Proclaiming Jesus as the Lord of Life
Jesus' Significance as Messiah as seen in the New Testament letters
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Paul’s early life and conversion (AD 5-35)
Christian tradition accepts that the apostle Paul died in AD 68 when Nero was still the Roman emperor. There are a few clues to help us construct some sort of time line. In Acts 7:58 Luke referred to him as ‘a young man’ and in Philemon 9 Paul referred to himself, maybe subjectively, as an ‘old man’. But the two references are only 27 years apart. The term ‘young man’ was often applied to someone in their twenties and beyond, and ‘old man’ to someone as young as fifty. It will fit the evidence to say that Paul was around thirty years old when he witnessed Stephen’s death in AD 35 and around fifty-seven when writing to Philemon in AD 62. That would mean he was born around AD 5 and was sixty-three when he died.
Life at Tarsus
Paul was born to Jewish parents in Tarsus, the chief city of Cilicia in the south eastern quarter of modern day Turkey. Originally known by his birth name of Saul, it was dropped after his conversion to Jesus Christ in favour of its Gentile equivalent. His home city’s rich history stretched back to Assyrian rule, and had been governed successively by Persian, Greek, Seleucid and Roman rulers. In 38 BC Queen Cleopatra had visited Mark Antony at his residence there. Loyal to Rome, it was once briefly renamed Juliopolis in honour of Julius Caesar, but what was more important for its residents was its attainment to the position of an independent duty-free state. Paul said it was no ordinary city (Acts 21:39).
Paul described himself as a ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews’ (Philippians 3:5) meaning that his Jewish pedigree was flawless. In a community modelled on Greek culture, his parents had preserved their distinctive Jewish nationality with its religion, language and customs. Paul was not one of the group known as Hellenistic Jews although he could speak Greek as well as Aramaic (Acts 21:40, 22:2). At his birth, he automatically inherited Roman citizenship, an honour that had been granted to either his father or grandfather (Acts 22:28).
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About the Book
The letters of the New Testament are valuable ancient documents that reveal the mind-set of the early Christian leaders and their people. The political, religious and cultural environment in which they lived was anything but sympathetic to their cause, but the first century Jesus people remained undeterred in spreading their message of a living Messiah who had once been crucified. Many of their contemporaries regarded them as eccentrics but to others they seemed to have discovered a new meaning to life which altered their priorities and gave them a clear perspective on morality, immortality, death and the needs of human society. Many of them would die prematurely but with confidence when faced with the great unknown. ‘Proclaiming Jesus as the Lord of Life’ traces their story.
About the Author
Peter first trained as a teacher and then as a church pastor. For many years he served as pastor of congregations in the UK and then taught the Bible overview module at the Aberystwyth Academy of Christian Discipleship. Now retired, he and Elizabeth his wife live in the rural part of Wales near Cardigan Bay.