The Ministry of Paul the Apostle

Book excerpt: Everyone knows the supposed life story of Paul the apostle, but then again they may not. As it is generally drawn from the book of Acts, Paul had a dramatic conversion on the “road to Damascus,” undertook “three missionary journeys,” and returned a final time to Jerusalem. He was arrested for creating a riot, held prisoner in Caesarea, and upon his appeal to Caesar was finally transported to Rome as a prisoner. Dotted, dashed, or colored lines on countless numbers of maps document Paul’s “three missionary journeys” and his journey to Rome, as these are commonly discerned in the book of Acts. Paul’s letters and the book of Acts itself, however, may tell a different story than the one customarily perceived—perhaps a less familiar story, but perhaps a more factual one. The Ministry of Paul the Apostle represents a significant paradigm shift for understanding Paul’s ministry which involves two major campaigns, an ordered awareness of Paul’s ministry as far as Illyricum, a revision of Paul’s Corinthian ministry, an historical confirmation of visits to Jerusalem, an appropriate ordering and reaffirmation of Paul’s letters, including Romans 16 as a letter to Ephesus. In addition, the current study offers a new paradigm for correlation between our sources of Paul’s letters and the book of Acts, with the development of an underlying source tradition behind Acts. The reader is thus invited to participate in a significant re-evaluation of Paul’s ministry and a proposed solution to a long-standing mystery of correlation between Paul’s letters and Acts. When one travels with Paul, one engages in a voyage of discovery. This book makes sense of the mystery of Paul’s ministry, which when properly understood, becomes an illuminating foundational window of clarity for sorting out a bewildering multitude of theological formulations of the enigmas of Paul’s thought. It is through a thorough awareness of the ministry of Paul that one comes to appreciate the contextual nature and depth of Paul’s theological thought. One comes to a new appreciation of Paul’s place in early Christianity, relevant even for those who live in a post-modern age.