Apostles -- Biography -- Juvenile literature; Paul, the Apostle, Saint -- Juvenile literature
All through the quiet period in Tarsus while Saul was learning his trade
and living with his father and mother in the dear old home where he had
been a boy, he was wondering what his life was going to be. He always
felt, even as a little boy, that a great life-work lay before him. It
was too sacred and solemn to talk about and he did not tell even his
mother, but all the time, down deep in his soul, he dimly knew that he
was destined to have an unusual life and to do something signal and
wonderful. When he lay ill and everybody thought he would die, he felt
very sure that he was not going to die yet, for the great work of his
life was still to be done! He had often been in great danger, on his
journey up to Jerusalem and on the ship coming back to Tarsus, and many
times before he left home, but he always knew that somehow he would come
through the danger and be spared.
He was eager now to find his life-work and to start in on his great
career. He was, therefore, very happy when a traveller of his own race,
coming from the holy land, brought him a letter from the authorities in
Jerusalem saying that they had work for him to do in that city. They
wanted a young and learned Rabbi to teach the Jews living in Jerusalem
who spoke Greek and who were called “Hellenists.” There were, my readers
must know, two kinds of Jews. There were the Jews, first, who lived all
the time in Palestine. They could keep the law more perfectly and more
completely than other people could. They thought of themselves as the
truly real Jews and as the inner circle of God’s own people. Then,
secondly, there were the Jews who lived and did business in the great
cities of the Roman Empire—cities like Rome and Alexandria, and Ephesus
and Antioch and Philippi and Corinth and Tarsus. They could not keep
themselves as pure or as perfect as the Palestine Jews could, for they
had to meet and mingle with Gentiles who were not pure according to the
law and who defiled those that came in contact with them. Then, too,
these out-dwellers could not get to the temple very often to make
sacrifices and to keep the requirements of the law. They used the
language which the worldly people around them used. That was generally
Greek. They had their Scriptures translated into Greek and many of them
did not know and could not read Hebrew at all. But these Hellenists, or
Greek-speaking Jews, went up to Jerusalem as often as they could and
when it was possible for them to do so, they would stay in Jerusalem for
long periods in order to be near the temple. They had a synagogue of
their own in Jerusalem where they went for their lessons and for their
Sabbath services and where their little children were taught while the
parents were staying in Jerusalem. It was to this Synagogue that Saul,
the young Rabbi, was to go, to teach the Jews who came from all the
far-away countries to sojourn in Jerusalem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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