Nov 11, 2018
Originally, God chose Abraham’s descendants for the purpose of displaying the true God to the world. However, by the first century, Jewish culture had devolved into hatred of all other people groups. As a strict religious Jew, Paul resisted Gentile contact and saw them as unloved by God. Paul even hated Jewish Christians, believing Jesus to be a fraud Messiah until he met the risen Jesus and his life was transformed (Acts 9:4-6, 15). From this time on, he called Jesus the ‘Christ’ and Jesus gave him the mission of reaching Gentiles with God’s love, which was a mystery (Gr. mustērion, ‘a secret, hidden thing’) before then. Paul became the greatest Christian in history; planting churches, writing scripture, and was even imprisoned to reach Gentiles (Acts 28:17; Rom. 15:15-19). God can soften the hardest heart and reorient the most perverse priorities!