The First Foreign Missionary and Itinerant Preacher
Paul made three major missionary journeys that Luke covers between chapters 13 and 28 of Acts. The first, described in Acts 13 and 14, took Paul and Barnabas from Antioch in Cilicia (in modern-day Syria), to Antioch in Pisidia (modern-day Turkey), by way of Seleucia; Salamis, and Paphos, Cyprus; and Perga and back via Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, and Attalia.
discussion question
What is an itinerant preacher?
Paul preached in one place for a while, and went on to another. Thus he became the first itinerant preacher (in other words, a traveling preacher). This job title was common in American colonial and frontier times, where congregations were too small to support full-time ministers, and parishioners were so scattered that constant travel was often a central item of a preacher's job description.
The second missionary journey, during A.D. 49–52, is covered in Acts 15–18. It took Paul and Silas from Jerusalem to Antioch, Derbe, Lystra, Troas, Neapolis, Philippi, Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, Cenchreae, Ephesus, and Caesarea. The third journey, from A.D. 53 to 57, is recorded in Acts 18:23 through 21:16. In it, Paul went from Antioch to Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth, Philippi, and Toras, and back by way of Assos, Mitylene, Miletus, Tyre, and Caesarea to Jerusalem.
Paul's epistle to the church in Rome, Romans, is especially theological, often described as the inspiration for most major renewal periods in church history from St. Augustine on. Hebrews, also, is highly doctrinal, but its authorship has been disputed, as its style seems Paul-like, but its language and tone do not quite sound like his.
Paul's Interpretation of the Gospel
Paul expounds on grace and its free provision by Christ, and emphasizes the emancipation of the Christian from “the law” so forcefully that he is sometimes thought to have been at odds with Jesus' emphasis on the fulfillment, rather than the abrogation, of the law. But the apparent contradiction is resolved in Romans 15:13:“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Paul consistently teaches that one should be willing to suffer for one's testimony to the Gospel by resisting temptation and not yielding to coercive attempts to force disobedience to Christ (as the Roman persecutors of the early church did, overtly and persistently). But he says it is “all joy and peace” (Romans 15:13) to be freed from sin, and in that freedom there is no “law,” no sense of coercion, because the desire to do what Christ requires wells up from the willing heart that he has given second birth.
factum
Paul wrote more books of the New Testament than any other early church leader, though Luke's two books may contain as many words as Paul's. Twelve of the twenty-eight books are his epistles, if Hebrews is not counted. And his epistles are the foundation of most orthodox Christian theological study, as they speak to specific problems congregations faced.
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus
Timothy was a steadfast follower of Paul and a leader in the Thessalonian and Corinthian churches. Being young, he was besieged by teachers of various innovations in the young church's doctrine, and Paul may have written his epistles as much to bolster Timothy's positions as to teach him things he didn't already know. It's a safe assumption that a congregation of that generation would have been willing to settle many disputes with just a word on the subject from an apostle of Paul's stature.
Titus was a gentile convert of Paul who worked with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch and journeyed with them to Jerusalem, where the Twelve agreed that he did not have to be circumcised to become a church leader. Paul used him as his emissary to the church in Corinth and wrote to him about overseeing the church in which he was Paul's personal representative (but not, yet, a bishop him-self). In the conclusion of this letter Paul asks Titus to meet him in Nicopolis.
fallacy
It's a myth that Paul himself chose to “take over” the fledgling Jesus movement. Jesus told Ananias in his vision, “Saul has been chosen by me to carry my name to the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel, and I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.”
Pharisee to Martyr
Sources outside the New Testament record Paul's death as an execution under orders from Nero in Rome somewhere between A.D. 64 and 67. From Paul's studying under Gamaliel to be a Pharisee, he became what many believe is the most important founder of the Christian religion other than Jesus Christ himself. Many commentators have expressed the opinion that the fledgling church may have faded out had Paul not come along and solidified its doctrines, reached and supported scores of struggling congregations, and written many of its most closely reasoned documents.
