I Despise ?

        Saul of Tarsus is a despicable character illustrated for us in the Bible. After three decades of involvement in the Christian religion, I’ve had the opportunity to study the Bible fairly extensively and this man stands out as one to despise. Though the Bible is historically and archaeologically accurate, it is an edited work, focusing on the acts of the Jewish and Christian God. I recognize it is not an exhaustive history, yet it lends great insight into who this man was. It documents the history of the Jews and the inception of what the world knows today as Christianity, and illustrates this man's role in that.

            So I “studied the Bible”. So what? My interest in Christianity also led me to study “church history” and how it relates to world history. The term “church” is often used within Christianity to describe the entirety of all believers in Christ. The Biblical account of “church” history is only of its beginnings. Therefore, understanding that all of history is intertwined, a rudimentary study of other religions and world philosophies necessarily ensued. Over these past three decades I've read books on the Roman Empire and the complexities of its rise and its fall; this is the environment that produced Saul. Bible atlases and complex commentaries on scripture helped me put this man's actions into context. Other reading on the history of the English language, and how the English Bible was translated, further developed my understanding of how this narrative made its way into our living rooms.

            Is studying an interest all book-work? Can you fully understand a topic by reading books? Experience in Christianity brought much to my understanding of the topic. I've been a member of the Lutheran Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, and have visited several other denominations. In each of the denominations that I've been a member, I took classes on their specific doctrines.  I have also read many works on the role of Catholicism and on the Protestant Reformation.

            Are there experiences outside of Christianity that helped to develop an informed opinion on despicable actions? A fifteen month deployment as an intelligence officer in Iraq, responsible for collection and analysis of human intelligence reports, put me up close and personal with the complexities of Islam; providing extensive opportunities to study it.  In particular, how that religion drove, (and drives) that culture in that country.

            At the behest of the US Government, I also lived in Japan for a year. This helped to build an understanding of Buddhism, Shinto and the far eastern mindset in general. In total, twenty-six years in the Army allowed me to see twelve countries and observe multiple cultures and religions. This has hopefully provided me with a strong base from which to speak on this subject. Though history provides no shortage of examples of despicable characters, one who stands out to me, in the infancy of Christianity, is Saul of Tarsus.

            Tarsus was a city in the Roman province called Cilicia, now known as southern Turkey.  At the time of Saul, it was known as a major trading city, set just ten miles from the Mediterranean Sea on a large river then called Cydnus. It was also known at that time for universities and higher learning, and Saul was definitely a product of that.

            This Saul of Tarsus, as he was known, was a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth. If you remember, Jesus was a man who claimed to be the Son of God in around 30 AD. A simple, uneducated carpenter’s son, His life, teachings, miracles, death, and subsequent resurrection, caused epic change on the planet. He created such a change that over 2000 years later nearly a third of the world population still follows Him today, through what is called Christianity.

            Saul was a Pharisee. They were an elite, educated class of religious Jews and he was said to be exceptionally well educated, even among them. Steeped in the doctrines of the Jewish law, they added over 600 laws of their own to the already extensive Mosaic Law. These man-made rules strangled freedom in the daily life of the Jews and these were directly challenged by this uneducated carpenter's son, during His relatively brief time of teaching. Pick up any study Bible and you'll learn, Jesus began His public teaching ministry at age thirty and died at age thirty-three.  It is amazing how such a radical shift in the minds of men could happen with such a short intervention.

            So I can just see Saul’s smug arrogance; chin jutting, articulate speech, the diction of superiority, as he set out to quench this revolution. At the outset of Christianity, he vehemently believed the disciples of Jesus were a blasphemous cult. He believed this cult was a threat to Judaism and an enemy of God. Centuries of Jewish laws and traditions seemed to be trampled underfoot by this new sect. He sought permission from the Jewish leadership to hunt down and extinguish these people. He personally captured, jailed, tortured, and murdered members of this new sect, if they would not recant their beliefs. He fit our modern definition of a terrorist. Saul left smoldering carcasses in his wake as he sought to purge this sect from the earth. He truly believed he was doing God's bidding through violence.

            It sounds a bit like the current evening news, doesn’t it? We see Islamists in northern Iraq capturing whole towns, with high percentages of Christians, and murdering those who will not renounce their beliefs and bow to their conquerors. This is the same ideology that drove Saul; one that seems to have an insatiable need to harm or even kill anyone who does not believe the way they do. This utter intolerance is exactly what drove Saul, a sickening, detestable notion, which stifles freedom, joy, pursuit of happiness and basically anything good.

            One day as Saul was traveling to the city of Damascus, no doubt desiring to turn some young mothers into acrid smoke before their children’s eyes, he encountered the risen Jesus Christ.  The brilliance of the Christ literally knocked him to the ground. After a brief one sided conversation, Saul saw his error and converted on the spot. He brought his zealous nature to the mission of peacefully spreading what has now become known as the Gospel, the good news.          Saul of Tarsus became known as The Apostle Paul and is responsible for writing the bulk of what we now know as the New Testament portion of the Bible. Paul traveled hundreds of miles around the Mediterranean rim and is credited with starting nearly a dozen churches. Now considered a “hero” of the Christian faith, it was not always so.  His conversion is one of the starkest examples of true transformation.  Ironically, he met his fate in much the same manner as those he initially sought to silence.

            He was killed for his faith in Christ, during the Roman Emperor Nero's first persecution of the church, around 64-68 AD. (So, Paul would have missed the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple destruction by Titus in 70 AD). This was a tumultuous era in this region to be sure. Rebel Jewish forces had battled Roman Legions for control of Jerusalem with some degree of success for several years. And amidst this, a movement of charitable, peace-lovers was exploding just beneath the surface. Paul was now a leader of this movement he once sought to destroy himself.

            What have I learned from the study of this man? It is of paramount importance to understand how dangerous it is to despise anyone. This same man was once taking lives; now giving his own. Yes, unto death, but so much more than that. The life he lived was lived for the benefit of others. He gave his life for many years before he was killed for his belief. Saul is easy to despise yet Paul is easy to love.  Therein lays the danger of despising anyone. Please remember: people change.

            A much more tenable position is to despise acts.  Acts can be despicable. People who commit despicable acts can, and often do, change. This has changed the way I think about other men who have committed despicable acts, such as the British slave trader named John Newton. An eighteenth century sailor, he had quite an eventful life. Forced to serve in the British Royal Navy as a youth, he was then cast away in West Africa where he lived with slaves and was treated as one. Subsequently rescued from that, he went on to become Captain of a ship; engaged in the slave trade.

            This despicable man also later converted to Christianity and became a clergyman in the Church of England. He teamed up with a man in the parliament and worked until his death to see the abolition of slavery in Great Britain. He is known best for authoring the song scores still sing today, Amazing Grace. Would you have thought such a despicable man (in his earlier years) could change so radically for the good?

            We all can fall into circumstances, or be driven by forces in our lives to perform despicable acts. We often despise ourselves for it later on. That can be a healthy perspective from which to change, and heal, if we don't dwell there too long.