24 - Paul the Apostle

In the end it wasn’t Peter who was pushed out of the congregation. It was Paul.

There are certain people God has graced so that no matter what they might do wrong, their personality wins over the people, and in the end, all is forgiven. The warmth that radiated from Peter’s heart flooded everyone around him, and won everyone to him. Even the Gentiles forgave him for shaming them. They even tried to reform. On the other hand, the letters from Jerusalem, condemning Paul’s doctrines, made a deep impression on the congregation, and with his personality, it was easy for people to look at him with unfriendly eyes.

Paul suddenly found himself cut off from his own congregation.

The doors of the houses and shops were once filled with his followers greeting him joyously from afar. Now he wandered the streets a lonely man. The whole quarter, once illuminated with lanterns when he returned from his mission to the Galatians, was now filled with lowered brows and angry eyes. And he heard the bitter whisper of voices as he passed.

“There he goes, the traitor of Israel!”
“He tears out the Law by its roots.”
“Is it any wonder? It hasn’t been that long since he bound the faithful in chains. You can bet your life he still has those chains.”
“No doubt about it. He always tried to work himself into the good graces of the High Priest. And you know why? The High Priest had a daughter, and Saul wanted to marry her. And when the High Priest showed him the door, Saul turned against him, and before the day was over he became one of the faithful.”
“Now I get it. Just like he once persecuted the faithful, now he persecutes the congregation of Israel. He sows discord everywhere he goes. He provokes Gentiles against Jews.”
“Traitor!”
“High Priest’s son-in-law!”

Such were the rumors that Paul heard. And when he entered the congregation the next Sabbath, he could feel the angry stares of the believers. Some of the zealots confronted him directly.

“What are you doing in the congregation of Messiah, traitor!”
“Balaam! Korah!”

Fortunately, Titus and Timothy accompanied Paul, or he might very well have been thrown right out into the street.

The believers in Jerusalem didn’t know, and the believers in Antioch didn’t understand how much the apostle had done in plowing and planting for the lord. All they were hearing about was the dissension Paul created, turning Messiah into a stranger who couldn’t live with Israel. They did not know, or would not know, of the chain of congregations he’d founded across the mountains of Galatia down to the Aegean Sea. It did not touch them that he’d carried the name of God and of Christ to nations who’d never heard of the one or the other and had planted the hope of redemption in hearts sealed by uncleanness.

Paul was spared nothing. Some made it their business to make sure he knew every spiteful thing said about him. He listened and made no answer. His heart was hot with anger, but he was silent. As long as the rumors and accusations concerned only his person, he toughed it out and said nothing. Rather than split the congregation of the lord, he swallowed his bitterness, though it tasted like poison.

In his tablets, however, he did write down the fiery sentences that would later be used in his letters.

But then something happened that he could not endure in silence.

Some Galatians came to Antioch and told him of the confusion created in the mountain communities by letters sent from Jerusalem. The Gentile Christians were confused and bewildered. The letters said that Paul, who once persecuted the faithful in Jerusalem, had never even seen Messiah and had never heard his doctrines from his own lips. The letters insisted that Messiah had said, “Heaven and earth will pass away before even one jot or tittle of the Torah.”

Thus the Jews were telling the Gentiles that they could never be saved or have any portion in Israel if they didn’t fulfill the laws and commandments of Moses. Even if Paul did see a vision, they said, no vision could abrogate the very words of Messiah that they, the elders themselves, had heard with their own ears. Paul had no authority to spread the gospel according to his own interpretation. Only the direct disciples of Messiah had the authority to preach according to the instructions of Messiah. And James, the lord’s brother, was their leader.

In fact, one of the letters had been written by James who said, among other things, “What good is it if a man says he has faith, but he has no good works? Can his faith save him? When a brother or sister is naked, and has no food, and one says, ‘Go in peace, be clothed and fed,’ what good is it if he gives him no clothing or food?

“So faith in itself is dead if it has no works.

“So one might say, ‘You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith through my works.

“For faith acts only through works.

“As the body without the soul is dead, so is faith without works.”

The simple, straightforward words of James deeply moved the faithful, particularly the Jews. Paul’s doctrine, then, was a doctrine of “false gods.” The faithful dared not listen to him.

The poor, simple Galatians didn’t know what to believe or do. Many of the Gentile believers were so terrified by the message that they went to the Jews and begged to be admitted into the covenant of Abraham, through circumcision. But other, weaker ones fell away completely from the faith. In between, there were many undecided who didn’t know which way to turn.

When Paul heard all this, he was filled with dread and anger. He could see his work on the brink of disaster. The building he’d erected was collapsing, as though it wasn’t the work of God but of the devil.

He couldn’t have felt worse if he’d seen the heavens opened and the very son of Satan descending on fiery clouds. He had visions of the poor Gentiles of Galatia, who just yesterday were idol worshippers. He could just see the confusion on their faces, for now they didn’t know if they were standing with God or Satan. Their eyes were turned to him, pleading for help.


Paul saw himself standing on a narrow pathway. He began to climb through the mountains that led to Galatia, but suddenly the path came to an end. On either side were black abysses, out of which protruded immense needles of rock. In front of him was space, gaping like the opened jaws of a crocodile. Then the path opened again and rose to the summit of a mountain. He couldn’t see the summit, for it was bathed in mist, but he could feel it towering over him. He noticed that the path beneath his feet was covered with a low, dense growth, with gnarled roots and savage cactus plants. Some of them had pincers that snatched at him and fastened onto his body. As he stood forlorn, these unspeakable creatures began to move, to close in on him. Silently they wound themselves around his feet. He must get out of this place! But there is no forward and there is no backward!

A cry tore its way out of Paul’s heart, “Lord, lord! I didn’t enter this path alone. You took me and placed me on it. Help me now!”

Then he saw a hand stretched out toward him from the summit of the mountain, which was suddenly unveiled. With that the nightmare ended and Paul’s body relaxed.

Awake now and bathed in tears, Paul cried, “Father in heaven! Do not set me at odds with my own flesh and blood!”

He saw Titus and Timothy standing over him. They lifted him up and placed him on his bed. Paul felt the cool, soft hands of Timothy on his face and forehead bathing him with vinegar.

“All will be well,” said Paul, still speaking to the vision. “It wasn’t me who chose the road to Damascus. You alone set my feet on it. You lifted me out of the gutter of sin, and washed me clean with your blood. You chose me as your vessel, and who can break me? You sent me on your mission to the Gentiles, and who can take it away from me?

“Even though they in Jerusalem have closed the gates of the synagogue to me, I’ve built my own congregation with the authority you gave me out of your own mouth, lord. The world is my congregation, and all men are worshippers in it. I will bring the gospel to them, which I haven’t learned from other men, but through your revelation to me.”

He asked Timothy to bring him papyrus, pen, and ink. He didn’t dictate this time, but wrote with his own hand. He sat on the floor, legs folded under him, brows drawn together, face tense. Trembling, he dipped the metal pen into the colored fluid, and began his letter to the Galatians, in which he declared his independence and authority.

“Paul, an apostle, not by men, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead.

“I declare to you, my brothers, that the gospel I preached to you is not according to man, for I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it by man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

“Know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

“For you are all children in God, by faith in Jesus Christ.

“And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of His Son to your hearts, crying, Abba, Father!

“Therefore you are no more a servant, but a son, and an heir of God through Christ.

“Stand fast then in the freedom in which Christ has made you free. . . be not entangled again with the yoke of a servant, the yoke of the law, in which you cease to be sons and fall again into servitude and heathendom, and fall away from grace.

“For in Jesus Christ circumcision and uncircumcision are without meaning. Only faith has meaning, which works through love.

“The whole law is fulfilled in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

“See how long a letter I have written you, and by my own hand.”

* * * * *

It was time to get back to work. There was a congregation-in-waiting back in Ephesus just begging to hear the gospel. The sick and the possessed there came in hordes to the Temple of Diana to be consumed by false prophets and other human birds of prey, and he vowed in his heart that he wouldn’t rest until he planted the name of the God of Israel, and of Christ in Ephesus. He also wanted to stop and visit the congregations in Galatia to reinforce in person what he’d written down on papyrus. He wanted to hearten and encourage them, and to strengthen them in the faith.

Barnabas, who was still torn between his dedication to James and his love for Paul, came to see him off.

The two friends looked at each other in silence. The years since their last meeting had left the folds and wrinkles of many labors and sorrows on their faces. Barnabas’ immense black beard was streaked here and there with white. His handsome, clear countenance, with its great gray eyes and its lofty, luminous forehead, that had caused the Gentiles to think of Jupiter, had been plowed by the plow of the lord. Therefore its creases shone with the light of grace.

His boyhood friend stood before him an old, broken man, with tear sacs under his eyes, his forehead crowned with a wreath of gray.

He took his friend's hands in his, and said, “My brother, wherever you go, I’ll be with you, for I know that whatever you do, you will do in the name of heaven. Just don’t cut yourself off from your own flesh and blood, my brother. Your brothers are trodden under foot everywhere for the God of Israel and for His Torah. They are lower than the dust, shamed and rejected, a prey to all the world. They belong to none but God, and it was for them that God sent His redeemer.”

Paul looked at him steadfastly and answered, “God forbid! I have not come to create discord with my brothers, but to make peace; not to break up, but to unite. Have you ever heard me preach that Jews should cease from circumcision? I say, they who are circumcised, let them remain circumcised. But if external circumcision becomes the only gate through which there is entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, then I say that our labor is in vain. If justification is only through the Torah, then Christ died in vain.”

* * * * *

Three travelers once again started out on foot across the wooded slopes of the Taurus range, Paul’s homeland. One of them, tall and young, went before, loaded with baggage. The second, also young, supported the footsteps of the third, an elderly, stooping man. They went slowly, disentangling their feet from the soft moss and the labyrinth of roots that covered the earth. Tenderly and with much attention, the second young man guided and supported his companion past the mounds of stones and across the brooks that started out from the soil.

So they went from morning till night, pausing at noon for rest in the shadow of green cypresses. In the evenings they kindled little fires against the coolness descending from the slopes. At night, if they couldn’t find a dwelling, they slept in the abandoned booths of shepherds, or in the open air, in the scooped-out hollow of a dried stream.

Once again the apostle climbed toward the dread “Syrian Gate,” to bring the gospel to the cities of Galatia. The first time the mission had consisted solely of Jews, Paul and Barnabas. This time, only one member of the group was a Jew. His companions were Timothy, half Greek and half Jew, and Titus, wholly Greek and uncircumcised.

So they came to Galatia. Once again the apostle passed through the familiar cities and through his communities, the first fruits of his planting. Great was his joy to be among them again, and great was theirs to have him with them. Familiar faces, familiar figures, familiar greetings. He preached for them and strengthened them. He sought to allay the storm raised by the messengers of James that was threatening to spread far out to Derbe, Lystra, and Antioch in Pisidia.

When they visited Timothy’s mother again, they found a new disciple, Gaius. Paul took him with them on his journeys.

So they traveled, part of the way on foot, and part of the way in carriages, through Colossae and Leukida and Hieropolis, cities of the Gentiles. But these were Gentiles whose spirit was thirsty for a word of salvation. Paul would have liked to have stayed longer, but he couldn’t dawdle now. He was in a hurry to reach Ephesus, the city of the goddess Artemis. The memory of the abominations he’d seen provoked in him a lust for conquest. He longed, like a general with his emperor in mind, to conquer the city and to lay it at the feet of his lord Christ.