The Role of Paul in the Mission to Gentiles of Early Christianity

Abstract

I tried to investigate to what extent Paul contributed to the gentile mission of early Christianity in this paper. The gentile mission didn't originate with Paul. Judaism, the mother religion of Christianity encouraged Jews to propagate Judaism to the gentiles in some degrees. It is unclear how the ‘law free mission’ that did not enforce the law on gentiles began. A few Jewish leaders explored the possibility, but Jewish leaders generally opposed it. The Acts of the Apostles vaguely described this. Philip's mission to the Ethiopian eunuch and Peter's mission to Cornelius may have led to the beginning of the mission free from law very early. However, considering that it was a question of whether to force circumcision on gentiles during the Apostolic Conference, it is not clear whether a mission without law was settled before the Apostolic Conference. Nevertheless the common saying that Paul is the founder of Christianity is true in some sense. He made the principle, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, as the first rule of his churches. He tried to abolish the discrimination of nations, classes, genders. Therefore his churches were new creations in the ancient world.