"THE PROFIT AND THE LOSS" FOR PAUL THROUGH THE PROCESS OF ENCOUNTERING JEJUS

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Through the process of encountering Jesus, very important changes occurred in Paul. Paul's message and his value system did not form during his ministry, but it was mostly transformed through his encounter with Jesus on the way to Damascus.
Paul had both Hellenistic and Jewish backgrounds in a mixed form which was a common characteristic of Judaism at the time. However, through his training at home and through the Jewish educational systems, he grew up to be the consummate Jew, developed into an extreme Pharisee who tried to maintain purity. As a Jew, he sought satisfaction by doing his best to observe all the requirements of the Law of Moses, according to human tradition. He lived what he taught--i.e., the way of Judaism. He thought of himself as acceptable before God and was boastful about his successes.
His extreme convictions concerning Judaism led him into the extreme practice of persecuting the church. He was a "zealot" among the Pharisees and worked as a missionary of Judaism with a theological zeal. He faithfully persecuted any opposition to Judaism on those journeys.
However, the ministry of Paul was changed dramatically by the revelation of the Son of God. Paul found what was wrong with his previous practice of Judaism. It was not by man's practicing the law but by God's grace that man was to be saved and have a right relationship with God. God caused Paul to experience what salvation by grace means through special revelation on the way to Damascus.
Through the perfect revelation that God gave to Paul, his world-view was changed, as was his value system. All of Paul's previous reasons for boasting were suddenly seen as having no value. The way of salvation was neither because of his Jewishness nor his Phariseeness but through the grace which was given by God. All of the things that God had planned for him were revealed through His Son. God made his pursuit of salvation turn from one extreme (total selfreliance) to another (total God-reliance). Paul recovered from the territorial, tribal particularism of Judaism and turned to the universality of Christianity and became an apostle to the Gentiles. He found his own true identity, not from his fleshly pride nor tribal, religious particularism, but from the encounter with the Son of God which formed in him the identity of Christness.
He gave up all of his previous boasting and followed the Gospel of the cross. What he formerly considered as profitable, he came to see as rubbish that might be a skandalon (stumbling stone) to the right worship of God. The conversion experience on the way to Damascus transformed Paul and made him a totally new creation in Christ, which produced a perfect grace-ministry of Christianity in church history.