The Right Man with the Right Message--by Linden Malki

Jesus' followers knew Him well; possibly too well. They had been through ups and downs with Him; seen impossible things happen, and they had seen how desperately those who should have recognized the Power of God refuse to believe that God was up to something that was both new and the culmination of their long history. The message He brought was that the Law could only bring them one step toward God; they could not get where God wanted them without going beyond the Law to a relationship of faith and forgiveness. The religious establishment not only rejected Him; they had Him killed.

This was only the beginning.  He had raised the dead on more than one occasion, but nobody was prepared for what happened next. Those who had feared Him the most were more worried about what might happen next, but even armed guards as His tomb couldn't prevent what did happen: He came back, more alive than before. Jesus Himself was taken back to the presence of God, but His enemies kept up the pressure: they killed a young follower named Stephen and persecuted others. One of the most zealous of the persecutors was a young Pharisee named Saul, of Tarsus.

Jesus' follows were spreading the story of Jesus beyond Jerusalem. Saul was travelling to Damascus with instructions to arrest any of Jesus' followers there, when Jesus Himself appeared to Saul and changed his life. The hunter became the hunted--Saul preached the Good News of Jesus there in Damascus; was smuggled out of the city in a basket over the wall, and became a powerful voice with a powerful message  to the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean provinces. Jesus had reached beyond the Jews with His teaching; and Saul (now known as Paul, in Greek) spread the news that Jesus had come to bring them into a relationship with Him and overcome their sins through His power and grace.  Paul had the education in both Hebrew and Greek to speak and write to Jews and the wider Greek/Roman world, and the faith and relationship with Jesus and His Father through the Holy Spirit to change his world.
 Paul, with the power of God, has spoken powerfully to literally millions of people over almost two thousand years. It is amazing that we have the records we have virtually unchanged for so many years, and the writings of not only Paul but many others with messages that tell the same story through different eyes and inspirations, but it is the same message that has spoken to many different people, places and languages.