Justice is important, I think, and I had always felt that it seemed to work like a principle in the world. Quite simply, good and just people had good things happen to them, whereas evil people were punished, often by things that seemed like chance occurrences. When a rock or a large tree fell on someone, it wasn’t hard to see things that they had done that could have triggered such a judgement.
We didn’t know enough about this Paul to know his exact crime, but we did know that he was being taken to Rome as a prisoner, so he must have had something to hide. Now justice had caught up with him.
So we waited.
Normally these vipers cause suffering pretty quickly, so we all expected his confident smile to desert him very soon, and for him to stop collecting sticks too; but no, he just kept going and didn’t even have the bite treated. Even if the viper was not venomous, surely its fangs would have left some painful puncture wounds? Maybe so, but Paul kept on picking up sticks and we kept watching.
And waiting.
You know what it’s like when you are confidently waiting for something and slowly begin to realise that there must be something wrong with your assumptions?
Thanatos and I kept looking at each other, and I couldn’t help pursing my lips and frowning as I began to see that somewhere our conclusions must have gone awry. Paul wasn’t swelling up. He wasn’t falling down dead. He wasn’t even in pain. He was happy and healthy, and above all, eager to tell us all just how thankful he was to his God that everyone had been saved from the shipwreck!
This time, I was the one who finally announced the obvious solution to the conundrum: “If a snake can’t even hurt him, he must be a god.”
“Maybe you’re right,” mused Thanatos, and I have to admit that his voice sounded more animated than normal. “He must be the one who saved everyone in the ship. There’s no way they could all have escaped alive from that wreck without something supernatural happening. I was certain that I would have lots of corpses to look after. You’re right, he must be a god!”
We discussed among ourselves how wonderful it was to have a god visiting us and even began to feel rather proud of ourselves – gaining importance by association. We talked about how we could honour him, and I hoped inwardly that he wouldn’t remember our earlier suggestion that he must be a murderer.
After a while, Paul noticed our whispering and our admiring glances and asked what we were chattering about. When I think back on it, he really did seem rather down-to-earth – not god-like at all. And then his response was nothing like what I expected: “Are you crazy?” he asked – he even looked a little angry. “Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve been saying about why we were saved from the sea? It wasn’t me – I’m just a man like you. It was the God who made the
world. He wants to lead you away from all of these gods that you imagine are working in the world. He saved everyone on board our ship, and saved me again when the snake bit me. Worship him, but whatever you do, don’t worship me! God has put up with this sort of ignorance for long enough, and now he wants everyone, everywhere, to worship him as the only true God.”
Paul continued talking for quite a while, explaining his beliefs and his hope for the future. I acknowledged to myself that it was hard to argue with him, given his miraculous survival despite both shipwreck and snakebite, but I still wasn’t really convinced that it mattered much – not until a few days later.
That was when Paul cured the father of Publius, the chief man of Melita. Publius had taken over the care of the whole ship’s company – the sort of generous hospitality that we of Melita like to think we are famous for, and for which we’re proud of our leaders when they show it so clearly. At that particular time, Publius was terribly worried about his father, who was very sick and not really expected to live. Nevertheless, hospitality must come first.
Paul was touched by this attitude and asked if he could visit the dying man. Publius tried to dissuade him, but Paul was apparently quite insistent that he should do so. I wasn’t surprised when I heard that; Paul had struck me as a very forceful personality, though in a kind way – if you know what I mean.
I would’ve dearly loved to have been there and seen what happened, but apparently it was as simple as Paul walking into the room, then praying and putting his hands on the man. That’s all it took to heal Publius’ father. He sat up in bed, feeling a little tired, but pleased that the terrible pain and fever had suddenly gone. Within a day he was up and about – and feeling better than he had done for years, he said.
That was the third piece of evidence that Paul was something special, so I knew I couldn’t ignore it – that would have been foolish. I was determined to find out about him and his religion. So I went to where he was staying and spoke to the doctor who was travelling with him. The doctor’s name was Luke, and he tried to explain to me exactly what had been wrong with Publius’ father. That was a waste of time, because I couldn’t understand the technical details.
Nevertheless, I did find it easy to understand when he went on to tell me that Paul had cured hundreds, maybe even thousands of sick people.
“So he is a god?” I asked, impressed.
Luke gave a pained smile. “No, he is not a god,” he said. “If I had a sestertius for every time someone has suggested that he is a god or a demi-god I would be a very rich man! But no. Paul is just a man like you and me.”
“Then how does he do these miracles? How come snakes can’t even hurt him?”
“It is the God he worships who does the miracles,” said Luke.
“But the gods don’t like helping mere mortals, do they? They don’t want us doing miracles! Very protective of their powers, people tell me.”
“The gods you are referring to are not gods at all. In fact, there is only one God, who made the world and everything in it.”
“One god? Only one?”
“Yes. Why do you think there is more than one?”
“Well, that’s what everyone says, isn’t it? How would I know anyway? I’ve sometimes wondered if we need any at all,” I said.
“Ah,” said Luke, “Now you’re starting to think! That’s good, but if there is no God, how come we are alive? Where did we come from? Who made the world? Who made us? It can’t all just happen from nothing, can it?”
“No, I suppose it takes something to do something.”
“Yes, it does. We can see that fact around us all the time – in a simple way. A lump of rock does nothing by itself, but a living thing can do something. So where did life come from?”
“That was the cosmic egg, wasn’t it?”
“If so, who made the egg?”
“Well, yes, I suppose that something must have made it, so that doesn’t really help, does it?”
“Have you heard of the God of the Jews?”
“No.”
“You need to know some history, but he is the God who made the world, sent the flood, chose Israel as his nation, took them out of Egypt and gave them the land of Israel,” said Luke. “He is the only God, and that’s the only explanation of the universe that really makes sense. And, of course, I have seen people who believe in that one God do amazing miracles – impossible things – which they say come from him. To me, it all adds up to a rather convincing picture. That’s why
I believe in the same God as Paul does. You’ve seen some of these miracles too, so they should have opened your mind to thinking seriously about this God. He is Lord of heaven and earth; the creator who made us and all living things, and put the nations where he wanted them.”[1]
“But does it matter if I believe that? I mean – so what if he’s the creator?”
Luke looked at me and said, “I suppose that the main thing is that if he has the power to create us and we are his offspring, then it’s not up to us to decide how we should worship him. We shouldn’t think that he is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.” Luke paused, and his expression was searching. He clearly wanted to determine my response to his words, but I wasn’t sure of it myself. His argument seemed reasonable: after all,
if there was a creator who made us all, it made sense that he might want to tell us how to worship him, rather than us doing whatever we want.
“That makes some sense,” I said cautiously, and Luke seemed satisfied enough with my response.
“God has overlooked such ignorance about worship in the past,” he continued, “but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.”
That seemed a little strange to me and I must have shown my puzzlement, because Luke stopped.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked.
“Well, if he is the only God as you say, and he wants to judge the world, why would he do it through a man?”
“That’s a really good question,” said Luke, and he seemed to mean it. I’m not used to being complimented on the quality of my religious questions – I was so surprised that I almost missed what he said next.
“You see, God sent his son to be the saviour of the world, but he is also to be the judge; and God has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
As you might imagine, that answer raised even more questions, and Luke and I ended up talking about religion for hours. Me! – A man who appreciates the basic ideas of right and wrong, but who has always been too busy with the everyday things of life to think much about religion. I’ve always left the nitty-gritty of worship to priests and oracles and done what I was told.
But what Luke said made sense.
I liked the idea of one God who had made everything. Creation has a beauty and a grandeur that thrills me, but it also has a terrifying power that is beyond the ability of humans to tame. Yet Paul and Luke and all the others on the doomed ship had been saved through a storm that had made even expert seamen give up hope. A God who can first create such storms and then tame them to save his servants also fitted with the ideas of judgement and salvation, but I had to find out
more.
As Luke and I talked on into the evening, Paul returned. Apparently he had been talking to Publius, and he seemed full of the same sort of excitement that I had seen in Luke as he tried to explain to me all about God and his son, Jesus. It was a joyous excitement that seemed infectious. I have never met people who can make religion seem more sensible and just completely… normal. They don’t seem to think of religion as a special compartment in their life. Maybe it’s
because they have dedicated their life to working as missionaries. Whatever the reason, they have given me a lot to think about and many questions to answer.
It started with a catastrophic shipwreck that didn’t turn out to be catastrophic at all, and then my deeper interest was triggered by the events of that stormy day when Paul picked up a bundle of sticks and was bitten by a snake.
I’m sure that snake didn’t know that its bite would help Paul to preach about the God who made them both!
Notes
[1] Most of the arguments attributed to Luke here are taken from Paul’s words in Acts 17:24-31 when speaking to the people at the Areopagus, with a thought from 1 John 4:14 as well.
