Part 5

He drew, in his letter, a wonderful picture of the true way to live. He gave his friends an account of his own life and told them they could also have what had come to him. “Why,” he said, “God has revealed His Son in my soul. I used to do wrong and go wrong. I could not keep myself. I tried to live by the law but it would not work. Now I live by faith—faith in Christ, and the life I now live is really the life He lives in me. I do not care any more for the things people do to make themselves good. I feel Christ coming into me and giving me strength and power, just as the sun comes into the tree and builds its life from within. You can all have that power formed in you. You can all feel the life of Christ sweep into your lives and that will make you free. And you will cry ‘Abba, Father,’ for you will find the life and spirit of God in your own hearts. When that happens you will not think much about those things which these Jews from Jerusalem have been telling you you must do to be saved!

“There are two great forces in the world,” he told them. “One is the force that makes people do wrong. There seems to be something in us too strong for us to resist. We mean to do right, but often before we know it, something seems to push us into evil. We go the way of instinct. We fight, or we tell lies, or we take what is not ours, or we get angry, or we do things which are not pure and clean and beautiful. How are we to stop this force from pushing us and controlling us and spoiling us?” “You must get a new spirit,” Paul says. “The law and the commandments and the customs of Moses will not bring you life and power. You must find a new and higher force which will come into you and raise you out of your old self into a new way of life. Just that is what Christ does. When He helps you and comes into you, a new spirit is formed and you get love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and endurance in your own souls. It is like discovering a new world. It is like a new creation. That is what Christ does. He makes people new creatures. These people who came to you from Jerusalem cannot tell you how to do that—but I can tell you. I bear in my body the marks of this new creation which Christ has formed in me.”

Something like that Paul wrote to his friends in Galatia and the best of it is, they believed him and stood by him. When they had read his letter, they said: Paul is right. It is so. We will take his way. We will have Christ and not the law-system—and so Paul had won his first great battle.

XV

“COME OVER INTO MACEDONIA AND HELP US”

The old heroes of Greece were heroes because they went out to fight with beasts and to free the world of terrible monsters. Then, again, there were heroes who fought with giants, or with deadly enemies of their country, and who risked their lives for their friends or for their people. Paul was a new kind of hero. His great battle was a battle with false ideas, a battle for the truth, a battle for the good news which Christ had brought to the world. It is harder to be this kind of a hero. Most people do not recognise the new kind of hero when he comes. They do not know that he _is_ a hero. He often has to fight alone and he is misunderstood even by his friends. Paul had many lonely hours. He could not have stood the strain and struggle if he had not been sure of Christ’s presence and help and if he had not known that he was the champion of the greatest truth in the world.

Now that he had won the victory in this important contest in Galatia, and now that he had settled the question that Christ was the Saviour of all men of all races, he could go out again on another great out-reaching missionary journey. Paul wanted to go again with Barnabas, but Barnabas was determined to take Mark once more as companion and Paul was just as determined not to have Mark, because he deserted them on their former journey, so that they finally agreed to separate. Barnabas went to Cyprus with Mark, and Paul took a companion named Silas, and started out without quite knowing what country he would travel to before his return. He and Silas went, probably by land, through the Syrian gate in the mountains, to Tarsus and visited the Christian settlements in the province of Cilicia, then directly on to see his friends in Galatia who had been through so much since he saw them last. How we wish we knew what he said to them and what they said to him! But we do not know a single word that passed while Paul was living among the disciples of Galatia. We only know that he decided to take one of these Galatian Christians along with him as a helper in his work. This was a young man named Timothy whose home was in Derbe. He became one of Paul’s greatest friends and a wonderful help to him, clear through to the end of his life. Being with Paul made Timothy a hero too.

After the three men had visited all the communities of Galatia, they started off toward the north and visited the cities in the district of Phrygia which belonged to the province of Galatia, and then they decided to strike across west and visit the great cities of the province of Asia, the capital of which was Ephesus, but they soon felt that the time had not come yet for this journey. They next tried to go to the country lying along the shores of the Black Sea, but something made them realise that this was not the right course for them to take, so that they went on to Troas on the shores of the Ægean Sea, without quite knowing where they would go next. Troas was the site of the old city of Troy where the Greeks and Trojans fought for ten years, and where some of the bravest deeds were done that the world ever saw. Here was the tomb of Achilles. Here Alexander the Great had come on his way to the conquest of the world. A greater conqueror had now come to Troas. Alexander went toward the east for his victories; the new conqueror was to go west!

While they were here in Troas without any clear plan of action, Paul felt in his soul that the next course was to sail across the Ægean Sea into Europe. He felt it so clearly and strongly that it seemed to him as though he heard a man from the European side of the sea calling to him and saying: “Come across into Macedonia and bring us help.” But it was more than Macedonia that was calling. It was the whole of Greece. It was more than Greece that was calling. It was the whole of Europe. It was more than Europe that was calling. It was undiscovered America that was stretching out its hands that night and saying: “Come over and help us.” You see, if Paul had not gone into Europe, across the Ægean, perhaps we who live in America and in England would never have been followers of Christ, so that this call meant very much! Paul heard it and he was “ready” at once. He answered: “Yes, I will come.” The next morning he set sail from Troas on the eastern shore to Philippi on the western shore of the Ægean. Silas and Timothy were with him and he also found here a new companion. This new travelling-companion kept a Diary and wrote the account of this journey and of other journeys, too. You can find his Diary in the sections of the Book of Acts that say “we”—“the We Narratives.” Philippi in Macedonia is the first spot in Europe on which Paul set his foot and so far as we know the people in Philippi were the first people of all Europe who heard of Christ. They were not as eager to hear as you might expect. If they were calling to Paul to come over and help them, they did not recognise him when he arrived, for they very soon seized him and put him in prison and beat him with rods. Some of the people in Philippi, however, did recognise him. They were very glad to hear him and they were full of love for him and for his truth. They joined him and worked with him and a new church was formed—perhaps the first in all Europe. These Christians in Philippi were very dear to Paul’s heart and they loved him as though he had been their own father, and they remembered him later when he lay in prison in Rome and was lonely. When he left Philippi, he went on through the great cities of Macedonia, preaching and building up churches, wherever he could find people ready to listen to his message. In the city of Thessalonica, which is now called Salonika, Paul found many listeners and formed a successful church to which a little later he wrote two epistles. He found another splendid group in the city of Berœa and formed a church there. But in all these cities of Macedonia he had serious trouble, just as he had had in the province of Galatia. The Jews hated him and everywhere he came they raised a riot and tried to drive him out of the city or to get him into prison. They set the mob against him in some of the cities and in others they had him arrested and badly treated. But in spite of all their efforts to hinder him, he succeeded in doing a great work and in forming Christian churches all up and down the famous province of Macedonia.

From the time Paul heard the voice calling him over into Macedonia, most of the rest of his life was to be lived and most of his future work in the world was to be done around the shores of the Ægean Sea. All the churches which he gathered after this time were around the Ægean and all his epistles from this time were written either to Ægean cities, or written while he was living in Ægean cities. It was Paul who shifted the centre of Christianity from Jerusalem to the Western World and during his life-time the great centres were around the shores of this famous Sea. The most famous of all the cities around the coasts of this Sea was Athens, the home of Socrates and Plato and of a hundred other great men, and to this wonderful city of the ancient world Paul now came.

XVI

ALONE IN ATHENS

As Paul’s two companions, Silas and Timothy, had been left behind in Berœa to finish the work which had been begun in Macedonia Paul found himself “alone in Athens.” It was the most interesting city in the world for a traveller to visit. It was the “eye of Greece” and Greece had for five hundred years been leading the world in art, in poetry, in philosophy, in architecture and in many other things. The most beautiful temples that had ever been built were there for Paul to see. The most wonderful statues that had ever been carved were there for him to gaze upon. The most perfect poems that had ever been written were in the libraries there in Athens for him to read. A short walk would take him to the garden of the Academe where Plato once had his school. He could stand where Socrates stood. He could see the home of Stoic philosophy which he had heard about all his life. He was under the most perfect sky the sun shines through. He looked over the glorious hills where great deeds had been wrought. Delightful air wrapped him round and inspiring sights met him at every turn.

But Paul thought little of these things. His mind was filled with something else which seemed to him more important. He wanted to make this famous city see what he saw. He wanted to build a church of Christ in the city that had built the Parthenon. He wanted to tell his message of truth to the people who gloried in the wisdom of Plato and Aristotle. As he was walking about alone in the city, he noticed an altar with the inscription on it: “To God Unknown.” At once, he thought, “How I should like to make these people know the God whom I know, but whom they have not found yet. They want to find Him, or they would not build altars like that. All their philosophers have wanted to find Him, and sometimes they almost did find Him. Oh, if I could only make them see!” While Paul was walking around the city, wishing for a chance to tell his message, the Athenian people in the streets and market-places were watching him. They saw at once that he was a stranger and of a different race. They noticed him gazing around. Some of them asked him questions and sounded him to see whether he brought any new ideas. But they did not expect much from a mere Jew. They thought from the little they listened to that he believed in two gods—or a god and a goddess—whom they had never heard of before, for he spoke of Jesus and of the resurrection. They thought Jesus was a new god and that the Resurrection was a new goddess. But most of the people thought that he was a “babbler”—a man who was talking about trifles. They never dreamed that this foreign visitor, this Jew, could teach them, wise Athenians as they were, anything that mattered to them. But some of the inquisitive and curious ones got Paul to come up to their great meeting-place on the Hill of Mars, which they called the Areopagus, and speak to them. That was exactly what Paul wanted. Now he had a chance to tell them his great truth. Would they listen? Would they understand?

With a polite wave of the hand, he began to speak in the Greek which he had learned as a boy at Tarsus. “Athenian men,” he said, “you are very religious people. I see altars everywhere and you have filled your city with objects of worship. One strange thing I noticed as I walked about. I saw an altar on which was this inscription, ‘To God Unknown.’ That means that you have not quite found God yet. Let me tell you about Him, for I know. He made the world. He made all things above and all things beneath. But He does not dwell in temples. He does not need the things which men make with their hands, idols and images and statues. He has given life and breath to all living beings. He has planned the universe and put His wisdom into all the parts of it. He has arranged everything for men. He expects them to become one great family. He has put something into men’s hearts which makes them seek after Him and which makes them try to feel their way, as blind persons do, to find Him if they can. But He is never far away from anybody. He is near, within reach. We live in God. We move in Him. All our life is flooded with Him, and without Him we could not live at all. Your poets knew that. They have tried to tell you about it. One of them in his poem says that we are ‘offspring of God’—we have come from Him. If that is true, as your poet says it is, you ought not to think that God is like silver or gold or marble, or that He can be carved and made into a statue. All that is childlike and is the result of ignorance. When men were in the child stage and did not know any better, God excused them and waited for them to learn. But now that you are older and wiser, there is no excuse. God expects everybody now to live differently, to change their lives, and to prepare for the great beyond. He has sent His Son to show them how to do it, and He has raised Him from the dead.”

They did not listen very well and when they found that the Resurrection was not a new goddess they were not interested any longer. They drifted away to look for something that was more exciting and they politely told Paul that they would hear him again some other time. One man who was a senator and one woman, who had listened eagerly, were convinced that this was the truth about God and they believed and accepted Paul’s way of life. But Athens was not ready yet for the great message and so the chance went by! In a few days Paul sailed away, out of that wonderful harbour, looking back on the beautiful city that had missed its opportunity, and landed in the great seaport city of Corinth, at that time the capital of the province of Achaia.

XVII

CORINTH AND EPHESUS

In Corinth Paul made two new friends who became very dear to him and who were able to be great helpers in his work. Their names were Aquila—a Jew from Pontus who had lived sometime in Italy—and his wife Priscilla who was a very remarkable woman. They became followers of Christ and joined with Paul in the work of spreading Christianity in the great Greek city of Corinth. Aquila and Priscilla were also tent-makers and part of the time they all worked at this trade to get money to live by. Then they gave all the rest of their time to the main business for which Paul had come to Corinth. It was a very happy group of workers for they all loved and enjoyed each other and they all loved and enjoyed their work. As Corinth was a great city close to the sea, people from all countries in the world came there. There were men of many colours and men of many languages. They had not learned how to live good and beautiful lives. Very wrong things were done in Corinth. We sometimes think that the world is wicked to-day but if we could see the way the Corinthians lived and then see how men live to-day we should discover that there has been some improvement.

For a year and a half, this little group of missionaries laboured in the city, telling about Christ and His love and His death for men and His resurrection and of His Spirit working in the hearts of men. All kinds of people were changed by the power of this message. Jews and Greeks and persons from many lands listened and rejoiced and believed and followed Christ. Paul’s old enemies, the Jews, who had heard about his past life, made all the trouble they could for him, but he had been through trouble before and he knew how to bear it now. He went straight ahead with his work and was not disturbed by the difficulties. His soul was filled with joy as he saw his little church growing larger every day. New persons kept coming and there were more all the time who were trying to live the new way. All kinds of people came in to form the new church in Corinth. A few of them were learned and well off, but most of them were poor and ignorant. They were working people who had never had any real _life_ before, and now the whole world seemed changed for them. It was as though they had been living in a dark cave before and now they had come into the beautiful world where the bright sun was shining.

After eighteen months of this hard and happy work, Paul, with his two companions, and with his two new friends, sailed away from Corinth, leaving behind a great group of Christian men and women and children gathered into a church. We can well believe that all these people, who had found the new life, were on the shore of the harbour at Cenchrea to say “farewell” and to wave their last greetings as the missionaries pushed out to sea. They sailed in and out among the famous islands of the Ægean and across its blue waters to the eastern shore and came to Ephesus. Paul had wanted to go to Ephesus at the beginning of this long missionary journey, but he had not been able to accomplish his desire then. Now after wonderful experiences, dangers and trials and after many months of work in Europe he found himself at last in the great city of Ephesus. He knew that this was to be one of the most important fields of his entire lifework, but he still felt that the time for his work in Ephesus had not come yet. So he left Aquila and Priscilla there and went on by ship to Cæsarea and then to his beloved home church group at Antioch.

There were many things to tell as the Christian Jews and Greeks of Antioch flocked in to hear Paul recount the wonderful events of the greatest journey of his life. How the field had widened and how Christianity had spread in these eventful years since he last saw Antioch! After a short stay at Antioch, Paul went once more, and this was to be the last time, to see his dear friends in Galatia. When this visit was finished, he came over the great stretch of country which formed the ancient province of Asia to its capital, Ephesus. He had made a little beginning of work here before his return to Antioch and now he came back to finish what he had begun.

Ephesus was much larger than Corinth and it was also, like Corinth, a very wicked city. There was much to do here and much to suffer before Ephesus could be changed into a city of pure and beautiful citizens. But nothing ever discouraged Paul. He went at his great task as though he fully expected to see it done. It was like fighting beasts in the arena to work among the hard and wicked people who tried every way they could to defeat Paul and spoil his work. Steadily he fought on—gaining a little all the time—explaining to everybody who came to hear and proving that he had found a new way to live.

Right in the midst of this great work of transforming and remaking Ephesus, Paul heard very bad news from Corinth, across the Ægean. He heard that the church there was in sad trouble. The people had divided into parties and were quarrelling. Some of the people had gone wrong and were doing the kind of things they used to do when they were heathen. Paul wrote a wonderful letter to them—our First Corinthians. It was full of good advice and counsel and it showed them how to get back into the new way of living. The most wonderful thing in the letter was what Paul said to them about love. He told them, in the most beautiful words that perhaps were ever written that love was the greatest thing in the world, that when everything else failed love would not fail and when everything else vanished away love would still abide.

You would have thought this letter would have settled all their troubles but it did not. When people get wrong it is very hard setting them right again and it often takes a long time and much patience. Things went from bad to worse. Finally Paul had to leave his work in Ephesus and go across to Corinth, to see the people there in person and to straighten out their trouble. But even when he got among them, they remained stubborn and difficult, and he had to go back without getting the trouble settled. Then he sent Timothy over and he failed. It looked as though the church would fall to pieces and Paul would lose all his friends in Corinth. Then he wrote another letter, full of pleading, which he sent by his friend Titus, who was now his companion.

While he was waiting, full of anxiety, for Titus to come back with the answer from Corinth, some dreadful catastrophe happened in Ephesus. There was a great uprising in the city against Paul. It seemed for a time as though there was no hope that his life could be saved. He has told us that the sentence of death was pronounced against him—probably the sentence that he should be thrown into the arena to fight with lions. For a time there seemed no hope. But his friends Aquila and Priscilla, whom Paul sometimes calls “Prisca,” saved his life. He says that they “risked their necks” for him and that he was “delivered from death.”