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Saul of Tarsus

Acts 22:3&4
"3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
4 And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women."

We are studying how God calls His followers. We began with a reluctant Moses at the burning bush, then saw Queen Esther fully surrender and risk everything to save her people. Yesterday Ezekiel showed us God’s radical intervention: giving His people a new heart and a new spirit, responsive, able to love and obey Him.

Today we turn to God’s call of Saul of Tarsus. Saul once had a heart of stone, so hard, so determined to crush Jesus’ followers. In these verses, the Apostle Paul stands before an angry Jewish mob in Jerusalem and defends himself by recounting his background and former life as a persecutor.

Paul establishes his credentials as a devout Jew: born in the Hellenistic city of Tarsus, yet raised and educated in Jerusalem “at the feet of Gamaliel,” one of the most respected rabbis of his day. He was trained with precision in the Pharisaic tradition and was zealous for God, the same passionate (even violent) devotion the crowd now displayed.

He openly admits his past: he persecuted “this Way” (the early Christian movement) to the death, arresting and imprisoning men and women alike, with full backing from the high priest and Sanhedrin.

This confession makes Paul’s conversion all the more powerful; Christianity’s fiercest opponent became its greatest apostle, transformed entirely by God’s hand.
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