Saint Paul and His Illness
Saint Paul is one of the most influential early Christian missionaries and leaders of the first generation of Christians. He was a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin and was born a Roman citizen, in Tarsus of Cilicia, with the Hebrew name Saul. Among the many other apostles and missionaries involved in the spread of the Christian faith, Paul is often considered to be one of the two most important people in the history of Christianity, and one of the greatest religious leaders of all time. In the New Testament, before becoming a follower of Christianity, Saul was engaged in a violent persecution of the newly-forming Church. He was confronted on the road to Damascus with a blinding vision of the risen Jesus. He continued to Damascus, and there regained his sight and was baptized c. AD 34 Paul 's conversion dramatically changed the course of his life. In obedience to his new Lord, he began at once to preach Jesus of Nazareth in the Jewish synagogues, and he became the object of Jewish persecution. He taught that Jesus is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and the Son of God. When people heard of this seizure they were very scared about the seizures and where afraid that the disease would spread. There are many mesons of Saint Paul seizures in the bible and how it affected not only his life but the life of the others that he was preaching too. We see that his illness affected many but it improved his life by being able to hear God. According to many passages in the New Testament, Paul has a supernatural experience in which he came to believe that Jesus was actually the Messiah of Israel and that God had called Paul to preach the message of Jesus to all men. After the Supernatural Experience is states that he was blinded and forced to fast for three days until a Christian named Ananias laid hands on him and restored his sight, after which he was baptized. Paul spent the next three years of his life in Damascus with the Christians. He then returned to Jerusalem and was
Cited: PAGE Benedict XVI, Pope. Saint Paul: General Audiences, July 2, 2008-February 4, 2009. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2009. Print. Daly, Sister Emily Joseph. Paul, Trumpet of the Spirit. Paterson, N.J: St. Anthony Gulid, 1963. Print. Dibelius, Martin. Paul. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953. Print. Minn, H. R. The Thorn That Remained or St. Paul 's Thorn in the Flesh. Auckland: G.W. Moore, 1972. Print. The Bible Gateway. BibleGateway, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2013.