Paul's Last Days

Yesterday I picked up a book that I had to read in one of my college classes called The Life of St. Paul by James Stalker. I flipped through it skimming brief sections of interest here and there amidst the interruptions from my two little ones. And although the background noise was slightly distracting, I tuned out the world as I read this description of Paul in prison …

Of his spiritual children in the distance he never ceased to think. Daily he wandered in imagination among the glens of Galatia and along the shores of Asia and Greece; every night he prayed for the Christians of Antioch and Ephesus, of Philippi and Thessalonica and Corinth. Nor were gratifying proofs that they were remembering him missing. Now and then there would appear in his lodging a deputy from some distant church, bringing the greetings of his converts or, perhaps, a contribution to meet his temporal wants, or desiring his decision on some point of doctrine or practice about which difficulty had arisen. These messengers were not sent away empty: they carried warmhearted messages of golden words of counsel from their apostolic friend.

Some of them carried far more. When Epaphroditus, a deputy from the church in Philippi, which had sent to their dear father in Christ an offering of love, was returning home, Paul sent with him, in acknowledgment of their kindness, the Epistle to the Philippians, the most beautiful of all his letters, in which he lays bare his very heart and every sentence glows with love more tender than a woman’s. When the slave Onesimus was sent back to Colossae, he received, as the branch of peace to offer to his master, the exquisite little Epistle to Philemon, a priceless monument of Christian courtesy. He carried, too, a letter addressed to the church of the town in which his master lived, the Epistle to the Colossians.

The composition of these Epistles was by far the most important part of Paul’s varied prison activity; and he crowned this labor with the writing of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is perhaps the profoundest and sublimest book in the world. The church of Christ has derived many benefits from the imprisonment of the servants of God; the greatest book of uninspired religious genius, Pilgrim’s Progress, was written in a jail; but never did there come to the church a greater mercy in the disguise of misfortune than when the arrest of Paul’s bodily activities at Caesarea and Rome supplied him with the time needed to reach the depths of truth sounded in the Epistle to the Ephesians (136-8).

The book continues on, describing his eventual release from prison and his continued missionary work in his final days before his last imprisonment, which ultimately led to his cruel beheading instigated by none other than Nero himself. (Read specifically about the Great Fire of Rome for an understanding of what it was like for the believers in Rome at that time.) In all history there is not a more startling illustration of the irony of human life than this scene of Paul at the bar of Nero. On the judgment seat, clad in the imperial purple, sat a man who in a bad world had attained the eminence of being the very worst and meanest person in it—a man stained with every crime, the murder of his own mother, of his wives, and of his best benefactors; a man whose whole being was so steeped in every namable and unamable vice that his body and soul were, as someone said at the time, nothing but a compound of mud and blood; and in the prisoner’s dock stood the best man the world contained, his hair whitened with labors for the good of men and the glory of God. Such was the occupant of the seat of justice, and such the man who stood in the place of criminal (141).

Before his trial and death, Paul sat isolated in a cold and damp prison cell in Rome awaiting the end of his life on earth. Imagine such horrid conditions, having the Lord alone to befriend you, comfort you, and give you hope. These were Paul’s circumstances. Yet another tangent, I know; however, it’s so fascinating to pick up these golden nuggets of insight along the way. Therefore, I want to encourage you to read the final letter, 2 Timothy, penned by the apostle Paul at the end of his life. The purpose of this is none other than having more insight into the life of this dear saint and brother in the Lord who labored diligently for the cause of Christ and His glory to the bitter end of his life. The awesome work of Christ in Paul’s life – what a transformation indeed from the days of Saul.

Tomorrow back to Philippians. Until then, may God bless our little tangent in some way.