Born in Tarsus, capital of the Roman province of Cilicia, Saul learned the art of tentmaking, probably from his father, whose Roman citizenship he had inherited. A gifted student, he went to Jerusalem and studied Phariseeism under the great Rabbi Gamaliel, who urged moderation vis-a-vis the earliest Christians (Acts 5:34 ff.). But Saul, with all the fire of youth, bitterly opposed them, the deacon Stephen in particular, whose stoning he endorsed. Then, like a fanatic zealot, he persecuted Christians in Jerusalem and received credentials from the priests to do the same in Damascus. Near Damascus, however, Saul was struck down on the roadway by a vision of the risen Christ which changed his life forever. Blinded by the experience and led by the hand to Damascus, Saul was soon cured of his blindness and baptized by a local church leader named Ananias. The "Straight Street" where all this took place is identifiable today in modern Damascus.

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Sunstroke, hallucination, epilepsy, and psychology have all been suggested as "natural" explanations for Saul's conversion, but none of them satisfies the historical evidence. This, the most dramatic conversion in history, became Saul's own witness of the resurrected Lord and his call to apostleship. Like Jesus, Saul had his desert experience, probably in northern Arabia, where he rethought his theology over a three-year period. Returning to Damascus, he boldly proclaimed Jesus as the promised Messiah in the synagogues of the city, provoking a plot to seize him at the city gates. But Saul was lowered in a basket from the city wall and escaped to Jerusalem, where he met the apostles Peter and James, the half-brother of Jesus, and convinced them of his conversion. He then sailed back to Tarsus, where he spent the next decade as a missionary in Cilicia and northern Syria.

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Barnabas, Saul, and Mark set sail from Syria to Cyprus on the first leg of their mission journey. During and interview with the island's Roman governor, Saul was interrupted by a Jewish renegade magician, Elymas, who was struck with temporary blindness. At this point, Acts introduces the famous name-change for Saul, who was "also known as Paul." The tree missionaries sailed from Cyprus northward to Perga in southern Asia Minor, where John Mark left his colleagues. Journeying northward to Antioch-in-Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas here set the pattern of first announcing the Good News in the synagogue to their fellow Jews -- with mixed results -- and then turning to the Gentiles, who responded more positively. This was the case also in Iconium (today the Turkish Konya) as well as Lystra.

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Besides their successes, early Christians also had problems: squabbles, petty jealousies, economic hardship, and particularly a great doctrinal dispute. The "Judaizers" -- strict Jewish Christians who demanded that Gentiles had to become Jews en route to Christianity -- opposed Paul and Barnabas for admitting Gentiles into the church directly. The church at Antioch sent Paul, Barnabas, and Titus to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles on this issue. Peter supported Paul admirably, and the Jerusalem (or Apostolic) Council came down on the side of the Gospel -- a decision that had enormous consequences for the future. Still the Judaizers did not give up, but sent a delegation to Antioch which polarized the church there and made even Peter and Barnabas stumble. After Paul set them straight, he and Barnabas had a row over whether to take Mark along on the contemplated second mission journey.

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Arriving in Philippi, Paul and his party met Lydia, who was baptized as Europe's first Christian convert. When a possessed slave girl bothered the missionaries, Paul exorcised the evil spirit inside her, which provoked her owners. They indicted Paul and Silas before the city authorities, who had them beaten and thrown into prison. Liberated by an earthquake, they baptized the prison warden and his family, and were escorted out of jail. At Thessalonica, a Christian convert named Jason received the missionaries. He was indicted before the city magistrates, then released. Meanwhile, Paul and his party went on to Berea, where he received a sympathetic hearing in the synagogue -- until agitators made him take a ship for Athens. There, Paul took in the city's cultural wonders but was depressed by its rampant Pagan idolatry, which he decried in his famous address at the Aeropagus, just below the Parthenon. His preaching on monotheism and the resurrection won several important converts.

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Again Paul traveled through Asia Minor, this time directly westward to Ephesus, the city where the great Temple to Artemis was located. The cult capital of the ancient world, Ephesus saw the longest ministry of Paul in one place -- three years -- during which he attacked the city's occult practices, including the idolatry involved in the sale of silver statuettes of Artemis. Demetrius, head of the silversmiths' guild, responded with a riot at the great theater of Ephesus, the crowd chanting deliriously: "GREAT IS ARTEMIS OF THE EPHESIANS!" The 24,000-seat theater still stands at the most imposing ruin in Asia Minor. Fortunately, Paul was prevented from entering the theater, and the city clerk was able to calm and dismiss the crowd. But Paul had other problems at Ephesus in battling paganism, witchcraft, magic, and the occult.

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Paul and his party presented the collection they had gathered to James and the elders of the church in the Holy City. To counter the rumor that he had rejected Judaism, Paul underwrote the sacrifices of four Jewish Christians at the temple, where he was discovered by the Jews from Ephesus and denounced as their antagonist. During the ensuing riot in the temple courtyard, Paul's life was saved by the Roman cohort stationed at the Tower Antonia, whose commander, Lysias, would have scourged Paul but for his Roman citizenship. When the Jerusalem Sanhedrin also rejected Paul's claims and his nephew alerted Lysias to a plot against his uncle's life, the commander ordered Paul taken under guard to Caesarea, where the Roman governor, Felix, was in charge. Five days later, a priestly prosecution arrived from Jerusalem and presented their case against Paul as an agitator, a ringleader of the Nazarene sect, and a profaner of the temple. Paul countered all three charges effectively.

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When Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus set sail for Rome, northwesterly winds made them sail along coastlines to the port of Myra, where they transferred to a freighter bound for Italy. Unable to face Aegean headwinds, their ship sailed under Crete to a roadstead called Fair Havens. Although Paul warned against sailing further, the ship owner and captain decided otherwise. Soon, a dreadful nor'easter plunged them into a fourteen-day nightmare of frothy fury, causing the crew to jettison cargo and despair of life itself. But Paul declared that all passengers would survive, although the ship would be lost. And so it happened. All 276 passengers were rescued on the beach at Malta, and they spent three winter months on the island. Paul healed the father of Publius, the governor of Malta, before setting sail the next spring for Puteoli on the Bay of Naples. Disembarking there, they traveled up the Appian Way to Rome, welcomed by two delegations from the Roman church.

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