section_path: Views/Self-view
section_name: Self-view
paragraph_text: Self-view
  
  In the opening verses of Romans 1, Paul provides a litany of his own apostolic appointment to preach among the Gentiles and his post-conversion convictions about the risen Christ. Paul described himself as set apart for the gospel of God and called to be an apostle and a servant of Jesus Christ. Jesus had revealed himself to Paul, just as he had appeared to Peter, to James, and to the twelve disciples after his resurrection. Paul experienced this as an unforeseen, sudden, startling change, due to all-powerful grace, not as the fruit of his reasoning or thoughts.
  
  Paul also describes himself as afflicted with "a thorn in the flesh "; the nature of this "thorn" is unknown.
  
  There are debates as to whether Paul understood himself as commissioned to take the gospel to the gentiles at the moment of his conversion. Before his conversion he believed his persecution of the church to be an indication of his zeal for his religion; after his conversion he believed Jewish hostility toward the church was sinful opposition, that would incur God's wrath. Paul believed he was halted by Christ, when his fury was at its height. It was "through zeal" that he persecuted the Church, and he obtained mercy because he had "acted ignorantly in unbelief".