Journeying with Paul....part one

It’s kind of funny how things come together in life. Many would say this is just the way things worked out, it was a ‘coincidence’, or ‘wasn’t that convenient’ but the reality is that life works out the way it does by the hand of the Lord.

A couple of weeks ago my husband suggested I should read the book of Acts while looking at a map of Paul’s journey. He said he thought I would enjoy it. I suspected that what he was suggesting was going to be a rather big undertaking, that, at the very least, it would take a lot of time. When he suggested I do that I simply didn’t have the time I thought such an undertaking should be given, and most likely would require. So, fully intending to do just what he suggested, I set the idea aside for a few days. Well, those few days wound up making me forget all about his suggestion until he mentioned it again a couple of weeks later.

But by the time he mentioned it again I had found myself the recipient of questions from two different people. One of these people questioned the way my husband and I believe, they wanted to understand what exactly it was that we believe and how it differed from what they believe. The other was questioning the ‘church’ today and how it relates to the church in Scripture.

On the surface it would appear that these three conversations have nothing to do with one another and that they have little if anything in common but to me they all worked together. Or will work together.

You see, my husband suggested I follow Paul’s journeys through the Scriptures but to also follow those journey’s on a map as I read of them. And then I found myself explaining how my beliefs differ from those of someone, who I truly didn’t know what they believe, while almost at the same time explaining my beliefs on the ‘church’ buildings of today and the church of Scripture.

And that…is where I wish to start with Paul. Not on the first page of Acts but here, in my living room, as I write this, in my very own experiences. I’m not even close to what Paul was, his life so far exceeds what mine is that they aren’t even comparable. But…Paul began his journey with Christ as an ordinary man, doing ordinary things of this world.

As he went about his life he wound up being pulled into his faith and as a result found himself teaching and preaching of Christ. Did he have to explain why he believed what he did? Did he have to explain exactly what it was he believed? We know from Scripture that he was not only a part of the early church but that he set many of the rules for how the local body of believers was to be led. And that is where the connection between what recently took place in my life and Paul’s journey’s come together. Not because my life in any way resembles Paul’s but because Paul was an ordinary man of his time. He went about his life, doing the things that men of his time did, both before he was converted and afterward. And in doing that he found himself in the midst of conversations that he may not have sought.

That is where I started on Paul’s journeys, thinking of how I had found myself in the midst of these conversations, explaining my side of things, and wondering if Paul didn’t somehow find himself in the midst of things, possibly while wondering how he got there.

But to start with Paul, I had to start with me. To follow Paul’s journeys, I needed at least two Bibles. I used three. One to read out of, one to look at the map in, and one that I like for the extra information it gives. The final Bible has lots of notes and pictures of what things were like in the days being spoken of in Scripture. I personally do not like the version of that particular Bible so I use it only for the extras it contains and not for the Scriptures. I guess you might say it is a reference book.

So I sat down with three Bibles and my computer. The Bibles to follow Paul’s journeys through Scripture and my computer to write as I followed Paul. And that is the point I am at now. Sitting on my couch I have a Bible on either side of me, one in my lap, and my computer before me. I also grabbed paper and pen…just in case.

And now I wish to turn from my world to Paul’s. I began at chapter one of Acts. Here we have those final moments of Christ on earth and the beginning of the disciples/apostles ministry. Here is the beginning of the church.

Only…here is where I feel I must point something out. There was no church. You see in Scripture there was no church until a man named Theodore Beza began to use that word in 1556. Beza was a Portestant, a follower of John Calvin. Beza was a Presbyterian who came to Scripture with his own ideas of what ‘church’ means.

In 1557 the Geneva New Testament became the first Bible to translate the word ‘ekklesia’ as ‘church’. And that is when ‘church’ came into the Scriptures. It is when ‘church’ in any way became a part of the life of the Lord’s people.

And so at the time of Christ and in the early years of the spreading of the Gospel, there was no church involved. Church was a word that they did not use. I have found it interesting that as I read through Scripture anytime we see of a meeting place for religious ceremonies we see that they go to the synagogues. We also see temples. But never once do we see that any of the believers, or Christ, went to a ‘church’.

The reason that they did not use the word church was because there was no church. Not in the sense of a physical building and not in the sense of a body of believers. In the original languages where modern translations have, thanks to Beza, placed the word ‘church’, there was the word ekklesia.

The word ekklesia is translated as ‘assembly’ or ‘congregation’, it means ‘the called out ones’. I have seen it translated as ‘the called out assembly’. What it does not translate as is ‘church’. There is a Greek word for church but ekklesia is not it.

And so we need to approach the life of Paul with a different understanding than that which our modern versions of Scripture want us to understand. The word ‘church’ was…we might say…added to Scripture for the purpose of supporting the ‘church’ systems of the time.

Our minds are conditioned to think of ‘church’ as physical buildings with a system for how things are done. In the 1500’s those systems included much control of the people within them. That was a system that those using, or adding, the word ‘church’ in the Scriptures did not want to give up. They either wanted to keep the control they had or they were accustomed to the way things were done and did not see the meetings of believers as anything but what they had grown accustomed to. We have much the same situation today, in that most people cannot imagine a ‘church’ as anything but a physical building with a leader in the form of a preacher and possibly other ‘elders’ or ‘deacons’ to run things. They may say that the people are the 'church' but they mean it in the sense of the people inside the physical building referred to as 'church' are the 'church'. And they usually mean the people that go to their physical 'church' building.

But that is not what was in place in Christ’s time or in the early days following his resurrection. So…I wish to remove the word ‘church’ from Paul’s journeys. He was not leading the ‘church’ but the ekklesia or the ‘called out ones’, or the ‘called out assembly.’ These were believers that followed him, learning of Christ and His ways. These were not people going to what would have been referred to as synagogues in that time.

Which brings us back to Paul…These very early days of the ekklesia show us something of what believers were going through in those days.

Here in the early days, we see toward the end of Acts chapter two that Peter tells those that question him as to what they are to do to be saved, that they should ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This is the teaching of the early Christians. This is the teaching of the early ekklesia. There in the very beginning days of the called out ones of our Lord, salvation was clearly spelled out.

When I was questioned about the position of elders in the ‘church’ I didn’t think to point to this very spot in Scripture. Here is the example of what the ‘church’ is. Here is the ‘elder’ leading those in the ‘church’. Here is an example of what the ‘elder’ does. Peter gives those questioning him the gospel. There are no flowery words here, no special prayers. Repent and be baptized. That is the very same gospel John the Baptist gave. The very same gospel Christ gave. The very same gospel Christ told the disciples to give. And here Peter gives that gospel to those that questioned him on salvation.

And on that day ‘there were added…about three thousand souls’.

That gospel obviously works. Repent and be baptized. That was the gospel of the early called out ones. Chapter two goes on to tell us that those that were given salvation that day ‘devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching’. Here we can see that those with the knowledge of Scripture are those that we would call ‘preachers’ or ‘elders’ today. The disciples did the teaching and the new believers devoted themselves to learning what the ‘elders’ were teaching. But we can see from above that these ‘elders’ were teaching the very same things that Christ taught. That was the gospel they were teaching and it was the message they were giving. These elders never went to school, or seminary, to learn to preach. They did not devote years to learning what men wanted them to learn about how to give the 'gospel'. These men learned from other men, men that knew Scripture, men that had walked with Christ, men that taught what Christ taught. There were preacher in Scripture that sound very much like the preachers filling the 'churches' today, Matthew chapter 23 is one example of those men, preaching a false gospel, but the men spoken of here as devoting themselves to the apostle's teachings were not those sort of men. These were serious students of Scripture, there hearts had been changed, they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit and were learning from the men that could teach them. But nowhere in there do we see them going to 'church', and that includes seminary or any other version of 'church'.

And, still, at the end of chapter two we see that ‘all who believed were together’. There is the ekklesia, or what we have been condition, even through our Bibles to call the ‘church’, all together, and they ‘had all things in common’. ‘And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.’

And again at the end of chapter four we see the same thing. Here we see that ‘the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.’ From there we see that the apostles were giving their testimonies and great grace was upon them. We aren’t told there that the apostles were leading but the very next part of those verses tells us, ‘There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet…’ From that we can clearly see that the apostles were the ones in charge. They were the leaders or elders…why else would they be given all the funds and entrusted with distributing them?

So we can see that the apostles are leading the believers, that the believers are all together, a unit so to speak, working for the good of all. They divide what they have between everyone, claiming nothing as their own. And the money that they have is used for the good of the entire group of believers…or for the ekklesia.

This was the ‘church’…system…of those days. Here were the men and women that were among the first believers after Christ’s death and resurrection. Here is what the early ekklesia, or assembly of believers, looked like.

This early ekklesia was persecuted. Stephen, in chapter seven spoke before the elders and scribes, telling them of Moses and the law that they did not keep. These very people became enraged at what Stephen told them and they took him out of the city and stoned him.

And this is where Paul, as Saul, comes into Scripture. Saul stood there, garments belonging to the witnesses at his feet, and watched Stephen be stoned to death. He heard with his own ears Stephen call out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” He watched as Stephen took his last breath, dying for the Lord, using his last words to beg for mercy for those stoning him.

Did Stephen’s prayer for mercy somehow work so that Saul was given salvation? We cannot know. But we know that Stephen prayed for those killing him. And we know that, although it doesn’t appear that Saul had any direct responsibility for Stephens’s death, that he was there, watching as it happened, hearing his final words, witnessing his final, violent moments on earth.

That was the assembly of believers when Paul, or Saul, came into it. That is where we are introduced to Saul. And that is where Paul’s journey with Christ begins…at least for us. Here we are briefly introduced to Saul. It would seem that he has little importance in the death of Stephen but I’d like to point something out. Before Stephen was removed from the city to be stoned he referred to the people before him as ‘stiff necked people.’ That was his description of the people he was speaking to. We aren’t told how many were in this group of people that Stephen stood before but we know from the description at the end of chapter seven that this was a group because ‘they’ ground their teeth at him, ‘they’ cried out with a loud voice, plugged their ears, and rushed toward him. ‘They’ cast him out of the city and stoned him. We also see that ‘witnesses’ laid their garments at the feet of Saul. So this was a crowd of people. There were many in this group, how many we do not know but they were a group of people. And in this group…only Saul is mentioned by name. And not just by name but we are given an idea of his age along with his name, ‘a young man named Saul.’

So out of an entire group of people, only Paul, or Saul, was singled out by name. Why? When the focus should be, and is, on Stephen, or more precisely on Stephen’s death for his faith, and the faith he conveyed even in his final moments, why is Saul mentioned by name?

If we move into chapter eight we get our answer. The very first verse says, ‘And Saul approved of his execution.’ Here is a man that is in favor of killing someone simply because he believes in Christ. From our first meeting with Paul he does not seem to be someone that endears himself to any believer. This man approved of the killing of Stephen for no other reason than his faith in Christ and the fact that he shared that belief with others.

That day, the day Stephen was killed, began a great persecution of believers. This persecution scattered all the believers but the apostles. It changed the ekklesia as it had been and created, what we might call, pockets of believers. No longer was the church all together learning from the apostles, all as a unit, now they scattered throughout the land. We don’t know how many believers there were in each place, there could have been hundreds in a town or a single person, and most likely it was both, many in this place, few in that place, but the reality is that we just don’t know exactly how they scattered, all we know is that they did scatter, that they no longer lived together as a group, with all things in common. Most likely they would have taken that way of life, of living and worshiping, and learning, together with them to wherever they scattered, creating smaller groups that were similar to what they had known when they were all together. But again…we just don’t know what they did when they scattered. But that is the assembly of believers when Saul comes into Scripture. And that is the ekklesia that Saul found himself in the middle of, so to speak. At this time Saul is on the outside of that assembly. He is an enemy of the believers.

Paul lived in the early days of that assembly of believers. But Scripture tells us that he was no friend of the believers. At the beginning of chapter eight we see that ‘Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.’

And again…the word we see above as ‘church’ was not a word that was in the original Scriptures. I did take that straight from an ESV Bible but ‘church’ was added many years after the time that the Scriptures were written. Instead of reading ‘church’ we should have something to the effect of ‘Saul was ravaging the called out ones’ or ‘Saul was ravaging the assembly of the called out ones’, although I hesitate to use that last description because in using the word ‘assembly’ it makes it sound as if Saul was ravaging a physical meeting place but the context of that verse tells us that isn’t what he was doing. Saul was going from house to house, not worship place to worship place.

And really if we look at the way that verse reads, because of conditioning, which was actually intended by the translators of Scripture in the early days of the English translating, that it appears that Saul was ravaging the ‘church’ and going from house to house. When, if we look to the original meaning of the word that predated the word ‘church’, we see that Saul was ravaging the ‘called out ones’ and going from house to house. These were a people he was ravaging, a people that he was hunting down, and he was doing it systematically, entering house after house.

Not only was Paul, as Saul, much against  the believers, but it would seem that he was systematically hunting them down and throwing them into prison. House by house. One by one. Man by man. Woman by woman. He was searching the land and removing, we might say, the believers from that land.

When I was a child head lice went through our school. I well remember the teachers lining us all up outside the nurse’s office where we were taken in one by one to have our heads checked. The nurse set us down and, using a comb to part out our hair, she searched our heads looking for any sign of infestation. It seemed as if she left no part of our heads unsearched, using the comb to separate our hair into tiny sections to be checked. I can also remember that some parents did the same thing, plucking the tiny insects off their child’s head each time they found one. That bug was then killed before the mother would search for another. It was a systematic search that ended in extermination of the offensive critters.

This is what comes to mind when I think of Saul going through the land searching out Christians, removing them from homes and imprisoning them. And for what? Because they were a threat? Because they were seen as an ‘infestation’ among the long held beliefs and customs of the time? Because…?

But this is what Paul did. He searched out the believers of the early ekklesia and he threw them in prison because they believed. These were not physical ‘church’ buildings that Saul was searching out and throwing in prison. He was not after men and women that merely professed a belief in Christ. No, these were the real believers making up the real body of Christ in Scripture. These were men and women willing to go to prison for the Lord they believed in, men and women willing to die for their faith in Christ.

Could there have been professing ‘Christians’ in their midst? People that professed a belief with their minds and lips that did not change their hearts? Possibly. We know for sure that there were professing believers later. And we know that Christ had His disciples and then he sent out the 70 to prepare the way for Him. Were all of those 70 elect believers? Or was it possible that some of them believed but were not of the elect? We don’t know.

What we can be pretty sure of is the fact that these believers lives were in danger for their beliefs and therefore they held a real belief. Was it a belief that made them part of the elect? We don’t know. But this was no surface level belief.

There were no professing ‘Christians’ claiming that Jesus just wants to love them. There were no professing ‘Christians’ saying that God wants to bless them with earthly wealth and belongings. No, these were men and women that had given everything they had to the group of believers and were willing to give their lives for their Lord. These were people that believed enough to put their lives in danger for those beliefs. This…was the ‘called out ones’ of Scripture, this was what we have been conditioned to think of as the same thing that meets in physical buildings today, meetings held with padded seats, air conditioning, friendly faces, and no physical discomfort or threat in any way. This…was a group of people that believed in Christ enough to risk their lives.

And this was what Saul wanted to wipe out.

While all of this was going on the believers continued to share the gospel. In the town of Samaria was a man named Simon. This man practiced magic and was highly esteemed among the people. Phillip preached the gospel in Samaria and Simon, among many others, believed him. I think that, maybe, we can see in Simon the very proof that not all that believed were among the elect. Scripture tells us that Simon believed what the apostles taught. But it also tells us just how Simon’s belief was.

The apostles then went to Samaria to pray for those that believed and to finish what had been started among these people. They laid their hands upon them and the Holy Spirit came upon them.

Simon was amazed by this and offered to buy the power that would put the Holy Spirit into people. Peter essentially cursed Simon saying, ‘may your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!’

Here is a man that seeks to buy favor with God and is told that it is impossible. Peter goes even further to tell him, ‘Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.’ Peter did not take all hope away from Simon, he told him to repent that…if possible…what he had wanted would be forgiven him. There is hope in that but very little of it.

I’m going to go just a bit…out of context here. Simon was popular among people, he was used to being looked to for all the things he did. It was even said of him, just prior to his encounter with Peter, ‘This man is the power of God that is called Great.’ So Simon is a very popular man. He is something of a…diety…among the people of Samaria. He is used to people looking to him, looking up to him. He is used to them thinking highly of him and putting great importance on him. Chances are he made money off the magic he performed, magic that was attributed to the power of God.

Now, when Simon sees something that he cannot do he offers to buy the ability to do it. Why? We aren’t told what his reasons are. Maybe he desired the ability to do what the apostles did. Maybe he wanted the power of God that he had been attributed with having. Maybe he was afraid that he would lose his status among the people if he could not do what the apostles had just done. Maybe he feared that now that the people had seen this mighty thing of God that he would no longer be looked to, and would therefore lose the money he had made from the powers he performed before them. We don’t know why Simon wanted this power all we know is that he wanted it and he offered to pay to get it.

And we know that Peter all but cursed him because of it. Now is where I’m going a bit out of context. Scripture does not tell us that Simon was a preacher of any sort only that he was given credit for having the power of God. Does that not, in some way, remind us of many preachers today? They influence people…Simon had enough influence on people to be given credit for the power of God…and seek to maintain that status. I know that I am speaking of Simon in a way that Scripture does not. I’m not saying that he was a preacher or even a leader. Scripture says he was a magician. But how many preachers today seem more like magicians than the ‘elders’ we saw in the ekklesia at the beginning of Acts?

A good number of today’s ‘churches’ put on shows every Sunday. These shows are designed to entertain groups of people that are used to constant entertainment and instant gratification. These people are used to smoke screens that keep them entertained. How many Sunday services today are filled with lights and smoke, some of them literally, some of them in the form of big bands and fancy props? How many preachers lead the ‘church’ in ways that are anything other than what we saw the apostles doing?

How many of them stand before their congregations not as humble ‘elders’ leading the church under the direction of the Head, of Christ, but as men that want the power of God, and often wield that ‘power’ before a congregation that believes the church spoken of in Scripture is the ‘church’ they sit in and that they must be under the rule of the ‘man of God’ standing in the pulpit?

That is what Simon reminds me of. Not a man that seeks to serve the Lord but a man that grabs at the power that can be attained by using the name of God. And he was willing to buy that power. So much so that he may well have paid for it with his very soul. What is the ‘power’ being wrongly wielded by preachers today costing them?

In Acts we see that Peter chastises and basically curses Simon for what he says, for what he desired out of his heart. And Simon well knew what had just taken place because he said, ‘Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.”

And the Scriptures move away from Simon.

To be continued...

Following Paul through what we know of his life is a long, enjoyable, and enlightening journey for me. I am following his life step by step. In doing so I am learning so much about Paul and about the early ekklesia, and even about myself. But I'm learning something else too, I'm learning that Paul's journeys cannot be followed without going in depth, at least not and write about them as I follow them, and that there is no way to follow along with Paul and do so in a short, or even semi long, blog post. This post, one I originally thought would reach no more than twenty pages has stretched further and further until I feel it best to post it in parts. Thank you for reading part one.