Paul tells us "A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated." 2 Cor. 12:7. Paul recorded in his second letter to the Corinthians what others were saying about him. "For they say, 'His letters are weighty and strong but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible.'" We do not know what Paul's thorn in the flesh was. It could have been cataracts causing progressive blindness. Writing to the Galatians 4:13-15 he says, "You know that it was because of a physical infirmity that I first announced the gospel to you .......had it been

possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me." Paul usually dictated his letters to one of his helpers. At the end of Galatians he says, "see what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand." And at the last paragraph of 2 Thes-salonians he writes "I Paul write this greeting in my own hand." The above could indicate blindness. Some think he was suffering from epilepsy.

Paul, a Jew, was born and educated among a Greek community in Tarsus in Cilicia. He went to Jerusalem and studied under a renowned Pharisee Gamaliel. He was a well educated man who wrote beautiful Greek. We first hear of him by his given name of Saul attending the stoning of Stephen. Saul minded the coats of those who stoned the first martyr of the early church. Stephen was a leader among the believers. We read that Saul approved of the killing of Stephen. Acts 8:1. Saul then went to the high priest and asked for letters to the synagogue at Damascus so that if he found believers in Jesus, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. On the way he had an experience which he regarded as his conversion. "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?'" Acts 9:5.

The story is told on three occasions in Acts 9:7; 22:9 and 26:14. The first says that those with him "stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one." The second time he tells it "Those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me." The third version is different again. ''When we had all fallen to the ground I heard a Voice." All stood; all fallen to the ground; all heard the voice; all did not hear the voice. There also are inconsistencies in the message Saul is reported to have received from God.

If that was such a profound experience as Paul suggests, surely the facts would be indelibly fixed in his mind. Did Saul have a trance, was he suffering from a seizure, an epileptic fit, a faint, an hallucination or sunstroke? Why was he so confused about what happened? Perhaps he realised that the new religion could be a powerful movement that he should promote with his own ideas, We will never know.

We first see Saul among a fanatical group approving the killing of Stephen. Next he expresses the same fanaticism in trying to destroy the new Jewish sect who believe Jesus to be their longed for Messiah. Then he uses that same fanaticism to build the religion he so recently sought to destroy. From now on, Saul becomes Paul, the apostle to the gentiles. But there is a fundamental change in his thinking and loyalty. He forsakes the Jews and their aspirations to see a Messiah. For Paul, Jesus is no longer the Hebrew political Messiah to restore power and self-rule to Israel. Now Paul makes Jesus the sacrificial object for the gentiles in spite of the fact that Jesus never showed interest in the gentiles. Jesus never made one a disciple. His disciples were expressly told not to go to the gentiles. Jesus was wholly taken up with the prophecy of the political Messiah and the Kingdom of God. The Messiah was expected to be a political saviour of the Hebrew nation.

The Jews sacrificed animals for the sins of the people. Paul uses the death of Jesus as an atonement for the sins of both Jews and gentiles without a hint of approval by Jesus. Was he expecting or hoping to change the age old Jewish beliefs and traditions of Israel? When he did not succeed among the Jews, he turned to the gentiles who were ready to accept a new and easy religion. No more expensive cost of animal sacrifices, no more keeping the Jewish laws and ordinances, just believe.

Paul does not seem to have been appointed an Apostle to the gentiles by the other Apostles, except that he tells us he was offered 'the right hand of fellowship' by Peter. Gal. 2:6-9. When Matthias was appointed an apostle instead of Judas, there was group prayer, discussion and finally they cast lots before his appointment to see who should be chosen. None of this happened with Paul. Was the 'right hand of fellowship" claimed to be given by Peter alone and without general approval equal to a full appointment? Acts 1:12-26. Paul is, however, very insistent on calling himself an Apostle.

On five occasions we are told that Paul heard God speaking directly to him in dreams, in visions and a trance telling him what to do. In a state of religious ecstasy he often spoke in an unknown tongue, known as glossolalia, (a self constructed, garbled speech). This, he said, was speaking to God. Under normal circumstances each of these phenomena could be considered an hallucinatory experience. It is also claimed that Paul performed miracles on six occasions. One time, we are told, he cured a man who had been born a cripple and had never walked. Paul commanded the man to stand on his feet and the cripple leaped and walked'! Acts 14:8-10. This is an exact copy of Peter's miracle where it was said that he cured a man who had never walked before. Acts 3:2-7. On another occasion, Paul was resisted by a healthy person. Paul commanded in the name of the Lord that he be blind, not seeing the sun for a season, and immediately darkness fell upon him. Acts 13:10-11. This could have been an act of hypnoses.