Apostle Paul: Advocate or Adversary 04

Paul of Tarsus, a key figure in Christianity, had a miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus. Some question the truth of this story and whether it supports or disproves Paul as an apostle. Last week, objections against Paul were discussed, such as whether he was rejected by scriptures or if there were only meant to be 12 apostles. This week, Paul's conversion story will be examined in more detail. The criteria for being an apostle were discussed, and it was noted that Yeshua personally chose the original twelve apostles. Paul was chosen by Yeshua himself, making him a true apostle. The criteria set by the other apostles were secondary. The criteria for apostleship is broader than just the twelve and can apply to anyone sent forth with a message. The objections to Paul's conversion story were addressed, pointing out that he predates Muhammad and Joseph Smith. Three different retellings of Paul's conversion story in the book of Acts were discussed Paul of Tarsus continues to be a very influential figure within Christianity. He started out life as a persecutor of Christians, the true believers, but then he had a miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus. But is that road to Damascus story a true one, is it contradictory, does it uphold Paul as an apostle, or does it disprove Paul as an apostle? That's what we're going to be discovering during this teaching, so stick around to learn more about the conversion story of Paul of Tarsus. So like I said, this teaching is going to be all about the apostle Paul, testing whether or not he is a true or a false apostle. Last week we went over two of the main points that we thought were some of the top two objections that are commonly brought against Paul, and that was, was he rejected by the scriptures, especially in the book of Revelation by Yeshua himself? And also the other point was, was there to be only 12 apostles and no more? If you happen to miss that, go back and check out last week's video that we did covering those two points. But in this week, we're going to be covering Paul's conversion story and examining that in much further detail. Now like always, you can go and click on the link down in the description below. That will take you to the post on godhonesttruth.com, and there you'll be able to find the on-demand video, the slides that you're seeing here on the video itself. And you can go through those slides at your own pace, which makes it very convenient for my fellow nerds out there who like to really get into the weeds. Also you'll be able to find the notes that we took for this subject, as well as the transcript if that happens to be of benefit to you. All conveniently located for you down there in the description box, that link that takes you directly to our website. Or you can go to our website yourself and click, simply click on the link for this episode. Like I said, tonight, this dross or teaching is going to be all about testing Paul, and it's going to be the second video testing the arguments that's brought against Paul, and the fourth video in the series. One thing I'd like to get out of the way real quick that I forgot to mention last time is the criteria for being an apostle. We examined some of those points last video in examining whether or not they were supposed to be only 12 apostles. There's one point that I would like to bring up that I did not mention last time. If we notice in Luke chapter 6, verse 13, it reads, And when it became day, he, Yeshua, called near his taught ones, or disciples, and chose from them twelve whom he also named emissaries, or apostles. Now Yeshua had many, many disciples, people that followed him around, who learned from him, all that kind of stuff. So he had many disciples. However, you can see here that Yeshua himself chose twelve to be apostles. Not disciples, but apostles. He chose twelve of them. Then we read later on in Acts chapter 1, verses 15 through 26, And in those days Kepha, or Peter, standing up in the midst of the taught ones, and there was a gathering of about a hundred and twenty, said, Men and brothers, this scripture had to be filled, which the Set-apart Spirit spoke before by the mouth of Dawid concerning Yehudah, or Judas, who became a guide to those who seized Yeshua, because he was numbered with us and did receive his share in this service. This one therefore purchased a field with the wages of unrighteousness, and falling he burst open in the middle, and all his intestines gushed out, and it became known to all those dwelling in Yerushalayim, so that in their own language that field was called Akal Demat, that is, Field of Blood. For it has been written in the book of Tehillim, Let his dwelling lie waste, and let no one live in it, and let another take his office. It is therefore necessary that all the men who have been with us all this time, that the Master Yeshua went in and out among us, beginning from the immersion of Yohanan, to that day when he was taken up from us, and one of these should become a witness with us of his resurrection. And they put forward two, Yosef called Barsabbab, who was also called Justice, and Matiyahu. And praying, they said, You, Yahweh, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to receive the share in the service and office of the emissary from which Yehudah by transgression fell to go to his own place. And they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matiyahu, and he was numbered with the eleven emissaries. So here we see eleven of the twelve original apostles deciding on how to select a twelfth one to replace Judas Iscariot. And the criteria they come up for is that whoever they're going to select has to be one of the men who have been with us all this time, who have been following Yeshua around, been with them, always since the beginning, starting with the immersion of John the Baptist to the day that Yeshua was taken up from them. That was the criteria they had for selecting that twelfth one. Now this is the criteria that they came up with. It wasn't Yeshua giving them this criteria. It also wasn't Yahweh giving this criteria. They set forth this criteria themselves. So that point we covered last time, that it wasn't by divine ordinance that this criteria was put forth. It was by human minds that these criteria that was chosen for selecting an apostle was put forth by these men. However, another thing that we could put forth is that this may not be the criteria for true apostles because it was come up with by men. And we see that the original twelve were chosen by Yeshua himself. Yeshua personally selected the original twelve apostles, including Judas Iscariot. However, Judas, as we see, eventually killed himself after he realized what he had done, the way I take it, repented, and then went out and committed suicide. So that left eleven of the original apostles who were selected by Yeshua himself. Yeshua then selected a twelfth one himself, and that is Paul. So in all actuality, if you want to go by the strict reading of what we see in Scripture, Paul is a true apostle simply based on the fact that he was chosen by Yeshua himself, just like the original twelve were, and that the criteria and the selection that was made by the apostles, by the men, were at best secondary to the selection process that we see from the rest of Scripture. However, this is not the only criteria that can be looked to for who is an apostle because as we looked at last time, apostle is something who simply means messenger, someone who is sent forth by another. So there can be more than twelve. There can be less than twelve. But we see from Scripture that in Acts it refers to Barabbas, or Bar-saba as we read in this translation, was also an apostle in addition to Paul and Mattiyahu who was selected by the original eleven. We see in the book of Hebrews that Yeshua is referred to as an apostle because he was sent forth by Yahweh. So apostle applies to a lot broader scope than just the twelve that was selected by Yeshua. Apostle can refer to, well, just about anyone who is sent forth with a message, but specifically we're talking about someone who goes forth with the gospel, the good news. And that's not limited to just twelve. So I just want to bring up that perspective real quick as far as the criteria for apostle goes and is related back to what we covered last week. So now getting into Paul's conversion story. This is something that is brought up by those who reject Paul as a point of contention in order to reject Paul. According to Justin Best in his video, 50 Reasons to Never Quote Paul Again, he states, Now we're going to be examining the actual conversion story here in just a moment, but one thing I'd like to bring up is that the way this is worded, the way he put it, and he may not have had a script and spoke what he was actually saying, but here, the way it's put in that video, it makes it sound as though Paul is copying the stories of Muhammad and Joseph Smith. But that's incorrect because obviously, as we know, Paul came way before the other two. He was about 600 years before Muhammad invented Islam, and he was about 1800 years before Joseph Smith invented Mormonism. So I just want to point that out really quick. It was instead Joseph Smith and Muhammad who may or may not have copied the conversion story of Paul. It goes on in the Paul paper to state, And once again in the Paul paper, So those are some of the objections that are brought against Paul concerning his conversion story. But is this actually true? Well, let's look at the conversion story in the book of Acts. Now, we're going to be looking at some of the elements of the three conversion stories that are told in the book of Acts. And there's actually three different retellings of the same conversion story. But do they differ? And if they do differ, are they contradictory? How do they play out in whether confirming or denying Paul? Well, we're going to look at that. We're going to look at the first conversion story that comes from Acts 9 1-20. And we're going to read this one because it's the longest. So go ahead and get that out of the way. However, we're not going to be reading the other two just for the sake of time. Anyways, Acts 9 1-20. And it came to be that as he journeyed, he came near to Damascus, and suddenly a light flashed around him from the heaven. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Sha'ul, Sha'ul, why do you persecute me? And he said, Who are you, Master? And the Master said, I am Yeshua, whom you persecute. It is hard for you to kick against the prods. Both trembling and being astonished, he said, Master, what do you wish me to do? And the Master said to him, Arise and go into the city, and you shall be told what you have to do. And the men journeying with him stood speechless, hearing indeed the voice, but seeing no one. And Sha'ul arose from the ground, but when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. And he was there three days without sight, and did not eat nor drink. And there was at Damasec a certain taught one by name Hananiah. And the Master said unto him in a vision, Hananiah. And he said, Here I am, Master. And the Master said to him, Arise and go to the street called Straight, and seek in the house of Yehudah for one called Sha'ul of Tarsus. For look, he is praying, and hath seen in a vision a man named Hananiah coming in and laying his hand on him, so as to see again. And Hananiah answered, Master, I have heard from many about this man, how many evils he did to your set-apart ones in Yerushalayim. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all those calling on your name. But the Master said to him, Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before many nations, sovereigns, and the children of Israel. For I shall show him how much he has to suffer for my name. And Hananiah went away, and went into the house, and laying his hand on him, he said, Brother Sha'ul, the Master Yeshua, who appeared to you on the way as you came, has sent me, so that you might see again and be filled with a set-apart spirit. And immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales, and he received his sight. And rising up, he was immersed, and having received food, he was strengthened. And Sha'ul was with the taught ones at Damasek some days, and immediately he proclaimed the Messiah in the congregations, that he is the son of Elohim." So this is the first conversion story that is told in the book of Acts. Again, for your reference, it's Acts chapter 9, verses 1-20. The other two are Acts chapter 22, verses 6-16, and Acts chapter 26, verses 12-18. Here on your screen, and if you're watching or listening through an audio podcast, you may have to go to our website and look at the video or the slides yourself. But here on your screen, you can see all three of these different conversion stories that are told in the book of Acts lined up. And each different part of the conversion stories, if they line up with each other, if they tell the same thing, I've got them displayed right here on the same line for you to look at. So here you can see in the first thing that goes along with this, is that he was going on a trip, on a journey, going to Damasek or Damascus, and a light flashed around him, told the same in all three different retellings. Next you see that he fell to the ground, and in the third conversion story, it's just slightly different, saying that they all had fallen to the ground. But still, it's still including Paul. Then we move on, we see Paul asking, who are you? And you get a response. Then there's a little bit extra addition there in the second conversion story. And then we move on, we see a section that is only told in the third conversion story. And that ends up the third conversion story. But we go on, we see some more similarities here. And we're going to go over some of these more in just a moment. And then here's some more elements of each conversion story and how they line up, if they line up. And some more, this is a section that's only included in the first conversion story. And more from the first and second. And finally, the last parts from the first and second conversion stories. Now, each of these conversion stories has a lot of elements that line up and are included in the same story or in the same retelling. But there are some, as you can see here, there are some parts of various conversion stories that are included in that particular one. But they are not included in the other two. So how does this line up? Well, obviously, you can see that they don't line up. But the point to take away here is that they're not contradictory. They were just left out of the other conversion stories. They don't contradict an element that was told in the other two. This is not to be a surprise. Because think about it in your own life. When you're retelling a story of something that happened to you, or even sometimes telling a children's fairy tale, you can tell it one time and then you can tell the exact same story again, but maybe miss a part. And then later on, you're thinking, oh, well, I forgot to say that. And then you tell it again, and you might leave out something else and include something you didn't tell in the previous retelling. This is common amongst all people, not just Paul. And it's actually not just Luke, because the author of Acts is Luke, not Paul. So we can see here, there is nothing that contradicts in these three different conversion stories. So far, the only thing we saw is that there are some things that are included in one story that are not included in another. And that's to be expected when retelling a story by humans. If this was a contradictory piece of information, we'd have to reject a whole lot more than just the conversion story of Paul and Paul as an apostle. As you read throughout the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you see things in one gospel that are not spoken of in another gospel. That doesn't mean the gospels contradict each other. That just simply means that one author was telling something that another author did not include in their gospel. This goes on into the Tanakh as well. We look at certain books like 1 and 2 Kings that tell one story, but then when you look in the book of 1 and 2 Chronicles, they may or may not tell that exact same story and include it. Even though it's a chronicling of everything that's happened in the past. So these three different conversion stories of Paul that are told in the book of Acts, they may have one part that's not included in another conversion story, but that does not mean that they are false. It's just typical human procedure when retelling things like this. Going on in the Paul paper, we see, That comes from the Paul paper, who we think was written by Justin Best. But notice that last part where he says, Once again, the book of Acts was not written by Paul. Paul is not retelling his conversion story. It's the author who we know of as Luke who is writing the book of Acts and retelling these different conversion stories. So once again, all three of these conversion stories of the Apostle Paul are recounted in the book of Acts, and the author of the book of Acts is Luke, not Paul. I agree that once a person has this miraculous spiritual experience, that they would remember it the same way all of their lives. But it wasn't Paul who's retelling this, and it wasn't Luke who had that conversion story. It was Paul that had the conversion story, and it's Luke who's retelling it. So there's that. Now I've had one particular, let's get off on a tangent, so we're not going there. I just want to retell this. I have had one supernatural spiritual experience in my life, and I remember it the same way every single time. There's not a detail that's left out. So I can sympathize with that point that he's making. But you have to realize, once again, Luke is writing these recountings, and Luke did not have that spiritual experience. It's not Paul who's getting the story different in these three recountings. It's Luke who's getting the story a little bit different in each of these three recountings. And once again, the parts that don't line up are not contradictory. They're not going against each other. It's just some things are in one story that are not in another, but they're not contradicting each other. So if we look at the similarities between each of these three recountings, we can see that all three recountings have Paul traveling to Damascus with a group of companions. We can see that it was about noontime. This is the same in the second and third stories. We can see there was a light that shone around Paul in all three accountings, that Paul fell to the ground in all three accountings. The third one, we see that all who were there with Paul fell to the ground. But, once again, that does not contradict the first two, because when you say all, that would include Paul. And the first two didn't say it was only Paul, because we can see, even from the first two, that there were people with him. So even when it just says in the first two that it was Paul that fell to the ground, that does not exclude the other ones as well. So, again, they're not contradicting each other. We can also see that Paul heard a voice asking, Sha'ul, Sha'ul, why do you persecute me? In all three of those stories. Paul asked, who are you, Master? In all three of those stories. The voice replies, I am Yeshua, whom you persecute. In all three of those stories. We can see that the companions saw the light in the second story. But, we're not told that specific aspect of the story in the first and the third ones. The companions heard a voice in the first story, but we do not see that in the second or the third one. Paul asked, what shall I do? In the first and second recountings, but not in the third. But, again, it's simply just not included. Yeshua says, go into Damascus and you will be told what to do in the first and second stories, but it's not included in the third one. Paul was blind for three days. That was included in the first and second stories, but not included in the third one. Again, the third one is the shortest of all three of these stories. Paul goes to Hananiah in the first and second stories. So, all of these are lining up just like you would expect them to do if they were a true story, something that is actually happening, actually did happen. The only difference that I personally can find is that in Acts 9 and 22, Paul gets his mission from, I'm sorry, In the first and second retellings in the book of Acts about Paul's conversion story, Paul has revealed his mission from Hananiah after he goes to Damascus, but this is from Yeshua. Remember, when we read that, Yeshua spoke to Hananiah, and then Hananiah went and spoke to Paul. However, in the third retelling of this conversion story, Paul's mission is revealed to him by Yeshua himself. Is this contradictory? You can say so, but once again, remember, this is Luke who is retelling these stories in the book of Acts when he wrote that particular book, but in the mission that Paul is given, it's the same mission in all three of those different stories. It's not a different mission. It's not one story saying go to the Gentiles, and then one story saying go to the Jews. Paul did preach to both Jew and Gentile, but his primary focus was to be on the Gentiles, and that's what is revealed in all three of these different stories. So, does that make a difference? I don't see how it would. Whether it's told by Hananiah, or whether it's revealed by Yeshua directly instead of through Hananiah. It's still a mission given to Paul. It's the same mission, and it's still coming from the same source. So, judge for yourselves, but we've already seen how the rest of the different elements of the conversion story line up in each of those three different retellings. And again, where the same element is present, they all line up. They don't contradict each other. However, we do see some elements that are included in one of the stories that's not included in another one. Oh, skipped over that. Anyways, if you look on your screen, this is the mission that's given to Paul in each of the three stories. You can see here in the Acts 9, the first one, it's revealed through Hananiah. Go back and look at that context. Then you see Acts chapter 22, the second retelling. Again, his mission is told through Hananiah. And the third one is given directly by Yeshua. Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself there. Anyways, going on, looking at the aspect of Paul's traveling companions. If we look at the, or remember the story that we read at the beginning, Paul had some traveling companions. Now think for a moment. At that time, Paul was still a persecutor of the true believers in Yeshua. So who would he have had with him? People that were most likely going to be of white mind, who were interested in persecuting the true believers. We even remember from that story we read, when Yeshua was speaking with Hananiah, that Hananiah said, whoa, hang on a minute. We know about this Paul. And he is wanting to jail us or kill us. Are you sure this is what you want to do? So they knew Paul was a persecutor. On his road to Damascus, he was still a persecutor, going out and trying to persecute Christians or Messianics, even right then. That's what he was going to do in Damascus, as we read. So the people he would have with him, that would have been like his goon squad, his entourage, a group of like-minded people would have also been of that same persecution mindset accompanying him. However, we see from those conversion stories that the companions also saw the light and they also heard the sound or the voice. But after Paul gets to Damascus, we don't really hear anything else about these companions, who they were, what happened to them after this conversion story, nothing. They're just mentioned as his companions on the road to Damascus and then no more. We don't know their names, what tribe they were from, if they were serving in the temple as part of the priesthood, nothing like that. They just kind of drop off the map. It would be interesting to hear about the rest of their lives, what they personally thought about this occurrence on the road to Damascus, but we don't get that. So once again, after Paul gets to Damascus, these traveling companions are not mentioned anymore. So take into account that they were not mentioned anymore after this conversion story on the road to Damascus. Why would scripture even mention them at all? If they weren't later brought in to say, oh, we were converted to or something like that. Well, it's important to know that there were other people there with Paul on the road to Damascus to corroborate what was actually going on. That it wasn't just Paul himself having his own unique special appearance all alone. If it was all alone and there was no one there to corroborate that something actually did happen, then the objectors to Paul could say something like, well, he was just imagining this. He had a mirage, maybe, or even he was hallucinating. They could say that Paul was just hallucinating, so therefore he's a false apostle. But no, there's other people there that can corroborate that something actually did happen on the road to Damascus. However, the companions that were with Paul did not hear the actual words that were spoken. In one story, we hear that they heard a voice. However, it does not recount that they could actually hear what the voice was saying. So, take that for what you will. But that message from Yeshua was specifically just for Paul. The whole interaction, the whole experience was witnessed by his companions. So, they give credence to something actually did happen. Also, in all three recountings, all of these concur that Paul did have traveling companions with him. Got ahead of myself again there. So, yeah, we can see from these stories or these different recountings of this conversion experience of Paul that every element that's included in all three stories, they all line up, but not contradictory. Imagine if, when you come upon a liar, someone that you know who is a psychological mess in their, pathological, there we go, who is a pathological liar, and they tell you something, and then later on they try to tell you the same thing. Things are different. Things are contradictory. But this is not what happens with Paul. In each of these three recountings that Luke writes about the conversion of Paul, all the elements that are present in all of these stories or these recountings line up perfectly and exactly the same. So, based on this, that there's no contradictory information in any of these three recountings, we can conclude that the conversion story was real and was true, and it's not evidence against the apostleship of Paul. Quick one tonight, but in summary, there have been more than 12 apostles, and the criteria that the 11 of the original 12 laid out in the book of Acts is not a hard and fast criteria for being an apostle. We went over that evidence last video, and we'll go over some more in this video. But if you really wanted to go directly from scripture about who can and can't be an apostle, like we said tonight, the original criteria was those who were selected by Yeshua himself, and Yeshua did select Paul and not Matthew. However, to get back to the big scope of things, and in the entire context of scripture, we can see that there's no, well there is criteria for being an apostle, but there's not just a limit of 12. There's a lot more than 12. Remember, even Yeshua himself is called an apostle in the book of Hebrews. Paul's conversion story is not contradictory, nor does it serve as evidence for falsifying Paul. There may be other evidence that falsifies Paul as an apostle, and we'll look at some additional evidence going on in this series, but the conversion story that we see in the book of Acts, all three of them, are not evidence for falsifying Paul, and they're not contradictory in their retellings. Instead, we see that the conversion story is objectively confirming Paul, not going against him. And that's just the God-honest truth. So thank you for joining us for this teaching in testing the apostle Paul, and whether he was a true or a false apostle as it is pertaining to his conversion story. Make sure before you exit this video to go down below, leave us a comment about what you thought about the information presented here in this teaching. While you're down there, make sure to hit that like button, hit the subscribe button, and ring the bell. And also hit that share button, and share this teaching around with someone that you may know. 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