“Question & Answer”

Question:
What was Paul’s distinctive contribution to Christianity?
Answer:
Paul’s contribution to the development of Christianity is in two forms: (1) his preaching, and (2) his writings. Luke, the church historian, informs us that Paul did not wait too long to begin preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. Upon his baptism, the apostle, at first, “spent several days with the disciples in Damascus” but then Luke reports: “At once he (Paul) began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20 NIV: At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.); a message that was once anathema to him. From that point on, the apostle did not relent from preaching and establishing churches where his legs would and could take him. Using Antioch of Syria as his base, he undertook three missionary journeys that covered a vast swathe of land that stretched from Judea in the east, to across regions in the northern arc of the Mediterranean Sea, to Corinth in the west. When the primitiveness of the modes of transportation is taken into consideration, such expansive coverage of territory is all the more remarkable. And when we add in the resistance from his opponents and the dangers from sea, rivers and bandits, we can only hardly begin to appreciate the energy of this apostle’s zeal to be the ‘servant of Christ Jesus’. Beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, imprisoned, abandoned; all these hardships and sufferings could not deter the man from accomplishing the mission that was entrusted to him ( 2 Cor. 11:23 NIV:Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. —Acts 9:15-16 NIV: But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”).