The Pharisee of Pharisees

I’m Saul. You might have heard of me. I was a well-known and well respected member of the Sanhedrin, the council of seventy-one Jewish sages who constituted the supreme court and legislative body in Judea.

When I was born (in Tarsus) I was given the name of Saul. By birth I am a Roman citizen. I went to school at the School of Gamalliel in Jerusalem. I trained to be a Pharisee and rose to the top of my profession, eventually becoming a top Pharisee. I was really good at what I did. That’s how I got to be a member of the Sanhedrin.

To me, Jewish law was everything. The law governed everything I did. It told me when to rise, what I could and could not do and when I could or could not do it. I had the law and all 600 of its corollaries memorized and I doubt whether anybody knew it better than I did.

Keeping the law was the way I thought I could stay in God’s good graces. I believed He was YHWH, the God of Abraham, Moses and David. I believed He expected us to live perfect lives so that we would please Him enough to let us into Heaven. I tried to do exactly that.

There were some disturbing things going on in and around Jerusalem. There were a number of people who had been following the teachings of a heretic named Jesus. He had claimed to be God and the Pharisees were highly insulted on God’s behalf. They provoked the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, to crucify him.

After the crucifixion, this rabble rouser had been placed in a tomb belonging to a Pharisee named Joseph, of Arimathea. I have no idea why a Pharisee would allow such a thing, but that is what he did.

Some very strange happenings followed the burial of Jesus. It was widely circulated among the Pharisees that someone had stolen the body and hidden it somewhere, though no one seems to have any idea where.

Jesus’ followers, though, insisted that he had been raised from the dead. How absurd! Nevertheless, that is what they were teaching. Instead of people seeing how ignorant such a claim was, their numbers kept growing and growing. It got to the point that their numbers became a threat to the leadership, power and influence of the Jewish leaders. It had to be stopped.

It fell my task to try to quell this uprising. I was considered the most defensive of the law and the one who would have no qualms about doing whatever it would take to get rid of these people.

I began by going to their meeting places and trying to dissuade them. When that didn't work, I began having them arrested. They not only did not reduce in number, they actually continued to increase! They were proselytizing Jews left and right, convincing them to join their cult of heretics and follow Jesus. Imagine that. They convinced them to follow a dead man!

Finally, when all else had failed, I had some of them killed. I hoped that would put the fear of God in them.

One particularly egregious man, named Stephen, was attracting a lot of attention preaching what he called “the good news of the arrival of the Kingdom of God.” He was proclaiming that by abandoning their Jewish heritage and believing in this gospel they would inherit “eternal life!”

I considered that nonsense heretical and figured it had gone on quite long enough. I ordered Stephen arrested and brought him to be tried before the Sanhedrin. Instead of being intimidated, Stephen began to preach to the high priest and the rest of the council. He tried to tell them that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecies of old and that he was a direct descendant of Abraham, Moses and David.

Hearing this preposterous teaching, I ordered that Stephen be stripped and stoned. To make sure my order was carried out, I attended the stoning and watched as the rocks struck him over and over, each one leaving a large bleeding gash in his head and other parts of his body.

After an endless number of stones had been thrown, Stephen, cried out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The words had a kind of a ring to them; as though I had heard of them before.

Now I was really indignant. I began to take men with me to the various meeting places of these followers of Jesus. I threatened the groups and forced them out of the homes they met in. Eventually, they scattered all over Judea and even dared to start small groups in Samaria!

I was bound and determined to show these heretics who was boss.

(To Be Continued)