To Live Is Christ..A study of the life of the apostle Paul, one of Christ’s most passionate followers.
I am doing this Bible Study from the book
‘To Live is Christ’ by Beth Moore.
The apostle Paul was a remarkable man. His persistence and undying passion should convince us that he truly encountered the risen Christ.
His words should be a personal challenge to all
I want to know Christ – should be our plea
To live is Christ and to die is gain – should be our hope
He loved and served the Lord with every breath and drop of blood he had. His passion for Christ was indomitable. For these reasons the study of his life will challenge us.
God who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.
Galatians 1:15-16The First FootprintsWhen Saul was born and raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Tarsus, he had no idea that someday he would have the call to work for God.
We can only imagine what his childhood and upbringing might have been like. The Bibles gives us only a few pieces of information about his upbringing.
We know that Paul was reared as closely to the letter of the Jewish law as possible. Therefore based on Scripture and the traditional Jewish code of law, we can find many details of his young life.
From the circumstances and practices of those times, we can draw conclusions of what his young life may have been like.
The rules and precepts of the
Code of Jewish Law has been and continues to be the cornerstone of Jewish custom and tradition and an eternal light guiding Jewish moral, social and religions behavior.
His father. a Pharisee and Roman citizen, would have been an impressive man and one of the few the community who would command a certain amount of respect from both Jew and Gentile.
Paul would have been named and circumcised in a ceremony with words like …
Just as he has been initiated into the covenant, so may he be initiated into the study of the Torah, to his nuptial canopy, and to the performance of good deeds.In a society where a child could be discarded as rubbish, nothing was more important to the Jew than offspring. The child was a tangible piece of evidence that God was faithful and would do as He promised.
Custom would demand that the father would host a feast to the limits of his wealth. A man who offered less than he could afford was entirely improper. . They would gather with those who feared God and worshiped Him only.
The eight day old infant was circumcised and named Saul
In Galatians 1:15-16 Paul spoke of being
‘set apart from birth’. Genesis 17:1-11 describes circumcision as
‘ the sign of the covenant’ between God and the descendants of Abraham.
The importance of Paul’s Jewish identity can not be understated. It powerfully affected his lifestyle.
As we continue on in the study we’ll be leaving our
‘footprints’ all over the pages of Acts and Paul’s epistles
Next we’ll be taking a look at the childhood of a Pharisee’s son.
As you can see, I finally found my book and it looks like it will be an interesting and informative study. I hope you’ll join me in the days to come as I strive to learn more from the Wonderful Words found in the Bible.‘On Ya’ - ma