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The reference to Paul's persecution of the church are as follows:
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" (Acts 9: 4; 22: 7; 26: 14).
"I am Jesus, Whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9: 5; 22: 8; 26: 15).
"I persecuted this way unto the death" (Acts 22: 4).
"I persecuted them even unto strange cities" (Acts 26: 11).
"I persecuted the church of God" (I Cor. 15: 9).
"Beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it" (Gal. 1: 13).
"Concerning zeal, persecuting the church" (Phil. 3: 6).
Here is a consistent use of this word, and unless one had some private reasons, it
would never occur to the mind that in Phil. 3: 6 the apostle, without warning, without
conforming to the obligation laid upon all writers to notify his reader should he suddenly
depart from accepted usage, that Paul here intends us to understand that he was
"following after" the church, with the intention if possible to being accepted as a
member! We almost feel obliged to apologize to our readers for what must appear slight
recognition of their intelligence, but as this interpretation has been put upon the passage,
and has been circulated among those who love and honour the Scriptures, we have felt it
incumbent upon us to call attention to it. There would be just as much truth in a
contention that as the word "conversation" can sometimes mean nothing more than
"speech with another" that all Paul meant in Gal. 1: 13 was his manner of "speech"--a
proposition that could not be maintained in the light of the passages cited from Acts 22:
and 26:
In Philippians the apostle prefaced the persecution of the church with a list of his
Judaistic credentials, even as he does in Gal. 1: 11-14, and apparently for the same
reason. He says in the one passage "concerning zeal, persecuting the church". If we ask
"concerning zeal for what?" we are not left without guidance. The answer is "zeal for
the traditions of the fathers", and such a zeal though it may and has led to persecution,
could never lead to an ardent following of a position entirely opposed to these traditions
and with a view to acceptance. The whole of the passage quoted in Phil. 3: 4-6 is
descriptive of Saul of Tarsus, before his conversion on the road to Damascus. It was
"touching the law" that he was a Pharisee. It was "touching the righteousness which is in
the law", that he was blameless, a statement diametrically opposed to his apostolic
doctrine, and belonging only to his unconverted Pharisaic condition.
The word diogmos is translated in each of its ten occurrences by the one word
"persecution" and dioktes is the word Paul uses of himself when he styled himself "a
blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious" (I Tim. 1: 13).
In the two passages in Galatians one where the Authorized Version reads "the Jews'
religion" the word is Ioudaismos "Judaism", and includes the whole Jewish manner of
life. "I forged ahead" he says (prokopto "profit") above many mine equals. To be
entrusted, though a young man, by the Sanhedrin as he had been, was a signal honour,
and the more these things are appreciated, the more abundantly it becomes manifest that
the gospel which Paul preached was not after man, it was not received from man, it was
not taught him by man, but it was given to him by revelation.