Apart from his Letters, we have other examples of St Paul's teaching, such as today's first reading. It is, of course, very unlikely that we have here a verbatim report of what Paul actually said at Antioch. We have, rather, part of a fairly standard summary of the doctrine which was to be preached by everyone who undertook to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. By comparing this and other similar passages in Acts with the Gospel of Mark, we can see that the early Church had come to some kind of consensus about the essentials of the doctrine to be proclaimed. No doubt each preacher presented the basic formulation of the doctrine according to his own style. Thus the first sentence of today's passage is very typical of Paul, as we know him from his Letters. Though he had harsh things to say about Judaizers and was at times quite negative about the Law, it is clear that he never rejected the fact that he was a Jew. He never forgot that he too was a child of Abraham according to the flesh, and therefore a "brother" to the Jews he addressed in the synagogue. He is respectful and affectionate in his approach to them.