Who was the Apostle Paul?

Today we’re meeting a man most of us would think of as a trailblazer, a church planter, and the author of some of the most well-read books in the Bible. However, Paul would be the first to say that he wasn’t the starting point of anything. He was a follower of Yeshua and a link in the chain of something that would change our world forever…

In the final moments before his departure, Paul reminds his “brothers and sisters” of the Good News which he had been proclaiming to them. He speaks to them about his own unworthiness in being an emissary, but by the grace of God, “I am what I am”… Even though he was ‘unworthy’, he preached the Good News and brought so many to faith in Yeshua our Messiah. 
Paul’s story begs the question: Has anyone ever come to faith completely alone? His story and so many others suggest that the answer is no! Let’s go back to where it began, with a man who once tried to destroy the very faith he would later hand on to others…

Who was Paul?

Paul came into the world with two names, and both tell us something with individual importance. His Hebrew name, Sha’ul (שָׁאוּל), means “asked for.” It was also the name of Israel’s first king, who, like Paul, came from the tribe of Benjamin. His Greek name, Paulos, means “small” or “humble.” This wasn’t a new name given at conversion, as many assume, it was simply the second name he carried as both a Jew and a Roman citizen.

Paul was from Tarsus and from the tribe of Benjamin, trained as a Pharisee under the famed teacher Gamaliel. He was also a Roman citizen, and a tentmaker by trade. He became an apostle to the nations, a planter of congregations, the author of thirteen letters—now books of the Bible, and the central figure of much of the book of Acts. The main through-line of his story flows from one simple pattern: he received and then he passed it on.

The Man Before the Mission
It’s easy to forget where Paul started, but let’s remember that he definitely wasn’t searching for Yeshua. Rather the complete opposite…he was trying to stamp out Yeshua’s followers! He stood by approvingly as Stephen was stoned, and he dragged believers out of their homes and into prison.

The Man Who Received
Then one day, Paul met Yeshua on the Damascus road, and from that experience he became a man surrounded by the same believers he had once persecuted who now were pouring into his life and his faith. 

• Ananias, a frightened believer who walked into the house of a known persecutor and greeted him as “Brother Saul.”
• Barnabas, who vouched for Paul when no one else would, and later brought him to Antioch.
• The apostles in Jerusalem, who confirmed the message he preached.

Paul likely never met Yeshua during His earthly ministry, he received the Good News through revelation and the testimonies of other people, and he would spend the rest of his years in ministry doing the same for others. 

The Man Who Gave
He became a giver, taking the Good News to the nations, and never walked away from his people. He was a shepherd who kept returning to strengthen the flock, and rarely traveled alone as more and more people joined his walk in the life of ministering to the nations.

When Everything Changed

The Setting

Paul is on his way to Jerusalem, determined to arrive in time for Shavuot. Luke tells us he deliberately sails past Ephesus so he won’t be delayed in Asia. Which is a shocking decision, because Ephesus was Paul’s home base for about three years. It was the city where he taught daily and where the Word spread across the whole region. Yet he doesn’t stop there on his way through. He actually sends word from the port of Miletus, asking the Ephesian elders to come to him instead!

Paul isn’t naive about what’s ahead. The Ruach had been testifying to him in city after city that chains and afflictions were waiting for him. He doesn’t know every detail, but he knows the direction, and he keeps walking toward it anyway. He isn’t walking this path alone though. Luke lists Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus as being with Paul during this time. He isn’t a lone hero carrying the faith on his shoulders, he was sharing the weight and responsibility of carrying it and spreading the Word with his fellow believers. 

What He Gave Them

When the elders arrive, Paul reminds them of how he lived among them: from the very first day, he was with them. He served with humility and tears, through trials and opposition, and held nothing back that would help them. He taught publicly as well as “from house to house,” so that the same message shared in a crowded room was also shared at kitchen tables. To the Jewish and Greek people alike, he testified about repentance toward God and faith in Yeshua! He showed them that the work of the kingdom isn’t above the work of daily life. He reminds them:

—remembering the words of the Lord Yeshua, that He Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Acts 20:35 TLV

These words do not appear in the gospels, someone heard it, then handed it on, and now Paul is handing it forward again. Even in this very farewell speech, he is demonstrating the very chain he’s about to describe. Discipleship, for Paul, was never a sermon series. It was a way of living alongside people until they knew what he knew, why it was important, and then began living it out and proclaiming it themselves. 

The Charge

Then Paul tells the elders that they won’t see his face again, and that he doesn’t count his own life as valuable except that he might finish the ministry he received from Yeshua. Even here, he describes his calling as something given to him, not something he created. Then he tells them…

“Take care of yourselves and all the flock of which the Ruach ha-Kodesh has made you overseers, to shepherd the community of God—which He obtained with the blood of His own.”

Acts 20:28 TLV

The order in which Paul commands them holds great importance, “take care of yourselves” comes first, because a shepherd who isn’t watching his own heart will eventually lose the flock. Also, Paul refers to the flock as “the community of God”, because even though the elders are being tasked as caretakers not owners. This is the community of God not the elders’ possession. 

Paul also leaves them with a warning that savage wolves will come in among them, and even from their own number. That men will arise speaking twisted things to draw disciples after themselves. Anyone familiar with the prophets will hear the echo of Ezekiel, who spoke against shepherds who fed themselves instead of the sheep and described the watchman who must sound the alarm. The message doesn’t simply need to be taught in the community, it needs to be guarded, and the danger can grow quietly from the inside.

The Handing Over

Paul has just given these men a severe warning and said that they will never see him again. If anyone ever had a reason to say, “Stay loyal to me,” it was Paul at that moment, but instead he says:

“Now I commit you to God and the word of His grace, which is strong to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who have been made holy.”

Acts 20:32 TLV

He doesn’t say “follow me“ or “remember me”…He said that he was entrusting them to God and to His word. He takes his hands off the flock and places it in the hands of the One who was always its true Shepherd, with the Scriptures as the anchor that will hold when he’s gone.

Paul kneels down with all of them and prays. They weep, throw their arms around his neck, and keep kissing him, grieving most of all over his words that they would not see his face again. Then they walk him to the ship. No speeches. No applause. Just men who don’t want to let go, accompanying someone they love to the next part of their journey. Paul was arrested in Jerusalem and never returned to Ephesus as a free man, but he had handed over what mattered. The faith kept moving through Timothy and the Ephesian congregation long after he left them. The chain held, because its weight was never resting on one link.

Paul never claimed to be the origin of the message he carried. He says plainly that he simply passed on what he also received, which places him in a long line of faithful people like Joshua and Moses. This may sound familiar to some, because faith has often been understood as something received from the fathers and handed down to the children. For those of us who are Gentile, grafted into the same tree by Messiah, it is also a reminder of how we have been invited into a chain that began long before us. 

Yet the chain does not carry itself. Paul’s warning about wolves was an act of love from a shepherd who knew that a faith passed on without care can be quietly reshaped, link by link, until it is no longer the same faith that was first received. This is why he pointed people back to the Scriptures and not merely to opinions. It is also why Paul never said “I entrust you to me” but placed the elders in the hands of God and the word of His grace, for a healthy chain does not depend on any single link, and our confidence rests in the Shepherd and not in the messenger.

Finally, the pattern of receiving and handing on carries a blessing within it, reaching back to the promise to Abraham that we are blessed in order to bless. A faith held tightly and never given away is not right, because it was never meant to stop with us. Yet handing the faith on does not mean we have finished receiving it. Years later, when Paul was writing from prison and still pressing on, he asked for his scrolls (2 Timothy 4:13), because he was still hungry to read and to learn. A single link in this chain is never only being held, nor only holding, but both at once.

One Central Message

Discipleship isn’t a stage you graduate from, it’s a chain you belong to, and receiving the faith means passing it on. Paul didn’t invent what he preached. He received it from Yeshua, from Ananias, from Barnabas, and from Scripture itself. He handed it to Timothy, the Ephesian elders, and so many more; eventually, it has come to us!

Living This Truth Today

You are not the first link, and you are not the last. The faith that has been handed to you from another believer or through your own research has been given so that you could hand it on to someone else. This call belongs to every believer, not just pastors and teachers.

Look back…Who handed you the faith? A parent, a friend, a teacher, someone who simply wouldn’t stop praying for you? 

Look around…Who is walking beside you right now that doesn’t yet know what you know?

Start at home! The dinner table, the Shabbat candles, or the ordinary conversations in the car. The chain rarely moves forward on a stage, but in the everyday moments of life. 

Stay a learner and keep reading the Scripture and learning more about the Good News, because the one handing on the faith is the one still being fed by it! Hold the Word with open hands and point people to God and His Word, not to yourself.

Conclusion

Go back to that harbor one more time. Paul is on his knees with men he loves. He entrusts them to God and to the word of His grace, rises, and faithfully boards the ship that will bring him to the city the Ruach is calling him to. The invitation isn’t to be the apostle or the one with the platform. It’s to be a faithful link, to receive it with gratitude, hold it with care, and hand it on with love.

Will you be the link that carries the faith to the next person?