Year 7 RE – The life of St. Paul in the Early Christian Church

1. Go to Understanding Faith on the Emmaus Intranet.2. Go to: Stage 4 - Unit 4 – The Early Church – Part 2 – Page 3,43. Use this source to complete the following Cloze Activity by filling in the blanks.

a. Paul's life consists of __two_________very different phases - his life as a Pharisee before being _____converted________to Christianity, and his ministry as an _apostle________ of Jesus.

b. Paul was born of ____Jewish___________ parents, probably a few years after Jesus was born. His parents named him __Saul________. Born in Tarsus of Cilicia, he was also a ____Roman____________ citizen and his Roman name was _____Paul_________.

c. Saul's connection with Christianity began with St _Stephen_____ around 34 CE in Jerusalem.

d. Stephen was one of the __seven___________ ordained deacons in the early Church, appointed by the Apostles to _preach_________ the faith, look after orphans, widows, and the sick and poor. He was to become the first __Martyr__________ of the Church. God worked many _miracles____________ through Stephen, who preached the faith with such wisdom and grace that many people became __Christain_________.

e. St. Stephen _prayed___________ to God before he was stoned to death.

f. God made good come out of a horrible and painful death. As St Augustine said ‘if Stephen had not prayed, the _Church________ would not have Paul’.

g. After Stephen's death Saul became one of the most terrifying __persecutors_________________ of the Church. He regarded Christianity as the greatest enemy of _Judiasm___________________.

h. Saul had set out from Jerusalem to the city of Damascus. His plan was to _harass____________ the Christian community there. As he was approaching the city, Saul suddenly fell to the _ground_________ as he heard the words, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' - Acts 9:4

i. 'Who are you, Lord?' he asked, and the answer came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are__persecuting______________. ‘Get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you are to do.' - Acts 9:5-6

j. After being_baptised_________, Saul spent three years in the semi- southeast of Damascus, learning about the _Lord_________. Then he returned to Damascus, but was forced to leave because the __Jews______there had planned to kill him. He headed for Jerusalem, where once again the Jews plotted to kill him. Eventually Saul moved to Tarsus.

k. From Tarsus Saul set out on many _missionary__ journeys, and it was from this point in time that he was referred to as Paul. Paul's greatest achievement through these journeys was to bring _Christianity____ to the Gentiles in many different countries. Paul also wrote many ___epistles________ before being arrested, instructing the Christian communities in the teachings of Jesus and how to live according the Jesus' teachings.

l. Eventually Paul was arrested and imprisoned in Rome where he was ___beheaded__________around 67 CE.

Now make a list of all the new words you found and define them.