Journeying with Paul continued...
There was a time in my life when I wrote letters to someone everyday. For the very few days that I did not write a letter, there were other days when I wrote two or three letters. During those days my life pretty much revolved around those letters. It took hours to write them. I had to go to the mail box or post office everyday. I had to make sure I had a supply of paper and envelopes. I was regularly buying more ink pens because I was going through them so fast.
Writing those letters, many of them no less than ten pages long, took a great deal of time and attention from me. I had a very good reason for writing so many letters and I did enjoy writing them but they still took much time and attention, and even money. The cost of mailing a letter begins to add up.
I think of all those things when I think of Paul writing the letter to the Romans, and of the other letters that he wrote. He didn't have the cost of postage but what might it have cost him to get hold of the supplies he had to have to write his letters? And more than that...what might it have cost him in time and emotional investment to write those letters? He obviously cared a great deal for the people he was writing to, he worried over them, prayed for them. What kind of emotional investment went into each and every word in those letters?
It's not until chapter 15 verse 23 that we see that Paul has longed to go to Rome for many years. Again, I can't help wondering...why? What made him long to go to Rome for many years and why did we never hear mention of this desire until the book of Romans?
There is so much to learn, so much to gain, so much to understand, in the book of Romans. As I think of Paul writing that letter, a letter he wrote to people that, for the most part at least, he had never met, I think of all that he shared with them through his letter. How was it received? Did they treasure it for the insight it gave them? Did they resent someone that had never stood before them telling them how to live? Did they anxiously await his arrival or wish that he would not come?
The Romans that Paul wrote to were a different kind of audience than those he had written to before. In all his other letters Paul wrote to those that he had personally taught. He had stood before them, walked with them, talked with them. That wasn't the case with the Romans.
I can well imagine my own reaction if there was a Paul of today and I received a letter from him saying he was coming to my town or home. But I can also well imagine my reaction to getting a letter from someone that I had heard was teaching something, even something I shared a belief in, telling me that they were coming to stay with me, and giving me all these instructions for how to live my life. And so I wonder how the Romans received this letter that Paul wrote. From the letter we can see that there were some in Rome that Paul personally knew and had spent a good deal of time with but I imagine there were also those hearing the letter that had never met Paul.
Whatever prompted Paul to write to the Romans, and however they felt upon receiving them, it was most likely at some time following the writing of that letter that Paul met with the men from Ephesus and then parted ways with them. I wish I could know for sure when this all took place. Did I study it wrong? Did I write it wrong? There's not much to go on except other people's opinions and thoughts on when and how this all happened. I still wonder if I should correct what I wrote and place the second letter to the Corinthians and the letter to the Romans into the middle of Acts 20 but I'm choosing to leave what I've written as it is. I do encourage anyone that reads this to do their own research, determine for themselves when they think these things took place.
We follow Paul, in the first of Acts 21, as he journeys through quite a few places but gives no attention to them other than to mention their names. We don't know if he taught in those places, if he met with believers, or if he simply passed by them as the ship went through those areas. When the ship stopped in Tyre is the first we are told of what Paul did in those towns. In Tyre 'we' sought out the disciples and stayed there for seven days. And we see again that Paul is getting direct revelation from the Holy Spirit, this time telling him not to go to Jerusalem.
After Paul leaves Tyre he spent a day in Ptolemais before going to Caesarea where he was given a warning of what the Jews in Jerusalem intended to do him. His response...
What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Acts 21: 13 ESV
And so Paul, against the urgings of those with him, continued on his way, with all intention of going to Jerusalem despite having a very good idea of what was about to happen to him.
To be continued...
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