Abstrakt
In the critical situations, Paul is portrayed as a courageous and skilled orator whose speech has an adequate impact. However, his speeches not only ward crises off (Acts 14:15-17) but also bring them about (Acts 22:22), thus aptly illustrate the dramatic journey of the gospel about the resurrected Jesus Christ into both the Gentile and Jewish World.
In has been evident from the analyzed speeches that the Christian historian Luke was able to portray the Apostle Paul in critical situations masterfully also thanks to his knowledge of ancient rhetoric and the perfect command of the technique of prosopopoeia in which a protagonist is characterized through a speech. Paul is a courageous apostle who does not run away from difficulties in his service to the risen Jesus Christ; on the contrary, a dramatic course of events contributes to a revelation of God's glory and the power of the resurrected One.
Critical situations in Acts are a result of the proclamation of the gospel. This fact, however, does not lead Paul to a change in his missionary strategy or to an abdication on his mission.
His life has a clear purpose which he cannot betray and personal hardships are not able to change it in any way. For the reader of Acts the Apostle Paul is thus a role model to be emulated on the way to Christ.
Paul does not any concession from his positions in Galatians either when he toughly, competently and with a dose of irony faces the judaizing tendencies (of Jewish Christians) which were supposed to re-mark the nature of the gospel that Paul proclaimed in Galatia.