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Now let’s jump ahead to the background and context of the letter. Paul’s ancient remain powerfully relevant for the church today. But let’s begin with the basics: author, recipients, history, date and culture.
Paul was his Roman name because he was born into Jewish family of Roman citizens in Tarsus, northwest of Syrian Antioch. His Jewish name was Saul, which he is called in Acts 9 when we first meet him. He was likely born between 5 and 10 AD. Some time later his family moved to Jerusalem and Saul came under the tutelage of Pharisee Gamaliel, the grandson of a more famous Jewish scholar and Pharisee by the same name. Saul seems to be a rising star in Jewish leadership and was likely a part of the Sanhedrin or at least a candidate. When Jesus was crucified in 33 AD, Saul began persecuting the infant church of Jesus followers. This led him on a trip to Damascus perhaps in 34 AD where he dramatically met the risen Jesus and was powerfully converted to faith in Jesus as the true Messiah (see Acts 9:1-31). Immediately afterward Saul, later called Paul (see Acts 13:9), began proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah and teaching in synagogues. He then retreated to Arabia and Damascus before returning to Jerusalem and then after another 14 years made a second visit (see Galatians 1:13-2:10).
A review the journeys of Paul since his conversion in Acts 9 includes significant difficulties, suffering and persecutions and controversies. He wrote about the whole experience of these dangers in Second Corinthians, see 1:8-10 and 11:21-12:10. You can engage the narrative text yourself beginning in Acts 13.
From the very beginning, Paul was targeted with a death threat immediately after his conversion in Damascus (Acts 9:23-24), and the Disciples in Jerusalem feared him (9:26). During his first missionary journey (Acts 13-14), after being selected by the Holy Spirit and sent out by the church in Antioch, he was stoned in Lystra and presumed dead (Acts 14:19). Nonetheless, after leaving he returned to the city to check on the new believers there (14:21).
After returning to Antioch and reporting on his journey, Paul attended the Jerusalem Council as the early church leaders met to decide what the church of Jesus Christ would do with Jewish food restrictions and circumcision. Afterward, with this clarified teaching, Paul set out to revisit all of the cities and churches he planted before. But a sharp dispute broke out between he and Barnabas, who wanted to take John Mark for the journey. Paul disagreed as John Mark had “deserted” them on the first tour (Acts 13:13). Thus Barnabas and John Mark sailed to Cyprus, and Paul separated from them taking Silas, also called Silvanus, with him by land to Tarsus and then Derbe, Lystra, and onward.
After trekking through the length of modern-day Turkey, Paul, Silas and Timothy, whom Paul enlisted while in Derbe, were prevented by the Holy Spirit to trek further north into Asia. Keeping west they eventually came to Troas, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, where Paul have a vision of a man from Macedonia asking for help (Acts 16:9). They immediately put to sea and sailed to Neapolis, in Greece, a city on the Via Egnatia, the great Roman road running east to west from the strait of Bosphorus to the Adriatic Sea. Moving west they came to Philippi, a Roman colony founded in the days of the first Caesars. Lydia, an immigrant laborer, would be the first person in Europe to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believe in Philippi. Afterward, Paul and Silas were captured, beaten with rods and thrown in jail. Then they were miraculously released, the jailer and his family also trusting in Jesus in the process.