A series of events occurred which put Paul in that pit, the jail in Rome.  The Jews had turned their wrath on him because he had taken up the case for Christ being the Messiah and was preaching that Jesus was the heir to the throne of David, and that he was the Son of God.  He was preaching this good news to the Gentiles--that made it even worse.  Acts:  9:23 "…the Jews took counsel to kill him."  (Acts is a book of history.  The only history book in the New Testament.)

This is the man that had gone to the high priest and asked for letters giving him authority to bring Christians back to Jerusalem for punishment or death.  But Paul met Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus to deliver those letters and was forever changed.  Paul knew the prophecies of the Old Testament.  Paul was a devout practicing Jew.  But  Paul did a one-eighty and became one of the most effective of all the disciples.  His changed life is a testimony to the truth of the resurrection.  He had seen Jesus.  Paul never looked back again.

All of his friends tried to talk him out of going back to Jerusalem because of the danger. (Acts 21:12) But he went anyway.  King Herod had already killed James the brother of Jesus, and had locked Peter up.  Paul was beaten and arrested and bound with chains.  He was allowed to speak to the crowd and said, "I and a Jew…educated in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, at whose feet I learned to follow our Jewish laws and customs…I persecuted the Christians, hounding them to death…but I met Jesus…" Acts 22:3

The crowd erupted,  they started to beat him, but one of the officers asked whether it was legal to beat a Roman citizen.  They asked Paul if he was a Roman.  "Yes, Paul said.  I am a Roman citizen by birth."  We learn in the book of Acts that  Paul ended up in jail in Rome before it was all over.

Thank God!!! Or he would have never written the letters we have today.  God used suffering to do good.  I don't believe that God causes all the troubles that we have.  But he certainly can use them.

Paul's story in the book of Acts is enough to make any Jew realize that Jesus is their Messiah.  He fulfilled their prophecies.  We too believe in one God.    Jehovah.   God who has come to earth to die for us and as Isaiah (in the Torah)  put it, "…put a new heart in us…take away the stony heart,".  A heart that does right because of God's Spirit, not because of tablets of stone.  We owe a great deal to those Jews who recognized that Jesus fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecy.  He was the Messiah.  He came to change us from the inside out, not from the outside in.