What did Paul absorb during his three years alone before preaching?
Paul spent three years shedding Judaism’s legalistic demands and absorbing the truths he later brought out in his prison epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. He did not absorb everything, but those revelations were separated from legalism and Judaism while still fitting the rest of Scripture.
Les explains that Paul had been weighed down with Judaism and all its demands as a religious leader, but now he was set free. He had three years to shed himself of all that and to absorb not all, but the things he later brings out in his prison epistles: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Les suggests these revelations may have been given to Paul while he was in prison in Caesarea before he got to Rome, so that by the time he reached Rome these new revelations were fresh on his mind as he wrote. Even his earlier epistles contain tremendous doctrines separated from legalism and Judaism, yet all fits.