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Catholic Saints
St. Paul
00:30:47
Join Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber as they discuss St. Paul's conversion and his overhauled life mission. Support this podcast and the Augustine Institute on the Mission Circle.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augusta Institute, and with me is Dr. Michael Barber, who is a professor of Biblical studies here at the Augusta Institute. And it's our joy to be with you. And we're going to be talking about the conversion of St. Paul. And, and this is just a great, great story. St. Paul is a tremendous figure in the early church. He really stands second only to Peter and to Jesus our Lord. And he's so influential for Christianity in so many, many ways. And we're going to talk about his conversion, which really will lay a lot of the foundation for so much of his fascinating life and his mission and ministry. And, you know, I'm excited to talk about this with Dr. Barber because he's a dear friend. He loves St. Paul at the Augusta Institute, he teaches our course on St. Paul. We've taught it together in the past, and that was a lot of joy. And so this conversation is going to go by fast. I know. And I also want to highlight a new book by Dr. Barber that is just phenomenal. Paul A New Covenant Jew. And it's about rethinking Pauline Theology. And Dr. Barber did this with two friends of his, friends of mine, too. John Kincaid, who's at University of Mary, which is a Great College, and Dr. Bryant Petrie, who's a professor here at the August Institute as well, and just one of the leading biblical scholars. And so this is a fabulous new book on Paul. And there's really a dramatic change that's happening in the view of St. Paul in biblical scholarship. And it's been bubbling up for several decades now. But I really think you're able to crystallize a lot of the changes and movements in the understanding of St. Paul in this book. And it's really exciting to see Catholic biblical schol scholars all of a sudden taking the baton and starting to lead where Pauline's scholarship is going. Because Pauline scholarship's been dominated by the Protestants, hasn't it?
- [02:00]
B
That's certainly the case for a long time. I think a lot of people have viewed Paul as sort of the proto Protestant, right? He was the one who broke away from Judaism. And in the history of scholarship, Judaism has been seen as kind of like a cipher for ritualistic Catholicism. And thankfully now Paul has become the one who leads us away from ritual and sacraments and those kinds of things really focuses on the pure Gospel.
- [02:28]
A
Faith alone.
- [02:29]
B
Faith alone. The idea that we're saved by faith, that our works don't play any role in our salvation, that is a bit of a caricature, obviously. But for some time now, there have been scholars rethinking Paul. And while there have been some great Catholic Pauline scholars, they really haven't had a lot of influence in the general shape of the discussion. I think some of that's changing now in good ways. And so it was a real joy to be able to write that book with Brad Pitre and John Kincaid. It's really the fruit of teaching Paul for a long time. In fact, right. As we were finishing it, I taught the course on Paul with you, which was so much fun to be thinking through these ideas. And of course, we had so many great conversations and emails and those kinds of things at that time. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I think it's really important for Catholics to feel at home in Paul. I think for a lot of Catholics, Paul is an away game, right? So when you hear Paul in the liturgy, we usually just get them in snippets, right? We just get these bits from his epistles. And Paul's a big thinker, so it's really hard for us to kind of feel where the argument's going. Paul will say something in the reading like therefore. And you're like, what do you mean, therefore? What's the therefore? Therefore, right. So I hope that this book and our conversation here and other things we're doing will help people in the Catholic world come to a deeper appreciation of St. Paul.
- [03:57]
A
That's really the goal. And as you said, people don't realize as you read Paul, Paul's corpus is letters, right? He's. Everything we have from Paul's writings are exactly letters to other people. So we're reading somebody else's mail. And sometimes when you're reading somebody else's mail, it's hard to know what's going on, what he is, what you can assume in that relationship. People will say things, oftentimes in a concise or covert way. And when you're reading somebody else's mail, you don't get that. And especially when you're reading somebody else's mail and you're pulling out a paragraph from a letter and you're trying to read that paragraph without the context of the rest of the letter, without the context of the relationship, it all makes St. Paul so hard to understand and appreciate. And that's a real shame, because St. Paul is this spiritual genius mystic. He's a towering figure in the early church. And he has so much to teach us, not just with our mind and intellect. And he says he has a lot to say there, but he has a lot to say that can affect us spiritually and that's what we want to get to. And I think, you know, this Bible study on Paul's conversion is a first step, I hope, towards a deeper understanding of the person behind the letters. Because once you have a deeper grasp of who the person, St. Paul is, it might help fill in and make it easier to start to read his letters and get a sense of what he means when and what he's saying by who he is. So let's dive into this. You know, Paul starts off as Saul, and that could be a bit confusing for people. His. The name that we get with, with Paul is First Saul. It really changes after his. During his first missionary journey where he gets the name Paul, and it's probably a Roman name that he had, but his Jewish name that he has is Saul. And Saul is known. We find him right in. In chapter before his conversion in Acts, chapter nine. We have his story in chapter eight, where he is leading the persecution of Stephen.
- [05:58]
B
Right, right. Yeah. Right off the bat, we get the sense that Saul is a man who's deeply convinced of the truth of the scriptures of Israel. Right. He is full committed. He's a zealous Jew, and not just any Jew. Right. It's important for us to remember that the world of first century Judaism is very diverse. There are lots of different kinds of Jews. And one of the exciting things about Pauline's studies in recent years has been our rediscovery of many aspects of first century Judaism we didn't know before, which helps us fill in the, you know, the pictures better of who Paul was. So one thing we know about Paul was that he was a Pharisee. He tells us this in his own letters, for example, in his letter to the Philippians. And it's interesting, you go back and you study the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed in certain things that other Jewish groups did not. So Josephus in the Book of Acts distinguishes the Pharisees from the Sadducees. This is really important because I think a lot of times when we study the New Testament, we say, well, what did Jews believe? Well, which Jews are you talking about? Right. And it's helpful to really locate Paul as a Pharisee because Pharisees, unlike Sadducees, believed in resurrection. They believed in life after death. They believed in angels. This is why the Sadducees were sad, you see.
- [07:15]
A
Yes, indeed.
- [07:16]
B
Sorry, it's an old joke, but it helps people remember. The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. Paul did believe in resurrection. And it's attested to in various scriptures that the Pharisees believed in, like the Book of Daniel, where it talks about resurrection on the last day. So Paul believed there would be a resurrection that would happen in the age to come, in the final age when God would deliver his. You got these Christians walking around and they're saying, Jesus has already risen from the dead. Paul, for one thing, is going to say, well, wait a minute, this isn't the age to come. We're still living under the Romans.
- [07:49]
A
Exactly. Because Ezekiel gives the vision of the resurrection of the dead and the valley of the dry bones coming to life. And it's not one individual, it's all of Israel, the whole dead of Israel coming to life. And so for the Jewish expectation, what Pharisees and Saul would have believed, Michael, is that all. All of Israel would have been raised up at the last day. Of course, it's not the last day. The world's still going and most of the dead are still in the graves. But to say that one individual is raised would seem a bit of a surprise and innocuous. And to say that somebody who was a messiah who got crucified, that would be the other thing. How could you have a crucified Messiah? Saul probably took the stance, thinking that Christianity was, you know, a messianic movement with the wrong messiah.
- [08:39]
B
Right. The idea that the Messiah who's supposed to be the deliverer of Israel, the one who's supposed to bring Israel redemption and defeat the enemies in the final age, is going to be crucified. This doesn't make any sense. And so in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about this as a scandal to the
- [08:56]
A
Jews, and it was a scandal to him when he was a Jewish before his conversion.
- [09:00]
B
Yeah. It certainly seems that Paul would have lots of reasons for being skeptical, cynical, and even hostile to what the early Christians were claiming. And so we know that he persecuted the church. He talks about this in the book of Galatians. Acts also talks about how he goes off, gets letters from the high priest. Even that's a big deal. How did that work exactly? We don't know all the details, but he goes off to persecute Christians in Damascus. And so, of course, it's on that road to Damascus where he has his famous encounter with the Lord.
- [09:32]
A
And it's such a great scene. And I love the art of Caravaggio who describes this, you know, in Caravaggio's great scene, he's got Paul fallen down from a horse. Now, the biblical account in Acts 9 doesn't mention a horse. Might have been a horse, there might not have been. But Caravaggio fills in the horse to make the fall of Saul more dramatic. And you. And of course, one of the things that Caravaggio does, which is such a great scandal, in a sense, artistically, is he puts the rump, the rear end of the horse, kind of front and center. It's right off to the left side of the frame, but it's facing you. And that's just not pretty. We want the horse's head to face us. So Caravaggio, who's supposed to be. And he's a great artist, art is supposed to be beautiful. And you got this horse's rump facing you. And then you have Saul, who's fallen off the horse. But I think what Caravaggio wants to arrest us with is the absolute humiliation of Saul that he comes, as Michael just mentioned, with letters of authority from the high priest. He's been deputized by the high priest. Saul is a man deeply connected with the highest powers of Judaism. And he's going with those letters with a warrant to arrest any Christians, anybody following this Christ figure who's a Jew in the Damascus. And that's pretty powerful and empowering. And all of a sudden, he gets thrown off the horse. This light from heaven blinds him. And that light is coming down, and everything around Saul and his fall is darkness. And so Caravaggio places Saul at night. He's been traveling, and now it's nighttime. And so he wants to make the light dramatic so that you see this light from heaven hitting Saul. And what's most arresting in this vision is that Saul's hands are up and he just fell to the ground. When you fall to the ground, which direction do you put your hands? Downward to brace your fall? But in a sense, what Karavaizer has done is Saul was assaulted from heaven. It's not gravity that Saul's problem, it's heaven. And this voice from heaven that says, saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And so Saul, in a sense, protecting himself from heaven, from this assault from heaven. And so it's really amazing when you see his arms stretched out against heaven, defended himself from this light and from this voice. And that becomes a key moment, right, when God speaks to Saul and says, saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? There's a lot of meaning in that line isn't there?
- [12:07]
B
Definitely. I mean, first off, let's underscore that for Paul. He is in darkness. And he talks about this in his letters. He talks about how humanity without Christ is in need of deliverance. Right. We are completely helpless without Christ. We are under the power of sin and death. That line, why do you persecute me? Is also so rich. Because Paul's response is, well, who are you, Lord? Who are you? Who are you that I'm persecuting?
- [12:36]
A
Who are you, Lord and Lord? There we know he means he's addressing the Lord God. Right. Because he uses Kurios and Luke reserves that usually for the Lord.
- [12:45]
B
Yeah. In fact, in Luke's Gospel, there's a phrase where Jesus says Lord, Lord. Why do people say to me Lord, Lord? In a recent Scripture Scholar did a great article, Jason Staples, showing that the only time you ever find Lord, Lord in the scriptures of Israel is in reference to Jesus, in reference to the God of Israel. So when Jesus says, why do people call me Lord, Lord? He's calling God. So within Luke Acts, yes, it has a divine resonance. But what's fascinating to me, the other thing I want to. There's so much that's fascinating, but one thing that's remarkable is, why do you persecute me? Well, Paul could say, I'm not persecuting you, I'm persecuting these Christians. What do you mean persecuting you? The point there is Christ's unity with believers. Right. And this is going to be something Paul thinks about and writes about throughout his letter. So here is where Paul, I think, begins. The Book of Acts is helping us to see. Here's where Paul begins to recognize the idea of the church as the mystical body of Christ. You know, you can read the other books of the New Testament, but it's only in the Pauline letters that you have that image of the church as the body of Christ. We're so used to it, we don't realize that it's so important that it was Paul who gave it to us.
- [13:55]
A
Yeah. That is going to be one of the distinctive contributions of Pauline theology is the idea that the church is the body of Christ. And you can think of Matthew 25, you know, where Jesus says, whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. And now that teaching is coming home. And a realization that is actually shocking for Saul because all of a sudden he's been violently persecuting the Christian movement. And then he finds out that he's actually been persecuting Jesus, that they are right. But the person he's ultimately persecuting is Jesus Christ himself, the Messiah. And here you have to think this has to be such an astonishing moment because his name is Saul. And Saul in the Old Testament was the first king of the tribe of Benjamin. And Saul, as the first king, ends up persecuting the Lord's anointed, David, who has a heart after God. And David is God's chosen one. And Saul is envious, and Saul is jealous of David. And Saul persecutes David. And in doing so, Saul is persecuting the Lord's anointed. And now Saul, who is from the tribe of Benjamin, whom the king Saul is from, he was named after King Saul. And there's a sense of honor, I'm sure, for Saul growing up as a boy, to be named after the first king of Israel. But the first king is a tragic story because he's unfaithful to God and persecutes David, the anointed one. So I'm sure Saul, as a zealous, zealous Jew is like, I'm going to be a Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm going to be zealous, but I'm not going to do what Saul did. I'm not going to persecute the Lord's anointed. I'm not going to fail God. And all of a sudden, Michael, on the road to Emmaus, on the ground, blinded. It's beginning to dawn on Saul that he has lived up to his name in ways he never thought he would. Right. He is realizing he is persecuting Jesus, who is the new David, and that makes him the old Saul.
- [15:54]
B
Right? Exactly. And in fact, what Paul is going to discover is that in turning to the Lord, when we talk about the conversion of St. Paul, what does that mean? Well, it's not that Paul wasn't a Jew anymore, right. He still thinks of himself as a Jew in his letters. He believes that that which the Old Testament announced is now fulfilled in Christ. He now believes that he has to turn away from his own sinfulness and turn to Christ. That's really the idea of the conversion of St. Paul is now he's turning to Christ and he recognizes that everything that he based his life on before his identity as an Israelite, his identity as a Jew, his zeal, all of that counts for nothing. He says it's rubbish, right? To put it politely. Right. He says all that's rubbish compared to Christ. And what does he find in Christ? Grace. Grace. The Greek word meaning gift, carus in Greek. Paul is receiving the gift of Christ. Christ gives himself on the cross and then he continues to give himself to believers by dwelling within us and transforming us from within. And that's really at the heart of Paul's gospel. You can go from being like Saul, right?
- [17:10]
A
Yeah, exactly. And Saul's going to realize this in the next episode of the story. In Acts 9, which is the reading for today. Saul's going to realize what a gift God's redemption is because he has been on the other side of God's grace. He's been trying to suppress this Christian movement. He's been attacking and arresting Christians and, and so. And he had a responsibility with St. Stephen's martyrdom. That's right. Here is one of the brightest young up and coming leaders in the Christian movement, St. Stephen. And we saw that on Monday, St. Stephen ends up getting martyred. And of course, the young man leading the martyrdom of Stephen is Saul. And you know, they're all putting their cloaks down at the feet of Saul. In other words, he's kind of authorizing this execution of St. Stephen. So then you have. He realizes. And he thought he was doing the work of God, right? By having someone like Stephen executed. He was a heretic. He was misleading Israel. He dies. Saul thinks he's doing the work of Elijah, who violently takes care of the prophets of baal, right. Who is known for his zeal. He thinks he's doing something like Phinehas, who is zealous and kills a Moabite. And so he and an Israelite who is with a Moabite, right? So Saul thinks he's doing the work of God in his zeal, but now laying down on the, on the, on this road to Damascus, he realizes he was wrong, that Jesus is the Messiah who's speaking to him, this voice from heaven. And he was persecuting God and he was thwarting God's own plan. And you would think the next thing is judgment. But what happens next with Saul? We're going to see God's plan of mercy for him.
- [18:57]
B
That's right. And what's remarkable about all of this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's a really important term in the Pauline letters. What we have in Christ shatters everything Paul thought he knew, right? Not only does he discover that the Messiah has already inaugurated the age to come and his resurrection. Already God is renewing the world from within us. By his grace, Paul is even going to rethink what it means to be God. Now God, who is one, has another Self. And he comes to speak of Jesus as the Lord, as Decurius, as you mentioned. So in the light of Christ, everything is changed. And I think that's the lesson that we need to learn from reading St. Paul. Paul says in Romans 12. It's one of my favorite lines, I'm sorry if I've quoted it here before, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, right? There's no authentic Christian transformation apart from changing your mind. And Paul had to change his mind about a great many things. And he challenges all of us to change our minds. And so this is a wonderful time in Easter to enter into that transformation by learning more about the Sacred Scriptures, by studying more about St. Paul. I know I'm turning to formed more these days with my kids. We're learning more about our faith, talking about our faith. That is really what we can learn from St. Paul. I think in this time, the need for us to be open to the Gospel of Christ requires us to think more deeply about our lives.
- [20:30]
A
You speak about this powerful revelation to Saul, and it is a powerful revelation. It is literally. One of the words for revelation is this idea of apokalypsis in the Greek and in the New Testament, this unveiling. And the heavens are unveiled. The identity of the Messiah is unveiled. The idea that Jesus is the Son of God is unveiled. But then, I love the way God humbly works. He tells them to continue on to Damascus and to find a man named Ananias, right, who is a Christian. And so even though God gives this great revelation which is going to completely upturn Paul's worldview and change his whole direction of his life, God still is going to use a very human, simple means. He's going to have Saul, this brilliant scholar, go to Damascus, find a Christian leader, Ananias, who's a good man, and be catechized by him and be baptized by him, right? So in other words, Paul's incorporation into Christ is not complete yet, and he's going to have to be baptized. And so. And that's going to come with catechesis. And so he sends him on to Damascus to find the road called straight, which I just can't think that that is accidental. When I think of Isaiah and the second half of Isaiah and make straight the way of the Lord. And, you know, and so he goes to the road made straight. He finds Ananias, and Ananias gets a little revelation, a little apocalypses of his own, right? God's going to reveal himself to Ananias. And that's kind of Humorous. What happens there? You want to talk about that?
- [22:00]
B
Yeah. Well, Ananias says, well, you know, Lord, I've heard about this man. He's persecuted the church and he's arresting people. So you get the sense that Ananias is, you know, he's a little nervous about meeting Paul and he wants to make sure that this is going in the right direction, that, you know, maybe he's not going to be in prison at the end of this whole event. But what's remarkable is when Ananias comes and baptizes Paul, we read that something like scales fell from Paul's eyes. Of course, in Colossians, we read that Luke, who is the author of Acts, we read that Luke was a physician. And it's interesting to note all these medical details. Scholars note all these medical details. Luke in particular pays attention to, which coheres well with that tradition that Luke is the author of Acts. But it's more than just a physiological reality. It's a spiritual reality. Paul is now enlightened because of his baptism. And so in Romans, for example, Chapter six, he's going to talk about how in baptism, we die to ourselves and we rise to new life in Christ. So the resurrection isn't just something that happens to Jesus, and it's not just something that is going to happen to believers at the end of time. We already enter into the resurrection in this Easter season. It's appropriate for us to be thinking about this in baptism in Christ already. Now, in Second Corinthians 5, Paul says, those who are in Christ are a new creation. So whatever old sins you've been attached to, whatever difficulties you've encountered in the spiritual life, we know we can die to those things that have hold us back, held us back from God, and we can be transformed like St. Paul. It's not just St. Paul who's able to become a saint. It's all of us. And so Paul refers to the believers over and over again as, you know, as the saints.
- [24:01]
A
Well, and Paul can give that testimony because he was baptized and that marks his enlightenment, his transformation. And I love that scene right before his baptism where God speaking to Ananias, God tells Ananias, look, because Ananias says, look, I've heard of what evil this guy has done to your church, and he's afraid. And then God gives a response and he says, look, he is my chosen instrument, my chosen instrument. And then he is going to suffer much for the sake of my name, Right? And so God reveals to Ananias to reveal to as a Mediator to Saul that Saul's going to have to suffer much for the sake of Jesus Christ, but he is God's chosen instrument. And that idea of chosen instrument is not an accidental image, is it? It goes back to the prophet Isaiah, definitely. And in Isaiah, the very first servant song, the servant's called my chosen instrument. Right. My chosen 1 in Isaiah 42:1. And so, and then the servant we find is called to go out to Israel, but beyond Israel, nations. And that's going to have a lot to do with Paul's mission. So I love here with Paul's baptism in Ananias. Ananias reveals to Saul how much his mission is going to be, but he's going to have to suffer. And is it ironic or is it not accidental that, you know, Saul imprisoned a lot of Christians and we're going to find Paul writing from prison, right?
- [25:33]
B
Frequently.
- [25:34]
A
Yeah. So he's going to bear his own sins in a sense.
- [25:37]
B
That's right. And in fact, there's a little bit of, I think of a spiritual lesson there. Right. In the sense that Paul thought that what he was doing was God's will and going out and persecuting these Christians. In the end, he discovers that it's actually God's will that he suffers like his master, like Christ. So prior to his conversion, he thinks the cross is a mark of shame. He thinks that suffering is a sign of divine retribution or judgment. After that experience on the road to Damascus, he discovers that it's through suffering Christ reveals his love for us. And so it's in his own suffering that he exhibits not only his love for Christ, but his love for the Christians that he is baptized and he's preached to that he has been a spiritual father to as well.
- [26:31]
A
Yeah, that's so important, Michael, because I think Paul, like most Jews, see the cross as a scandal. That's a defeated Messiah. Messiah is supposed to be king and reign. And the idea that Messiah, you know, loses militarily or politically and then suffers death and torture, well, that disqualifies you as Messiah. So Paul's, I like how you said that before, is completely transformed, that Jesus is going to reign as king from the cross and that he participates, that there's something about participating in the suffering of Christ where we participate in the mission of Christ. And one of Paul's probably most famous and favorite phrases is about being in Christ. And there's no better way of being in Christ than suffering. And just, you know, we only have three minutes and I want to have you to talk about in Christ and suffering. And then there was one last thing I'll end with.
- [27:29]
B
Well, let me just say this. In Romans 8, Paul says that we are heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him. Why is that so important? Well, in Romans 8:29, he goes on to say that the mission of Christ is to enable all of us to be conformed to his own image. We are to be conformed to the image of the Son. Why is it so important? Well, God doesn't just want to forgive us. God doesn't want to just get us out of hell. God wants us to be transformed, to be conformed to the image of the Son. Well, what did Christ do? Well, Christ learned love or showed love. Hebrews talks about him learning love in his humanity. But here we have Christ showing his humanity as a sign of his love for us. Likewise, we are to pick up our crosses and suffer to be conformed to him so we can love like Him.
- [28:27]
A
It's a great glory to be able to be called to participate in the sufferings of Christ. And that's why Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, I rejoice in my sufferings because I make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. And again, that goes back to the idea that the whole church is the body of Christ. And just as the body of Christ is individually in his body suffered death on a cross out of love for the Father and us, so the church also will suffer out of its mission of loving service to the world. And that's what Paul fulfills in such a beautiful way. And he leads the way for us. We are to imitate him and see this mystery of suffering and love. It's a great glory. And the final thought here is, if you remember, on Monday on our Bible study on St Stephen, Stephen prayed for the forgiveness the Lord to forgive his enemies who are executing him, killing him. And of course, Saul was one of those people. And Saul's conversion probably is won by the merit of Stephen's suffering and forgiveness. So the power of forgiveness, it can unleash and change hardened hearts. And that's, I think, the beautiful thing of Stephen's story in light of Saul's story and how Saul becomes Paul. And so Paul gives us a great hope of transformation in Christ. And that's a hope. I hope you are being able to participate during this Eastertide. I want to thank all of you for joining us for this Bible studies. Thank all of you especially for helping us with our mission circle, which is the monthly giving society of just $10 or more a month. In that little way. As St. Therese Lisieux said, the little way can do big things and your little giving can do big things for us and help us make this broadcast possible all over the world. Thank you so much and may the Lord bless and keep you and may the conversion of Paul inspire you. Take care. You can watch these interviews in video format by visiting formed.org formed is an online Catholic streaming service created by the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press with award winning studies and parish programs, inspiring audio content, movies, ebooks, and family friendly kids programming to support the mission of the Augustine institute. Please visit missioncircle.org.