18.What does Paul state concerning his own background in Judaism?

He had been advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries, his Jewish brothers, because he was very zealous for the traditions handed down by the elders.

Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews—a learned Jew. According to what we can glean from the New Testament, Paul was the only apostle to whom Christ gave the full understanding of the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. It does not appear that any of the other writers came anywhere near the depth of explanation we find in Paul’s Epistles.

It is remarkable that Christ would entrust to one person such a tremendously important aspect of the Kingdom of God; but according to the record of the Scriptures, this is how God has worked throughout history. We need only to bring to mind Abraham, Moses, Nehemiah, Elijah, John the Baptist.

Evidently God felt it necessary to entrust such knowledge to a man who was equal or superior in knowledge to any other man of the Jewish religion. Paul was well able to speak with full authority concerning the Law of Moses. He had been trained in the Law by one of the most distinguished scholars of Israel—Rabbi Gamaliel.

When Paul was disputing with the Judaizing teachers of Galatia he was arguing with men who were inferior to himself in their grasp of the Law of Moses. Paul easily was their master in the traditions of Judaism.

Even today there is no person superior to Paul in the knowledge of either the old covenant or the new covenant. Christ had His own man at the crucial point in the history of the Christian Church.