At Paul’s time there were two primary groups of which he could have targeted to preach his new self developed brand of soteriology to; the Jews and the Gentiles. However, as history dictates, Paul chose the gentiles and quickly won favor among their peoples. So much so, that he eventually entitled himself with the position of the ‘Apostle of the Gentiles‘:
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office – Romans 11:13.
The question therefore begs itself, why did Paul choose to preach to the gentiles over the Jews? After all, he was a Pharisee and would have been familiar with the knowledge, teachings, methodologies and mistakes of his Pharasaic brothers. Thus, he would have been the best person to preach to them his interpretation of soteriology. Yet he did not do so. He left the task to James, Peter and the rest, dubbing them as the ‘super apostles’.
The real reason Paul preached to the gentiles is because they were ignorant. They did not know the Torah. They did not possess intimate knowledge of Judaism, its scripture or its doctrine. Therefore Paul was not presenting his new religion to his own brethren because they would be able to debunk him. Due to this, logically speaking, he preached to those who would find his new faith appealing. The gentiles would not argue about Christ’s deity, or about the new doctrine of salvation, but the Jews would and vehemently so. Thus the path of least resistance is among the gentiles who would eventually see him as an authoritative figure, as opposed to the Jews who would see him as a heretic and shame him. Yet with the gentiles, he is able to avoid these problems and ascend to power and authority very quickly.
wa Allaahu ‘Alam.
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