Jesus and Saint Paul

One very important historical consideration with regard to the Hebrew Bible and its three-stepped organization into the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings is that, for Jesus, these were the only Scriptures. The 'complete' New Testament did not appear until some one-hundred years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul contributed a great deal to the New Testament in the

form of letters or epistles to young Christian churches throughout the Mediterranean world. Due to the fact that Jesus left no known literary documents, information concerning his sayings has come down to us in the New Testament by way of his close followers or apostles and their disciples. Paul never knew Jesus during his physical time on earth. Instead, Jesus was dramatically revealed to Paul or Saul, as he was first known, while he was traveling to Damascus: "Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' He asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The reply came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what to do'" (Acts 9:3-6). From that point on, Saul became Paul, and he preached the G

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ked for the Messiah, and now he was right there in their midst. However, not all of the Jews recognized or accepted Jesus as the satisfaction of their ancient prophesies. Consequently, as the Old Testament predicted, Jesus would suffer at the hands of those he came to save from their sins. And Jesus said: "Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must under go great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again" (Mark 8:31). However, concepts such as this were incomprehensible even to the closest followers of Jesus. For certainly, the Messiah would be infinitely powerful and bring the Kingdom of Heaven to the world; and he would also restore the Temple at Jerusalem. The apostles did not understand the real mission of Jesus until much later. What they later learned was that their idea of the Messiah and his Kingdom was really a very narrow one. The actual truth involved a spiritual Kingdom of Heaven, with Jesus Christ as the Word of God in the Trinitarian sense of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For Jesus was the Word of God incarnate or made flesh, as it is stated in the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)