I’m in awe! I’ve begun tutoring an adult student who recently arrived in the US from a war-battered country. He wants to learn English (well, American)! From scratch! But not only is it a new language he needs to acquire, but a new alphabet to decipher for reading and writing. There are new sounds to pronounce, a whole new vocabulary to master, mind-bending grammar rules, plus thousands of aggravating exceptions (not always mastered by native speakers!). And then, there are regional accents and ever-present colloquialisms mixed in. Like I said, I’m in awe!
I think this is not so different from Apostle Paul’s experience post-Damascus Road. He had perfected Judaism à la Pharisee University. All the laws and requirements were uppermost in his mind. Per his own testimony, he was without peer in his religious studies and practices. His knowledge of, and memorization of, Scripture was astonishing.
Then the brakes were suddenly applied, the reality that Jesus Christ, the Nazarene was, indeed, the Long-awaited Messiah flooded his mind, unmooring his secure position in life, and leaving him undone, shattered. During his three days of blindness at the home of Judas, on the street called Straight, the full impact of this new understanding began to blossom in his heart. His life of prayer was in the very early stages of being re-shaped to make space for this new information.
So, John (called the Baptizer) was the true forerunner of the Messiah. The Messiah had truly walked among men as a man. He had shockingly come from, of all places, Galilee! His parents were not from an upstanding family of Pharisees. Was it possible the prophecies of old were made manifest in him? Could the Law have been misconstrued as Jesus claimed? Had he and the rest of the Pharisees become the equivalent of ‘white-washed tombs?’ Hypocrites? Preventers and not presenters of Truth? Could it be possible that God wasn’t looking for sacrifice as much as he desired their loving obedience? These questions, and hundreds more, were the debut of Paul’s study of Jesus-speak. Do you speak Jesus? PD
