Paul's Enslavement - The Early Life of Saul the Zealot

This book will be released in November 2025. It will be given free of charge to everyone who joins the tour.

The Enslavement of Paul: The Early Life of Saul the Zealot reveals an aspect of the apostle seldom discussed: Paul’s slavery. Jerome, the early Christian theologian and historian, relays a tradition that he received from earlier Christians that Paul’s family originated in Gischala of Galilee and that they were forcibly relocated to Tarsus. At that time, Josephus the Jewish historian adds that Galilean cities rebelled against Roman occupation. Josephus referred to these rebels as “Zealots.” In response, the Romans sacked the rebel towns and sold the residents on the burgeoning slave markets. Sometime in his youth, Saul and his family were freed and Saul was adopted into his master’s family. At that time, Saul the Jew was given the Roman name, Paul, and given Roman citizenship. Later, Paul made his way to Jerusalem where he was trained by the top rabbi in Judea, Gamaliel. Paul attended the so-called Synagogue of the Freedmen (Acts 6:9). In Jerusalem Paul encountered fellow Jews who had converted to Christianity. Paul began persecuting these Christians with the authority of the Sanhedrin and was the antagonist responsible for dragging Stephen before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:58). The traumatic experiences of his former life never left the apostle. Following his conversion to the Christian faith, Paul continued to speak from the perspective of his past, both as a Zealot and slave. This is reflected in several of Paul’s letters, particularly his letters to Philemon and the churches in Rome, Corinth, and Galatia, where the apostle made several revealing statements. Paul’s writings disproportionately utilized slavery, freedom, and adoption terminology in his letters. These concepts reflect the deep and lasting impact of God’s redemptive freedom from sin. Paul’s metaphors of slavery to sin and adoption into the family of God have meaning that transcend figures of speech. For Paul, this was his life.
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