Saint Paul: Difference between revisions

The ascended master [[Hilarion]] was embodied as Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul after his encounter with [[Jesus]] on the road to Damascus.

Paul was a persecutor of Christians and consented to the heartless stoning of Stephen recorded in the Book of Acts. However, though the mind of Saul was prejudiced against Christ (by hereditary and environmental factors that cannot permanently alter the soul’s direction except the soul give consent), the image of the apostle Paul, his fiery destiny, was already etched within his spirit.

== Conversion ==

In Truth, his mission was to build Christ’s Church upon the Rock of his personal encounter with the Lord—to convert the “Gentiles,” their leaders, and the children of light and to elucidate Christ’s Person and Presence as the living Saviour in sermons and letters delivered throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean over a period of thirty years.

Paul’s second journey took him farther through Asia Minor and across the Aegean Sea, where he established Christianity’s first foothold in Europe with the formation of a church in the Roman colony of Philippi in Macedonia.

== Paul imprisoned ==

Following his third missionary journey, Paul desired to return to Jerusalem to preach the gospel to the Jews, and he did so despite Jesus’ warning to him not to go there. However, “The Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, crying out, ‘Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.’”<ref>Acts 21:27–28</ref>

== The taking up of serpents ==

In the midst of the journey to Rome, Paul’s ship was overtaken by a great storm and shipwrecked on the island of Melita. [[Sanat Kumara]] describes Paul’s experience there:

Paul rendered a great service in that life, and he was one of those most influential in spreading Jesus’ message throughout the Roman world. However, before his conversion Paul had consented to the stoning of Saint Stephen (the first Christian martyr) and had actively persecuted and killed Christians. It is often the case that the taking of life in one incarnation requires another embodiment to balance that karma, or debt to life; and therefore Paul did not ascend at the conclusion of that life.

The ascended master Hilarion has explained why he was required to embody again before making his ascension:  

{{HTH}}, pp. 22–43.

[[Category:Christian saints]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul}}

[[Category:Messengers]]

[[Category:Embodiments of ascended masters]]