After a simple vegetable course, I offered a meat course, explaining that he need not taste it if his teaching did not permit him to eat meat. Paul took some with a smile and said that he did not want to cause me any offense or even ask me where the meat had been bought. To Greeks he liked to be a Greek, to Jews a Jew. He also drank diluted wine but remarked that he would soon be making a promise for certain reasons.
I did not want to trap him with either forbidden foods or artful questions. When we started talking, I tried to formulate my questions as care- fully as possible. The most important thing from Gallio’s and Rome’s point of view was to find out what exactly his position was in relation to the Roman State and the common good.
He assured me in all honesty that he usually advised everyone to obey the public authorities, to comply with law and order and to avoid causing offense.
He did not set slaves against their masters? No. According to him, everyone should be content with his position on earth. A slave should submit to his master’s will and the master treat his servants well and remember that there is a Lord who is Lord of all.
Did he mean the Emperor? No. He meant the living God, the creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his son, who had promised to return to earth to sit in judgment on the living and the dead.
For the time being I skirted around this delicate point and asked him what instructions he gave to those he succeeded in converting. This he had evidently meditated on a great deal, but he contented himself by saying, “Support the afflicted, take care of the weak, show forbearance to everyone. Never avenge evil with evil, but strive to do good to each other. Always be joyful. Pray unceasingly. Give thanks for every moment.”
He also said that he told the brothers to lead a quiet life and to work with their hands. It was not their business to reproach the adulterers, revilers, drunkards, extortioners and idol-worshipers. Then they would be forced to leave the world themselves. But if someone who had joined them showed themselves to be an adulterer or reviler or drunkard or extortioner or idol-worshiper, then he must be reproved. If he did not better himself, then one would not associate with him or even eat in his presence.
“You don’t judge me then,” I said with a smile, “although I am in your eyes an idol-worshiper, adulterer and drunkard?”
“You are outside,” he said. “It is not my business to judge you. We judge only those who are inside. God will judge you.”
He said it so seriously, as a definite fact, that I trembled inwardly.
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Although I had made up my mind not to offend him, I could not resist putting a malicious question to him.
“When do we stand before this day of judgment, according to the information you have?” I said.
Paul said that it was not his business to prophesy either. The day of the Lord would come like a thief in the night. I saw that he was fairly certain that the coming of the Lord would happen in his lifetime.
Paul rose to his feet suddenly.
“The Lord will descend from heaven and those who have died in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be carried there with them to meet the Lord among the clouds and then we shall all be in the presence of the Lord.”
“And the judgment then,” I asked, “of which you talk so much?”
“The Lord Jesus will appear in a flame of fire with his celestial angels,” he said, “and avenge himself on those who do not recognize God and do not obey the message of our Lord Jesus. As a punishment they will be afflicted with eternal perdition away from the countenance of our Lord and the light of his power.”
I had to admit that he did not attempt to win my’favor but starkly said what he meant. His words moved me, for he was nothing if not honest in the fervor of his belief. Without my asking him, he told me about angels and the powers of evil, about his journeys in different countries and the authority he had been given by the supporters in Jerusalem. More than anything else, I was surprised that he showed no desire to convert me. In the end, I did not listen to him so much as submit myself to the power and assurance which seemed to speak from him.
I could feel his presence quite clearly. I smelled the pleasing scent of candles, good food, incense and clean goat-hair. It was good to be in his company. Nevertheless, in a kind of dream, I tried to separate myself from it. I jerked out of my drowsiness and cried, “How can you think you know everything so much better than other people?”
He spread out his hands and replied with all simplicity, “I am God’s fellow worker.”
And he was not blaspheming when he said it; he was quietly but absolutely convinced of the truth of his words. I rose swiftly with my hand to my forehead and walked up and down the room as if bewitched. If it were really as he said, then here was the opportunity of my life to find the meaning of life.
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