Acts 22: On the Road

The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
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The books of Acts follows Paul on three distinct missionary journeys along the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Normally in the ancient world, travel posed great hazards, with pirates, barbarian armies and hostile border guards clogging up the roads. But by Paul's lifetime, Rome had established absolute mastery over a vast territory. Empire-wide peace, the famous Pax Romana- a condition that existed only twice in 700 years- prevailed.

Roman engineers had crisscrossed the empire with a network of roads (built so well that many still survive), and as a Roman citizen Paul had a passport to any destination. Language, too, was unifed. The Greek tongue, as well as the Greek style of thinking, crossed ethnic barriers.

Paul's backgroud uniquely qualified him for his adventures. A Pharisee who had studied with the famous teacher Gamaliel, he fully understood the Jewish mind. Roman citizenship gave him the status and respect he needed to gain official recognition and to survive threatening legal scrapes. Pauls' master of languages helped him also. He used Aramaic to relate to the early church leaders in Jerusalem, and fluency in Greek made possible a speech before philosophers in Athens.

Sometimes Paul was used by God to work miracles. In one tragicomic episode, a sleepy listener succumbed to Paul's all-night sermon and fell out of a third-story window (20:7-12); Paul promptly raised him from the dead.

By the end of his eventful life, Paul had left a ring of burgeoning churches around the eastern Mediterranean. To make sure his work would go on, he trained such leaders as Silas, Titus, Timothy and the man who recorded much of what we know about Paul-s life- Luke himself.

Reflection: No doubt, God used Paul to lead the early church because of his incredible zeal and communicative skills. I've wondered many times what special gifts (if any) I too may have that God could use to help spread His word. It's not enough- at least for me- to "proclaim" myself as a Christian, but to live out Christ's message each day so that my actions and the way I treat folks do the "proclaiming" for me...