In 32 AD, after Saul was convinced that Jesus was, in fact, The Messiah, he left Damascus and went into the desert. In 34 AD he returned from Arabia where he had visited the Nabatean kingdom and had angered King Aretas IV with his teachings about Jesus.
Paul made Damascus his home for the next three years where he prayed, studied, and debated with the local Jews, while he prepared himself for the ministry that God had called him to do. He was protected from any violence by the fact that he was a Roman citizen and therefore entitled to protection by the local Roman authorities.
In 37 AD Caesar Tiberias died. Aretas IV planned to take control of the city of Damascus and the Romans would be leaving Damascus. Now Paul’s enemies gathered against him because his Roman citizenship would no longer protect him. But he escaped in the middle of the night, being let down the external wall of the city in a basket.
Paul traveled to Jerusalem. There he met with Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and for the first time he met Barnabas – the cousin of Mark and the most prominent Hellenistic believer in Jerusalem. But when Paul began proclaiming the good news to the Jews, a movement started to build to find a way to silence him.
When Paul was in the temple one day, he saw a vision. Jesus appeared to him to warn him to leave Jerusalem. ‘They will not accept your testimony’, he was told. But Paul argued that they would listen to his reasoning. Jesus then said that the choice was up to Paul, but Jesus told Paul that he was being sent far away from Jerusalem to proclaim the good news.
The next day Paul was almost killed by the Jews, but some followers of The Way learned of the plot, and got Paul quickly out of Jerusalem, down to Caesarea, and then by ship to Tarsus, Paul’s home town.
DAB
