31 - Granite Between Millstones

Once again Israel assembled in the House of God from cities all over the Diaspora, from Galatia, Macedonia, Asia, and Achaia, as well as Babylon, Damascus, and all the cities of Palestine. The streets of Jerusalem were crowded with men and women, old and young. The Palestinian Jews carried their baskets of vegetables, fruit, and grain, for this was the eve of Pentecost, when Israel brought their first fruits of garden, field, and vineyard to the Temple of the Lord.

On this particular Pentecost, another offering was brought to the Jews, delivered to the upper chamber in the wall of David, where Christ had eaten his last meal. It was an offering from the Gentiles, to testify to their faith in Christ.

Paul introduced the Gentile messengers to the saints of Jerusalem.

James came forward to greet them with outstretched arms. His mantle, though of poor material, was white. His face was pale, his beard silvery, and his hair long and snow white. For all the poverty of his clothing, his bearing was as though he were robed in the clothing of the High Priest.

He greeted the Gentiles, “Blessed be you who come in the name of the Lord.”

Peter was not in Jerusalem at the time, so John, one of the lord’s closest disciples, occupied the seat next to James. He looked old, his skin furrowed by the plow of time, his body frail, almost transparent. His face was wrinkled from brow to chin, and a sad longing radiated from him, for he longed to be where his brother was, with Messiah.

Matthew, the old tax collector, was there along with others, whose names rang mystically in the ears of these believers from afar, like Jude the lord’s brother, and Simon the zealot. And there were those younger and unknown, but near to the disciples, and already leaders in the congregation.

Paul introduced Sosipater and the other seven delegates, who each bowed low before the elders and placed bags of coins at their feet, coins that the Gentile believers, as well as Jewish ones, had donated for the poor saints of Jerusalem. Some of these copper coins and silver drachmas represented the sacrifice of some slave, the bread he had taken from his own mouth, an offering to a strange people who had once been hated and despised, but had now become part of Christ.

James lifted his hands to heaven and praised God for the miracle worked among the Gentiles. Matthew translated the prayer from Aramaic to Greek, but it was hardly necessary, for the words passed from heart to heart across the language barrier.

Afterwards James led the delegation down into the courtyard, to meet the simple brethren in the faith. The entire area in front of the David wall was covered with tents and booths, ramshackle structures of branches, rags, and leaves. The poor and the sick were in these improvised shelters, skeleton-like men and women, half-naked, and surrounded by skeleton like children. The dregs of Jerusalem’s misery were gathered in the courtyard, for it was known that the Jerusalem believers were distributing bread and figs for the starving. Perhaps even clothing for the naked would be available.

There were professional beggars and idlers mixed in with the truly needy, for James had no requirement that anyone who wouldn’t work shouldn’t eat like Paul did. If someone asked for food, he asked no questions. The men of the congregation brought the provisions and the women cooked. The poor sat at table and partook of the common meals.

No one picked and chose who they sat next to, so as often as not they might be sitting next to someone who had an infectious disease. No one was so low, unhappy, or broken that James would think of discriminating against him. All dipped their hands in the common dish, and no one shrank from contact with another.

The Gentile visitors were quite uneasy about this. Everything they’d ever learned screamed against it. But sit with them they did.

Their food that evening was a little piece of bread, a handful of olives, and a sip of wine from a clay pitcher. The assembly was very quiet and earnest, as if the lord had just left them and the impress of his shadow were still on the wall. It wasn’t a meal so much as a religious service. After eating, the disciples again recalled the actions and sayings of Messiah. Matthew was the popular speaker on this evening, since he spoke Greek, and he told about the things Messiah taught them on the Mount of Olives.

“Before he came down to eat his last meal with us, he said to us, ‘In the day when the son of man comes back in glory, he will sit on his throne. And all the nations of the world will be brought to him, and he will make fences around them, like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. The king will say to those on his right hand, “Come and inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you since before the beginning of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was thrown into prison, and you came to me there.”’”

And Matthew continued, “In that day the ones on his right hand will reply, ‘Lord, when were you hungry, and we fed you? When were you thirsty, and we gave you a drink? When were you a stranger to us, and we took you in? Or naked, and we clothed you? And when did we see you sick or imprisoned?’ Then the lord will answer them, saying, ‘Of a truth, when you did it to the least of my brothers, you did it to me.’

“Then he will turn to those on his left hand and say, ‘Begone from me into everlasting fire, and let Satan and his angels have dominion over you, for I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink.’”

Then James, feeding off of Matthew’s words, nodded piously and added, “Every gift is from above and comes from the Lord of light, in whom there is no change and no shadow of turning.”

Then he taught them, “When you fulfill the law of the king according to the words, ‘And you shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do right. But if you play favorites, you do evil, and will be punished even as the evil are punished. For he who keeps the whole law, and yet fails in one matter, will be as one that failed in all.”

Paul, seated among the companions, knew whom James meant with those last words.

* * * * *

The next morning, when Paul came to visit James, he found him seated in a corner, his form rigid, his face bloodless, his eyes stony. The hollows in his cheeks had deepened overnight.

When James saw Paul he became even more rigid, and began to speak in a thin, lamenting voice. “Saul, Saul, the cry of the Jews goes up against you. God have mercy on you. How dare you lift up the ax against the roots of Israel? Don’t you know as well as I that Israel has been chosen to be His eternal witness, until the end of the world? But it is your desire to destroy Israel in the name of the Lord!”

“Destroy Israel?” echoed Paul, astounded. “I assure you that wherever I went, I brought the gospel first to the Jews. But they’ve stopped up their hearts, and have become more stiff-necked than ever, just like the prophets said. I’m hunted as a beast of the field because of my love for Christ in carrying the gospel to the Gentiles.”

“I thank God for Jewish obstinacy over our faith!” cried James, ecstatically. “Your zeal for the lord makes you blind, Saul, if you don’t see the holiness of Israel’s obstinacy. For instead of the promise, instead of the hope of Israel, instead of the highest consolation, Messiah of Israel, you bring a sword. For you’ve broken with Israel, abrogated the commandments, and uprooted the tree of Israel. You seek to plant it in Gentile soil. You’ve chosen the path of temptation and failure, Saul.

“You see, there are thousands of Jews who believe in Jerusalem, but they are also zealous in the law. They’ve heard that you teach those Jews who live among the Gentiles that they can abandon the Law of Moses, and that they should give up the circumcision of their children.

“So what can we do? The people will surely assemble against you, for they know you’re here.”

“So you want to take the Lord of all the worlds and close him into the four narrow walls of Jewish law?” asked Paul. “Would you make God an appendage of Israel? He’s the Lord of the whole world. He sent Christ to deliverer all mankind. Faith has created a new brotherhood among men. The lord binds them into a single family. They become children of God in the faith, not in the laws and commandments!”

“Woe to the ears who must listen to such words,” wailed James, shuddering from head to foot. “Who dares to say that we want to confine the Lord of the world in the four narrow walls of the law? The Lord of the world is ‘He That Is.’ You can add nothing to the word, nor take anything away from it. All else is idolatry.

“And what are we? We are nothing but wretched things, filled with temptations and failings. Our hearts are filled with lusts, and chaos surrounds us. In the middle of this chaos God was gracious to Israel and set guides and markers for him. That alone made us the elect people. That alone sustained in us the longing for Messiah, which is the hope of Israel for the sake of the whole world. And only Israel has paid the full price. Only Israel, no one else. And you would take the rights God has given to Israel away from him, and give them away to others?”

No one knew better than Paul that the heart of man is filled with evil desires, and that in the chaos God had set guides and markers, which he, Paul, had been trying to take to the Gentiles. Was it just to say that he was trying to take away the rights of Israel?

In pain and anger Paul retorted, “If it’s true that I’m trying to take away the rights of Israel, then what am I doing here in Jerusalem? I know full well of the danger to me here. Is that what you call uprooting the hope of Israel? And when it comes to the law, am I not an observant Jew, just like you? I observe all the laws and commandments.”

James paused. He was moved by Paul’s cry. He rose stiffly from his place, came over to the apostle, and took his hand.

“If what you say is true, brother, heed my advice, and do as I tell you. There are four men among us who have taken a vow. Take these four men and purify yourself with them. Pay the fee for the cutting of their hair, so that everyone may know that what has been said of you is false, and that you keep the laws and commandments of the Torah.

“As far as the Gentiles are concerned, we ourselves have written that they need not observe all our commandments, but that they must only refrain from bringing sacrifices to idols, from practicing whoredom, from shedding blood, and from eating the meat of strangled beasts.”

(Now whenever a Nazarite reached the end of his vow, he had to pass through a purification of seven days. During that time he withdrew from other Nazarites into a special chamber reserved for this purpose in the Temple. He avoided all impurities. When the time of purification was over, he was free to bring the sacrifice of expiation to the Temple. This was called “the cutting of the hair.” And it was a custom in Israel that a man of standing would come to the Temple to pay the “fee” for the cutting of the hair of a poor Nazarite, that is to say, the cost of their purification and their sacrifice.)

Paul did as James asked. He locked himself with the four Nazarites in the special chamber of the Temple to prepare for the offering of the sacrifice. He did this to show that he was not separated from the body and community in Israel, even though the forces he’d set in motion threatened to do it for him. He was striving to fuse two Pauls into one person, Paul the Jew and Paul the Greek. He’d brought one externalization of himself, the Greek converts of the far-off cities, to confront the other externalization, the saints of Jerusalem. But what was taking place within him was not a fusing. It was rather as if he were being ground between an upper and a nether millstone. And it wasn’t a handful of seeds that was being ground. It was a rock, as hard as the millstones themselves. Only an equal love of Greek and Jew could have produced this phenomenon, Paul.

And though he was a Greek with the Greeks, inside Paul remained the complete Jew, with the Jew’s feverish restlessness. He was burning to cleanse himself of the sin he’d committed in bringing division into the fold. He wanted to win pardon for the bitter words he’d spoken in sorrow and torment, words often torn from him by sheer contrariness and born of the impulse to provoke. In isolating himself for seven days in the chamber of the Temple, he was hoping to make a final accounting with his soul.


The delegations Paul had brought with him were lodged with a certain believer, Mnason, a native of Cyprus who had settled in Jerusalem and had a spacious house.

During the day the Gentile visitors wandered around the area, went up to the Temple, and visited the Court of the Gentiles. They weren’t allowed to go beyond that, and they couldn’t help but feel the barrier that lay between them and the Jews. In fact, just outside the gates of Corinthian bronze that led to the Court of the Women there was a sign warning that any Gentiles who went through that gate would bear responsibility for the death they brought on themselves.

They knew that accepting Christ didn’t make them Jews as long as they were uncircumcised. But they could see the joy on the faces of the Jews as they took their first fruit offerings though the gates. They also felt the astonished looks they received from Jews they ran into from their native towns who recognized them.

Trophimus in particular had an inner need for service in a Temple, as he had been raised that way. He believed that through his faith in Christ he had become, in essence, a son of Israel. In his eyes the Temple that Christ himself had worshiped in became his own temple. He felt that he should have the right to go through the bronze gates with the stern inscription. Hadn’t Paul told him that he was circumcised in heart and spirit?

Fortunately some of the others could see what he was thinking by the look on his face, and they were able to persuade him away from doing such a thing, warning him that he would be risking his life.

Unfortunately some other Jews nearby overheard their conversation and saw an opportunity. A story immediately began to spread that Paul, the man who was dissuading the Jews from loyalty to the Law of Moses, had brought Gentiles to the Temple and had encouraged them to go into the forbidden area. The fact that Paul and Trophimus had indeed been seen together a few days earlier lent credence to the rumor.

Meanwhile Paul remained in the Nazarite chamber of the Temple. He and the other Nazarites lay on the marble, each man in his own corner, and they confessed all the sins they’d committed before the time of their vows. In the early hours of the morning they plunged their bodies into the water of the ritual bath. Afterward they went into the Court, speaking to no one, but kneeling down and concentrating their thoughts on prayer. Their food consisted of green vegetables and water. They drank no wine, nor was any oil permitted on their skins.

Thus it went for seven days. Four of those days had passed. On the fifth day Paul came out of the chamber with the other Nazarites, his heart filled with contrite thoughts, and his spirit bowed before God.