Jesus and Paul

In order to celebrate the 2000^th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul, the Catholic Church has declared June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009 to be the Pauline Year. The Church wants the faithful to know more about the life of St. Paul and follow the footsteps of this Apostle of the Gentiles. Indeed, the Catholic Church has been highly developed in her liturgical life. However, after the Middle Age when the whole European continent was Christianized, her missionary zeal declined. But evangelization mission is the raison d'être of the Church. At his ascension, Jesus commissioned the disciples to bear witness for him until the ends of the world.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).
Therefore, it is important for the Church to rekindle her missionary zeal in order to survive. St. Paul deeply felt this when he wrote this.
Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16b).
Therefore, if the Church no longer preached the gospel, very soon, she would not survive.
By looking at the number of Pauline epistles collected in the New Testament, many scholars would opine that St. Paul is the co-founder of Christianity. This is no exaggeration. Take a look at Jesus. His life and teachings are recorded in 4 canonical gospels, the author of one of which, Luke, was a follower of St. Paul. Jesus himself did not leave us any written document whereas Paul a lot. Had more documents from more apostles survived, the outlook of Christianity would have been totally different. Imagine a New Testament without the epistle of James, Paul's theology of justification by faith would win the day. The world would see less charity done by Christians.
Jesus and Paul are very different not simply because of the number of documents they left behind. Jesus is the Son of God. Though he was raised in the Jewish culture, he was able to transcend it very early in his life (Luke 2:40-52). The records of his public ministry in the gospels have shown a rabbi who emphasized more the spirit of the Law than the letters of the Law. On the other hand, Paul was trained a Pharisee under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel. Though he experienced a conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul remained a Pharisee at heart. Of course, one can detect an evolution in his thoughts as he gained more missionary experience. This can be seen in the changes displayed between the earlier and latter epistles. For the next couple of days, we will read one of his earlier letters, the epistle to the Galatians.
In his eagerness to undermine the bad influences from his opponents, the Judaizers in the Christian communities, Paul enumerated his Judaic background.
For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it;
and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers (Galatians 1:13-14).
Paul knew everything the Judaizers knew, and even better, more zealous. Therefore, the Galatians should listen to his advice more.
In defending his apostleship, Paul put forth a very dangerous precedence. He claimed direct revelation from Jesus Christ. The gospel he preached did not come from Jerusalem, the mother church but directly from Jesus!
I did not confer with flesh and blood,
nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days.
But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother (Galatians 1:16c-19).
These verses inform us of details (Arabia) not recorded in Acts 9:1-25. Of course, St. Paul could claim this because he was one of the springheads of Christianity and we believe in his Damascus experience. However, many founders of various cults can also do likewise. How can we tell the difference? We can't. We don't. We can only observe how well his work bred many more churches.

My dear Advocate, I pledge to learn more about this Apostle of Gentiles. May our efforts bear fruits, bringing salvation to more people. Amen.