During Dr. Frisina’s lecture titled St. Pauls 1st Letter to the Corinthians on October 23,2018, Dr. Frisina mentions the idea that St. Paul was border crossing in many ways. He stated that St.Paul crosses borders literally, religiously, and metaphysically. From the lecture, I have come to the conclusion that, and in just my opinion, is the most influential border crosse thus far. Focusing on his influence, I’d like to explain why his magnitude as a border-crosser is so great. To begin speaking about St. Paul, we must first understand why he is so important. St. Paul originally was not a follower of Jesus. He had persecuted many Jews. One day, the risen Jesus visited St. Paul and he was blinded and told to spread the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. In one of the assigned readings, it states that “Paul narrates himself as a committed, circumcised Jewish man who “converted” from one stance, of zealously persecuting followers of Jesus,” (Lopez). St. Paul uses the fact that he had once persecuted Jews, shows that Jesus is the true Messiah. The idea of St. Paul converting helped influence those around him and where he traveled. His influence literally comes from how he preached and how far he went. St. Paul traveled to many different places and in each place, he proceeded to preach the word of Jesus. This caused Christianity to spread far and influenced heavily the continuing spread of Christianity. Religiously, not only was St. Paul’s conversion a story of him breaking boundaries by changing his whole religious view, but it also helped to form a true identity for the Christians/Gentiles. Firstly, St. Paul was converted to Christianity by Jesus. When he converted, he saw Christianity on a new light. St. Paul’s new stance on Christianity stemmed partly from what is known as Hellenism. St. Paul’s new interpretation allowed him to, as Dr. Frisina puts it, “Bridge a gulf between humans and God.” The new identity for what became known as the Christians stems from this nonreal bridge that St. Paul had formed. Lastly, St. Paul’s use of Hellenism lead to changes in how we view things metaphysically. We learned a new form of viewing who we are as divided self. The idea of a divided self as St. Paul sees it is that we are able to understand the bad that comes with not at least partially relying on God. The bridge that St. Paul taught to be spiritually between us and God is Jesus. Jesus is seen as our spiritual link to God because he himself is both a human and part of God. Our ability to better understand God and the teachings of Jesus is through a new metaphysical view of God on both spiritual and physical levels. By having multiple instances of border-crossing on all different levels, St. Paul was clearly the most influential border-crosser through his preaching and changes in beliefs.
Works Cited
Frisina, Warren G. “St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.” HUHC. HUHC Lecture, 23 Oct. 2018, Hempstead, Hofstra University.
“Paul by Davina C. Lopez.” Paul, http://www.bibleodyssey.org/people/main-articles/paul.
Broken Borders 