England and Wales now minority Christian

We do know Paul was writing letters fairly soon after he converted himself, or about 30 years after Jesus’ death, when some Christian communities were already established in the Empire. Since he is a primary source from the beginning of movement, we can be somewhat sure he’s telling things as he sees it on the ground particularly in his mundane correspondence regarding church affairs and problems. He usually adds in personal details and side notes saying hello to people he knows and such. There is a familiar quality in his writings we can recognize as being genuine and not a flowery recounting of a hearsay miracle or what someone else heard Jesus say. If we then think in terms of how Paul thought as a Jew in 1st Palestine, and not someone influenced by Hellenistic and pagan supernatural beliefs, then we imagine how he might have understood Jesus as fully human, yet elevated as divine. 

Judaism by then had built up a sizable apocalyptic cult as we know from Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes archeological discovers, that the writings were hidden and the community rudely disbanded a century before the Roman first century meaning they were suppressed with possibly secret communities still preaching their message of a coming apocalypse. (Christianity still uses these prophecies mixed in NT ones with changing interruptions to this day. Christians have spent 2,000 years preparing for and waiting on Jesus’ return, always moving up the date he fails to come back.)

A fully fledged God divinity other than Yahweh would be impossible to imagine because there is only one God, the God of Israel, but they did expect Yahweh to do something big like he had done back in the days of Moses and King David. 

Paul never stopped being a Jew, but he did break with his fellow Jesus follower Jews over relaxing Jewish law. They believed Jesus came to preach the bodily resurrection and kingdom come to them alone, so there was no reason to not remain righteous. Paul thought bodily resurrection was open to everyone, though he may have adopted this notion after his Jewish audiences were becoming less interested in Jesus who had not come back yet. 

Jesus is very personal to Paul, because he was very anti-Jesus movement at first, possibly violently attacking these messianic zealots himself, then suddenly he fell head over heels for him later on maybe after some guilt got to the otherwise friendly, outgoing businessman and rabbi. That happens in conversion stories sometimes. 

When Paul says Jesus speaks directly to him, I’m not sure if he means he sees Jesus in front of him and they talk or through his contemplation on Jesus in prayer, maybe reciting Psalms or reading Isaiah, brings him spiritual and/or scriptural insight. I will say Paul’s psychological processing would have been no different than ours, so he was pretty much like a convincing Bible preacher who genuinely thinks God or Jesus “talks” to him in prayer. See Bill Graham. 

Paul says Jesus communicates with him.