Paul, known as Saul prior to his conversion, was born in Tarsus of Cilicia (today�䏭 Turkey). He was brought up in Jerusalem and educated at the feet of Gamaliel, a renowned teacher of the law. Before accepting Christ, Saul was a pious Pharisee well versed in the Scriptures and had absolute confidence in Judaism and all Jewish laws. He persecuted Christians and arrested those �菏ho blasphemed God.�� One day, as he was on his way to Damascus on a mission to arrest Christians, the resurrected Jesus Himself appeared to him. This was the turning point of Paul�䏭 life. Since then, he was convinced that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, and became zealous in the preaching of the gospel instead.
During his 35 years of missionary work, he traveled approximately 21,000 miles by foot, covering Cypress, Asia, and Greece. In those years he experienced exhaustion, pain, hunger, cold, shipwreck, and imprisonment; he was stripped, flogged, stoned, and in danger at sea and on land, but he never gave up. He was not the first apostle to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, but shortly after he joined the church�䏭 ministration, he gradually focused his evangelical work on the Gentiles, and was later called �𦭛he apostle to the Gentiles��.