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Course 7 · Lesson 4.3

Paul in Acts and in his own letters

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 7 outline

Module 1: The World of the New Testament

  1. Second Temple Judaism in the time of Jesus
  2. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and other movements
  3. Rome, the Herods and the province of Judea
  4. Hopes, protest and revolt in Jewish political life

Module 2: Jesus in History

  1. Sources for Jesus: Christian, Jewish and Roman
  2. The quests for the historical Jesus and their methods
  3. Criteria of authenticity and their limits
  4. Historical results and Christian confession

Module 3: The Gospels as Books

  1. The gospels and ancient biography
  2. Traditions of authorship and the arguments about them
  3. The synoptic problem: the evidence of agreement and difference
  4. Solutions: Markan priority, Q, Matthean priority and others
  5. Four portraits of Jesus: the distinct emphasis of each gospel

Module 4: Acts and the Spread of the Church

  1. Pentecost and the Jerusalem church
  2. The mission to the Gentiles and the council at Jerusalem
  3. Paul in Acts and in his own letters
  4. Acts as history and as theology

Module 5: Pauline Theology

  1. Paul and his letters: occasion, authorship and order
  2. Gospel, faith and righteousness in Romans and Galatians
  3. Christ, the Spirit and the body of Christ
  4. Reading Paul: traditional, new perspective and other approaches

Module 6: Johannine Theology

  1. The Gospel, the three letters and Revelation: authorship questions
  2. Word, light, life and love in the Gospel of John
  3. The signs and the I am sayings
  4. The Spirit, the community and the Johannine letters

Module 7: Hope, Authority and Church Order

  1. The kingdom of God and last things in Jesus and the apostles
  2. Ways of reading New Testament eschatology
  3. What an apostle was and how apostolic authority worked
  4. Offices and order in the first churches
  5. How Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches read the evidence

Module 8: The Testaments Together

  1. Fulfilment and continuity: how the New Testament uses the Old
  2. Law and covenant across the Testaments
  3. Comparing Paul and John: a method
  4. Shared convictions and meaningful differences

All courses

Program / Course 7: New Testament Theology and History / Lesson 4.3

What you will learn

  • Outline Paul’s life as told in Acts and as reported in his own letters.
  • Name the main points where the two sources agree and where they differ.
  • Explain why historians usually give priority to the letters when the two conflict.
  • Describe how scholars and churches handle the differences.

The big idea

Two kinds of evidence describe Paul: his own letters, written in the 50s AD, and the narrative of Acts, written some decades later by a different author. They agree on the broad outline: a zealous Jew who persecuted the church, was turned by an encounter with the risen Jesus, and carried the gospel to the Gentiles across the Mediterranean. They differ in emphasis and in some details. Most historians treat the letters as primary and use Acts with care, while many Christians value both as Scripture.

Key terms

Primary evidence
Evidence from the person himself or from someone close to the events. Paul’s letters are primary evidence for Paul.
Undisputed letters
The seven letters nearly all scholars attribute to Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon.
Missionary journey
A name often given to the three travel sections in Acts 13 to 21. The phrase is a convenient label and not a term used in Acts.
Roman citizenship
A legal status giving certain rights, such as protection from beating without trial. Acts says Paul had it, though his letters do not mention it.
Gallio inscription
A stone inscription found at Delphi that dates the proconsulship of Gallio in Achaia to around 51 to 52 AD. Acts 18:12 mentions Gallio, so the inscription helps date Paul’s time in Corinth.
Collection
A gift of money Paul gathered from Gentile churches for the poor among the believers in Jerusalem (Romans 15:25 to 27, 1 Corinthians 16).
Chronology
The ordering of events in time. Reconstructing Paul’s chronology requires combining his letters with Acts.

Background

Paul is the best known figure of the early church after Jesus, and the unusual thing about him is that he wrote. Seven letters are accepted by nearly all scholars, and several others are attributed to him and discussed in the next module. In them he speaks about himself directly, but only when his arguments call for it. He does not give a connected biography.

Acts, by contrast, gives a connected story, devoting roughly half of its chapters to Paul. Its author writes in the third person except in some passages that say ‘we.’ Acts tells what Paul did, where he preached and how he was received. Where the two sources can be compared, historians ask which is more reliable and why they differ.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The outline they share

Both sources say that Paul was a Jew of the Diaspora who was zealous for the law and persecuted the church (Galatians 1:13, Philippians 3:5 to 6, Acts 8:3, 9:1). Both say he was turned by an encounter with the risen Jesus, and that he became a missionary to Gentiles, founding churches in cities of Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. Both place him in Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth and Ephesus, and both mention Barnabas, Silas and Timothy as companions. Both refer to conflict over circumcision and the law, and both relate to a collection for Jerusalem, though Acts mentions it only indirectly (Acts 24:17).

Acts also offers details missing from the letters: that he was born in Tarsus, trained in Jerusalem under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), practiced tentmaking (Acts 18:3, a trade which Paul himself mentions in general terms in 1 Corinthians 4:12), and held Roman citizenship (Acts 16:37, 22:25 to 28).

Step 2: Points of difference

Several differences have been noted. In Galatians 1:15 to 24 Paul says that after his call he went to Arabia and Damascus, and only after three years went to Jerusalem, and that he was unknown by face to the churches of Judea. Acts 9 has him go to Jerusalem soon after Damascus. Acts rarely calls Paul an apostle (only at Acts 14:4 and 14), while Paul insists on the title. Acts presents Paul preaching first in the synagogue and often speaking as a loyal Jew, while the letters show him in sharp argument about the law. The speech at Athens (Acts 17) differs in style from Paul’s letters, though both stress the one God and the resurrection.

Acts does not mention that Paul wrote letters. Its account of the Jerusalem meeting differs from Galatians 2, as the previous lesson noted. And Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome, preaching, without telling of his trial or death. Church tradition, from 1 Clement 5 and later writers, holds that he was martyred at Rome under Nero, perhaps in the mid 60s.

Step 3: How historians weigh the sources

Most historians give priority to the letters when the two sources differ, because Paul wrote close to the events and speaks for himself. Acts is later, and the author has his own aims: to show the church’s unity, its right to exist under Roman law, and the Gentile mission as the work of God. Some scholars, such as Philipp Vielhauer, argued that the Paul of Acts is a simplified, harmonized figure who differs in theology from the Paul of the letters.

Others stress the points where Acts agrees with the letters and with outside evidence. The Gallio inscription fits Acts 18:12. Titles of local officials in Acts, such as politarchs in Thessalonica and the first man of the island in Malta, have been confirmed in inscriptions, as Colin Hemer and others have shown. These scholars hold that Acts is a careful historian of its period. Both sets of observations can be true.

Step 4: Reading both

A practical approach is to build Paul’s chronology from the letters first and then fit Acts around it. That produces an outline: conversion around 33 to 36 AD, a visit to Jerusalem three years later, mission in Syria and Cilicia, the council about 48 or 49, work in Greece about 50 to 52, work in Ephesus perhaps for two to three years, the collection and a final visit to Jerusalem about 57, imprisonment, and travel to Rome. Dates are approximate and scholars differ by a few years.

A believer may read Acts as inspired history that supplements the letters, and a historian may read it as a source with its own point of view. Neither approach need ignore the differences. The overall picture is of a man whose own writing and others’ memories of him agree on his deepest convictions.

  1. Why might Paul’s letters give a less complete biography than Acts, even though they were written first?
  2. What reasons could explain why Acts rarely calls Paul an apostle?
  3. How much weight would you give to an inscription that confirms a detail in Acts?
  4. What would be lost if only Acts or only the letters survived?
  5. Why might the author of Acts leave out Paul’s letters?
  6. How do you decide between two sources that give different accounts of the same visit?

Examples

The Damascus road in three places

Acts tells of Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus three times (Acts 9, 22 and 26), with variations in detail about who heard the voice. Paul himself refers to it briefly (Galatians 1:15 to 16, 1 Corinthians 15:8). All sources agree on the core: Paul saw the risen Lord and was called to preach to the nations.

Gallio at Corinth

Acts 18:12 says that the Jews brought Paul before Gallio, proconsul of Achaia. An inscription at Delphi dates Gallio’s term to about 51 to 52 AD, which supports an eighteen-month stay for Paul in Corinth around that time. It is one of the firmest dates in New Testament chronology.

Paul’s own list of sufferings

In 2 Corinthians 11:23 to 27, Paul lists imprisonments, floggings, shipwrecks and dangers. Acts reports some of these, such as the beating at Philippi, and not others. The list shows the letters containing information that Acts lacks.

Different perspectives

Catholic view

The Catholic Church receives both Acts and the letters as inspired and true. It holds Paul as an apostle on equal footing with Peter, and celebrates them together on June 29. Catholic scholars generally treat Acts as a historical source with theological shaping, and the letters as primary.

Orthodox view

The Orthodox Church honors Paul as the ‘apostle of the nations’ and, with Peter, as chief of the apostles. It reads Acts and the letters together in worship, and tends to harmonize them without disregarding critical questions.

Protestant view

Protestants give Paul’s letters great weight, especially on justification. Conservative Protestants usually defend Acts as accurate and harmonize the differences. Other Protestants give priority to the letters, and note the theological purposes of Acts.

Critical scholarly view

Scholars largely accept that Paul is the best-documented figure of earliest Christianity, and that the letters have priority. They debate whether Acts is reliable on detail, how it relates to its sources, and whether its Paul is faithful to the Paul of the letters.

Why it matters

Paul shaped the New Testament and Christian theology more than any other single writer, so how he is understood affects how much of the Bible is read. A student who understands the relation between Acts and the letters can read each with attention to its own purpose.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Paul invented Christianity and departed from Jesus.

Correction: Paul says he received the gospel by revelation and by tradition, and he cites traditions from the earlier church (1 Corinthians 15:3). Scholars debate the relation of Paul to Jesus, but Paul himself insists on continuity with those who were apostles before him.

Misunderstanding: Acts is useless as history because it is theological.

Correction: Acts gives information confirmed by the letters and inscriptions, and has a theological purpose, as most ancient historical writing did. Its value must be weighed point by point.

Misunderstanding: Paul wrote all thirteen letters in his name.

Correction: Seven are accepted by nearly all scholars. Six others are disputed to different degrees, and are considered in the next lesson.

Misunderstanding: The ‘journeys’ of Paul are named in the New Testament.

Correction: The labels first, second and third journey are modern. Acts describes the travels without numbering them.

Knowledge check

What are the two main sources for Paul’s life?

His own letters, written in the 50s AD, and the book of Acts, written some decades later by the author of Luke. The letters are primary evidence from Paul, while Acts is a narrative that supplements them and has its own purposes.

Name two differences between Acts and the letters.

Galatians says Paul went to Arabia and did not visit Jerusalem for three years, while Acts has an early visit. Acts rarely calls Paul an apostle, though Paul insists on it. The accounts of the Jerusalem meeting also differ.

How does the Gallio inscription help?

It dates Gallio’s term as proconsul to about 51 to 52 AD. Because Acts 18 places Paul’s trial before Gallio during his stay in Corinth, the inscription gives a fixed point for Paul’s chronology.

Why do most historians give priority to the letters?

Because Paul wrote them himself, close to the events, and speaks about his own life and opinions. Acts was written later by another author who had his own aims and probably used sources of uncertain quality.

What does the tradition say about the end of Paul’s life?

Acts ends with Paul in Rome, preaching under guard, without describing his death. Later tradition, beginning with 1 Clement, holds that he was martyred, and later writers place it at Rome under Nero in the 60s.

Think it through

  1. How would you decide which source to trust on a point where Acts and Paul differ?
  2. What does it mean for faith that Paul wrote to real churches with real problems?
  3. How should Christians who hold Acts to be inspired respond to the differences?
  4. What do you learn about Paul from reading his own words that you would not learn from Acts?

Independent assignment

Two Pauls compared

In your own notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Read Galatians 1:11 to 2:10 and Acts 9:1 to 30. Make a two-column list of what each says about Paul’s call and early visits to Jerusalem. Then write a paragraph explaining which differences are most important and how you would explain them. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study