Paul: A Real MVPPrøve

## The Warm Up To teach and live the Truth, you have to know it. During the first days of his ministry, Paul proclaimed all he knew and felt compelled to proclaim that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. For the time being, that was enough. If Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God, then everything else Jesus had said could be accepted as true. Jesus’ own words, still fresh in many minds, were sufficient to explain the Truth of the Gospel to those willing to listen, compensating for any existing gaps in Paul’s knowledge of how other things like sanctification and transformation, topics Paul would tackle later with authority and skill, worked. However, God’s plan for Paul’s life required more than a basic knowledge of the Gospel and a list of facts he would learned growing up in the Jewish faith. Paul needed to be able to synthesize ideas and communicate them clearly enough to address the needs and questions of brand new audiences who may or may not have received any or all of the same training he had. Because no Christian had tried to communicate directly with many of these audiences on a spiritual level before, Paul could not depend on anyone else to teach him what he needed to know. Instead of going straight to Jerusalem where the other disciples were, he spent time in Arabia, ministering to the people there and spending time alone with Jesus. During this time, he learned a lot and became equipped to handle the conversations that lay ahead. When God said it was go time, Paul was ready. How about you? Are you spending time alone with Jesus so you will be ready when opportunities to speak and live Truth come along, or are you hoping what other people have taught you will be enough? What, if anything, needs to change? What would that look like?