As Paul expressed himself in his letters in the way he would have spoken to his brothers and sisters in Christ if they had been there with him, we can discover a lot about his character from what he says. He had a powerful mind and a strong emotional temperament. He obviously had great powers of endurance and tremendous determination. When the new Christian converts were able to maintain faithful witness Jesus Christ, it made Paul very happy, but when they fell into understanding or gave way to quarrels and immorality, it made him unhappy. He was deeply involved with the people he wrote to and wanted them to live in peace and love. Sometimes his language could be angry (Galatians 5:12, 2 Corinthians 10:1-2) because he hated the misunderstanding and sin that disrupted the Christian communities. It does not surprise us to find that such a man was loved by his friends but hated by his enemies, especially those of the Jews who thought that he was a traitor to the Jewish traditions in which he had been brought up. When a man who had such a strong character and sharp mind was transformed by Jesus Christ, as Paul was, he became a very powerful and even formidable influence. After his conversion, there was nothing that he feared, however much he suffered; death held no terrors for Paul because he believed that release from his earthly existence would bring him into the fullness of eternal life. 'For what is life? To me, it is Christ. Death, then, will bring more' (Philippians 1:21). In the same letter he says that what concerns him most about himself is that he should never fail in his duty, so that he may always honour  Christ whether he lives or dies (Philippians 1 :20). After his conversion, Paul became an extraordinarily selfless man, with no permanent home or material security, only concerned with serving Jesus Christ from day to day, as is seen in passages such as 2 Corinthians 4:8-11,16,5:6-9,6:3-10.