I, Paul
First-Person Transcriptions From The New Testament Apostle
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout
Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.com)
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Table of Contents
2 A Student Rabbi in Jerusalem
3 A Persecutor of Christians
4 Converted
5 Time to Think
6 Thoughtful in Tarsus
7 Assisting in Antioch
8 Cyprus and Galatia
9 Lystra
10 The Jerusalem Conference
11 A Letter to Galatia
12 Philippi
13 Athens and Corinth
14 A Letter to Thessalonica
15 Another Letter to Thessalonica
16 Ephesus
17 A Letter to Rome
18 Prison
19 Letters from Rome
Time Travel Plans
The West Michigan Institute for Time Travel has sent me on numerous trips into the past. I have visited and interviewed many Old Testament people, and now I am reporting on my first visit to a New Testament person: the apostle Paul.
We had a serious problem figuring out when to visit him – that is, when in his life. Nobody knows what happened to Paul when he got older. There are rumors he went to Spain, but who knows? So we finally decided to contact him when he was in Rome as a prisoner waiting for trial before Caesar. I managed to find temporary living quarters in Rome, not far from the apartment where Paul is staying.
* * * * *
Paul is a prisoner, but in a comfortable room, guarded by a Roman soldier. I began my visit by asking Paul to tell about his childhood years in Tarsus. He was born and raised in the city of Tarsus in what is now southeastern Turkey, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
(Based on Acts 22:3-5)
You ask me what life was like years ago in Tarsus as I was growing up. We were different from the other people in the city. I mean, we were Jews. We had our own religion, and we knew the religion of the other people was not good. But we got along all right with the other folk – we called them Gentiles. I knew early on that we were different and that other people thought we were odd. When I was a boy I was not allowed even to play with Gentile boys.
Some of our men did dress differently from the other people, but my parents were not strict about that. My father, of course, wore his little hat in synagogue, and I did too when I was old enough. And we did the things we were supposed to do on sabbath and on the holy days. On sabbath we used only the special dishes and knives and spoons as we kept the day holy. My father would never do anything that resembled work on that day. We were Pharisees, and quite proud of it. Pharisees believed in God’s Law and were very careful to obey it, especially Passover and sabbath observance and circumcision and kosher food.
My father taught me to read Hebrew when I was little, and I became a good reader. I read as many of our Jewish books as I could. When I was a boy I liked best the stories about Moses, and I learned a lot about how God works from reading them. But I also learned to read and to talk our common ordinary everyday language, Greek.
As I grew older my parents did send me to a school for a few years where I learned how to get along with boys from the city. They would sometimes tease me because I was a Jew, but I learned to deal with it. I gave as good as I got! I learned how to hold my own when arguing with Gentile boys. Actually I developed a sharp tongue doing it. I had to defend myself and argue back. I remember some of those arguments. I told them how stupid it was to think there were dozens of gods up there somewhere in the sky or on Mount Olympus.
I think learning how to interact with Gentile people when I was young helped me in later life when I became an apostle to the Gentiles. I was not afraid of their taunts and I was ready to argue with them whenever they started something. They knew I was no pushover when it came to arguing about religious things. I was very convinced that our Jewish way of life was right. The way we lived was so much better than the way most of them lived. I was a Jew and proud of it and ready to defend myself physically or intellectually or religiously at the drop of a hat. Nobody was going to fool with me.
In my teen years I was an energetic and vigorous young man, hoping to become a rabbi when I grew up. I was anxious to defend the faith of our fathers and to help our Jewish people remain faithful to the Law of God, our beloved Torah.
If you want one word to describe how I was at the time, I would say it was zealous. I was consumed by zeal for the God of Israel, dedicated completely to his Law, and I wanted nothing more in life than to be busy in whatever the Lord might give me to do.
It was in that mood that my father sent me off to Jerusalem to study with the great rabbi Gamaliel. That was two or three years after my bar mitzvah at age twelve.
* * * * *
2 A Student Rabbi in Jerusalem
I asked Paul about his time in Jerusalem when he was studying to become a rabbi. I also asked him if he ever met Jesus during that time. This is how he replied.
(Based on Galatians 1:13-14)
I was a student rabbi in Jerusalem for several years learning how to think and work as a rabbi. In a way, those were good years. I studied our old Hebrew manuscripts thoroughly, and I understood very well what the prophets were saying to our people in those troubled years so long ago. I became more and more convinced that we needed to be very diligent about obeying God’s Law.
The zeal I had for the Lord when I was a child blossomed into an energy that drove me every day to become a master rabbi. I was intolerant of anything short of perfect obedience and love for the Torah. Yes, that is the word that describes me then: intolerant. How can I tolerate anything short of total devotion and obedience to God? I wasn’t afraid to challenge anyone who was less than diligent in these religious matters.
Not to brag, but I was the best student of Gamaliel. He taught me how to understand our old scriptures and how to study what the various rabbis of the past said about them. Nobody else of my age made as much progress as I did.
So after a few years I became the leader among the young student rabbis, and they all looked to me for advice (that is, under Gamaliel himself). I was strong, vigorous, opinionated, intelligent, forthright, and ready to argue with anyone about religious things.
I’m not much to look at, short and stocky and not at all handsome in the face, but look out for my mind and my vocabulary and my debating skills! I demolished all opponents in debate.
You ask me also about whether I met Jesus during my student days. We heard all kinds of preposterous stories. Someone said that this man produces wine just by talking; hold out your cup and all of a sudden it’s filled with the best wine you ever drank. Or that he heals a blind person by spitting in his face, or that he jumps out of a boat on the Sea of Galilee and starts walking toward shore in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Some of us students went to hear him one day in the temple. Most of the people there were expecting him to give a rousing speech challenging us to rebel against Rome, like old Maccabeus did two hundred years ago.
What a flop! He didn’t do anything of the sort. All he did was rant a little about the temple being a place to pray and not to sell sparrows. We were all disappointed. We didn’t see anything in him to respect. A self-appointed, unlearned, and not very intelligent rabbi. That’s what he seemed to be.
A few days later some of us were there at Governor Pilate’s hall of justice when this man was being tried. We trusted the high priest to know how to persuade Pilate to find him guilty. We shouted, Crucify him, when Pilate seemed uncertain. I shouted as loud as anyone.
I watched until the soldiers had him nailed to a cross. A couple of other criminals were executed at the same time. I was satisfied that the right thing was done. He was dead and gone, and life could get back to normal again. So I went back home and forgot about it.
Forgot about it, did I say? Not likely. My mind was filled with it, and I was happy to know that justice had prevailed and that this misguided rabbi was out of our life.
But a couple of days later new rumors went around town. Jesus was still alive. He wasn’t dead and buried as we thought. People claimed to have seen him and talked with him. Wasn’t he dead when they took him down from the cross and put him in a tomb? Did the soldiers come and bring his body somewhere else?
All kinds of speculation went on, but we students simply figured it was all wishful thinking. There had been rumors that this Jesus had raised a friend of his who had been dead a week, but everybody knows that nobody comes back from the dead. So we dismissed that rumor that Jesus was alive again. It can’t happen.
* * * * *
It was painful to Paul to recall that period in his life when he was not yet a follower of Jesus. He is normally very talkative, but he clearly did not want to talk much about the time when he persecuted those who followed the Way.
(Based on Acts 7:54 – 8:1 and 9:1-2)
You can’t imagine how much I hated the followers of Jesus in those days. Here were people, otherwise good Jewish folk, who were being deceived by these fools who thought somebody had come back from the dead.
Where is he? I challenged them, Show him to me and maybe I’ll believe it too. But even if he is alive, what good does it do to think it? I could sense that the more they trusted in this false messiah the less respect they had for God’s Law, the Torah.
Anyway, what good is a messiah who isn’t around and who isn’t getting rid of the Romans and who isn’t setting up the throne of David in Jerusalem? I could see nothing whatever that was useful in following this dead messiah who they thought was still alive but nobody could see anywhere.
I hated those people with a fanatical hatred. I had found an outlet for my zeal for the Lord God of Israel, a life’s calling. I would do what I could to put a stop to this movement. I knew, of course, that Gamaliel and the priests were against this pretend messiah also, so I volunteered to do anything they told me to crush this movement before it got too big.
First, I set up a network of spies in Jerusalem, loyal Jewish people who would find out the names of people who were following this new Way, as they called it.
I would turn these names over to the priests and many of these people were fined or put in prison or otherwise discouraged from the error of their ways.
I remember one instance in particular when the punishment went much farther. The man’s name was Stephen. He was a rabble-rouser if there ever was one, going around to all the towns and persuading people that this Jesus was still alive – whatever good that might do for anyone.
One day one of my spies let me know where this man Stephen was, and I quickly informed the priests. They went out and arrested him and brought him to the Sanhedrin for trial. He was condemned, of course, and then taken out to a field where we stoned him to death. Well, the priests did; I stood by and watched, taking care of the coats of the priests, because I was not allowed to throw the stones.
What a strange man that Stephen was. While he was standing there being stoned he looked up and started babbling that he saw Jesus up there sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. Absurd. It felt good to be rid of him, and I congratulated myself for my part in getting it done. I was serving the God of Israel with all my heart and strength.
After that success I volunteered to head a delegation to Damascus. We knew several Jewish men had fled to Damascus and were starting a new synagogue for followers of the Way up there. The priests gave me certificates authorizing me to arrest these people and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial, so I set off full of confidence and zeal for the Lord. I would do my part for the God of Israel, and try to annihilate this movement of the Way.
* * * * *
Today Paul tells about his conversion. I have often wondered how he could change his entire life around so suddenly. What made him do it?
(Based on Acts 9:1-19)
Try as I might, I just couldn’t see anything useful in what these followers of the Way were doing. Why would any good Jew fall for this nonsense? It simply didn’t make sense. I was thinking about this on that long trip to Damascus.
We were almost to the city when the hot sunshine got the better of me. I suffered what I later knew to be a sunstroke. I fell off my donkey and I could no longer see anything. I was blind.
I was lying there on the ground, nearly unconscious, unable to see anything at all. Then I heard a voice talking directly to me, whether out loud or in my mind I can’t remember. The voice said to me, Saul, my son, why are you persecuting me? I replied, Who are you, Lord? I thought I knew who it was, but I had to ask anyway. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, was the answer.
I lay there several moments longer, stunned not only by the sunstroke but by the voice speaking to me. In hardly a whisper I murmured, Then, then, what should I be doing? Or words to that effect. The encounter remains as vivid today as it was then, but physically I was completely helpless. Jesus replied, Go into the city, Damascus, and wait there until I send someone to talk to you.
So that is what we did. My companions helped me back on the donkey and led me into the city to the house where we had planned to go. I recovered some of my health during the next few days, and I suppose news of what had happened to me spread quickly among the Jewish people in Damascus. Nobody knew, however, that Jesus had spoken to me.
I was afraid that my blindness was going to be permanent, because my vision did not improve. Then one day a gentleman named Ananias came to visit me. It took a great deal of courage for him to come because he was one of them, one of the very people I had come to arrest.
Ananias was a kind and gentle man, and he talked to me about my mission in Damascus. I told him I no longer had any desire to arrest anybody. On the contrary I asked, blind as I was, what did God have in mind for me now?
After we had talked for a while, Ananias prayed to the Lord for my healing. He laid his hands in blessing upon me, and soon something like scales began to fall off my eyelids, and my vision began to come back and I could see again.
However, my eyesight never did come back as clear as before. To this day I cannot see very clearly. I call it my thorn in the flesh, and I have prayed again and again that God would remove it and give me back good vision. But God tells me is that it is a reminder of what I was once and that his grace is sufficient for me.
But it surely is a nuisance not to be able to see clearly. It’s hard to read our old manuscripts. I can’t even write on a papyrus without making huge letters. Usually now if I want to write something I call in an assistant and dictate it. Then I sign my name at the end in those abominably large characters I have to use.
Well, the upshot of it all was that my former life ended in a sunstroke. I would now have to learn all I could about Jesus, why he came, what his message is, why people want to follow him, what is supposed to happen as a result of following him. I would have to change my life’s goal and start proclaiming the very thing I had detested so strongly earlier.
Let me tell you this didn’t come easy. It took me many years to do that.
Later, as the years passed I began to see that being blind was a kind of parable of what was happening to me spiritually. Before, in my previous life, I was blind in my rabbi studies, blind to the man God was sending as his messiah.
But afterwards I began to see again, not only physically but also spiritually. Once I was blind, but now I can see. In both senses, physically and spiritually.
* * * * *
My people back in western Michigan gathered some antique Roman coins for me to give to Paul. His assistants seemed happy enough to receive them. I was curious about what Paul would do after being converted.
(Based on Acts 9:19-30)
What agony I went through there in Damascus, trying to figure out what had happened to me and what I should do from now on. I couldn’t do what I came to do, arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem. I sent my helpers back home to Jerusalem. Ananias and a few others befriended me, but what was I to do? I no longer wanted to be a rabbi.
I felt I had to get away all by myself. So after I was healthy enough I left Damascus and went south to a place where no one knew me and I would have time to think about what happened to me.
I had to figure out how Jesus could be the messiah, since we all expected a messiah to restore the throne of David. Jesus did not do that, so how could he be our messiah? What kind of kingdom is it that Jesus is trying to set up? If it is not a throne in Jerusalem, what then might the kingdom of God be?
I had to think about all my devotion to the Law. Was it really all that important, circumcision and sabbath and kosher and Passover? Could we do all these things and still miss the most important point of serving God?
And did Jesus really rise from the dead? What if he stayed dead? What happened to him if he really did rise from the grave; where is he now? Can I go visit him? What a ton of questions I was asking myself. It took years and years for it all to come together and make good sense to me.
I spent a long time wandering from town to town in the land of the Nabateans; you know, where the Edomites used to live long ago. Part of the time in I spent in a town called Petra, where I worked a little with some people who were tentmakers and who taught me the trade.
I wanted to know what I was talking about, but there wasn’t anyone to guide me through it. I had to figure it all out by myself from what I knew of our Law and Prophets and what I knew about Jesus – which wasn’t much.
Well, in time I made my way back to Damascus and joined the group of followers of the Way. I went to the Jewish synagogue and I tried to explain about Jesus. I must have offended a lot of people, because I heard they were planning to kill me. I don’t blame them too much. But I had to get out of Damascus or I would be killed.
So my new friends of the Way put me in a big basket which they let down through a window in the city wall. But where would I go now? I went back to Jerusalem. I had been gone for about three years.
I was really afraid all the way back. I didn’t know what would happen when I got back. I soon discovered that there was good reason to be afraid. I knew my former friends among the priests and rabbis would no longer welcome me. They did not.
And I suspected that the others, those of the Way, would not trust me. They would think I was simply pretending to be one of them, only to arrest them. That too happened.
Nobody trusted me. Nobody wanted me.
I went to see the main leaders of the Way in Jerusalem, Peter and James and John and some of the others who had been the original disciples of Jesus. They did not reject me outright, but I was an embarrassment to them. They didn’t know what to do with me. After a few weeks of wondering what to do, I went back home to Tarsus.
I was beginning to feel like Jesus when his disciples abandoned him and he was crucified – unwanted, rejected, despised. I was learning the hard way what it means to be humble. What would I do when I got home? Who knows?
* * * * *
There was a period of about ten years between the time when Paul was converted until the time he began his missionary journeys. The Bible says very little about this, so I was very interested in what Paul would tell me about it.
(Based on Galatians 1:11-24 and Romans 6:5-11)
I knew that the Lord had dealt me that blow in Damascus for a reason. Ananias had said some things about what the Lord had in mind for me, but what I am supposed to do about it?
So I spent year after year after year struggling within myself to put things together. I needed to understand what God was doing with Jesus and with our people the Jews. And then I needed to figure out what I was supposed to do about it.
Nothing came easy. I had to unlearn much of what I used to think was true. I had to find an entirely new way of looking at life.
Some of my knowledge did carry over, of course, belief in one God, for example. But now I had to figure out why God sent Jesus and what he wants the followers of the Way to do about it. What is God doing in the world by means of Jesus, and how do I fit into that purpose?
I had to work through it all entirely on my own with none but the Lord as my tutor.
I can tell you now of some important things that became clear to me as the years passed in Tarsus. I knew Jesus was crucified by order of Governor Pilate, and I now knew he had indeed risen from the dead; and even though no one could say where he was physically – he was simply gone, disappearing into the clouds – he was present somehow in spirit.
I learned to understand that God had sent Jesus, not to restore the throne of David in Jerusalem, but to set up the throne of God in the life of people. He wants people to obey him, not by means of observing religious rules and customs, but by the inner power of the Spirit of Jesus.
I came to see clearly enough that this was not happening among my people, the Jews, and that our way of keeping the Law was precisely the cause of it. Obeying the rules got in the way of obeying from the heart. I found out that I can obey God from the heart without observing all our ancient customs and regulations.
Eventually I understood that Gentiles too could learn that same lesson from Jesus and his Spirit, and that it would serve no purpose whatever for them to practice circumcision, sabbath observance, kosher foods, Passover, and the like.
Later on that insight got me into trouble whenever I tried to explain it, but it was so vitally important that I could not in good conscience be quiet about it. I’ll tell you how that worked out in some of our later conversations.
But one other very important thing I came to understand. I thought constantly about the meaning of Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection. I saw a parallel between what happened to Jesus and what happened to me at Damascus. What happened to me at Damascus was really a kind of resurrection also. I passed out of one kind of life into another, out of a living death – if I may put it that way – into a new life controlled by the Spirit of our Lord Jesus.
Jesus’ death and resurrection was, of course, physical, bodily, but what happened to me was a parallel within my own spirit, a spiritual resurrection. I passed out of one kind of life into another, out of spiritual death into spiritual life.
It must have been the better part of ten years that I remained in my home town of Tarsus. After a while I began to visit synagogues of my people in nearby towns. I would often leave the tentmaking work, by which I made my living, to tell of Jesus. I learned how to proclaim the good news of Jesus simply by doing it and responding to people’s questions and objections. I was learning by doing.
Then one day a man called Joseph came to visit me. He invited me to go to a city not too far away, Antioch, to help teach the followers of the Way – whom, interestingly, they began to call Christians, after Jesus the Christ of God.
* * * * *
I wanted to bring a gift now and then to thank Paul for telling his life’s story. This day I brought a bottle of – guess what? – black ink. I knew he was planning to write a few letters, so why not? As it turned out he did write several letters – one to a man called Philemon, and a few others. All with twenty-first century black ink!
(Based on Acts 11:19-30 and Acts 4:32-37)
I was surprised when Joseph came to visit me in Tarsus. I did remember vaguely that I had met him once years ago in Jerusalem. He had heard about me, he said, from travelers who had passed through Tarsus, and he wanted me to come back with him to Antioch. Why?
Because a lot of people were becoming believers in that big city, and there weren’t enough leaders to teach them what it means to follow Jesus as Lord.
Joseph (I learned later that he was called Barnabas, son of encouragement) stayed with me for a few days while we discussed his invitation. There was no reason why I needed to stay in Tarsus. I was not married and had no family to support.
So, after much prayer and thought, I agreed to accompany him back to Antioch.
Some of the believers in Antioch had come from Jerusalem. They left Jerusalem because of the bitter persecution that was still continuing all the time. Of course, I knew how they felt, having been one of their persecutors years earlier.
I soon discovered that the same questions I had been wrestling with were troubling these new Jewish believers. They were finding it difficult to give up our traditional Jewish customs. How can I be obedient to God and stop keeping Passover? How can I neglect to circumcise my sons? I cannot make myself eat pork.
I also found, as I suspected, that the Gentile believers did not know our Jewish history at all. They may have heard of Abraham and Moses and David, but they had no sense of God’s work in the past.
So Joseph and I spent much time teaching our history and then making the connection to Jesus as the messiah sent by God. What a busy and rewarding time that was.
After several months we learned that the believers in Jerusalem were having a difficult time financially because of a severe famine in the area. There wasn’t enough food to go around, and not enough money to buy it if it was available. So the people in Antioch, some of whom were fairly wealthy, collected a large sum of money to send to those brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Barnabas and I were delegated to deliver it, which we did.
While we were there, Barnabas, who still owned a small farm not too far from Bethlehem, sold it and donated all the money to the apostles.
Well, we came back to Antioch and resumed our teaching duties. Barnabas and I spent much time with these people, teaching them about the history of God’s people.
After about a year or so in Antioch I became restless. I wasn’t content to stay in one city for a long time, especially when there were Jewish synagogues scattered all over the Roman empire with people who needed to hear the truth about Jesus.
From time to time I talked it over with Barnabas and the other elders of the church. Then one day when the church was assembled for worship we decided that, yes, it would be a good thing to commission us to travel to some other places and tell people about the Lord Jesus.
Barnabas was older, so he became the head of the mission team. Our purpose was to visit as many Jewish synagogues as we could, and tell them that Jesus truly is the Son of God, the messiah sent to establish the kingdom of God. The proof of this is that when Jesus was put to death as a common criminal, God raised him from the dead. That would be the heart of our message, and we would come with the authority of the church at Antioch.
* * * * *
Each year thousands of pilgrims retrace the steps of Paul on his missionary journeys through what is now modern Turkey and Greece. What he tells about here is part of his first trip, to the island of Cyprus and the province of Galatia.
(Based on Acts 13:4-52)
In deciding where we should go first, Barnabas suggested the area where he grew up, namely the island of Cyprus. We knew there were several Jewish communities there, so to Cyprus we went.
We landed first in a town called Salamis and visited the Jewish synagogue in that place, and then made our way across the island, town by town, until we were at the west end in a city called Paphos.
An interesting thing happened there. Paphos was the capital city of the island of Cyprus. The Governor there, a man named Sergius Paulus, heard about us and summoned us to meet with him. He wanted to hear what we were saying in those other towns that caused so much trouble. We were happy to tell him the story of Jesus. The Governor seemed interested and kept us around for a few days, talking with us.
But there was another man in the court named Elymas, who pretended to be a magician and who had some influence with Sergius Paulus. Elymas contradicted us and was really vehement about it.
Elymas became so excited and angry that his face turned red and he seemed ready to have a heart attack. Well, I was not about to let that man turn the Governor away from listening to us, so I turned to Elymas and rebuked him quite pointedly. I could do that, you know.
I shouted at him, Elymas, you know better. You know that you are telling lies and that nothing you say is the truth. You are not a son of God but of the devil, and to prove it, you will become blind for a while and not even be able to see daylight.
Elymas went into a fit of rage and what I said did happen. He suffered a mild stroke, lost his sight, and called for someone to lead him back to his room.
Because of that incident Sergius Paulus believed what we were saying about Jesus. I do not know what became of the Governor in later life because I never heard of him again, but I trust the Lord to have guided him instead of that miserable fake Elymas.
When we left Cyprus we went north to the mainland and landed at a town called Perga. We planned to travel north to a group of cities where we knew there were sizable Jewish communities. These were in a province called Galatia.
But before we could do that I fell sick and could not travel. It took nearly a month for me to regain health enough to continue.
In the meantime our young helper, John Mark, having nothing to do while waiting for me to recover, went back to Antioch. I was rather disturbed by it, thinking he should have waited out this temporary setback.
In due time Barnabas and I went north and arrived at another town named after the great Roman general Antiochus, Antioch of Pisidia. On Sabbath day we visited the Jewish synagogue, and when the ruler of the synagogue asked if we had anything to say, I got up and spoke for a long time.
I reviewed our history, starting with Abraham, then about Moses, then David, and then to Jesus as the descendant of David. I told them how Jesus was killed by our leaders in Jerusalem, but God raised him from the dead. I explained that Jesus was truly the Christ, the messiah sent by God to establish the kingdom of God.
The next sabbath all the Jews in town seemed to be at the synagogue. It was packed. A few people believed what we were telling them about Jesus. But most of the leaders did not. In fact they persuaded the town authorities to force us out of town. But several of the Gentile proselytes who were present were happy about it and they joined the Jewish men who believed and formed a little church of their own.
* * * * *
Paul told this story in some detail. Some of the people in Lystra thought Barnabas and Paul were gods come down in the likeness of men. Similarly some of the later church fathers thought Jesus was a god come down from heaven in the form of a man.
(Based on Acts 14:8-20)
Chased out of Antioch, Barnabas and I went on to a town called Iconium. Here we used the same approach as in Antioch, going on sabbath to the synagogue.
What I said was much the same thing; a rehearsal of our history, a reminder that the prophets taught about a messiah to set up the throne of David, and an affirmation that Jesus is this messiah, proven by his resurrection from the dead.
When some of the people became believers, it meant that they accepted that Jesus was the messiah sent by God, even though the kind of kingdom he set up wasn’t the kind we were expecting. From that point on these believers would normally be put out of the synagogue, and they would begin their own meetings in a separate location as a Christian church.
There was always a fairly strong sense of hostility from one group to another, and we had to urge the new Christians not to harbor grudges or to seek revenge on those who did not believe. On the contrary, their courteous and loving behavior might possibly be enough to draw others into their fellowship.
But we were chased out of Iconium also, just as in Antioch. On we went to a town called Lystra.
Several days after we arrived in Lystra we saw a young man sitting on the ground. He was crippled and could not stand on his two legs. I was standing near him and speaking loudly to a group of people in the street. This young man was listening intently and after I finished he began a conversation with me.
I soon concluded that he was ready to become a believer, and suddenly – what provoked me to do it I cannot rightly say, except that it was the Holy Spirit in me – I said in a voice loud enough for all the bystanders to hear, Stand up on your feet.
Immediately strength flowed into his legs and feet; he stood up, tested his muscles, found them strong and reliable, and jumped up and down in joy. With a huge smile on his face he began walking and jumping all around the people on the street.
The people in Lystra had never seen anything like it. They knew the young man had never walked or stood upright in his life. Now he was not only standing but jumping up and down in delight. What did they do about it?
They said something I had never heard in my life, and hope never to hear again. The gods have come down to us in human form! Barnabas they called Zeus, the father of the gods, and me they called Hermes, because I was the main speaker. They thought we were gods disguised as human beings.
We did not really know about this until the next day, but then the people came to get us and brought us out to the gate of the city where the priests from the temple were erecting an altar and preparing to sacrifice a cow to us. But we were appalled and only with great difficulty did we persuade them that we were mortal men just as they were.
Even so the crowds held us in high esteem for several days, until some of the unbelieving Jews from Iconium arrived and persuaded the people that we were fakes.
We had faked being gods, the people concluded, and therefore did not deserve to live. They picked up stones and threw them at me until I fell down and they thought I was dead. Actually they even dragged me outside the gate into a field and left me there for dead.
I was not, by the good grace of God, dead. Some of the people who had believed our message that Jesus was the Christ revived me and escorted me to a home where I could recover somewhat. I did recover rapidly, enough so that Barnabas and I could travel on to the next town, Derbe.
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