Chapter Twenty Four

                 SAUL/PAUL THE APOSTLE  (VI).

       Barsabbas and Silas had come to Antioch with Paul to oversee the
terms of the agreement reached at the Council of Jerusalem, an agreement
that Paul was to soon begin to ignore. At best, he was to give it lip
service, using it as a warrant to preach his own brand of Jesus to
gentiles. Further, he soon began to deny the validity of the Torah for Jews
as well as non-Jews.

       Shortly thereafter, Barsabbas left Antioch to return to Jerusalem
but Silas decided to stay on in Antioch. Paul now decided that he wished to
return to those cities in which they had established churches on their
first missionary journey in order to "confirm" them. When he asked Barnabas
to accompany him again, Barnabas wanted to again take John Mark along but
Paul refused to hear of it since Paul and Mark had had strife between them
on the first journey. Mark could not abide Paul's antinomianism and let
Paul know it. Barnabas, who was obviusly very attatched to Mark, quarrelled
with Paul over this issue until it became evident that there was to be no
meeting of the minds, at which point Paul and Barnabas parted company.
Barnabas and Mark left for Cyprus and we hear no more about them from the
author of Acts, neither does Paul mention them in his epistles. But Silas
began to agree with Paul's point of view regarding Torah and gentile
conversion, and he became Paul's new companion. Interestingly enough, a
clue to this new friendship between Paul and Silas may have stemmed from
the fact that both men were Roman citizens and Silas, as well as Paul, may
have identified more with the gentile world of the Greeks and the Romans
than with the world of his own Jewishness.

       Thus began Paul's second missionary journey. Paul, now with Silas,
came again to Derbe and Lystra, then turned north to Phrygia, Galatian,
Mysia, Troas and finally Macedonia. He did not enter the Roman province of
Asia (somewhat north of Armenia) because he claimed that the Holy Spirit
would not allow him to go there, the real reason being that there was too
much opposition to him on the part of both Jews and Jewish Nazarenes.
Christianity has classically viewed Paul's crossing over from Asia to
Macedonia as the great symbol of the coming of Christianity to Europe.
(True there was already a church established in Rome but it was a Nazarene
Jewish church rather than a gentile Christian one, and it had been
established by one other than Paul).

       At Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia, Paul and Silas got into
contention with certain gentiles who complained that "these men, being
Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not
lawful for us to receive, neither to observe" (16:20-21. This probably had
to do with Paul preaching something against the religion of the city. Paul
and Silas were brought to the city magistrates by the citizenry, who had
them whipped and imprisoned. However they were able to influence and
convert the chief jailor who subsequesntly convinced the magistrates to
release them.

       From Macedonia they went to Thessalonica (nodern Salonika) where the
local Jewish population had them removed from the city. Obviously their fame
had spread. They went from Thessalonica to the port of Berea. Paul left
Silas at Berea and proceded alone to Athens, philosophical capitol of the
Greek world. In Athens, Paul preached a sermon against idolatry, and about
the resurrection of Jesus in the scheme of salvation. The majority of
Greeks could not understand the concept of bodily resurrection as a
religious reality, and they mocked Paul. Paul left Athens without much
success and proceded to Corinth.

       At Corinth, Paul met two Nazarenes, man and wife, named Aquila and
Priscilla. These two were newly arrived in Corinth, having been part of the
Jewish group expelled from Rome by the emperor Claudius. This expulsion
took place in the year 49 CE after a general agitation on the part of
Jewish messianists who were causing the Romans trouble in reference to a
certain individual named Chrestus. It is not known for sure whether this
refers to Christ, or whether another messianic individual is intended. At
any rate, it is here in the story of Aquila and Priscilla that we learn
about the existence of a Nazarene community in the chief city of the
Empire.

       Paul received fierce opposition from the Jews of Corinth, so much so
that he "shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own
heads: I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles" (18:6).
This was hardly the first time he had said such a thing and he was to go to
preach to Jews again and to be rejected again. And this, despite the fact
that he had said that he would be the apostle par excellence to the
Gentiles, and leave the mission work to Jews for Peter. However, since the
Judaizers, Peter included, were speaking to Gentiles, Paul may have felt
that he would also not confine himself to speaking solely to non-Jews.
After spending a year and a half at Corinth, certain Jews attempted to
bring him before the Roman governor of the distrct on the grounds that he
was subverting the Jewish religion, but they were dismissed by the governor
and told that differences of opinion in religious matters were no concern
of his.

       Paul left Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla and went to Ephesus.
There, contrary to his word, he preached again to Jews but he probably had
no success at that time since teh author of Acts does not report on how he
fared there. Leaving Ephesus, he set sail for the Holy Land, landing at
Caesarea, and going up to Jerusalem to pay a visit to the Mother Church. We
have no word as to what transpired between him and the Jerusalem Nazarenes,
and we don't know what James and John had to say to him concerning his
unorthodox religious teachings and we have no evidence that there was any
dissention between them outwardly although we may suppose that the
Jerusalem apostles were unhappy with him. One reason that they may not have
castigated him at this time (if indeed they did not) is that Paul
constantly, wherever he went, gathered alms for the Jerusalem Church which
was constantly in need of funds. They apparently accepted his money and had
to pay the price of silence for having accepted it. For Paul's part, he
often refered to his own magnaminities in regard to giving much financial
support to the Mother Church (Romans 15:25-27; I Corinthians 16:1-3; II
Corinthians 8:1-14; Galatians 2:10).

       Paul, having deposited the alms collection with the Jerusalem
apostles, returned to his home base in Antioch.

       After spending some time at Antioch, Paul again decided to visit the
churches that he had established as well as to continue with his preaching,
spreading the word of salvation. Hence began his third and final misisonary
journey. Once again he passed through Galatia and Phrygia, eventually
coming to Ephesus. However, before Paul arrived there, another individual,
who was to also have his own influence on the church there, came to
Ephesus. This was Apolos, an Alexandrian Jew about whom Acts tells us he
was an "eloquent man, and mighty in scriptures" (18:24). He was also a
messianist awaiting the Kingdom of Heaven but "knowing only the baptism of
John" (18:25). This confirms what history konws that after his death,
John's disciples continued to believe that he would have an active part
in the ushering in of the messianic era just as Jesus' own disciples
believed HE would fulfill that role. Aquila and Priscilla were at Ephesus
and wasted no time in preaching to him that Jesus was the messiah and that
John had only been his forerunner in the spirit of Elijah. After having
accepted the belief in Jesus' messiahship, Apolos became somewhat of a
rival to Paul according to I Corinthians 1:12. Paul finally did arrive in
Ephesus and Apolos went to the cities of Greece to preach to both Jews and
gentiles, and apparently had success with each group. Meanwhile, back in
Ephesus, Paul found certain other disciples of John (who may have been
friends of Apolos) and he succeeded to bringing them over also to
acceptance of Jesus.

       Paul remained at Ephesus some two years; there he engaged in faith
healing and demon exorcism, thereby winning over certain other Jews and
gentiles to his faith. Finally he decided that it was time to leave
Ephesus. He also decided that he would return to Jerusalem and from there
go on to Rome itself. Before his departure, Paul told his disciples that
after he was gone, others would come in to controvert his teachings about
Jesus. This is something that he  constantly experienced, the frustration
of the Nazarene Judaizers dogging his every step, causing him to say bitter
things, calling them "dogs" and "amputators" (Philippians 3:2) because they
demanded circumcision, "hypocrites", "false brethren", "enemies of the
cross of Christ: whose god is the belly" (Philippians 3:18-19) because they
demanded the keeping of the dietary laws. Hostility against him was ever
growing and wide-spread from both Jews and Jewish Nazarenes, and his own
safety grew more precarious each day. On several occaisions he had been
warned by friends not to go to Jerusalem. Nevertheless he had set his mind
to go.

       Sailing for the Phoenician coast, he landed at Tyre where several of
his sympathizers implored him not to continue on to Jerusalem, yet continue
on he did. At Caesarea, a certain Agabus, called a "prophet" warned him
that if he should go to the Holy City, he would be apprehended by the
authorities and given over to judgment. Paul replied that he was willing to
become a martyr for Jesus' sake. But what he really desired was to appeal
to James and the other Jerusalem apostles to secure their approval and
relieve him of the hostility of the Jewish Nazarenes. And of cousre he came
bringing relief money as usual which had always placated the men of
Jerusalem. But now tings had come to a new pass. Paul had finally succeeded
in completely alienating the Jerusalem brthren to the extent that his money
was no longer able to ingratiate him with them. They wished to be rid of
him so that his false and heretical views might be once and for all
destroyed, and the pure doctrine of the original tradition of the
historical Jesus be restored and made universal throughout all the churches
of the Assembly of the Faithful. Like Jesus before him, Paul the Apostle
had come to Jerusalem to meet his fate.