Paul is more often referred to as "The Cute Apostle" and generally most popular among the teenaged girls.

Paul was the only apostle for the Gentiles. The other apostles were for the Jews. Even Jesus on earth nimistered to the Jews and stated that he was not here for the Gentiles. Only after Jesus died and was rose again for all were Gentiles given the chance to believe Paul's Gospel of Grace.

The apostle Paul is the prime example of God's grace.  Paul condemned Christians initially, even overseeing their deaths.  Yet he was converted, and became one of the greatest preachers of the gospel.  Paul endured many things; he was beaten and imprisoned, he was ship wrecked and persecuted on every level.  Yet he endured.  He wrote 13 books of the New Testament.  His inspiration was from God, yet his writing demonstrated a certain elegance not found from the other writers.

wonderful change of life - this can happen for all of us if we let God change us.

Where does it say in the book that he met Jesus?

Again, I hate Paul.

He's one of my favorites...

 He failed to defeat the faithful with force and violence, so he joined 'em and turned the teachings of Yeshua inside out.

Updated 05/22/2008 Considered one of the forefathers of what we call Church today!!! An instrumental leader that God ordained to carry on with the spreading of Christ’s witness.

A punk before the road to Damascus, but a true servant of God afterwards!!

The pre-transformation figure is very entertaining, and is echoed in the "Confessions" of Saint Augustine, one of my favorite early works of literature.

Unfortunately, post-transformation he tends to be a self-righeous prig.

He is the most important Christian in history. The theology of the Church is Pauline. Paul was Hellenistic enough to be able to make the doctrine of the Trinity make sense. If he had been Aramaic in culture, he might not have had the philosophical basis to get the job done.

Without Paul's missionary work, it is likely that Christianity would not have spread as far as it has today.

Intresting character, well learned and intellectual, Paul became the Apostle of the Gentiles. He has been used by God to establish the main doctrines and theology of the Church. He is one of the example that, for the sake of the Gospel, everything is worth leaving behind.

Perhaps the pukiest figure in Christian history, the author of more cant, dogma, guilt trips, illogical spiritual propaganda and theological misconceptions than any other of the charlatans in the timeline of that gutter religion.  Especially barfsome is his admonishment for all Christians to go out and attempt to shove their mutant values and warped perspectives of the world down the throats of others.  A really annoying and obnoxious bag of crap, really.

Apostle Paul would have to be amongst my favourite Bible characters. When ever I read his letters, I always get touched. His teachings are so wonderful and just fill me with joy. I love his teachings so much because Paul is Christ centred and love orientated. Apostle Paul does things out of love and believes that love is the most excellent and noble characteristic (1Cor 13). But it is not an airey fairy love because true love leads to righteousness, purity and wisdom as Paul puts it in Philippians 1. Apart from Jesus words, when the Spirit wants to tell me something or console me, He makes Pauls writings come to life. Paul is gracious and a great guy. When people think of the Apostle Paul, they often think of this bold, tough guy who yells in the pulpit and is like thou shalt not do this. A lot of people think he is bold because he writes very aptly and boldly in his letters and calls a spade a spade, plus he confronted the great Apostle Peter and told him he was wrong in front of everyone, which would of taken real guts, and he was right too (see Galatians). But to my surprise and to probably everyones surprise, believe it or not, Paul was actually a shy person. Well he wasnt exactly shy, he was just on the quieter side. He was actually a sensitive person who cared about the feelings of others and did what he could to make people happy (1 Corinthians), hated disciplining and rebuking people but would rather build them up (see end of 2 Corinthians) and reveals a startling thing about himself in 2Cor 10:1 that in his letters he is bold, but in person he is timid (puts timid in exclamation marks because that is what people have observed about him). He is not timid in a weak way but he was probably quiet, let people speak before hed speak and a nice guy! Although he was so nice, he was also a very strong willed person and when he felt strongly about something, hed tell you exactly how he felt to your face too! He had authority over the devil and the devil was particularly afraid of him, just look at all the false Gnostic gospels out there. They speak against apostle Paul and tell us not to listen to him. He was tough because he has said some of the most uplifting statements that only a warrior could say eg we are more then conquerors, and the fact his imprisonment has basically actually spread the gospel more (Phil 1) and how (2Cor 10) has weapons that tare down strongholds and everything which exalts itself above Gods word. He was very defiant of the devil or enemy attack. I love it when he says that to not fear persecution is showing your enemies that they are going to hell and you will be saved if they dont repent (Phil 1). He says gutsy things! A lot of people criticise the Bible for its apparent advocating of slavery, but 1Tim 1:10, Paul specifically, by instruction from the Holy Spirit condemns slave trading. Apart from Jesus, Paul talks about the Holy Spirit the most and describes the gifts He gives believers and the good, wonderful work He does and how we can depend and rely on Him and the character of someone who is filled with the Spirit (see Galatians, fruit of the Spirit). But there is a problem that some people have with Paul, and that is attitude towards women. Especially verses like 1Cor 14 where he tells women to be silent in the church or 1Tim 2:11. For a start, I believe Paul was addressing specific situations and it was not a command that women shouldnt preach, he was addressing women who were influenced by other religions in Ephesus or women who would interrupt the sermon (1Cor). (I wont go into the extensive evidence to prove this). But he esteemed women highly eg saying that it was by women that Jesus was born and called a particular women a dear friend who was like a mother to him (Rom 16) and told Timothy to esteem older women as mothers and younger women as sisters (1Tim 5:2)

Long before James Brown hit the scene, there was another "hardest-working man in show business", and that man was Saul, a malaria-ridden Tarsan chameleon on a mission: to convert as many of the Roman Empire's savagely-displaced war refugees into his hybrid cult of Judaic Buddhism before its imminent and imagined "Second Coming". How was he so successful? "Becoming all things to all men" (1st Corinthians 9:20-23) might've helped, as he seldom shirked the opportunity to blend in and co-opt the "pagan" religions ensconced along his itinerary. This was especially true of Mithraism, a "big dog" of the time, with its much-copied themes of sacrifice and resurrection; Saul ramped up this concept in Hebrews 9:13-14, saying, in effect, that if ordinary blood (a connecting root amongst many faiths) can give you a "contact high", then you'll spiritually OD on the blood of a "messiah", which is way better. He worked this "you've tried the rest, now try the best" premise like a lunatic (or "prophet"; they're both the same word in Hebrew) up and down the landscape, but not without running afoul of the local constabularies and fellow Jewish luminaries (driven out of both Damascus and Jerusalem for his contrarian methods, he was said to have written a good 60% of the New Testament during jail stretches). Three hundred years after his death (consensus falls short, but was most likely executed by the Romans sometime after 64 C.E.), his architecture laid the foundation for "official religion" status within the ironically-crumbling Roman sphere of influence. Speaker, faith healer, sower of dischord: Saul was the original televangelist.

Good ol' Sol of Tarsus was one of the better Bible stories that actually kept me awake as a kid and held my interest as an adult. . .his personal transformation is a cool story. . .but before the transformation? What a bad-ass. . .

Said some stupid things about women, but I don't hold this against him. He talked about being happy with yourself, and seeing things clearly, not through rose-colored glasses.

This guy was a Roman soldier, a persecutor of Christians until he became a Christian himself and fought against Christian persecution. That takes a lot of guts.

I can relate to Paul a lot, especially what he wrote in the 7th chapter of Romans (the struggle of man), thank the good Lord for Chapter 8 verse 1: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Acts 9 11:15 And the Lord said unto Anani'as, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, and hath seen in a vision a man named Anani'as coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.Then Anani'as answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:and here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.******** The Lord sent Paul to the Gentiles, Peter was preaching to the Jews. Jesus preached to the Jews. People are mixing law vs grace and you can't do it. Jesus came to the Jews and they rejected him so he saved Paul and sent him to the Gentiles.

What a man he must have been. He preached a gospel not of human origin, he did not receive it or learn it from any human source instead he received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Well said, StanUzbeck. Paul was the first spin doctor in history. He wrestled control of the early Church away from Peter and made it what it is today. And he had really nice legs.

Took the teachings of Jesus and turned them into something slick he could market to the Romans. This made him probably the most influential person in the bible, after Jesus. It was, however, kind of a cynical move, and it distorted the original message to a great extent.