The remains of the cell where Paul was confined in Philippi

There are two things about St. Paul that astound me whenever I read the book of Acts or his letters. The first one is that Paul was such an intense persecutor of Christians. He displayed not the slightest human compassion for individuals who had done nothing at all to him personally: Saul (later, Paul) began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in jail. (Acts 8:3) In addition, Saul approved the stoning of Steven. The ‘milk of human kindness’ appeared not to exist in this particular Hebrew man. Nevertheless, this is the man who wrote 1 Corinthians 13: Love is patient, love is kind. . . It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres; a definition of love that more than two thousand years later is still read at many wedding and anniversary celebrations throughout the world. Something very deep, high, and wide must have happened to the man Saul for such a change to occur in him. He is a living testimony to the grace and power of God Himself, and to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The second thing about Paul that still astounds me, is that, while for some time after his conversion on the Damascus road, he believed that Jesus’ physical return was immanent, and would happen in his own lifetime; yet when he learned that in fact, he, like Jesus, would have to die, his faith in Jesus never wavered for a moment. It is one thing to love a God who will ensure that you will not die, and another thing to know that you will, in fact be executed, and still love your God: We who are still alive will be caught up together with the others in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1Thessalonians 4:17)

Later, to Timothy, Paul in prison wrote, For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2Timothy 4:6-7) Paul was enough filled with Jesus’ Spirit to know that death itself would not separate him from his God. He lived in that knowledge and it made him strong and courageous.

These two things about Paul are life altering things that give us a vision of what the Christian walk could be for an ‘ordinary’ person who experiences the presence of Another Person in His life whose character is entirely holy and just. Like David of the Old Testament, Paul received an anointing which changed his inner and outer self. He wrote exquisite passages about Jesus, as David wrote exquisite psalms. Neither time nor space has marred their messages from God.

Love in Him,

Prue