Journeying with Paul...part thirteen

Journeying with Paul continued...

For me, I move into this next phase of Paul's journeys with trepidation. Not because I don't look forward to this part of my studies, because I do, but because I have now lost what was something of a map through Paul's life.

As I studied Paul's journeys, up to this point, and as I have wrote out what I've learned and my thoughts along the way, I have found myself relying heavily on the books of Acts. Acts was, after all, the book that told me most of what was going on with Paul but now I have come to the end of Acts. With one simple sentence...

He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hinderance.

I must leave behind the guide I have been using to follow Paul and his journeys. I still have Scripture, still have a good bit of Paul's letters to lean on and learn from, but I must leave behind the guide so to speak. I must leave behind the book that told me where Paul was and a good deal of what he was doing and I must now rely only on Paul's letters for my study.

Which means...I must now glean my bits of information about Paul. I must pick through all his teachings to find the tiny bits of information about him.

Throughout this study, I have read every bit of Acts and as the place in Paul's life came up when he supposedly wrote each letter, I have read those letters, adding what I learned in his letters to what I could easily read in Acts. But what I gained from those letters, although great in insight, was small in details on Paul's life. Those details had to be picked out, carefully, from among all the wonderful things Paul wrote in his letters. And in case you've never noticed before...Paul was not to big on telling about himself. He gives only glimpses of him and his life, hidden in the midst of instructions or encouragement to those that read his letters.

It has taken me all of the book of Acts and bits and pieces from the letters that Paul wrote to piece together what I understand of Paul, to flesh him out, so to speak, to make him a man with thoughts and feelings, ideas and longings, pains and joys, and not just some deity type person that had direct revelations from the Lord, and therefore lived out a different kind of life, experienced a different way of life, than most people throughout all of history have lived.

But now I must move my studies away from the book that gave me an outline of Paul's life and must begin to study Paul only through the letters that he wrote. And that comes with a bit of worry. I well remember reading Paul's other letters. I remember how much of those letters didn't make it into this study on Paul, not because they weren't important, they are, very important, but because much of Paul's letters contain his instructions and encouragement and not much about him. I have several of Paul's books left to read, books I have read before, but now I will read them for the sole purpose of knowing Paul better and finding out what became of Paul, what he experienced, once the book of Acts ended.

And it is with that trepidation hanging over me that I move into the next, and final, phase of my study of Paul's life.

To be continued....