Obtaining an audience with an expert in the law was not difficult once the gifts and financial arrangements had been agreed, and early one morning I was ushered into the presence of Gamaliel, one of the most revered teachers in Israel.  We met in a room near where we were staying. Notwithstanding my commitment to Yahweh, Gamaliel was obviously not willing to welcome me – a foreigner – into his home, or even visit me in my temporary home.

Now was the opportunity to get a definitive answer to my question: Could I enter the temple to worship?  I explained the situation to him, and he looked doubtful as he smoothed his moustache.  I explained that I had been circumcised, so that was not a problem.  Gamaliel still looked doubtful and continued to smooth his moustache.  Eventually, he found his voice and gave me the bad news, “No, I’m afraid you cannot enter the temple or the congregation,” he said.  “Your situation is highly unusual, but our scriptures must exclude you from worshipping in the temple.  Moses’ words are to be understood in this way.”

That was it.  No opportunity to argue, and no chance of appeal.  If I wanted to worship, I must do so from outside the temple.  For an instant, my temper prompted me to pack up immediately and leave, but that would have been foolish.  The Creator-God I worshipped must still be worshipped even if he excluded me from formal worship with others.  My worship must be offered outside the temple.  Only my gifts would be able to find their way into that holy place.

One other goal I had set myself.  I wanted a scroll of the Jewish scriptures.  The law and many Psalms and proverbs I could read in my own country, but I had heard of Jewish prophets who had spoken words from God and predicted the future, centuries before it happened.  Money was no issue – my queen had made me a very rich man – but could I find someone who would be willing to sell me a scroll of the words of one of the great Jewish prophets?  I read some of the available scrolls in Greek, and decided that a scroll of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel would be best.  I made enquiries and offers, and then I waited.  Waiting for a week with no certainty of success was rather difficult, but finally, late one afternoon, I was introduced to a scribe who was willing to sell me a scroll of Isaiah for a large sum.  Such a scroll represented about three months of work, but the fee demanded would have kept a scribe living in luxury for at least a year!

However, I jumped at the opportunity, paid the money, and gave extra gifts liberally to the scribe and the middle man who had brokered the deal.  Victoriously, I carried the scroll away and went to my lodgings.  Urgently, I removed the beautifully decorated outer cloth, with its Hebrew lettering and coloured embroidery.  Quickly, but carefully, this was followed by the linen wrapping which kept at bay the enemy of all scrolls – moisture.  In my hands I finally held my own copy of God’s word through Isaiah, and I was eager to read it.  During the evening, I read the scroll from end to end.  The beauty of many sections of the words struck me forcibly, and the repeated insistence on the sovereignty of God thrilled and satisfied me.  One particular passage stood out above all others:

“Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’;

and let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree.’

For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant,

I will give in my house and within my walls

a monument and a name better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.’[1]”

This was healing balm to the soul of a foreign eunuch who had just been refused entry to God’s house.  The passage continued with the heart-warming assurance that this house of the Lord was to be a house of prayer for all nations.

Some other parts I had merely read quickly and noted as difficult.  Tomorrow, we would start our return journey, and I would be able to read the scroll several times during the trek.

Leaving Jerusalem was difficult.  I had come to worship, and worship I had, but only by myself – the temple had remained closed to me.  The religion of Israel had not accepted me, although the passage from Isaiah encouraged me to believe that the God of Israel had.  I was leaving with the impression that the religion God had given to Israel was delightful and pure, although those who led it seemed to concentrate too much on appearances, and too little on actually being like God.

We took the desert road leading to Gaza, planning to join the coast road there and continue towards Egypt.  Isaiah’s scroll was on my lap almost before we had cleared the gate, and I was utterly absorbed as the chariot made its way over the packed earth road.  My driver had instructions to minimise the roughness of our travel, as I did not want my prized possession to be damaged or lost through careless  driving.  I also intended to make notes as we travelled, and writing legibly in a moving vehicle is difficult.

All that day, I read and re-read.  Some parts were marvellously simple to understand.  Others had to be read several times before an elusive comprehension could be achieved.  Towards the end of the day, just before we stopped at an inn for the night, I came across the passage:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he opens not his mouth.”[2]

I had read many passages talking about the “servant”.  These did not seem always to refer to the same person, and sometimes clearly applied to the whole nation of Israel.  One or two cases seemed probably to refer to Isaiah himself.  It was all very puzzling, and I looked at it again before retiring to my bed that evening.  My prayers that night were full of thankfulness for the window of  comprehension newly opened by this precious scroll, but also of requests for help in my quest to understand who God’s servant was.  How could I guess that his answer would be provided so soon!

Another early morning start and we were soon in the barren, desert areas of this road to Gaza.  My reading continued, concentrating on the references to the “servant”, as they had a strange fascination for me.
Our travel slowed until my driver was picking his way carefully through large potholes and areas of soft mud.  Despite his care, I was still being tossed around in the chariot, and I stopped reading for a moment to look up.  Obviously, there had been some rain in the recent past, and the road had been badly damaged.  Walking along a ridge, a little distance above the road, I saw a man – obviously keeping out of the mud and slush on the road.  I wondered idly what his business was, but quickly went back to my reading.  I had come to the same passage that had puzzled me the night before.  First it spoke of the servant prospering, being high and lifted up (which also reminded me of Isaiah’s vision of God at the start of his prophecy, but I had no time to look back at that).  After suggesting that there was something that would be hard to believe, the passage seemed to speak of the servant being oppressed and afflicted; led like a lamb to the slaughter.  What could it mean?  Of whom was it speaking?  Was this Isaiah?  I had no idea, but I couldn’t give up trying to understand – and praying for help to do so.

And that was when the most amazing thing of my entire trip happened.  Suddenly, there was a voice at my elbow, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  What a shock – although I laughed about that afterwards because it was the quickest answer to prayer that I had ever heard of in my life!  The man I had seen walking beside the road was now right next to me.  I doubted that he would be able to help me, but it was worth a try.
“How could I, unless someone guides me?”  I responded.  I was getting a little frustrated by the mysterious prophecies.  I slid across  to the other side of the chariot and motioned with my hand for him to sit next to me.  He climbed in and sat down.

“I can see that you are reading from a scroll of the Hebrew Scriptures, but exactly which passage are you reading?

“The part I really don’t understand is this:

‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he opens not his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.’[3]

“About whom is Isaiah speaking?” I asked. “About himself or someone else?”

This was the start of a sublime lesson in understanding Bible prophecy.  My advisor, who introduced himself as Philip, explained to me what this passage meant, and it fitted in perfectly with what I had been hearing in Jerusalem.  Many in Jerusalem had been speaking about a teacher called Jesus, who had been crucified by the Romans at the insistence of the Jewish chief priests.  In conversation, senior religious leaders had made it clear to me that this topic was off limits, but I had heard some detail from others.

Philip showed me clearly that the servant was Jesus of Nazareth, and he also explained many other passages from the Psalms, the law and the prophets.  Some we could look at immediately in my new, treasured scroll of Isaiah.  Philip knew the words of the passages he wanted, and I could find them quite quickly – one advantage of having already read the scroll several times.

The passages from the law and the Psalms I was familiar with, but it felt as if a light had been switched on – the meaning was now crystal clear.  Most of the words of the Hebrew prophets I was not familiar with, prophets like Zechariah, Hosea, Daniel, Jonah, Amos and Micah.  It is impossible to describe just how enlightening and exciting this was.  I felt suddenly that I understood the world better, that the God I had worshipped as a loving and generous God was even better than I could ever have imagined.

All this time, my poor driver was taking extreme care, while the road conditions slowed our passage to a crawl.  I have never felt so thankful for a bad section of road!

Philip explained the title “Christ” or “Messiah” as meaning “anointed” – like a king or a priest was – and showed me that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied.  That he had died on a cross as prophesied, not because of any crimes he had committed, but rather because of his sinlessness, which had made the high priests jealous.  Having become a little familiar with these men over the last month, I could easily see how true that could be.

Throughout this, I had my pen out, making as many notes as I could, though the roughness of the road made this awkward.

After teaching me about the prophecies regarding Jesus, Philip started to repeat some of the Jesus’ own teachings.  These also were startling to me.  As a non-Jew, they were immediately appealing, clearly referring to the lives of individuals, not the life of a nation of which I could never be a part.  No nationwide feasts, no government, no army, no priesthood – just rules for life as separate people and families, under a single king-priest: Jesus.  Philip had a small scroll with him of some of the teachings of Jesus, and we read over them together.  It was a copy of a short history of the life of Jesus written by Matthew, one of Jesus’ twelve special followers.  Apparently Matthew was still working on the history, but Philip had been lucky enough to get an early copy and had found it very useful in his preaching about Jesus.

What a day!  From an early start, with a growing frustration at being unable to understand some passages in Isaiah, I had now come to understand more in one afternoon than in my entire life previously.  But the best was still to come.

Philip told me about baptism.  Jesus had commanded his followers to be repent and be baptised into his name.  Baptism was to be a symbol of dying and rising with Jesus: water being the tomb and rising from the water being like his resurrection, with a new life to follow.  Philip explained that Jesus had been taken up into heaven after forty days of meeting with his followers, and that more than 500 people had seen him alive after his crucifixion and resurrection.  He told of the miracles that some of the disciples of Jesus could do through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Suddenly the driver let out a despairing groan.  He slowed the chariot to a crawl and we saw that the road in front of us had been transformed into a wide sea of mud.  Worse still, a sluggish stream of muddy water flowed across the road some distance ahead.  Off to the right was a small oasis, with palm trees and green grass surrounding it.  It had obviously been filled to overflowing by the recent rain.  My heart leapt…what an opportunity!

[1] Isaiah 56:3-5
[2] Isaiah 53:7, as quoted in Acts 8:32
[3] Isaiah 53:7-8, as quoted in Acts 8:32-33