The Romans were well known for assimilating anything that they could not beat militarily. They recognized that Christianity had grown so large that they could not possibly stamp it out.

So they did the same thing that they always did when they found themselves in this position. Paul was roman, one of the first roman undercover agents if you will to gain prominence in the Christian hierarchy. His job was to subvert the faith correct the teachings so they were more palatable to roman tastes and take over and control as much of the leadership as possible. His cover story about being blinded and thrown from his horse was designed to play right into the Christian idea of a forceful Jesus that was the defender of the faith.

He was accepted by most of the Christian world and eventually trumped Peters wishes on many issues. Apparently everyone thought that Jesus had made a mistake in selecting Peter to take care of running the faith because Paul was and is still taken quite seriously.

Christianity is barely recognizable today if you compare it to what Jesus actually taught. If you read closely you can still see occasional glimpses of Jesus’ teaching in and among the nonsense that was overlaid on it by Paul and others. The roman conquest of Christianity took quite some time, but was completed in the 4th century around the time of the council of Nicea when the current bible was compiled.

Constantine also had one of these miraculous encounters with Jesus that lead to his conversion, but oddly continued to worship roman gods in private right up to his death. In public of course he was a true Christian.

The new faith that replaced the one Jesus entrusted peter with was called the universal, or Catholic Church. It is better known as the Roman Catholic Church. I guess you could call that a hint.

A truly brilliant plan actually. Made possible by the efforts of a roman double agent named Paul who called himself an apostle, but never actually met Jesus. For his loyalty and meritorious service he was later killed to cover up the truth.

Love and blessings
Don

Answer 6

Why do people refer to Paul as one of the Twelve Apostles? He never even met Jesus.

Answer 7

Paul also referred to himself as a Pharisee long after his conversion to Christ in Acts

Answer 8

this is funny. Paul was not an apostle, he was not even around when Jesus preached. Jesus was already dead twenty years when Paul came on the scene so anything Paul has preached really should be taken with a grain of salt.

Answer 9

I think servant in bonds when he was under house arest in rome. he wrot a lot of letters while he was under house arest althoough he was allowed visiters he was bound.

Answer 10

prisoner and slave of Christ