When you study the book of Acts, it’s easy to see that the Apostle Paul loved to travel. He spent a lot of time sailing the Aegean and Mediterranean Sea. His desire to travel and take the gospel to Rome and beyond is why Christianity spread like a contagious disease. Paul not only spent time ON the sea; he spent time IN the sea! He mentions that he was shipwrecked three times and even spent over a day and night in the water.
Over the next eleven days, I’m taking a break from my regular pastoral routine to lead a group of Texas travelers to the Mediterranean Sea. After a tour of Rome, we’re boarding the Celebrity Cruise Ship Galaxy to sail around the tip of the boot of Italy into the Aegean Sea. I’m calling this tour THE MEDITERRANEAN ADVENTURES OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. Hopefully, we’ll have LESS of an adventurous time than Paul!
I’ll be teaching a Bible Study on board the ship about the life and journeys of Paul. In addition, I am escorting our group on special tours of Ephesus, Corinth, and Athens. The Galaxy will also be stopping at other ports including Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Istanbul and Naples.
I’ve been to Israel 16 times and I love taking people to stand in the very places where so many Bible events occurred. One of the my greatest joys is watching the expressions on the faces of people as they realize they’re standing where Jesus stood. From that point on, they will always have a visual frame of reference for the events described in the Gospels. This is my first trip retracing some of the steps of Paul, so I’m hoping to learn a lot. Depending on internet availability, I’ll be posting several blogs about our trip.
In preparation for this trip, I’ve been devoting some extra study into the life of Paul and I’ve fallen in love again with this amazing servant. Some historians claim that, excluding Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul was the most influential person in human history. Certainly, his impact on Western Civilization is immeasurable.
Have you ever wondered about Paul’s appearance? There is an apocryphal description of the physical appearance of Paul found in a document called “The Acts of Paul and Thecla.” This document is uninspired, unauthoritative, and contains teaching contrary to scripture, so we don’t know if this somewhat famous description is pure fiction or based on an eyewitness account. With that disclaimer, it’s still interesting to read:
“A man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace. For sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.”
If I had to proffer an opinion, I’d guess that it’s probably accurate because if someone was going to fabricate a physical description, wouldn’t they make Paul sound a little more attractive? He doesn’t exactly sound like a candidate for the cover of GQ!
In our beauty-obsessed culture, I wonder how well Paul would have been received by Americans today. Americans want their leaders to be handsome. I’ve tried to get my friend, U.S. Representative, Louie Gohmert, to run for President, and he always laughs and says, “Do you know how long it’s been since Americans elected a bald president?” Hmmm let’s see, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, FORD? (We didn’t elect him) Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy…and the winner is: IKE. (So what does that say about Rudi, John, and Fred?)
My point is, do you think Paul would have gained the eye of a pastor selection committee? I can just hear the committee discussing their candidates and someone says, “Oh, was he the short, bald guy with the big nose and the unibrow?”
No, we don’t know what Paul really looked like, but we do know that he had problems with illness and weakness. The beauty of God’s plan is that He can use a tall, handsome man with piercing eyes like Billy Graham ….He just has to work a little harder. God delights to use the weak, the ignorant, the ugly, those who stutter...in other words, the LEAST likely candidates! Aren’t you glad that “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart?” Paul might have been short and ugly in the eyes of people, but today he stands as A GIANT on God’s list of servants.
So, friend, Paul should remind us that God can use YOU in spite of your mistakes, your appearance, or your faults. Don Francisco has a great song about how God used Balaam’s donkey. He concludes the song with these profoundly funny words:
THE LORD’S THE ONE WHO MAKES THE CHOICE
OF THE INSTRUMENT HE’S USING.
WE DON’T KNOW THE REASONS
NOR THE RHYMES BEHIND HIS CHOOSING.
SO IF THE LORD STARTS TO USIN’ YOU
DON’T YOU PAY IT ANY MIND.
HE COULD HAVE USED THE DOG NEXT DOOR
IF HE’D BEEN SO INCLINED!
PS The painting of Paul being blinded by Christ’s presence is by the Italian artist, Carravagio: “The Conversion on the Way to Damascus.”
Over the next eleven days, I’m taking a break from my regular pastoral routine to lead a group of Texas travelers to the Mediterranean Sea. After a tour of Rome, we’re boarding the Celebrity Cruise Ship Galaxy to sail around the tip of the boot of Italy into the Aegean Sea. I’m calling this tour THE MEDITERRANEAN ADVENTURES OF THE APOSTLE PAUL. Hopefully, we’ll have LESS of an adventurous time than Paul!
I’ll be teaching a Bible Study on board the ship about the life and journeys of Paul. In addition, I am escorting our group on special tours of Ephesus, Corinth, and Athens. The Galaxy will also be stopping at other ports including Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Istanbul and Naples.
I’ve been to Israel 16 times and I love taking people to stand in the very places where so many Bible events occurred. One of the my greatest joys is watching the expressions on the faces of people as they realize they’re standing where Jesus stood. From that point on, they will always have a visual frame of reference for the events described in the Gospels. This is my first trip retracing some of the steps of Paul, so I’m hoping to learn a lot. Depending on internet availability, I’ll be posting several blogs about our trip.
In preparation for this trip, I’ve been devoting some extra study into the life of Paul and I’ve fallen in love again with this amazing servant. Some historians claim that, excluding Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul was the most influential person in human history. Certainly, his impact on Western Civilization is immeasurable.
Have you ever wondered about Paul’s appearance? There is an apocryphal description of the physical appearance of Paul found in a document called “The Acts of Paul and Thecla.” This document is uninspired, unauthoritative, and contains teaching contrary to scripture, so we don’t know if this somewhat famous description is pure fiction or based on an eyewitness account. With that disclaimer, it’s still interesting to read:
“A man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace. For sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.”
If I had to proffer an opinion, I’d guess that it’s probably accurate because if someone was going to fabricate a physical description, wouldn’t they make Paul sound a little more attractive? He doesn’t exactly sound like a candidate for the cover of GQ!
In our beauty-obsessed culture, I wonder how well Paul would have been received by Americans today. Americans want their leaders to be handsome. I’ve tried to get my friend, U.S. Representative, Louie Gohmert, to run for President, and he always laughs and says, “Do you know how long it’s been since Americans elected a bald president?” Hmmm let’s see, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, FORD? (We didn’t elect him) Nixon, LBJ, Kennedy…and the winner is: IKE. (So what does that say about Rudi, John, and Fred?)
My point is, do you think Paul would have gained the eye of a pastor selection committee? I can just hear the committee discussing their candidates and someone says, “Oh, was he the short, bald guy with the big nose and the unibrow?”
No, we don’t know what Paul really looked like, but we do know that he had problems with illness and weakness. The beauty of God’s plan is that He can use a tall, handsome man with piercing eyes like Billy Graham ….He just has to work a little harder. God delights to use the weak, the ignorant, the ugly, those who stutter...in other words, the LEAST likely candidates! Aren’t you glad that “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart?” Paul might have been short and ugly in the eyes of people, but today he stands as A GIANT on God’s list of servants.
So, friend, Paul should remind us that God can use YOU in spite of your mistakes, your appearance, or your faults. Don Francisco has a great song about how God used Balaam’s donkey. He concludes the song with these profoundly funny words:
THE LORD’S THE ONE WHO MAKES THE CHOICE
OF THE INSTRUMENT HE’S USING.
WE DON’T KNOW THE REASONS
NOR THE RHYMES BEHIND HIS CHOOSING.
SO IF THE LORD STARTS TO USIN’ YOU
DON’T YOU PAY IT ANY MIND.
HE COULD HAVE USED THE DOG NEXT DOOR
IF HE’D BEEN SO INCLINED!
PS The painting of Paul being blinded by Christ’s presence is by the Italian artist, Carravagio: “The Conversion on the Way to Damascus.”
