tonight, on the ABC network special about Jesus and Paul, Peter Jennings asked people on the street (in Rome) what they knew about St Paul. It would be interesting to know what the full set of un-edited responses was. The responses that made it onto the show were unanimous -- "I don't know".
I felt like a little kid who was eager to be called on in class, but the teacher was ignoring her and calling on the other kids. After all, we're in the middle of a VLI class all about Paul. So I retaliated by talking back to the TV. My upstairs neighbors might have heard the following scraps:
"He was from Tarsus -- and by the way, did you know that's in Turkey?"
"He was Jewish, knew Greek, and was a Roman citizen, which made him uniquely qualified to spread the gospel across the known world"
"Not just Jewish, but a Pharisee, educated at the feet of Gamaliel"
"Taught that gentiles did not have to be circumcized, or follow Jewish law, to be followers of Jesus"
I had such mixed feelings about the program. On the one hand, it was pretty amazing that they even aired the program at all -- 3 hours in prime time on a major network. On the other hand, there were only about three sentences in the whole program that evidenced any faith. However, the back-door benefit of the academic approach is that the historic reality of Jesus and Paul came through clearly. So perhaps some viewers will find that sticking in their minds, and causing them to consider Christianity.
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