The Missionary Work of Paul - Pt. 1
It has been customary to describe Paul’s mission in terms of three distinct “journeys,” as the headings in many Bible translations as well as the legends of the maps in Bibles and in Bible atlases demonstrate: the “first missionary journey” covers Paul’s ministry on Cyprus and in Galatia (Acts 13–14). The “second missionary journey” takes Paul via Asia Minor to Europe, where he preaches in the provinces of Macedonia and Achaia (Acts 15:36–18:22). The “third missionary journey” focuses on Paul’s ministry in Ephesus, which concludes with a journey to Macedonia and Achaia (Acts 18:23–21:16). This description assumes that Paul’s missionary ministry began, essentially, in A.D. 45, when he and Barnabas set out from Antioch in Syria to preach the gospel on the island of Cyprus. Since Paul was converted perhaps as early as A.D. 31/32, this would mean that he waited for nearly fifteen years before obeying Jesus’ call to preach the gospel to Gentiles (Gal 1:15–16). This is rather unlikely. Paul himself asserts that he engaged in missionary work in Arabia right after his conversion (Gal 1:16–17; cf. 2 Cor 11:32), before preaching the gospel in Syria and Cilicia (Gal 1:21–24). As the following discussion will demonstrate, we can more profitably distinguish fifteen phases or locations of Paul’s missionary work in the thirty-five years between his conversion in A.D. 31/32 on the road to Damascus and his death in Rome around A.D. 67.
Paul came from a devout Jewish family that belonged to the Pharisaic movement. He was, in his own words, “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee” (Phil 3:5; cf. Gal 1:14). His family was evidently able to trace their lineage to the tribe of Benjamin. The statement that he is “a Hebrew born of Hebrews” suggests that his parents brought him up speaking Hebrew and Aramaic, and that the family strictly adhered to the Jewish way of life regulated by the stipulations of the law, avoiding as much as possible any assimilation to Gentile customs and maintaining contact with the Jewish community in Palestine.
The fact that young Saul/Paul came to Jerusalem to study indicates that his parents were well-to-do. Paul certainly had access to the elites in the Greek and Roman cities in which he preached the gospel, as his contact with Sergius Paullus, the governor of Cyprus (Acts 13:4–12) demonstrates. The high social status of Paul provides the easiest explanation for Paul’s friendship with the asiarchs in Ephesus. His native language was probably Greek, due to his early years living in Tarsus. He would have spoken fluent Aramaic and Hebrew, due to his upbringing in a devout and conservative Jewish family and his rabbinic studies.
Luke mentions Saul for the first time in connection with the stoning of Stephen in Jerusalem. When Paul asserts that he wanted to “destroy” the church, he probably means that he wanted to make it impossible for followers of Jesus to exist within the institution of the synagogue. “Paul may have attempted to deny this right by all means, whether with the help of learned rabbinic discussion or by organizing disciplinary measures of the synagogues against the Christians, or by spontaneous eruptions of bodily force.” In his later years Paul himself was subjected to the synagogue punishment of “forty lashes minus one” (2 Cor 11:24–25).
The first period of Paul’s mission: Damascus. The first period of Paul’s missionary work is localized in Damascus. Paul preached in Damascus soon after his conversion (Acts 9:19–22) and again before he returned to Jerusalem (Gal 1:17; Acts 9:23–25). He proclaimed Jesus in the local synagogues as the Son of God, the promised Messiah (Acts 9:20, 22).
The fact that the Jews of Damascus succeeded in winning the support of the local representative of the Nabatean king Aretas IV for their plans to arrest Paul (2 Cor 11:32) implies that they regarded Paul’s activities as a threat for their community. This indicates that Paul’s preaching had considerable success and that a good number of Jews were converted to faith in Jesus Christ.
The second period of Paul’s mission: Arabia. Paul did not go to Arabia to work through the theological and practical consequences of his conversion. He went to Arabia in order to engage in missionary work. The evidence is as follows.37 First, Paul states in Galatians 1:17 that he obeyed God’s call after his encounter with the risen Jesus Christ—he preached the gospel without first conferring with the apostles in Jerusalem when he went to Arabia.
But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (Gal 1:15–17)
The third period of Paul’s mission: Jerusalem. Paul returned to Jerusalem, the city which he had left one or two years earlier in his quest to arrest and interrogate the followers of Jesus whose beliefs and preaching he detested, as a believer in Jesus Messiah in A.D. 33/34. The reports in Galatians 1:18–19 and in Acts 9:26–30 about this first visit in Jerusalem after his conversion complement each other.
Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. (Gal 1:18–19)
When he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, brought him to the apostles, and described for them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He spoke and argued with the Hellenists; but they were attempting to kill him. When the believers learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. (Acts 9:26–30)
The goal of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem was to get to know Peter (Gal 1:18); the Greek verb historein means “to visit (for the purpose of coming to know someone).” Luke reports that Paul preached in the meetings of the Christian community (Acts 9:28) and that he preached the gospel in the synagogues in which Hellenistic, Greek-speaking, Jews were meeting (cf. Acts 6:9) whom he sought to lead to faith in Jesus Messiah (Acts 9:29). The Greek formulation (imperfect tense of the verbs) suggests that Paul’s preaching was not an isolated occurrence but missionary work that happened over some period of time. According to Galatians 1:18, Paul was in Jerusalem for fifteen days. Because Paul was eventually forced to leave Jerusalem, we may surmise that he would have been prepared to stay for a longer period in the Jewish capital.
The fourth period of Paul’s mission: Cilicia and Syria. When Paul was forced to leave Jerusalem, he traveled via Caesarea to Tarsus in Cilicia, his home town (Acts 9:30). Paul intimates that he preached the gospel in Cilicia and in Syria. (The eastern part of Cilicia was administered by the governor of the province of Syria during this time.)
Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me. (Gal 1:21–24)
Luke reports in connection with the Apostles’ Council (A.D. 48) that the letter that explained the apostles’ decisions was addressed to the Gentile Christians in Antioch and in Syria and Cilicia: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings” (Acts 15:23). After Paul had taken the apostles’ letter with Barnabas and other companions to Antioch, the Syrian capital, and after he split up with Barnabas over the suitability of John Mark as a missionary, he chose Silas as his new coworker with whom he wanted to visit the churches that he had established earlier (Acts 15:36).
The fifth period of Paul’s mission: Antioch. The next period of Paul’s missionary work is connected with Antioch on the Orontes, since 64 B.C. the capital of the Roman province of Syria and (after Rome and Alexandria) the third largest city of the Roman Empire, with around 250,000 inhabitants.