What was Paul's relationship with the early church?

Answer 1

Paul founded many of the early New Testament Churches. He taught the churches what he had received from the Lord. He guided and corrected the early churches. Paul also prayed for the many New Testament churches.

Answer 2

The early Church, even in the time of Paul, seems to have been fragmented. There were competing apostles who seemed to have different messages and different gospels. In, for example, Galatians 1:6-7,2:4 and 2 Corinthians 11:4-13, Paul says that he had to defend his version of Christianity from unnamed rivals who visited his Christian communities and spread false Christianity.

Paul says that he received the gospel from no man. He went to Jerusalem to communicate to the brethren that gospel that he taught among the Gentiles, because he did not know whether the gospel he taught accorded with that of the Jerusalem church (Galatians 2:2): "And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privily to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain." Paul may have sought an exchange of beliefs, because of other missionaries who were turning up in his churches, preaching "another Jesus or "another gospel".

From his own record, Paul believed that he was the ultimate authority for the churches to which he preached and felt beholden to no one on earth other than himself, but was willing to cooperate with those he regarded as his peers, if only for the sake of avoiding conflict among the apostles.

On the other hand, Acts of the Apostles says that Paul received the gospel during his stay in Damascus, and portrays him as being mentored by Barnabas initially, but always beholden to his superiors in Jerusalem.

Answer 3

Paul initially was a persecutor, but after his conversion he was a missionary (primarily to the Gentiles), a writer of letters to churches and fellow believers, and a theologian.