Excerpts from A Wretched Man

 

JERUSALEM ARRIVAL

Paulos departed Damascus reluctantly but journeyed toward Jerusalem eagerly. His long postponed pilgrimage was at hand. For the first time, he would behold Jerusalem: the mother city, the dwelling place of the Lord, Mount Zion, the scene of the crucifixion of the Christos, and the hub for his followers. A pilgrim’s heart beat a hurried cadence to his long strides as he journeyed southward along the well-traveled road from Damascus to Jerusalem. Read More

 

RETURN TO ANTIOCH AFTER SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY

The merchant galley sliced smartly through the waves, a steady wind astern. Fair winds and following seas—that was the joy of sailing with the prevailing westerlies on the Great Sea. The successful missionaries had retraced their path to Perga and booked sea passage back to Antioch a year after they had departed their home in the city on the Orontes.
Read More

 

CORINTH ARRIVAL

“Not everyone is able to go to Corinth.” That was the saying around the Aegean Sea. The bustling commercial city, known officially as Colonia laus Iulia Corinthiensis, overlooked the shipping lanes between east and west. The Romans had destroyed the Greek city two centuries earlier, but Julius Caesar rebuilt it and repopulated it with a mixture of Romans, Greeks, Jews and émigrés from around the Empire. A polyglot harbor proletariat of dockyard workers and ship’s crews added to the overall heady mix of the city. Read More