To miss this supreme purpose of Paul in the study of his life is to miss its whole significance (Phil. 2:1-11; Col. 1:12-20). BIRTH +Place.+--The world is interested in the birthplaces of its great men. Some of these birthplaces are in doubt. There is no doubt about the place in which Paul was born. He says, in making a speech to the Jews, "I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia" (Acts 22:3). This city was the capital of Cilicia and was situated in the southeastern part of Asia Minor. It was but a few miles from the coast and was easily accessible from the Mediterranean sea by a navigable river. A large commerce was controlled by the merchants, on sea and on land. Tarsus, while one of three university centers of the period, ranking with Athens and Alexandria, was an exceedingly corrupt city. It was the chief seat of "a special Baal worship of an imposing but unspeakably degrading character." +Time.+--The date of Paul's birth is nowhere recorded, but from certain dates given in the Acts, from which we reckon back, it is thought that he was born about the same time as Jesus Christ. +Family.+--We are left, in this matter, without any uncertainty. Paul says, "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee" (Acts 23:6). I was "circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee" (Phil. 3:5). Paul's father and mother were Jews of the stricter sort. The expression which Paul uses, "An Hebrew of the Hebrews" is very significant. The Jews of the Dispersion were known at this time as Hebrews and Hellenists. The Hebrews clung to the Hebrew tongue and followed Hebrew customs. The Hellenists spoke Greek by preference and adopted, more or less, Greek views and civilization. Paul had a married sister who lived in Jerusalem (Acts 23:16) and relatives in Rome (Rom. 16:7, 11). TRAINING +Home.+--The instruction received in the home has often more influence and is more lasting than any other. Paul received the usual thorough training of the Jew boy accentuated in his case, in all probability, by the open iniquity which was daily practised in his native city. We never hear him expressing any regret that he received such thorough religious instruction at the hands of his parents.