Wherever You Go

60 years ago, in my seminary bookstore, I picked up a little volume entitled,Light on the Path. The stated purpose of the book is to help young pastors maintain their facility in the biblical languages in the face of the time-pressures of pastoral ministry.  Each day the book offers an Old Testament Hebrew text and an analogous New Testament Greek text, both of which we are encouraged to translate and ponder.

 

Here are the texts I found in this morning's readings and, with apologies to my old Greek and Hebrew professors, my translation:

 

Joshua 1:9

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong, take courage. Don’t be terrified, and don’t be shaken, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

 

Acts 28:15

"And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Appian Market and the Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage."

 

The author’s daily juxtaposition of the two verses is usually insightful, but, I asked myself, what on earth do these verses have in common?

 

Well...let’s look first at the Acts text and Luke's account of Paul's journey to Rome. Midway through the story, Luke informs us that Paul and his shipmates, having wintered on Malta, sailed on to Syracuse in Sicily, then to Reggio on the toe of the boot of Italy and finally up the west coast of Italy to the Bay of Naples. From there they faced an overland journey of 116 miles to Rome.

 

Paul had written a year or so before that he planned to visit Rome and the Christians there were awaiting his arrival. When they heard that he reached Naples, they dispatched a party down the Appian Way to meet him. Some traveled as far as the Three Taverns, on the 33rd milestone from Rome. Others trudged on to the Market of Appius on the 43rd milestone. (Somewhat like walking down Highway 84 from Boise, Idaho to Ontario, Oregon.)

 

In Paul’s day the region around Three Taverns and the Appian Market was an inhospitable bog much like Florida’s Okefenokee Swamp. Horace, a Roman Lyric poet who wrote 50 years before Luke, offered a lively picture of the discomforts of the region, mentioning the lack of adequate sleeping accommodations, the intolerable drinking water, the mosquitos, gnats and frogs which were "enemies to repose," and the exasperating procrastination of muleteers that dragged their boats through the swampy marsh  (Satires 1:5). Nevertheless, out of their love for Paul, this small party of Roman Christians trudged on.

 

Paul himself, having suffered ship wreck, snake bite and a dozen other indignities on his voyage must have approached the city of Rome with trepidation. He must appear before Nero’s tribunal. Would he be set free, or would he face imprisonment and death? 

 

Then he saw his friends in the distance, making their way toward him. "On seeing them,” Luke tells us, “Paul thanked God and took courage."

 

Quite often, God’s promise to “go with us wherever we go,” (Joshua 1:9) is best seen in the faces of brothers and sisters who, at considerable cost to themselves, come to walk with us through our troubles (Acts 18:15). We can thank God that He sends them and take courage from their love.

 

David Roper

6.29.21