Welcome to Part 2 with Dr. Kasey Griffiths, Acts chapter 6 through 9.

Paul shows up in Acts 9, although there's still important stories told about Peter and the other disciples.

He sort of runs away with the story here. A large part of the rest of the gospel of Acts is the story of Paul,

his work, and then a lot of the theology of the New Testament comes from Paul's writings,

as he reaches out to people to explain concepts and teach. He's just maybe not a golden investigator,

but man, exactly the sort of person that the Lord had prepared to come into the church to do a mighty, mighty work

and help a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds identify with and come into Christ.

Fascinating that he becomes such a major, major figure. You just never know with a convert.

You just never know with someone you're teaching. It's like Samuel Smith giving that copy of the book of Mormon to Rota, Green,

and that ends up in the hands of Brigham Young and changes the entire church.

Yeah, small and simple things, small and simple things. But before we dive into Saul's story, can I give him a little backstory here?

Please do.

He gives us a few samples of his backstory and different writings of the New Testament.

So for instance, in Acts 26, because he's going to tell his conversion narrative three times in the book of Acts,

Luke writes it down three times, Acts 26, verse 5, he says,

My matter of life for my youth, which was at the first among my own nation, the Jerusalem,

know all the Jews, which knew me from the beginning if they would testify after the straightest sect of our religion, lived I a Pharisee.

This guy is a Pharisee. He is one of the people who he's complicit in Stephen's death.

He was probably okay with Christ's death, but he's basically saying,

Hey, you know where I came from. In another passage, he talks about studying with Gamaliel, who's this really famous Jewish rabbi.

And it seems like because Acts 22 calls him a young man, that he's probably some sort of prodigy.

He's studying the stuff as a teenager and a young man.

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