St. Paul from Persecutor to Persecuted Within His Family
December 29, 2008
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The Voice of the Martyrs
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Before Christmas I started in my personal devotion time, a study on the life of Paul. I wanted to look at Paul for a number of reasons, but the main one is because he was inspired by the Lord to write most of the New Testament, and he was a persecutor of the church, who became a convert of Christ Jesus.
The following comes from a book written in 1884-5 called St. Paul The Traveler and the Roman Citizen by W.M. Ramsay - regarding the loss Paul suffered from his family, including a lot of wealth. As I read through this, I could not help but see the parallel between Muslims who leave Islam today, and what Paul suffered for leaving his religious background
PAUL’S FAMILY. If Paul belonged to a family of wealth and position, how comes it that in great part of his career (but not in the whole, p. 312) he shows all the marks of poverty, maintaining himself by his own labour, and gratefully acknowledging his indebtedness to the contributions of his Philippian converts, in Rome, in Corinth, and twice in Thessalonica (Phil. IV 15, II Cor. XI 9; see p. 360)? It was not simply that he voluntarily worked with his hands in order to impress on his converts the dignity and duty of labour, for he conveys the impression, II Cor. XI 8 f., I Thess. II 9, that he had to choose between accepting help from his’ converts, and making his own living. But it often happens in our own experience that a member of a rich family is in a position of poverty. It would be enough simply to accept the fact; but, as Paul in his later career is found in a different position, and as the same conjecture about his poverty must arise in every one’s mind, we may glance for a moment at the relations in which Paul would stand to his own family after his conversion.
The relations between Paul and his family are never alluded to by himself, and only once by Luke, who tells how his sisters son saved his life in Jerusalem by giving private information of the secret conspiracy against him, XXIII 16. How could this young man get immediate information about a conspiracy, which was concocted by a band of zealots, and arranged in private with the high priests and elders? In absolute secrecy lay the sole hope of success; and the conspiracy must therefore have been imparted only to a few, and probably only the leaders of the extreme Jewish party were aware of it. We must, I think, infer that the nephew acquired his information in the house of some leading Jew (to which he had access as belonging to an influential family), and that he was himself not a Christian, for in the heated state of feeling it may be taken as practically certain that a Christian would not have had free and confidential entry to the house of one of the Jewish leaders. But, further, if Paul’s nephew were trusted with such a secret, it must have been assumed that he was hostile to Paul.
Now, as Paul himself says, he had been brought up in strict Judaic feeling, not as a Sadducee, accepting the non-Jewish spirit, but as a Pharisee; and we must infer that the spirit of his family was strongly Pharisaic. The whole history of the Jews shows what was likely to be the feeling among his parents and brothers and sisters, when he not merely: became a Christian, but went to the Gentiles. Their pride was outraged; and we should naturally expect that such a family would regard Paul as an apostate, a foe to God and the chosen race, and a disgrace to the family; his own relatives might be expected to be his most bitter enemies. Looking at these probabilities, we see a special force in Paul’s words to the Philippians, III 8, that he had given up all for Christ, "for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse". These emphatic words suit the mouth of one who had been disowned by his family, and, reduced from a position of wealth and influence in his nation to poverty and, contempt.
Perhaps it is some terrible family scene that made Paul so keenly alive to the duty owed by a father to his children. Probably nothing in family life makes a more awful and lasting impression on a sensitive mind than a scene where a respected and beloved parent makes a demand beyond what love or duty permits, and tries to enforce that demand by authority and threats. If Paul had to face such a scene, we can appreciate the reason why he lays so much stress on the duty of parents to respect their children’s just feelings: "ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the education and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. VI 4): "fathers, provoke not your children, lest they lose heart" (Col. III 21). Not every person would think this one of the most important pieces of advice to give his young societies in Asia Minor. But, according to our conjecture, Paul had good cause to know the harm that parents may do bynot reasonably considering their children’s desires and beliefs. At the same time he strongly emphasises in the same passages the duty of children to obey their parents, and sets this before the duty of parents to their children. That also is characteristic of one who had been blameless as touching all the commandments (Phil. III 6), and who therefore must have gone to the fullest extreme in compliance with his father’s orders before he announced that he could comply no further.
Ramsay, William Mitchell, Sir: St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen., Public Domain, S. 34
The relations between Paul and his family are never alluded to by himself, and only once by Luke, who tells how his sisters son saved his life in Jerusalem by giving private information of the secret conspiracy against him, XXIII 16. How could this young man get immediate information about a conspiracy, which was concocted by a band of zealots, and arranged in private with the high priests and elders? In absolute secrecy lay the sole hope of success; and the conspiracy must therefore have been imparted only to a few, and probably only the leaders of the extreme Jewish party were aware of it. We must, I think, infer that the nephew acquired his information in the house of some leading Jew (to which he had access as belonging to an influential family), and that he was himself not a Christian, for in the heated state of feeling it may be taken as practically certain that a Christian would not have had free and confidential entry to the house of one of the Jewish leaders. But, further, if Paul’s nephew were trusted with such a secret, it must have been assumed that he was hostile to Paul.
Now, as Paul himself says, he had been brought up in strict Judaic feeling, not as a Sadducee, accepting the non-Jewish spirit, but as a Pharisee; and we must infer that the spirit of his family was strongly Pharisaic. The whole history of the Jews shows what was likely to be the feeling among his parents and brothers and sisters, when he not merely: became a Christian, but went to the Gentiles. Their pride was outraged; and we should naturally expect that such a family would regard Paul as an apostate, a foe to God and the chosen race, and a disgrace to the family; his own relatives might be expected to be his most bitter enemies. Looking at these probabilities, we see a special force in Paul’s words to the Philippians, III 8, that he had given up all for Christ, "for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse". These emphatic words suit the mouth of one who had been disowned by his family, and, reduced from a position of wealth and influence in his nation to poverty and, contempt.
Perhaps it is some terrible family scene that made Paul so keenly alive to the duty owed by a father to his children. Probably nothing in family life makes a more awful and lasting impression on a sensitive mind than a scene where a respected and beloved parent makes a demand beyond what love or duty permits, and tries to enforce that demand by authority and threats. If Paul had to face such a scene, we can appreciate the reason why he lays so much stress on the duty of parents to respect their children’s just feelings: "ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up in the education and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. VI 4): "fathers, provoke not your children, lest they lose heart" (Col. III 21). Not every person would think this one of the most important pieces of advice to give his young societies in Asia Minor. But, according to our conjecture, Paul had good cause to know the harm that parents may do bynot reasonably considering their children’s desires and beliefs. At the same time he strongly emphasises in the same passages the duty of children to obey their parents, and sets this before the duty of parents to their children. That also is characteristic of one who had been blameless as touching all the commandments (Phil. III 6), and who therefore must have gone to the fullest extreme in compliance with his father’s orders before he announced that he could comply no further.
Ramsay, William Mitchell, Sir: St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen., Public Domain, S. 34