30b - I Also Am an Israelite

So now Paul was finally ready to go to Jerusalem to talk to the saints and perhaps stand trial before the High Priest. He sent the delegations that had been collecting funds for the saints of Jerusalem on ahead to Troas. There was Sopater from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, and Timothy. There were also Tychicus and Trophimus from Ephesus.

When he arrived in Troas he sent them on to Assos, but he himself made the brief journey on foot, because he wanted to revisit the journey he’d made so long ago when he first brought the gospel to these parts. It was the post-Passover season, and spring was pouring out its benediction on the countryside.

When he got to Assos, Luke and the deputation were already on board waiting for him. They sailed to Mitylene, and then to Kios, not far from Ephesus. Paul didn’t want to visit Ephesus, or to spend any time in Asia, for he was anxious to arrive in Jerusalem in time for Pentecost. When they got to Miletus, Paul sent messengers to Ephesus asking the elders of the congregation to come to him, that he might say farewell to them, as he had said farewell to the communities of Troas and Philippi.

Paul’s last words to the elders of Ephesus, carefully recorded by Luke the physician, were very moving, as he opened his heart. “I’m going to Jerusalem, bound in the spirit, without knowing what waits for me there, except that the Holy Spirit has been with me in every city, foretelling suffering and chains. But I don’t care, and my life wouldn’t be dear to me were it not that I still hope to end the work I’ve taken on myself in joy. I have no regard to myself, but I have regard to the sheep whose shepherd the Holy Spirit has made me. . . . I fear that wolves will steal the flock after I leave. . . . I commend you to the grace of God. . . . You know what these hands of mine have done for my needs and for the needs of those who go with me. I’ve taught you that we must so work as to support the weak among us with the labor of our hands, and you must ever bear in mind the saying of Jesus Christ that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

They fell on his neck and cried because of the indication that they would never see his face again. And on the day of his departure they accompanied him to the ship.

There were many ships sailing from Upper Asia Minor to the coasts of Phoenicia in those days. A great stream of supplies flowed south into Tyre and Sidon, and colored stuffs from the two cities came north. Paul and his company boarded a ship heavily loaded with freight. They sailed directly for the Phoenician coast, passing Cyprus. At Syria, where the ship unloaded, Paul and his companions went on shore. A company of Christians of Tyre came out to meet them, and Paul stayed with them seven days.

The faithful of Tyre, with their constant communication with the not too distant city of Jerusalem, knew even better than Paul the danger he was heading into, and they did everything they could to talk him out of going. But Paul would not be persuaded.

On the eighth day, they sailed again while the congregation of Christians knelt on the shore and prayed for him as his ship moved southward to Ptolemais. They stayed just one day there, and then made the short journey to Caesarea to visit the home of Philip, the one who had been the first to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Philip lived with his four virgin daughters who were gifted with prophecy, the oldest of them being Zipporah.

Paul and Zipporah hadn’t seen each other since that memorable day many years before when he’d gone to her house in Jerusalem to take her father prisoner. She had thrown a reproach at him that day, telling Paul that he was a respecter of persons, and had favorites. But it wasn’t true, and he had spent years proving it. But she also had disproved the words he once spoke to her when he bitterly told her that she would throw away her gift of prophecy in order to take a husband. She had dedicated her life to prophecy. In those days they had both been young. Now they were both old.

The years had taken a lot out of Zipporah. She was little more than skin and bones, with gray hair, and a body covered with sackcloth. But then she smiled, and there was no doubt that it was she.

* * * * *

Paul was not as close to Luke the physician as he was to his other two co-workers, Titus and Timothy. When Paul met him, Luke was already a grown man, one trained in the wisdom of the Gentiles, knowledgeable of land and sea, as well as deeply versed in Holy Scripture, albeit only in translation. As powerful and harmonious as he was in body, broad shouldered and a tranquil face as of poured bronze, he was no less harmonious in bearing. There was no visible break in him, no scar of the passage from his Greek gods to the one living God. Paul had accepted him as a sign from heaven, the fulfillment of the vision of the “man of Macedonia.” He also saw Luke’s excellent qualities immediately. He had calmness, consistency, and endurance to go with his tactful management of people. Plus there was his training, his mastery of medicine, and his knowledge of languages. All these gifts proclaimed him a valuable helper in the work. Thus, even at the beginning, Paul had left Luke to direct the affairs of the congregation in Philippi. But he didn’t know the man well at that time.

He got to know him a little better in Corinth, when, after his second letter to the Corinthians, he visited them to restore order among the faithful. But it wasn’t until the journey to Jerusalem that Paul found the opportunity to gain intimate insight into his companion.

Luke well knew Paul’s opinion of the Gentiles, an opinion frequently expressed and in unmistakable language. There was the passage Paul had dictated in his letter to the Romans, for instance, that the Gentiles thought they were wise, but were really fools. They exchanged truth for lies and worshipped the creature rather than the Creator. So God abandoned them to their lusts. Luke had great love and devotion for Christ, but saw no need to reject his great heritage of Greek culture. He sought to rescue those glories that could be rescued from that old world and transplanted to the new faith. And he was deeply wounded by Paul’s bitter mockery of the Gentiles. Nor was Luke’s feeling for the Jews proportionate with his love for Christ. He had accepted their heritage, because it was permanently bound up with the faith. But he could not warm up to this people, and in his heart there was an uncontrollable longing for the harmony of the pagan world. Therefore he was always seeking a mixture of the old world with the new.

These things came up for discussion with Paul one day.

“The Gentiles,” he said to Paul, “don’t worship stone and wood, not really. The gods are only symbols of perfection and harmony. So it’s really the Creator they bow down to. In adoring beauty they pay tribute to the eternal truths found in that beauty. The gods are only demons who’ve taken possession of the images and who’ve marred the beauty and perfection the great masters have portrayed in the imagery.”

As Paul listened, he thought of the vision he’d had at the book burning in Ephesus as well as his conviction that Luke was the fulfillment of the vision of “the man of Macedonia.” Therefore he answered Luke as he had answered the visionary figure at the book burning.

“Christ has inherited the gods of the Gentiles. The highest perfection, love, is realized in him. Christ is the fulfillment of all harmony, for in love there is everything.”


That evening in Caesarea, when Paul and his companions broke bread with the believers in Philip’s house, Luke brought up the subject of why Paul insisted on going to Jerusalem. None of the others could understand his stubbornness either. The deputation Paul was leading consisted of men who were well-established citizens. Some even held positions of responsibility in their respective provinces. They’d sacrificed everything to their faith in Christ. And now Paul was leading them to Jerusalem, where they didn’t know what might be waiting for them, while the apostle himself was forever filled with dark forebodings.

Suddenly Zipporah appeared in the doorway, and all eyes turned to her. Her eyes glittered, and her gray hair fell wildly over her shoulders. She was carrying a little phial of Syrian glass with a long thin neck in her frail little hand. Silently she approached the apostle, and slowly she turned the delicate phial, mouth downward, over his hands. The drops of clear oil came out one by one, like tears glistening in the quiet lamplight.

And Zipporah said, “I anoint your hands for the chains that await them.”

Paul grew pale, but then a smile passed unevenly across his lips. He did not answer.

Then an even stranger thing happened. The door was thrown upon and a wild looking man with stormy hair and fiery eyes came in. This was the prophet Agabus, who wandered from community to community, one day in Jerusalem, another in Antioch. His appearances had come to be interpreted as a promise of evil things to come. He would predict disaster, and then vanish, and sickness, famine, evil decrees, and death would inevitably follow. He came in like a demon in a storm, rushed up to Paul, took off his sash, and bound his own hands with it.

Agabus then said, “So shall the Jews in Jerusalem bind the owner of this sash.”

The others at the table were terrified. Everyone started begging him not to go to Jerusalem. Luke spoke up, “Wasn’t it you who said that though you knew Christ in the flesh, now you know him no more in the flesh, but in the spirit? Isn’t the spirit everywhere, wherever the name of Christ is mentioned? So why go to Jerusalem? Why can’t you make Antioch, or Corinth, or Ephesus, or even Rome itself the new Jerusalem?”

“What is Christ?” asked Paul hotly. “Is he a husk of grain to be carried away by the wind? Is he a seed carried into the wilderness? God forbid! He is the fruit from the tree of Israel, rooted in the earth of Zion. Christ is the fulfillment of the promises given to our fathers. He is the vindication of the prophets. He is the son of David, who came to judge the world from Mount Zion. Help came to the Jews first, then to the Greeks.”

“But, Paul, don’t you see that chains wait for you in Jerusalem?” they cried, literally. “Don’t you see you’re going to your death?”

“What do you mean with all this crying and breaking my heart?” said Paul, summoning anger to his aid. “Surely I’m prepared to be thrown in chains, and yes, to die there in the name of the lord Jesus Christ.”

He said this abruptly and with such firmness of conviction, that the others stopped trying to persuade him. They only said, “Let the will of God be done.”

And the next day they packed their belongings and set out, in the company of other believers, for Jerusalem.