He never actually met Jesus. Not while Jesus was walking around Galilee, anyway. For a guy who wrote roughly half of the New Testament, Paul of the Bible had a pretty awkward start. He wasn’t one of the original twelve disciples fishing on the Sea of Galilee or arguing about who was the greatest at the Last Supper.
He was the guy trying to kill them.
Honestly, the transformation of Saul of Tarsus into the Apostle Paul is one of the most jarring pivots in history. It’s like a high-level prosecutor suddenly quitting his job to defend the very cartel he was trying to take down. People didn't trust him. They were terrified. And yet, without this one man, Christianity might have stayed a small, local Jewish sect instead of becoming a global religion.
The Damascus Road and the Identity Crisis
Before he was Paul, he was Saul. He was a high-achiever. A Pharisee. A Roman citizen. Basically, he had the best resume you could get in the first century. He was educated under Gamaliel, one of the most famous rabbis in history, which gave him a massive intellectual edge.
Then came the light.
Most people think "Saul" changed his name to "Paul" because of his conversion. That’s actually a bit of a myth. As a Roman citizen from Tarsus, he likely always had two names: Saul (Jewish) and Paul (Roman). He just started using the Roman one more when he started hanging out with Greeks and Romans. It was a branding move, honestly. It made him more relatable to the people he was trying to reach in places like Corinth and Ephesus.
Why the Pharisees Hated Him
Saul wasn't just a casual observer. He was "breathing threats and murder," according to the Book of Acts. He watched the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and held the coats for the guys doing the stoning. He was a radical. When he switched sides, it wasn't just a theological shift; it was a betrayal of his entire social class.
The legalism he grew up with became his biggest target. He started arguing that you didn't need to follow the hundreds of Jewish dietary laws or be circumcised to follow Jesus. This was huge. It was scandalous. It’s hard to overstate how much this upset the status quo. He was basically telling people that their heritage and their strict "to-do lists" weren't the ticket to God anymore.
The Logistics of a First-Century Travel Blogger
Paul of the Bible was a traveler. He didn't just sit in a study and write letters; he walked. A lot. Scholars estimate he traveled over 10,000 miles across the Roman Empire.
💡 You might also like: Human DNA Found in Hot Dogs: What Really Happened and Why You Shouldn’t Panic
Think about that. No planes. No cars. Just sandals, dusty roads, and the occasional sketchy boat.
He went on three major missionary journeys. Each one was a marathon of logistics and danger. He was shipwrecked three times. He was beaten with rods. He was stoned (the rock-throwing kind) and left for dead. Why? Because his message was disruptive. In Ephesus, he ruined the local economy because people stopped buying silver statues of the goddess Artemis. The local silversmiths literally started a riot.
The Mystery of the "Thorn in the Flesh"
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions a "thorn in my flesh." He says he begged God to take it away three times, and God basically said "No, my grace is enough."
What was it?
Nobody actually knows. People have guessed everything from epilepsy and bad eyesight to malaria or even a speech impediment. Some scholars think it was a recurring temptation or a specific person who kept making his life miserable. The fact that he doesn't name it is actually kinda helpful for readers today—it lets anyone with a chronic struggle see themselves in his story. He was powerful, sure, but he was also physically broken and often exhausted.
The Letters That Changed the West
We call them "Epistles," but they’re really just mail. Paul was a prolific letter writer. If you look at the New Testament, books like Romans, Galatians, and Philippians are actually just Paul checking in on his friends and yelling at people who were getting things wrong.
- Romans: This is his magnum opus. It’s a dense, legal-style argument about faith versus works. It’s the book that sparked the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther read it and realized he didn't have to "earn" his way to heaven.
- 1 Corinthians: This is where that famous "Love is patient, love is kind" verse comes from. Fun fact: He didn't write that for a wedding. He wrote it for a church that was acting like a bunch of spoiled children.
- Galatians: This is "Angry Paul." He was so frustrated that he skipped the usual polite greetings and went straight to calling them "foolish."
The Debate Over Authorship
If you talk to modern New Testament scholars, they’ll tell you there’s a big debate about whether Paul actually wrote all 13 letters attributed to him.
Almost everyone agrees he wrote the "Undisputed Epistles" (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon). But some experts, like Bart Ehrman, argue that books like 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus might have been written by his followers later on. They point to differences in vocabulary and church structure.
📖 Related: The Gospel of Matthew: What Most People Get Wrong About the First Book of the New Testament
On the other hand, more conservative scholars like N.T. Wright argue that Paul’s voice is distinct enough that the differences can be explained by his age or the specific problems he was solving. It's a debate that’s been going on for centuries and probably won't be settled anytime soon.
Paul and Women: It’s Complicated
People love to bash Paul for being a misogynist. They point to verses where he says women should be silent in church.
But if you look closer, the picture gets messy. In Romans 16, he gives a shout-out to Phoebe, calling her a "deacon" (or servant) and a patron of the church. He mentions Junia, calling her "outstanding among the apostles." Wait, a female apostle? That’s what the Greek says.
He worked alongside Priscilla, who was a teacher. The reality is that Paul was operating in a hyper-patriarchal Roman and Jewish world, yet he was entrusting women with significant leadership roles. His "silent" comments were likely directed at specific chaotic situations in local churches rather than a universal ban for all time.
Why Paul of the Bible Still Bothers People
Paul is polarizing. He’s the guy who took the simple parables of Jesus and turned them into "theology." Some people hate that. They feel like he over-complicated a simple message of love.
But others see him as the necessary architect. Jesus was the foundation, but Paul was the one figuring out how the building actually stays up. How do you handle taxes? What about marriage? What do you do when people in the church are suing each other? Paul dealt with the messy reality of human behavior.
He was also a bit of a "difficult" personality. He had a massive falling out with his partner Barnabas over whether to take a guy named John Mark on a trip. They literally couldn't agree, so they split up. Paul wasn't a stained-glass saint; he was a guy with strong opinions and a short fuse for what he perceived as laziness or hypocrisy.
The Final Act in Rome
The end of Paul’s life is shrouded in a bit of mystery because the Book of Acts just... stops. It ends with him under house arrest in Rome, waiting for a trial.
👉 See also: God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise: The True Story Behind the Phrase Most People Get Wrong
Church tradition tells us he was eventually beheaded during the reign of Nero, around 64 or 67 AD. Because he was a Roman citizen, he got the "mercy" of a quick death by the sword rather than the slow torture of crucifixion.
He died a prisoner, but his ideas were already out of the bag. The Roman Empire, which spent centuries trying to stamp out his message, eventually adopted it as its official religion. That’s a pretty wild "I told you so" from history.
What You Can Actually Do With This
Understanding Paul of the Bible isn't just for Sunday school. His life offers some pretty practical takeaways, regardless of whether you're religious or not.
Lean into your "double identity." Paul used his Jewish heritage and his Roman citizenship to bridge two different worlds. He didn't abandon one for the other; he used both. If you have a foot in two different cultures or industries, don't see it as a conflict. See it as your superpower for communication.
Stop trying to be liked by everyone. If Paul had tried to please the Pharisees, he never would have reached the Gentiles. If he had tried to please the Greeks, he would have watered down his message. He accepted that being "right" (in his view) meant being unpopular.
Write it down. Paul’s physical presence was limited, but his letters were limitless. If you have an idea or a "mission," document it. The medium might change from parchment to a blog post, but the power of a well-argued letter hasn't aged a day.
Look at the context before you judge. When you read Paul saying something that sounds harsh or outdated, look at who he was talking to. Usually, he was "putting out a fire" in a specific city. Most of the time, his advice was a reaction to a very specific, local mess.
If you're curious about diving deeper, don't just read what people say about Paul. Read the letters themselves. Start with Philippians—it’s short, he’s in a good mood, and it gives you a real sense of his "joy despite being in prison" vibe. It’s probably the most human look at a man who changed the course of Western civilization from a jail cell.