Men of the New Testament: "Paul" by Kevin Eubanks - Part 10

Well, I don't know about y'all, but seems

like I've spent a lifetime making bad decisions.

They're different now than they used to be, but Neil, when he—

is this too loud? Is this okay?

When he put out the text for everybody to pick a character and pick a

date, I I picked Paul, which wasn't

necessarily a bad decision. Then I picked the date of the middle of August,

not really realizing all the other characters,

everybody has taught on Paul because Paul touches all

the other New Testament characters' lives. And then to

beat all that, Neil and Hiram decided to do an in-depth study on

Sunday nights and covering a lot of Paul's life. So I

don't know what I've got left to cover, but we're going to see what we

can figure out. So we're going to start with just who he was,

work through his life, and then we'll work through some— maybe some things we

can learn from his life and apply to ours. But so

Saul, who was later called Paul,

does anybody know if

or when or why his name was changed. Or was

it? Now listen here.

I've got about 6 pages of notes and I can say everything I've got to

say in about 11 minutes.

Huh? Saul was his Hebrew name. Paul is

his Greek name. And he was from

Tarsus and he was a Roman citizen by birth. Acts 22:25-28

Acts 22:25–28

tells us who he was by birth. And so being a Roman citizen

and also a Jew, he would have had both names

from birth. Mike, go ahead.

Right, but there was no official change. There was just— right,

because he was at that point, he was going to be going to more

of the Greek people. And so,

right, sure, that's right.

But it's the same name, it's just Hebrew and Greek. That is, that is the

difference. He also was a Pharisee by birth.

Acts 23:6 tells us that. Um,

Acts 23:6

his education, it was the best available. Um,

he was born in Tarsus, but he was brought up in Jerusalem

at the feet of Gamaliel, who was one of the most respected

teachers and leaders of that time. We can flip over

to Acts 5:35.

Acts 5:35

And this is Gamaliel talking after they have beat—

or after they have arrested Peter and some of them. And he

said— this is Gamaliel— he said, men of Israel, take heed to yourselves

what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago,

Theudas rose up claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about 400,

joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were

scattered and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose

up in the days of the census, drew away many people after him. He also

perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I— this is Gamaliel—

say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this

plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing.

But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even

be found to fight against God. And they agreed with him. That was

in the council, the Sanhedrin council. So he was a very well-respected

person that Paul had come up under. And so his education

was second to none of that day.

Flip over to Acts 18:1.

Acts 18:1

And I doubt very seriously that I'm going to tell

everybody on a Wednesday night anything that you don't know

about Paul. But that's what

I'm tasked with, so maybe we can do some refreshing if you'd forgot.

Acts 18:1-3 says, after these things

Acts 18:1–3

Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew

named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come

from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all

the Jews to depart from Rome. And he came to them, So because he

was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked for— by occupation,

they were tentmakers. So that was Paul's trade.

He was a tentmaker. We all know that.

The next thing that we know about Paul is we

find in Acts 7,

the next phase of his life or part of his life.

Acts 7:58.

Acts 7:58

Through chapter 8, verse 1. Does somebody

want to read that so y'all don't have to hear me read the whole time?

There you go.

He was, he was a great persecutor of the church early on.

This, this highly educated man with

a great background and a great pedigree, he He began

as a persecutor of the church,

and then he became one of the greatest missionary

and church planters in church history shortly after that.

And we all know when that takes place, on the road to Damascus.

That conversion, that change of his life,

may have been or may be one

of the most dramatic changes anyone

has ever made from what he'd done early to

what he wound up doing later in his life.

And we're going to learn— we're going to see if we can pull some lessons

from that a little later on about how Paul— how

he changed. Paul was also an apostle.

1 Corinthians 1:1,

1 Corinthians 1:1

it says, Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will

of God.

1 Corinthians 9:12— 9:1-2,

I'm sorry, goes a little bit further. He says,

am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus

Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you,

for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

So there's no question that Paul counted

himself as an apostle. He was, in fact, an apostle.

He spent One

of the things that I've got wrote down here, and if

I don't, if I don't follow my notes, I'll get kind of crossed up and

I'll lose some stuff and I'll leave some stuff out. I tried to memorize,

you know, because that's what Hiram and Neil do, and then I thought,

it's just, you know, I'm just not that smart. I just can't do it.

So I'll just have to read kind of what I've got.

But, you know, Jesus when he was in

his earthly ministry, he spent about 3 years

with the apostles teaching, training, going around,

working with them. And I found it pretty interesting that after Saul's

conversion, it seems like, near as you can

tell, that he spent about 3 years with Jesus in some way.

Galatians 1, if you want to flip over there.

Galatians 1:11-12,

Galatians 1:11–12

he said that in writing to the Galatians, he said, but I make known to

you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

For I neither received it from a man, nor was I taught it,

but it came through revelation of Jesus Christ. And then if you drop down to

15, But when it pleased God, who separated me

from my mother's womb and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son to

me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer

with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were

apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned to

Damascus. Then after 3 years I went up to Jerusalem

to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. That 3-year

period, we don't have any real indication of what was going

on, but Saul, in some way,

he spent some time with Jesus. And I

just find it interesting that the 3 years that all the other apostles

had with Jesus on this earth, Paul likewise

had, seems to be, 3 years in some way with

Jesus, which would Maybe,

I don't know,

it would affirm his apostleship to everyone else.

He was not— he didn't lack anything that the other guys had.

If anything, he probably had something

a little bit better, you know, one-on-one with Jesus.

Um, let's see, 2 Corinthians 11:5,

2 Corinthians 11:5

I think it is. He wants to

go ahead and make sure that everybody knows

that he was not inferior to them. So 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 11:5

11:5, he's telling Corinthians, for I consider that

I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles.

So Paul was— he was sure of his apostleship,

and he wanted to make sure that it was not discounted by anybody that

he was talking to. And I don't think it was because he wanted

to be boastful or to brag, but just to know— for

people to know that, you know, this is— I

am equally as well trained as they were.

The next thing that we know about Paul is he was the author of 13

books of the New Testament.

And if you want to, you know, some people

want to put Hebrews in there and make it 14.

I'm not going to argue one way or the other. I will tell you that

the argument that I've heard the most against that,

that Paul was not the author of Hebrews has always

been. Does anybody want to care to say what they've heard

why Paul did not write Hebrews?

Yes, he wrote it. He identified himself as the writer.

Okay. And would you say,

Roger, that that would fall

in line with the styles don't match?

Identifying yourself with Yeah,

so they say that Paul's style doesn't match. And while that may

be true, the one thing I'll say about that is

that doesn't necessarily

mean anything to me. And I'll tell you why. Because the

same guy that wrote 1, 2, and 3 John,

the Gospel of John, also wrote Revelation.

Those are absolutely way different

styles. So the style of writing doesn't really tell me much of anything that

he could or couldn't. There is in Hebrews— flip over to Hebrews

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2.

And we'll take a look at verses

1 through 4.

This is the Hebrew writer saying, therefore we

must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we

drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast,

and every transgression and disobedience received a just

reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great

a salvation, which at first began to be spoken

by the Lord and was confirmed to us by

those who heard him, God also bearing witness both

signs, wonders, and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit

according to his own will. So if you, if you take a real good

look at that, that wording in verse 3 where he says was confirmed

to us by those who heard him.

Paul, Paul probably wouldn't have been

in that group of those who heard

Jesus. Now, I think

there's no doubt that Paul— well,

there could be. It's a pretty good

chance that Paul had opportunity to see Jesus for

sure. Growing up in Jerusalem.

They were, near as I can tell and what everything I've read,

they put Paul's birth at 1 to 5 AD.

And so him and Jesus, they,

they weren't probably far apart in age. And if Paul

come up in Jerusalem, there's a chance that they could have encountered each other But

he wouldn't have been confirmed by those who heard him.

So that is really the only argument for me that kind of—

yeah, there's a good chance that Paul probably didn't write that because he

shouldn't have been able to say that.

That's right. That is right.

Good observation, Mike. Uh,

let's see, another thing that we know about Paul is he had a

thorn in the flesh, a physical impediment,

if you will. There's a lot of debate over what this was.

The truth is, is if it mattered, we'd know.

So we don't know. But it's— I guess it

makes for an interesting class if you need to kill some time and

work through some things. So we'll talk about a little bit of it.

What's everybody know

or think that that Paul's thorn in the flesh was?

Hmm? Eyes. Poor eyesight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

he definitely had an eyesight problem, it seems like.

In Galatians, let's see here. Galatians 6,

Galatians 6:11

verse 11. So Galatians is

the first book that

Paul wrote, so we think. And so it

would have been early on in his— or

a little earlier in his life.

This chart puts it at about 48

AD. Is when he would have wrote that. In verse

11, you know, Paul tells the Galatians, see with what large letters I

have written to you with my own hand. And I suppose that's—

everybody takes that and that's where they get that Paul

had poor sight. And that might be right, or maybe he

just liked to write big. You know, I don't know. None of these things

probably really matter, But it's interesting to talk about.

There's something else that I picked up on in 2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

chapter 11, if you want to flip back over there.

And this is the first time that I had ever really done what

I would call an in-depth study on just Paul and his life.

So I was looking for things that

maybe I had overlooked in the past, which is most likely what

happened. I know I can read through time and time again,

and I continue to, to pick up on things that I didn't

catch the last time I read.

But 2

2 Corinthians 11:6

Corinthians chapter 11, verse 6, he says, even though

I am untrained in speech, yet I am not in knowledge,

but we have been thoroughly manifested among you

in all things. And that

wouldn't— might not really seem to be too much except

for back over in

Galatians when

he is talking. I think it's in chapter 1. I don't think I wrote that

The most important— huh?

1:11.

No, that's not the most important part of this whole point I did

not write down. No.

And I'll find it sometime. But when

Paul is in

the Spirit, when he's called up into the 3rd heaven— let

me see if I can find that real quick. Huh?

2 Corinthians 12.

Yeah, right.

So, okay, 2 Corinthians 12, that's where we want to be.

In verse 5— well, let's just read starting in verse 1. It's doubtless not profitable

for me to boast. I will come to to visions and revelations

of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years

ago, whether in body I do not know, or whether out of the body I

do not know, God knows, such a one was caught up to the 3rd heaven.

And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the

body I do not know, God knows, he was caught up into paradise

and heard inexpressible words which is not lawful for man to utter.

Of such one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast except

in my infirmities. Now,

whether or not it was a speech problem, I don't know,

but Paul did say that he had— he

was slow of speech, and he heard

things that were unexpressible, inexpressible to utter. Kim?

Oh, I was going to talk about verse 15 where it talks

about the Yeah,

it very well could be. There's several

possibilities. It could have been just like Bill was talking about, a messenger of Satan

to buffet him. It might have been his pride.

Could have been his eyes. It could have been he had speech

trouble. But whatever it was, if it was— if we

need to know, than we would know. And so

while that's not all-encompassing and all-inclusive of who

Paul was as a man, that's, uh, that's what I wrote down.

And the next thing that I— little section that

I want to cover is some parallels to one of,

um, one of the Old Testament characters.

Anybody Nicole? I just wondered if 3

days might have had something to do with it or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it could be. It says that,

you know, something fell like scales off his eyes and his vision was restored,

maybe partially, maybe not. So yeah, it very well

could be. While thinking about Paul

and his life and the things that he had done,

I thought there's a, there's a really close parallel to

someone in the Old Testament, and that's Moses.

And so I've got, I think, 3 or 4 parallels of how

their lives were kind of similar.

Moses, you know, he was raised in Pharaoh's house.

That gave him access to the best education available.

It gave him familiarity with the leaders of Egypt.

Paul, which we have already talked about, he come up at the feet

of Gamaliel, and that was the best education available,

especially for a Jew at that time. Being a Jew

with Roman citizenship, that gave him the knowledge and access

to places that perhaps he was the only one in the country that had that.

And so when it comes time for him to go about doing

his work, he had something that few

for sure and maybe no one else had, and that's Jewish background and

Roman citizenship. Those 2 things were, I think, key to

Paul's life. Moses, he had a

direct encounter with God at the burning bush.

Paul, he had a direct encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Very similar. Moses,

he invested in Joshua,

and Joshua ultimately led the people to the Promised Land. Flip over to Exodus

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

chapter 24.

Exodus chapter 24 and verse 13.

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

This is when Moses is going up on Mount Sinai.

Verse 13 says, so Moses with his assistant Joshua—

Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses

went up on the mountain of God. And Moses told all the elders to wait

here for us, as if him and

Joshua were going together. So Moses had

someone that he saw You know, he didn't take Aaron

with him. I don't think God specified who

you could bring or who you couldn't bring. Moses probably saw

some value in Joshua, and ultimately

it turned out to be later in life that Joshua is who led the people

into the Promised Land. Who did Paul invest

in? Timothy.

Yeah, Paul invested a lot of time in Timothy.

He took him on a missionary journey when Timothy was

just a very young man. He saw something in

him that he valued

and he worked to develop that.

And Timothy continued on work that Paul had started after

Paul lost his life.

Moses died an untimely death. According to Deuteronomy 34,

his eyes wasn't dim nor his natural vigor diminished when

God took him up on the mountain to show him the Promised Land. But I'm

not really sure what— how that happened or,

or what happened, but he didn't come off there and the Lord buried

him. So according to that, he wasn't necessarily at

an age where he was ready to die. He was 120 years old, but there

was nothing wrong with him. Paul, he experienced an untimely

death at the hands of Nero,

as it was likely that he was beheaded.

Anybody got any questions or comments? Mostly comments.

If you have some questions, we'll see what we can do with them.

Yeah. One of the things I know sometimes

some of the writings might all be spirits, you know that? Yeah.

Yeah. It might have been written by someone

other than Paul, but it still is the words of the Spirit.

So we've got a few lessons from Paul's life.

I think I only come up with maybe 5 for now. We'll see.

One of the things, the first thing that struck me is when

you think back about Paul and him persecuting the church,

being zealous for something doesn't mean it's correct. There was

nobody that was more eager to do what he thought was

to be the Lord's will than Paul was when he was persecuting the church.

He was the premier leader in the

Jews, or he was heading to be a premier leader in the Jews,

and he worked really hard to try and snuff out the church early.

Galatians 1:13-14, Paul will recount that for himself.

Galatians 1:13–14

Acts 9:1-2 will tell some of

Acts 9:1–2

the things that Paul was trying to do to the early church.

So You know, we all can

encounter people that really,

really are working hard for something that

they believe in, but they can also be— we can be

wrong. I mean, even us doing something else. You know, you can't count

zeal as being correct. Just because we're

excited about something or someone is on fire for something Nobody was

on fire more than Paul was at that time in his life.

The next thing that I

can pull from that is when we look at Paul and his life,

when he was confronted with the truth, he was reasonable

enough to change. Now, nobody,

nobody's ever going to have the encounter that Paul had.

You know, we're not going to get blinded by a light and Jesus

talk to us. So those kind of things is not going to happen. But when

someone is confronted with what is the

truth, then you can learn from Paul's life to be reasonable enough

to accept it and make the change that's needed.

I've heard it said and been told several

times studying with different people that you

don't know what it's like to change everything

that you've ever been taught or believed. And that's true.

I don't know what that's like. My parents,

they were not raised in the church. They grew up in Indianapolis.

Which, you know, don't hold that against me.

I didn't come from there. But anyway,

they weren't brought up in church really at all. When they moved down here,

they met some folks that invited them to church, and that's

kind of where it started. So I don't know what it's like to have to

change what I've been taught my whole life,

but Paul does. And we can look to

Paul's life and how he handled it. And we can point people that we're

working with and that we're teaching, you know, Paul knows exactly what that's

like to turn away from everything

he had been taught his whole life and worked really hard at doing.

Kim? I wonder if he

was so drastic,

big thing. Well, yeah, that may be true.

And also I mean, God knew Paul and

he knew that nobody is going to work harder for him than Paul

would. When he

was Saul? It doesn't say.

I would think no because it

says that a messenger of Satan was sent to

buffet me. And so, I would take by that, you know,

Satan wasn't needing to buffet him when he was going around persecuting the

Christians. So I would tend to think, no, he did not.

Third thing, Paul didn't let his circumstances or his

situation hinder or stop him from spreading the gospel.

You know, some people Some people might see it

as a hindrance to be single.

You know, Paul was single.

Peter was married. Peter might have, you know,

I don't know how they viewed each other, but Peter wouldn't

have been able to do the things probably that Paul did.

You know, Paul, he traveled most of his life when he wasn't

in prison. And so being single was not a hindrance to Paul.

Um, being in prison didn't

seem to be a hindrance to Paul. He continued to do everything

that the Lord required of him no matter

where he was at. And I

know it's, it's easy to get caught up in, you know, whatever situation

we're in and look for reasons that we can't

do things that we need to be doing. But we

can learn from Paul that no matter what our situation is, where we find ourselves,

what we're doing— I can tell you right now,

I've never been in prison or jail,

but I don't know that I'd be the happy spreader

of the good news in prison. That's just, that's just me.

But Paul, Paul didn't stop no matter what he was doing.

And so, I admire the fact that wherever Paul

found himself, whatever situation he was in,

he continued to do God's work.

Anybody got any questions?

I've got a couple more. We're going to get out a little bit early.

Yeah. Bill.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't

know if I've ever been on fire for anything like that.

You know, that is a dedication that

first of all I admire and second of all that I aspire to be

like is in wherever I find myself

to be able to do what Paul was doing.

And that takes some mental fortitude to be able to work through those

difficult situations. Flip over

to Philippians 1.

Now I know Neil and Hiram have covered this extensively.

But we're going to pull out one little thing here that we

can learn from Paul. And I may—

I've got time, I think, to read this. This was written by

a really smart guy that most of y'all know.

But let's read Philippians chapter 1, verses 12 through 18.

Philippians 1:12–18

It says, now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul,

or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.

If Christ is divided, was Paul crucified for you?

Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that

I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say

that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized—

I am reading Corinthians. Y'all thought I was

crazy, didn't you? Now I've got— I'm like,

that is not right. All right, let's try this again.

That's a way to kill a little time right there, right?

Philippians 1:12-18. But I want you to know,

Philippians 1:12–18

brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out

for the furtherance of the gospel. So that it has become evident to the whole

palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ.

And most of the brethren in the Lord, becoming confident

by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without

fear. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and

strife, and some also from goodwill.

The former preach Christ from selfish ambition,

not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains.

But the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense

of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way,

whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in

this I rejoice. Yes, I will rejoice.

That is very— that is very interesting to me that

Paul was humble enough at

that point in his life to no matter what someone's motive

was behind preaching the gospel,

that they were preaching the gospel.

You know, he says that some of them were doing it to try and

harm him, and I don't really know what, what that means

or what that looks like, but they were still— nonetheless,

they were still preaching the truth according to what Paul said. So they weren't,

they weren't changing anything up. They were just doing it out

of ill will towards Paul. But Paul was so thankful

that the gospel was being preached, he didn't care what the motive was as

long as the truth was being preached.

And there's some application to our lives today.

There's some things that, you know, we may not necessarily

like this that goes on or that that

goes on, different programs or different things

that the church provides and offers,

and that's fine. But if the ultimate thing

is that God's will is being preached, God's Word

is being preached, and nothing untruthful or nothing wrong

is being done with that, we don't necessarily have to be happy about

it. Paul wasn't happy that people were doing things that was causing

him persecution, but he was happy that

God's Word was being preached. And so if we

can stay on the idea of let's don't vary

from the truth at all, we don't have to like

every little thing that is done as long

as it's truthful and honest.

Questions to that? And I mean,

I'm not— I don't want to wait. I know there's people that don't

like certain things. There's people all across the brotherhood that don't

like Last Leaders. There's people that love it.

There's those kind of things all around, but the goal of Last

Leaders is to further the gospel of Christ.

And it's not— they're not teaching anything that's wrong or untruthful.

And so for the folks that are not overwhelmed

with it or carried away with it, you know, that's okay.

Paul teaches us that if what's

being done is truthful and to further the gospel,

then it's okay. We don't have to like it. Now, if we

vary off truth, Any at all. Don't y'all tell the

elders, you know, that I said we can do anything we want to. That's not

what I'm saying. I'm saying if we've

got to stay— there is a line and we've got to toe that line.

But everybody doesn't necessarily love everything that

happens that goes towards furthering the gospel.

And that's just— that's going to be in anything, any realm of life

that we're in. And this is no different, but we just can't

vary from the truth. And Paul, you know, I'm sure that

he didn't like really being bound up extra because what

someone was saying, but he was all right with it because they were preaching

the truth and it was to continue on and spread the

gospel. So thanks guys for a good class.