Читать книгу The Cloak and the Parchments - Frank P. Spinella - Страница 9

We anchored at Delos as the sun was setting, and Timothy went ashore to assist in bringing on fresh water and provisions. I stayed on board, and by the light of a single lamp I spread the parchments before me on top of Paul’s cloak. It was too dark to read them easily, and I quickly replaced them.

My thoughts turned to Paul. We had had our differences in the past, but I knew that each time the fault was mine. In Pamphylia, I was not ready for the trials that I knew would await us, and I had abandoned Paul there, returning to Jerusalem with my faith shaken. I could not blame him when later, in Antioch, Paul refused to let me accompany him on his next mission, despite the pleadings of my cousin Barnabas. Years later, when we were in Rome together, Paul dispatched me to Colossae, but sent Tychicus ahead of me bearing a letter suggesting that I might or might not arrive.

The truth was that I lacked the unwavering zeal that Paul and the others had for preaching the Way to the Gentiles—and Paul knew it. Yet now he wanted me with him again. But why?

Even now, I questioned my own faith. When I first received the gospel as a youth in Jerusalem years ago, directly from Peter, it was rapturous and transforming—but over the years my conviction had often waxed and waned. Paul’s insistence that all believing Gentiles were the new Israel, the true people of God, flew in the face of my traditions, and to this day regularly shook my confidence. At times I even questioned whether Paul was letting his own ego get the best of him. He saw himself as the new Jeremiah, to whom God had said ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.’ Paul had written the same of himself, in virtually the same words, to the Galatian churches years ago. Was Paul coloring the gospel as he saw fit in order to cast himself in that role? Did he teach the radical proposition that baptism was the equivalent of circumcision solely to gain favor with his Gentile audience?

If this was truly the good news that we must preach, how could one such as I, prone to bouts of doubt and fear, truly be of service to the Lord? Did I love him less than the others? I marveled at their strength of conviction, and felt inferior in my inability to sustain that same conviction.

Timothy was a ready reminder of my inadequacy. Though younger than I and a newer convert, he was a born leader, an eloquent and fearless spokesman for the salvation in Jesus Christ—and in more recent times, Paul’s most trusted personal emissary. Although his mother was Jewish, his father was Greek, so Timothy was not raised as a Jew; yet at Paul’s suggestion he had been circumcised as an adult in order to help him gain acceptance with the Jews in Asia—something I surely would never have done! All of the elders in Ephesus and elsewhere in Asia looked upon Timothy as a pillar of the faith, despite his relative youth. How did they look at me, I wondered?

Still, the thought of helping to write an exposition of the Lord’s teachings did appeal to me, and I let myself dare to imagine that I might have been called to do exactly this. As a Jew, I understood the importance of the scriptures. Since the Diaspora throughout the Greek world, the Jewish religion was of necessity the religion of a book. John the Baptist aside, no true prophet had appeared in Israel for centuries, yet it was the written word, and the law given to Moses, which had served as the linchpin of Jewish belief, study and worship throughout the Mediterranean world for centuries. The Torah, the Nevi’im and the Kethuvim, as well as scholarly commentaries and interpretations of them, were central to being a Jew, particularly a Pharisaic Jew, and it was difficult for me to imagine religious life without them. In time, similar writings could be equally central to the religious life of a Christian. But was I truly fit for so important a task?

Timothy’s return to the ship interrupted my thoughts. “We are to sleep on board tonight, Mark,” he called. “If you need to stretch your legs ashore, now is the time.”

“In a minute,” I replied. “First, I must ask something of you.”

“What is it?”

“Pray with me, Timothy. Pray with me for the strength to hold fast to the service of the Lord.”

Timothy looked genuinely concerned. “Tell me what is troubling you,” he urged as he sat on the deck next to me. “I can see in your countenance that there is turmoil in your soul.”

“The turmoil is in my mind more than my soul, Timothy. You know that I am given to doubts, to questions about the salvation we have received in the Lord. I have this consuming need to understand it in logical terms, to have it all make sense, to have it be rational. Yet faith and rationality seem with me always to be at odds, always incompatible. Constantly I am looking for proof. If God is testing me, I confess I am acquitting myself poorly!”

“One’s beliefs would hardly be a matter of ‘faith’ if precise proof were readily available, would it? No matter; tell me what you do believe to be absolutely true. Perhaps we can build from there.”

“I believe that God is One: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He who created the Universe. I believe that He has given the Law through Moses to a chosen people with the free will to accept it or reject it. I believe that His covenant with Israel was that there would be a reward reserved for those who live according to His will. I believe that He has appointed Jesus of Nazareth as His anointed one, to institute a new covenant, one which is written on the hearts of men. I believe that God’s promised deliverance of Israel from its sufferings has occurred in His vindication of Jesus as the suffering representative of Israel, that He has raised Jesus from the dead as proof that the new covenant he has brought to us is indeed the way to eternal life. I believe that the new covenant is inclusive of Jews and Gentiles alike. And I believe that God will keep His end of the covenant and gather for eternity all those who have kept their end.”

“And of what are you uncertain?”

“Of the precise terms of this new covenant. Of the continuing value of Jewish law. Of the nature of Jesus and his relation to God. Of the Messiah’s rule, as prophesied. Of a hundred things, Timothy! I have so many more questions than answers.”

“Then we shall endeavor to explore those questions and answers together. But tell me this first, Mark. When you first came to believe, did you not feel the joy, the transforming power of God’s love in the very depths of your being?”

“I did indeed!”

“Then use that feeling as your guide for what is true. Our bodies and souls do not lie to us. If an answer feels right in that same way, if it gives you that same sense in the depths of your being of something true, you must promise me you will not reject it merely because you lack sufficient other evidence from which a logical or rational proof may be drawn. Are we agreed on this?”

“Yes, yes, agreed! Oh Timothy, I had so hoped to discuss these things with you on the voyage. Thank you! This will be most appreciated!” I could hardly contain my excitement. “Where shall we begin?”

“With that prayer you asked for,” Timothy replied in his usual calming manner. “And a good night’s sleep.”