Journeying with Paul...part twelve

Journeying with Paul continued...

As with so much in life, the best of our plans are often set aside as we live out our life. I had figured to have finished my study on Paul long before now. For the last few weeks I have told myself almost daily that I needed to get back to Paul but time simply has not allowed. I find that setting Paul and his journeys aside works against me too. The more time I put between my studying of Paul, the harder I find it to connect what I'm studying, when I come back to it, to what I studied before. Sometimes I even find myself unsure of exactly where I left Paul or where I should begin to study his journeys.

This study has taken more out of me than any other study I've done or any other article I've written. There's something about all my other articles that simply lets me sit down and write them out, even if they take days of my time, I can easily move through them. Not so with Paul. Maybe because Paul is less of me and much more of Scripture. I don't know. But I find myself struggling with Paul and the more time that passes as I do this study, the more I struggle. I do hope you'll bear with me and keep that in mind if I happen to repeat myself or stumble in this study.

My study on Paul and his journeys has stretched into months and months and not the week or two I envisioned it taking. I would say that I've spent more time on this study, on this article, than anything I've ever written but I can't honestly say that because I don't know how much actual time has been devoted to it. I do know that it has stretched over more time than anything else I've ever written.

When I last wrote of Paul, last studied him, he had been imprisoned for two years and had written to the Phillipians. I wondered over what kept Paul pressing forward through all of his trials and earthly difficulties. I still wonder over that, wonder if Paul lived out all of his Christian life with the euphoria that comes with being a new Christian, or if he somehow just pressed forward with fortitude even when he felt like giving up.

There's something in the rosy hue of falling in love that lets us see all of life through different eyes than we ever see it again. We are able to experience things while in that rosy hue and come through them in a way we don't during other times. They say love is blind and that hue seems to keep us blinded. And I just can't help in Paul lived in that hue, that rush, of love for Christ? Scripture doesn't tell us and so it is something that I will never know the answer to but...I wonder.

Paul was brought to Caesarea  where the Jews brought many charges against him, to which Paul argued that he had done nothing. In that defense Paul appealed to Caesar. Paul was then taken before King Agrippa. As he stands before Agrippa, Paul gives an account of his life. In this account he tells how he persecuted Christians and cast his vote to kill them. This, from his own mouth, is what the man that wrote so much of the New Testament was. And yet he went on to be one of the most influential Christians of all time, if not the most influential.

When I was a kid my best friend was the daughter of a preacher. He told anyone that would listen that he had once been a drug dealer. I can still remember the shock of people that heard this. Preachers are not supposed to be drug dealers. But that one had been. He did not have the perfect life that most people envision a preacher to have before they step behind that pulpit.

Now...there is much I could say, have said, on preachers, but I'm not trying to cover preachers or what America knows as the 'church' in this article and so I will simply leave my comment about preachers at what I said above, at what I knew about that preacher. I spent many days and nights in his home, went out to eat with his family, went on family vacations with them. I was something of an extended part of their family. I was privy to a part of their lives that most that knew that preacher did not see. And what I saw was that he was just a man like all others. But those that heard his background were still shocked that he could be a preacher and have once been a drug dealer. There seems to be some unwritten rule that says a preacher cannot have a past that others wouldn't approve of.

That preacher was just a man, preaching in a denominational 'church' and leading people according to the doctrines that he believed. Right or wrong that is what that man was. Paul was so much more than that. Paul's influence stretched through time. His words became the inspired words of Scripture. Even words that he spoke by saying he was the one saying them and not the Lord. Paul's Christian influence has stretched over centuries, through generations, through the rest of time. And he was once a persecutor of Christians. By his own admission he hunted them down and voted that they put to death.

Agrippa declared that Paul could have been set free except for his appeal to Caesar so Paul was kept imprisoned.So Paul was placed on a ship that was to set sail for Italy. After some time, Paul was transferred to yet another ship. During this time we really see nothing of Paul in Scripture. We read of how 'we' set sail, or 'we' were put on another ship, but there is nothing of Paul in those passages. If we didn't know that Paul was counted in the 'we' there would be no way for us to even know that he was there. We can see only bare details in what we are told of this time in Paul's life. We do see that Paul warned those in charge of the ship of dangers facing them and that he was ignored.

And why wouldn't he be? Who would listen to a prisoner? Especially one that is saying those in charge should do something other than what they were supposed to be doing? Would it not have been in his favor to lead them astray? To get them to do what he wanted them to do so that he could escape? I have no illusions that that was what Paul was doing, he was simply warning them, possibly because he had direct revelation from the Lord of what was about to befall them, and they chose not to listen, but I can't say as I blame them. Who in their right mind would take instructions from someone they had in captivity?

But in not listening to Paul those in charge of the ship put everyone on board at risk. They encountered a fierce storm, were ''violently storm tossed" and were without food. It was in this condition that Paul essentially told them 'I told you so', telling them, 'men, you should have listened to me'. But he doesn't seem to hold it against them, instead he assures them that no loss of life will come from this, only the loss of the ship. Paul goes on to tell them that an angel of God stood before him and spoke to him. I wonder what those on the ship thought of that? Did they believe him? Did they believe in God because of him? Paul said, 'God has granted you all those who sail with you'. I wonder, as I read that, what it means that God granted all who sailed with him to Paul.

On Paul's direction...which makes me smile to see who now appears to be giving the orders on this ship...they anchored the ship. The centurion and soldiers now follow Paul's words so much that they cut away a boat that was being lowered by some on the ship, a boat they planned to use to escape the ship. But Paul warned that if the men left the ship none could be saved, so the boat was 'cut away' in order that those in charge might be saved, something they were putting their faith in their captive to achieve.

We now see that they have been fourteen days without food. Paul urges them to take some food in order that they might have strength for 'not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you'.  Once they had eaten they threw the wheat into the sea, making the ship lighter.

Still following Paul's directions, the ship was run ashore on a reef. The soldiers intended to kill all the prisoners to keep any from escaping but the Centurion wanted to save Paul and so kept the soldiers from carrying out their plan. Everyone was brought safely to land.

The island they were now on was called, Malta, and was home to natives that showed them 'unusual kindness'. In making a fire, Paul was bitten by a viper and assumed to be a murderer by the natives. When Paul did not die from the snake bite the natives changed their minds about him and decided he was a god.

Again, here is a section of Scripture that I would love to know more about from Paul's view. What was he going through? Thinking? Feeling? He was the prisoner, saved by the Centurion, and yet he was the one that had saved them all. Now here he is first thought of as a murderer and then a god. Those are some drastic and quick changes in what people thought of him. We are told only that he shook the snake off but are given no clue to what he might have thought or felt at being bitten. There is so much more to Paul, to his life, than what we are shown in Scripture.

I would love to read the rest of his story, the story where all the left out parts are included, but are never to know the rest of his story. Several months ago I was able to buy some books from a reformed Christian company, this company reprints books that were written long ago and have been all but forgotten in our day. They change them when needed to make sure they meet with reformed Christian beliefs but the stories are all fiction and are all set in times long gone. I purchased the books during a major clearance sale and got them for almost nothing. Because of the prices the books were being sold at, the books were selling out while I was on their website. It didn't take me very long to realize that I had no time to research each book if I wanted any hope of buying any of them. I quickly changed my buying tactic, instead of researching each book before deciding if it was right for my home, I simply had to put my trust in what the company stood for. In other words I bought books from the company because I knew they were reformed and because their normally pricey books were selling for a couple of dollars each. And so I made choices, bought books, without knowing what the books were about.

I have yet to read all of the books I bought on that sale but haven't been disappointed yet in any of the books I have read. But there is one book, a book I bought solely for me and not because I wanted it for my family, that I have held in my hands many times but can't bring myself to read. I have only tried to read it once and found myself quickly closing the book.

That book is simply titled, 'Paul', and is supposedly about the life of Paul. I had envisioned, once I knew what it was about, that I would love that book. I don't really know what I thought it was but I guess I imagined it to be something other than what I encountered the one time I opened the book with the intention of reading it. You see...the book may be about Paul, it may stick very close to Scripture, I don't know, but that book, as I discovered after reading only a couple of sentences, is a work of fiction. It may take Scripture and follow it exactly but it is filling in gaps with made up things.

I want very much to fill in the gaps of Paul's life in my mind, to understand all the things that I'm left wondering, to know Paul in ways that Scripture doesn't let us know him, but I don't want to do it through imaginings, mine or someone else's.

But that's all we can do, imagine. We can imagine how Paul reacted to being bitten by a snake. We can imagine how he handled the ship being tossed at sea, imagine whether or not he got sea sick, imagine whether or not he was scared. We can imagine how he thought and felt at finding himself marooned on an island inhabited by natives. But we can only imagine it all. There is no fact in any of it. I would imagine that being bitten by a viper would hurt, I imagine it would be scary, but Scripture doesn't tell us that Paul hurt when the snake bit him or that he was scared. We do know that Paul was told that he must stand before Caesar so it's unlikely that he worried he would die. We also know that Paul said he was ready to die so there's little chance that the thought of death, no matter how it might come, would give Paul even a niggling of concern. But again...I am only imagining what I think by basing my thoughts on Scripture. I do not know what Paul thought or felt because Scripture does not tell me.

The native's chief's dad was ill and thanks to Paul, he was healed of his illness. That resulted in others coming to Paul for healing. So here Paul is, a prisoner now marooned on an island, having survived being bitten by a poisonous snake, healing people of illnesses. That was how they lived, honored, treated kindly, welcomed, with Paul believed to be some kind of god, for three months.

When their time to leave came, the natives put whatever they needed on the ship, and they set sail. Paul once again facing the encroaching trial before Caesar. And this is how Paul finally got to Rome. Not on his own. Not as a preacher, come to teach them, but as a prisoner come to face a trial.

Now in Rome, Paul is allowed to stay on his own with only the soldier that guarded him. What kind of imprisonment is that? Certainly not the kind we envision today but it is the kind that Paul experienced in Rome.

We see that Paul lived in Rome, supporting himself, teaching Christ to all who came to him, for two 'whole' years. And that is how we end Paul's journey's in Acts. We do not see the rest of his life, do not see the end of his travels and teachings. We really don't even see the end of when he wrote letters to the believers because it is believed that Paul wrote Philemon, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus after the end of Acts. But that is where the book that records so much of Paul's life ends, simply by telling us that Paul lived in Rome, supporting himself, and teaching all who came to him of Christ.

To be continued...