Why Did God Choose the Apostle Paul?

During interviews about my most recent book, "Jesus Is Risen: Paul and the Early Church," many hosts have asked me why the greatest persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus (later known as Paul), became Christianity's foremost evangelist.

This is a fascinating question because Paul, by all appearances, was the least likely person to pioneer early Christianity's missionary efforts. He was born a Jew in Tarsus but raised and educated in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, a highly respected rabbi and Jewish scholar who mentored him on the "strict manner of the law of our fathers" (Acts 22:3). Paul touted his own Jewish bona fides, saying, "If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless" (Philippians 3:4-6).

When Paul saw some of his Jewish brothers converting to Christianity, he was more than a little upset. He viewed Christianity not as some harmless competing religion but as one that was seeking to co-opt his religion, corrupt it at its core and twist it into something it was never intended to be. So he set out to bring to justice the heretics who were betraying the God he'd worshipped his entire life.

Why would God choose such a man to present the very Gospel that drove him to persecute and even execute early Christians? Scripture clarifies that God specifically chose Paul, before he was born, to proclaim the Gospel, mainly, but not exclusively, to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:15-16).

Read more here:  townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2018/10/26/why-did-god-choose-the-apostle-paul-n2532033