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.

It was very different for him, going to Jerusalem now from what it had been for the fifteen-year-old boy the first time he went. Now he was going, not for a few years, but for life. Now he was setting his hand to carry out the great dreams and hopes of his life. Now he was leaving his mother, perhaps for the last time. His father would still continue to go to the Passover and Saul would perhaps see him there, but his mother would never leave home again and it would surely be many years before he would come back through the mountain-gate, or up the Cydnus River, to his birth-place. Nobody knows just what goes on in a young man’s heart when he takes this great venture and pushes out from the home he loves to begin his real life in the strange and difficult world, where some succeed and where some fail, where some keep pure and good, and where some go wrong.

Many things seemed to have changed in Jerusalem during the short period since Saul had left it. Everybody was talking of the strange events that had taken place recently. A new people had appeared in the city. They called themselves “the people of the way,” or “those of the way,” or “those of Jesus’ way.” Others called them “Galileans,” or “Nazarenes.” They were men and women who believed that Jesus the great Teacher of Galilee was the Messiah and they declared that He was still alive and would soon return to be king and lord. They were growing fast in numbers and spreading in every part of the city. They met every day from house to house and ate their evening meal together in great joy and fellowship. They took care of all their poor people and their sick and they shared everything they had with one another as though they were all brothers and belonged to one great family.

The rulers in Jerusalem, however, did not like to see them spreading through the city. They watched them carefully and arrested the leaders when they found them doing anything to attract attention or trying to get others to join them. They did not like to be told that the person they had Pilate crucify was the Messiah, or that He was raised from the dead and was now alive. It was easy to see that there was sure to be trouble in Jerusalem, if these people went on increasing and if they would not keep quiet.

There were some of “those of the way” in the Synagogue where Saul was to be Rabbi. They were always ready to talk about their wonderful Teacher, who had been crucified and they were eager to prove that He was the real Messiah that had been so long expected. Saul thought he could very soon teach them sense and show them how foolish they were. He would quickly prove to them that Jesus could not be the Messiah, for the Messiah would surely never be crucified! He would come in splendour and glory, and if the Romans tried to crucify Him He would call down from heaven an army of angels and destroy all His enemies in a moment! And He would break the Roman Empire all to pieces, as one breaks an old jar of pottery. It would be only a few days, Saul felt sure, when he would be able to stop all this talk about a crucified Messiah. He would argue them down and make them ashamed to say such things any more. But Saul did not know how hard his task really was. He was to discover that some things in this world cannot be hushed up, or argued down!