75 Unknown Apostle Paul Facts Everyone Should Know

Saint Paul was a prominent Christian Apostle.

He was known to spread the teachings of the son of God, Jesus Christ. He significantly promoted Christianity throughout the first century.

But how significant was Saint Paul? Was he there with Jesus Christ during the last supper? What was the reason for Paul's death? Discover answers to all these questions in this article.

Introduction To Paul The Apostle

What do you know about Apostle Paul's life? As a significant member of the gospel, he was highly revered as one of the greatest teachers of Christianity. Paul has been appreciated throughout the Bible, and many believe that today's church follows the Testament provided by him. Let us get to know more about him.

• Apostle Paul was regarded as one of the most significant leaders of Christian theology.
• He was one of the key teachers who spread the gospel to Non-Jewish people.
• He is also known as Saul of Tarsus, as he was born in Tarsus, Cilicia.
• The name Saul might have been inspired by the first king of Israel, King Saul. The Bible has references to King Saul.
• Tarsus was a significant city in the Cilicia region of the Roman province of Syria.
• In modern times, Tarsus (where he was born) is located in Turkey.
• Damascus and Antioch (both were part of the Roman province) are considered two of the major cities of Syria, and both were an important part of the life and work of St Paul the Apostle.
• St Paul the Apostle was born sometime during the fifth century AD.
• He was Jewish by birth and studied in the Bible School in Jerusalem.
• St Paul the Apostle was well versed with Jewish law and Greek culture.
• St Paul is also credited with writing 13 books of the Bible out of the 27 books in the New testament.
• Since he was born a Roman citizen and was Jewish, he was able to connect with the Jewish and Roman people to teach them about the gospel and spread the word of God.
• St Paul the Apostle was born around the same time as Jesus Christ.
• Apostle Paul was not a disciple of Jesus; in fact, he never met the son of God.
• He did meet the 12 disciples of Jesus and discussed plans to promote Christianity.
• The German Priest Martin Luther supposedly was influenced by Apostle Paul's life his teachings.
• Many people believe that Saint Paul was the second most important figure in Christianity after Jesus Christ.
• St Paul the Apostle wrote the majority of the New Testament and preached the same to the people.
• The Bible has a lot of acts and messages referred to Paul's life and his deeds.
• Did you know that Apostle Paul wrote most his messages and letters in 'koine,' the common Greek language?
• St Paul and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt had a fascinating connection between them.
• Tarsus, where St Paul was born, is the same place where Queen Cleopatra met Marc Anthony.
• Short travel stories mentioned in the 'Book of Acts' written by Paul's ministry tell a lot about the deeds of St Paul.
• It is highly debated that Paul's followers have written the letters which are credited to St Paul.
• Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Luke (Paul's physician), and John Mark are known as the most prominent members of Paul's ministry.
• Scholars have regarded St Paul as the founder of the Christian movement that eventually developed into Christianity.
• St Paul was adamant about bringing down barriers that divided communities.
• It is said that God chose St Paul as the Apostle for the Gentiles (Non-Jewish People).
• He always believed that God saves people because of faith alone and not by their deeds under the law.

Life History Of Paul The Apostle

Where did Apostle Paul come from? What are his beliefs? Questions like them are bound to come to our minds when discussing him. This section will deal with Apostle Paul's life history.

• As mentioned earlier, St Paul hailed from Cilicia. A significant chunk of his life was spent around that Roman province, delivering and teaching the gospel of Jesus to the people.
• He was born to wealthy parents in Tarsus and belonged to the privileged part of the Roman population.
• He was a Roman citizen and had all the privileges provided to a Roman citizen.
• He received education at the school of Gamaliel, under the supervision of Gamaliel himself, a prominent teacher of Jewish law.
• Since St Paul belonged to a highly privileged Roman family, he had some rights that were not provided to others, and these rights kept him away from harm most of the time.
• Apostle Paul was a great believer of Jewish heritage during his early life.
• As per the New Testament, St Paul was a Pharisee in his early life.
• Pharisees are known as the cautious pupils of the Hebrew Bible.
• Since St Paul was a Pharisee early, he had utmost hate for Christians.
• In fact, St Paul took part in the stoning of the first Christian martyr, Stephen.
• As per the book of Acts, Saul or Paul approved the killing of Stephen as he was preaching the gospel.
• Apostle Paul was responsible for persecuting and imprisoning Christians in Jerusalem before his conversion experience.
• St Paul also captured and killed some of the other Apostles of Jesus Christ during the Christian movement after the crucifixion of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
• St Paul also thought that Jesus was a mortal and that he should be punished for portraying himself to be God.
• The introduction of St Paul in the Bible is as the persecutor of followers of Christ Jesus.
• After St Paul had undergone the conversion experience, he became deeply faithful to Jesus.
• Because of Paul's previous actions against Christianity, people found it tough to believe him even after getting baptized.
• St Paul took four significant missionary journeys throughout his life that took him across Asia Minor and Europe, where he planted churches to promote the Christian movement.
• During the first missionary journey of St Paul, he was accompanied by Barnabas and John Mark.
• Apostle Paul has started this journey from Antioch, and they sailed to Cyprus.
• While in Cyprus, Paul scolded a magician named Elymas and made him go blind as he was disapproving Paul's teachings.
• During the second missionary journey of St Paul, he debated with Barnabas whether they should take John as well cause John had abandoned them earlier as well.
• Therefore on the second journey, he was accompanied by Silas. Barnabas and John Mark took a separate journey of their own.
• He traveled around Galatia and Phrygia during the third missionary journey to revisit the churches and strengthen their believers.
• After his third journey, St Paul went to Jerusalem for the last time before his death. In Jerusalem, he handed over some money collected for the local community.
• According to the Book of Acts and the Bible, the fourth missionary journey that St Paul made towards Spain and Rome is highly debatable because he was imprisoned twice.
• St Paul has started almost a dozen of churches during his time.
• After spending two years in Rome being confined in a house arrest, he traveled to Troad.
• Emperor Nero killed him during the Neronian Persecution, which happened during the 64th century AD.
• The execution of St Paul happened simultaneously as the Great Fire in the city of Rome in the 64th century AD.
• St Paul and St Peter were martyred together in Rome.
• The Emperor decapitated St Paul's head because of the will to spread Christianity.
• As per legend, when Paul's head was decapitated at Aquae Salviae, his detached head rebounded three times, giving rise to water sources every time it made contact with the ground.
• Later on, the fountain was named 'San Paolo alle Tre Fontane.'
• The body of Apostle Paul was buried outside the Roman walls, on the Via Ostiense.
• Emperor Constantine the Great built the first church in that very place later on in the fourth century.
• Currently, the Basilica of Saint Paul is situated in that place in Rome.
• Archaeologists found a large sarcophagus made of marble with 'Paulo Apostolo Mart' (Paul Apostle martyr) inscribed in it in 2002.
• The Vatican, later on, confirmed that the sarcophagus found was of Paul.
• Archaeologists present there estimated that Paul's sarcophagus dated back to the first or second century.

Conversion Of Paul

If St Paul was a Pharisee in his early days, then what made him believe in Jesus? When did his conversion happen, and what was the reason? Find out more about this divine incident in this article.

• The conversion experience of St Paul was probably the most astonishing part of Paul's life.
• This event of his life is also known as Damascus Christophany and Damascene conversion.
• This event has been written in the Book of Acts.
• According to the Book of Acts, Apostle Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus.
• Paul was traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus to arrest some people involved in the Christian movement after the crucifixion of Jesus.
• While on his way, he had a vision of the son of God, and he fell to the ground.
• As per the Book of Acts, Paul heard a divine voice which said, 'Saul, why do you persecute me?' to which Paul replied, 'Who are you, Lord?'. And then he got the reply which stated, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
• After this divine intervention, Paul became blind for three days.
• As per the Bible, Apostle Paul was then taken to Damascus.
• Paul denied eating or drinking in those three days and was continuously praying to God.
• He started to believe in Jesus, but he was still not cured of his blindness.
• Paul understood that he had to meet a devotee of Christ to earn his grace and be subjected to Christ's power to heal.
• Ananias was a disciple of Christ who lived in Damascus. Lord appeared in his dreams and directed him to go and heal Paul.
• When Ananias came to meet Paul, he said to Paul that the Lord who appeared to you has instructed me to heal you.
• And as soon as Ananias placed his hand on Paul's head, Paul got his eyesight back.
• Paul rejoiced and was baptized right after that event.
• Paul immediately stated that Jesus is the Son of God.
• St Paul stated in his accounts that he acknowledged the gospel from no man but Jesus himself.
• After that, St Paul played a pivotal role in the Council of Jerusalem.
• After the event at Damascus, St Paul traveled to Arabia to meditate.
• Three years later, St Paul traveled to Jerusalem to study scriptures on Jesus and meet the other Apostles.
• After this meeting with the other Apostles, St Paul started his journey to preach to the people about Jesus and the gospel.
• While on his journey to preach, Apostle Paul discovered that his teaching of Jesus to the Gentiles was not being liked by the Christians present in Jerusalem.
• To settle this dispute, it was decided that Peter would become the principal Apostle for Jews and Paul would be the principal Apostle to Gentiles.
• The sole mission of Paul was to preach to people that Jesus lived in heaven and he was the Messiah. And that Jesus will return soon.
• St Paul kept traveling towards the west to continue preaching about the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles. This left him less time to revisit his established churches around Asia Minor and some European countries.

Facts About St. Paul

The great Apostle was known for many reasons and was considered very significant during the first century. Further on in this article, we will learn some amazing and interesting facts about him.

• After the Roman commander arrested him, he exercised his right to be a Roman citizen and wished to be presented before Caesar.
• He thought Caesar would understand his motive to preach, but Caesar punished him with a house arrest.
• Saul of Tarsus was called Paul for the first time when he reached Cyprus.
• He visited heaven before his death; that is, God gave him a glimpse of heaven while he was meditating in Arabia.
• At a time, he felt lonely and deserted by his fellow companions, but he was never deserted from God's presence.
• When some 40 Jewish men were conspiring against him and planned to kill him, Paul's nephew alerted him to retreat to a safer place.
• It is said that Jesus' disciples helped him escape from assassination by putting him in a basket.
• He used to use Stoic terms to educate his followers. Stoic philosophy is the method of maximizing positive thoughts and decreasing negative thoughts.
• Saul was a tentmaker, and he used to carry around his leatherworking tools along with him.
• It is believed that he used to preach to people while mending and making tents.
• St. Paul's letters and epistles are the roots of Christian theology.
• These epistles and letters provide the base to the faith of Christianism and solve many questions that arise while walking in the Lord's path.
• With directions from the Holy Spirit, he used to perform many miracles.
• Some of his miracles include driving out evil spirits and healing people.
• It is said that he even raised someone from the dead.
• He was responsible for the unification of the churches and setting out the common belief.
• The New Testament provides minimal information about Paul's physical appearance.
• But according to Acts of Paul, he said to be a bald man with small stature and curved legs.
• The Acts of Saint Peter states that Saul had a bald, shining head accompanied with red hair.
• Saul of Tarsus often used to state that he was always yearning for the grace of Christ, but this sometimes used to cost him extreme sufferings.
• As Paul used to go on journeys, he used to travel by boat. When he wrote his second letter to Corinthians, he stated that his ship wrecked three times.
• Many assassination attempts have been made on him; as per the Bible, he was attacked six times.
• First time in Damascus, where he escaped in a large basket.
• Second time in Jerusalem when he got into a heated debate with the Hellenistic Jews.
• Third when he was in Iconium with Barnabas. They got to know about it and fled to Lystra.
• Fourth in Lystra, when he and Barnabas healed a man, people started to doubt that they were Zeus and Hermes and planned to sacrifice to them.
• Fifth time again in Jerusalem when he argued with the high priest and insulted him.
• Sixth time in Caesarea when he was imprisoned. Proconsul Porcius Festus saved him that time.
• Saul holds the record of writing the most number of documents for the Bible.
• The books that are credited to him consist of Romans, Corinthians I, Corinthians II, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians I, Thessalonians II, Timothy I, Timothy II, Titus, and Philemon.
• These are actually the letters and epistles that were directed for the churches that were established by him.
• Some people believe that St Paul is the author of the Book of Hebrews, but that is not true. The real author of that Bible is still unknown.
• In regard to the New Testament, Saint Paul is regarded as the establisher of the system that is now followed in the churches.
• Feasts are kept in Paul's name every year, which rejoice in his acts.
• The feast of conversion is celebrated on January 25 of every year.
• The feast of Saint Paul's shipwreck in Malta is celebrated on February 10.
• Feast of Saints Peter and Paul is celebrated on June 29.
• Pauline Christianity or Gentile Christianity is known to develop from the teachings and beliefs of Apostle Paul.