I want to share several principles with you that have helped me and will help you travel well with Paul. The first is this:

When reading his letters or hearing them preached, always keep in mind that Paul was Jewish both before and after his Damascus Road experience.​

Throughout​ ​all​ ​of​ ​his​ ​writings​ ​to​ ​the​ ​very​ ​end of his life, Paul never thought of himself in any other category.​ ​​He​ ​did​ not conceive​ ​of​ ​himself​ ​rejecting or ​casting​ ​away​ ​his​ ​Judaism or exchanging one religion for another.​ ​How could he? The apostle​ ​thought of​ ​himself,​ ​in​ ​a​ ​real​ ​sense,​ ​as​ ​a​ ​completed​ ​Jew.​ One who embraced Jesus as the promised Jewish Messiah and the risen Son of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Paul loved the LORD his God, and he loved God’s Word passionately. After encountering Jesus, he saw himself as a Jewish man who had the blessing of witnessing in his day the fulfillment of the very things the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, and Writings) had foretold and ultimately revealed.​ He had come into the fullness of what God had promised and prepared for his people.

Why is that important? Let me show you.

In Philippians 3, Paul is doing battle. It is a polemical moment in his letter where he uses his credentials to combat certain Jewish Christians, those who have come to faith in the risen Jesus as he has. Don’t miss that. Jews and Gentiles trouble Paul on his missional journeys, but it seems this group is the one that caused him the most problems.​

They entered faith communities demanding that​ ​non-Jewish​ ​Gentile​ ​believers​ ​be​ ​circumcised.​ ​Paul would have none of that: Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh (Ph 3:2). He says, in effect, “If you want to argue about what the Torah requires,​ ​I’m your man.​”

For we [both Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus] are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law [Torah], a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless (3:3-6).

There was one Jewish faith but no Judaism as such in Paul’s day.

The expressions of Judaisms in Israel were very diverse. One sect, that of the Pharisees, was not particularly large (4,000 according to Josephus), but very influential. And they were extremely rigorous in obeying the dictates of the Torah, both written and oral traditions.​

To their credit, the​ ​Pharisees​ ​believed​ ​faith ​was​ ​a​ ​way​ ​of​ ​living, ​not merely​ ​a component​ ​of ​​life; something Jesus aligned with. They believed what honored God was the way in which you conducted yourself, from rising in the morning to going to bed at night.​ ​Pharisaism was a way of walking, of bringing every aspect of your life under the rule and reign of God as King.​ As such, they were punctilious in practice, with themselves and their followers.

Not only was Paul a Pharisee, but he says he was among the most rigorous. ​In fact,​ ​so​ ​great was his zeal​ ​to​ ​protect​ ​the​ ​Torah​ ​and​ ​the​ ​status​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Jewish​ ​people as​ ​the​ ​people​ ​of​ ​God​ ​that​ ​he​​ ​sought​ ​out and persecuted​ ​believers. (His zeal will become increasingly important in just a moment.)

Paul could say that as to righteousness under the law, he was blameless.

Did you notice that? We have been taught that nobody could be counted righteous with respect to the Law. But it is another of our misunderstandings that needs to be adjusted as we travel with Paul. There is some truth to the core idea, and Paul explores it in Romans. But we must grasp that the overly simplified way it is articulated in church history is often imposed on the text, setting up a false dichotomy between law and grace.

Paul could confidently say, even after committing to Jesus, “I was without blame, without fault in relation to obeying God’s Word.” His was a robust conscience. He is not alone; there are other examples in the New Testament, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the LORD (Luke 1:6).

For the Jewish Pharisee Paul, what made the difference was his encounter with Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ [or, the faithfulness of Christ], the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Ph 3:7-10).

His​ ​Damascus​ ​Road​ ​experience​ ​changed both​ ​his life​ ​and his​ ​thinking.​ He did not forsake​,​ ​deny,​ ​or reject his Jewish ethnicity or ​religious traditions in order to become a Christian.​ ​​Paul has a revelation that totally transforms him from the inside out.​ From that point on, he keeps walking as a Jew, but the way he sees things has changed.​

At this point in our study, you might feel a bit lost or be asking, “How is all this background relevant?” Fair enough. Let’s go back to my traveling with Paul metaphor. Week after week, sermon after sermon — for years — you have heard things about what Paul wrote and what he meant. You think you know him and what makes him tick. But you don’t. He faced that problem then, and he faces it still.

The solution is to let Paul — in context — speak for himself.

He says to the Jews and to Christian Judaizers and perhaps even us today, “Compared to me, you guys are lightweights. Look at my credentials, I was a heavyweight in Pharisaic Judaism.” “The change in me,” he continues, “is that I encountered and committed to following Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. Where once my life revolved around the written Torah, now Yeshua from Nazareth — the Torah Incarnate, Enfleshed, Embodied — is the center of my life. And all of that is the work of God’s Holy Spirit.”

To say he was zealous for this Good News is a bit of an understatement. Here is the big idea I alluded to earlier: the same zeal Paul used to tear down the churches, he now harnessed to build up the saints! Did you get that? The zeal of Phineas (Num 25) that was so important to the Pharisees was now redirected in service to Jesus.

You will get so much more from Paul as a completed and refocused Jewish man in the first century than you will if you think he was a convert to Christianity.