Acts 9:20. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
How much significance should be placed on this point that Paul immediately began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God? First, consider the evidence that came out at the trial of Jesus Christ.
John 19:5-7. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
Pilate said unto them, you take him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
At a public trial, the testimony of His accusers was that Jesus must die for claiming to be the Son of God. Now the man who was previously persecuting the church, one of high esteem among the religious leadership, was preaching this very thing! This is an extraordinary turn of events, that the one who was identified and accepted by the original disciples as the "apostle to the gentiles", would first boldly preach in the synagogues of every place he visited.
For many have come before and after claiming to be a messiah, a fact of which has often been attested. For messianic Jews to simply proclaim Yeshua haMashiach in Israel or anywhere in the world is nothing new under the sun. If you want to stir up the status quo, preach the Son of God.
Point of clarification: The Jews believed he should be killed because Jesus made himself equal to God. Int their thiking/tradition to claim to be
the son of God was to make a claim of
equivalency. This is something much different than claiming to be a mere "messiah" or "anointed one."
John 5:10-18
"Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, 'It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.' But he answered them, 'He who made me well was the one who said to me, 'Pick up your pallet and walk.' They asked him, 'Who is the man who said to you, 'Pick up your pallet and walk'?' But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, 'Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.' The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, 'My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.' For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God."
This is important because there is some misperception about this passage. Jewish history prior to and subsequent to the first century contained many reports,, many affirming reports, of Jewish leaders healing and doing good on the Sabbath so the Jews' judgment of Jesus was not about that. It was this combination of Sabbath-breaking
as an equivalent of God that they found provoking and worthy of death.
This, in tunr, is core to the gospel
and the use of the term, "gospel" because the term does not merely mean "good news." The word "
euangelion" was Roman term, not a Hebraic, Aramaic, or Greek term. A
euangelion was an official proclamation that Caesar or a general had won a great victory. A euangelion was issued, for example, when a Caesar was deified. However, deification in the Greek and Roman cultures did not mean a human was literally made into a god. It simply meant the person's status was elevates such that he no longer had to go to Hades or Hell when dead and could live outside Mt. Olympus in the Elysian Fields.
The gospel writers usurped this term to declare Jesus God Himself; God made flesh. This Jesus who is God did in fact win a very great victory - a victory not even Casar could accomplish...
Jesus defeated death!
So Jesus' teachings and conduct not only confronted the Jews from the Jewish pov; he also provoked the Jews
from all perspectives, Jewish and Gentile. Jesus was not deifying himself; he was implying he was/is God. Big "G," not little "g."
These are the contexts of John 19. This is clearly stated by John in the preamble of his
gospel, his
euangelion. This preamble is likely a reference to something the Jewish philosopher Philo had written a few centuries earlier about Alexander the Great
as the mediator between God and man. John was also bluntly confronting the Hellenism prevalent in Judaism in the first century.
In other words, more than any of the other gospel writers John was confronting all worldviews and confrontationally declaring Jesus as God.... not just someone
equal to God.
How much significance should be placed on this point that Paul immediately began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God?
Is this question about Paul preaching in the synagogues, or is this question about Jesus teaching Jesus is the Son of God?
Paul taught in the synagogues (first) because Christianity (as it eventually was named) was originally a Jewish sect. All of the early leaders were Jews. Not former Jews, just Jews. Jews who believed the Jewish Messiah had come. In this sense they were...
apocalyptic Jews! It was only as a consequence of Jewish persecution that the apostles began preaching outside of the synagogues. It was then the conflict with the Gentile cultures began because Jesus wasn't a son of a god like Hercules or Perseus; Jesus was THE Son of God that is God, the
monogene sarx egeneto. (single-source made flesh).
There were also logistical and political aspects alarming the John 19 and Acts 9 Jewish audiences. Jesus and Paul (and the other apostles) first taught in the courtyards of the temple and synagogues because Gentiles were not allowed in the inner parts. Gentiles that came to do business with the temple and the towns' Jews were converted to Christ and the conversion ritual for the Christians broke with that of traditional Judaism by emphasizing baptism and faith, not the other Judaic rituals. There's was justification and righteousness by faith, not works. This too was provocative, heretical, apostate, and worthy of persecution, if not death. This didn't change much when the gospel began being preached in the Gentile marketplaces because idols were repudiated. little "g" gods are not God.
Logically, it is impossible to have more than one sovereign and almighty God. Silver markets were adversely affected. The offerings in the pagan temples were adversely affected.
All because of this claim Jesus, the dead Jew, was/is big-G God, not just an equivalent of a god.