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An introduction to Paul of Tarsus

Fifth Sunday of Easter (B), Acts of the Apostles 9:26-31. (Lectionary 053, May 14, 2006)

On the third and fourth Sundays of Easter each year, the first readings give us some samples of apostolic preaching. On the fifth Sundays we see examples of service to the church in its early days.

On this fifth Sunday of Easter of Year B, we meet one of the most important participants in the life of the early church, one of the major contributors to Christian salvation history: Paul of Tarsus.

Our reading is from the ninth chapter of Acts. Paul (or Saul as he was first known) has already appeared earlier in the story. In chapter seven, we see him watching over the cloaks of those who were stoning Stephen after Stephen’s run-in with the Greek speaking Jews of Jerusalem. In chapter eight, Saul sets about trying to eradicate the early church. In the first part of chapter nine, Saul encounters the risen Christ who empowers him to be an apostle. Saul preaches the Gospel of Jesus for some three years in Damascus until the Damascus Jews mounted a plot against his life. His friends got him out of town by lowering him over the city walls in a basket. This is where our reading begins. The year is about 39 A.D.

Saul now arrives in Jerusalem. The Christians were not glad to see him because they remembered him as a persecutor, and apparently were unaware of what had happened to Saul since he had left Jerusalem some three years previously. They wanted nothing to do with him. Barnabas, a kind and generous member of the Jerusalem Christian community who would serve the early church in important ways, steps forward as Saul’s guarantor and chaperone. He persuades the apostles that Saul had indeed seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him. Now Saul is welcomed into the community and becomes an enthusiastic preacher of the word.

But things were not quiet, at least not for long. Saul enters into controversy with the Hellenists — Greek-speaking Jews who had been the object of Stephen’s preaching and who had ended up killing him. Now they go after Saul. (The literal meaning of the Greek is "they kept trying to kill him.") The other Christians (who doubtlessly remembered what the Hellenists had done to Stephen and the persecution that had followed Stephen’s martyrdom) hurried Saul down to the seaport of Caesarea where they put him on a ship that would take him home to Tarsus.

Now follows another little summary passage. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the church began to grow and become strong. It was at peace throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria.

Paul seems to have been a stormy sort of person. He had only been a Christian for a short time, and it had already been necessary for his friends to get him out of town on two different occasions. As the later chapters of Acts tell us, getting out of town in a hurry became a regular feature of his ministry. His letters, which form such a large part of the New Testament, show us a passionate man who could be tender and loving toward his friends but stern to his disciples who needed correction, and almost violent toward those he considered to be a danger to the faith. If nothing else, he was zealous.

Barnabas was zealous, too, but in a different way. He first appears in Acts in chapter four laying at the feet of the apostles the proceeds from the sale of a piece of property. In this Sunday’s reading, he appears as a go-between who brought Paul and the Christian community into trust and friendship. Later he would be sent by the Jerusalem church to Antioch to investigate the large number of Gentile converts there. He and Paul made several missionary journeys together. At first Barnabas seems to have been the leader, but at a certain point Paul takes over. Eventually they part company as a result of a quarrel.

Two zealous men, two dedicated preachers of the Gospel, two dedicated servants of the early church, and two very different human beings. Yet each had very important contributions to make to the young Christian community. What would the church be today if there had been no St. Paul, no letter to the Romans, no letters to the Corinthians? What would the church be today if Barnabas had not brought Saul into communion with the apostles, if he had not encouraged the conversion of Gentiles, if he and Paul had not been willing to undergo the hardships of first century travel in the back country of Asia Minor?

All of us are called to serve the church in one way or another. It’s part of our baptismal responsibility. But we don’t for that reason all have to be the same sort of people. The church needs Pauls and the church needs Barnabases and the church needs each one of us.

For reflection and discussion

Is turmoil always harmful to the church? Why or why not?

How do I deal with people I find troublesome in the church?