A champion, a pain.

‘We find this man a pestilent fellow’ Acts :24:5: ‘For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes’.

He was said to be a stirrer of troubles by the very people who needed Jesus in their lives. He was labelled a heretic and a blasphemer. Paul was given a name of the Greek god Mercurius because he was a chief speaker when he preached and performed miracles on his journey with Barnabas, who was referred to as Jupiter.

Moses used to have very strong words with God in the desert when God would ask him to tell his people blah blah. He would then say to him, you cannot give and leave your creations to die in the desert. What will they say? What will our enemies say? Who brought us out of Egypt?’ At that point would concede that he will do something, but they are ‘a stiff necked people’.

Throughout Paul’s story, it was sad to see that from those days of Moses, to the times of the Lord Jesus Christ through to the beginning of the church of Christ, they never believed. God had however made special arrangements with them for life. For this reason, they were more jealous to share any platform with us ‘of uncircumcision’. This was the borne of contention, if ever they wanted to believe his story.

There are times people actually thought Paul was possessed by evil spirits himself because of the miracles he performed. He was bitten by a very poisonous viper in Malta after their shipwreck on his way to Rome as a prisoner to be tried by Ceaser. The locals first said he should have been a murder as after being in trouble in the sea, the snake does not want to spare his life.

Felix actually called Paul mad, saying in Acts 26:24: ‘And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.’ His response was genuine and defensive, saying in verse 27: ‘King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.’

 and in v28 Agrippa said unto Paul, ‘Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.’ Agrippa was married to a Jewess called Bernice.

Paul had a very bad record against Christianity, yet he became its greatest instrument ever. So can you