in more recent times, Paul’s most trusted personal emissary. Although his mother was Jewish, his father was Greek, so Timothy was not raised as a Jew; yet at Paul’s suggestion he had been circumcised as an adult in order to help him gain acceptance with the Jews in Asia—something I surely would never have done! All of the elders in Ephesus and elsewhere in Asia looked upon Timothy as a pillar of the faith, despite his relative youth. How did they look at me, I wondered?
Still, the thought of helping to write an exposition of the Lord’s teachings did appeal to me, and I let myself dare to imagine that I might have been called to do exactly this. As a Jew, I understood the importance of the scriptures. Since the Diaspora throughout the Greek world, the Jewish religion was of necessity the religion of a book. John the Baptist aside, no true prophet had appeared in Israel for centuries, yet it was the written word, and the law given to Moses, which had served as the linchpin of Jewish belief, study and worship throughout the Mediterranean world for centuries. The Torah, the Nevi’im and the Kethuvim, as well as scholarly commentaries and interpretations of them, were central to being a Jew, particularly a Pharisaic Jew, and it was difficult for me to imagine religious life without them. In time, similar writings could be equally central to the religious life of a Christian. But was I truly fit for so important a task?
Timothy’s return to the ship interrupted my thoughts. “We are to sleep on board tonight, Mark,” he called. “If you need to stretch your legs ashore, now is the time.”
“In a minute,” I replied. “First, I must ask something of you.”
“What is it?”
“Pray with me, Timothy. Pray with me for the strength to hold fast to the service of the Lord.”
Timothy looked genuinely concerned. “Tell me what is troubling you,” he urged as he sat on the deck next to me. “I can see in your countenance that there is turmoil in your soul.”
“The turmoil is in my mind more than my soul, Timothy. You know that I am given to doubts, to questions about the salvation we have received in the Lord. I have this consuming need to understand it in logical terms, to have it all make sense, to have it be rational. Yet faith and rationality seem with me always to be at odds, always incompatible. Constantly I am looking for proof. If God is testing me, I confess I am acquitting myself poorly!”
“One’s beliefs would hardly be a matter of ‘faith’ if precise proof were readily available, would it? No matter; tell me what you do believe to be absolutely true. Perhaps we can build from there.”
“I believe that God is One: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He who created the Universe. I believe that He has given the Law through Moses to a chosen people with the free will to accept it or reject it. I believe that His covenant with Israel was that there would be a reward reserved for those who live according to His will. I believe that He has appointed Jesus of Nazareth as His anointed one, to institute a new covenant, one which is written on the hearts of men. I believe that God’s promised deliverance of Israel from its sufferings has occurred in His vindication of Jesus as the suffering representative of Israel, that He has raised Jesus from the dead as proof that the new covenant he has brought to us is indeed the way to eternal life. I believe that the new covenant is inclusive of Jews and Gentiles alike. And I believe that God will keep His end of the covenant and gather for eternity all those who have kept their end.”
“And of what are you uncertain?”
“Of the precise terms of this new covenant. Of the continuing value of Jewish law. Of the nature of Jesus and his relation to God. Of the Messiah’s rule, as prophesied. Of a hundred things, Timothy! I have so many more questions than answers.”
“Then we shall endeavor to explore those questions and answers together. But tell me this first, Mark. When you first came to believe, did you not feel the joy, the transforming power of God’s love in the very depths of your being?”
“I did indeed!”
“Then use that feeling as your guide for what is true. Our bodies and souls do not lie to us. If an answer feels right in that same way, if it gives you that same sense in the depths of your being of something true, you must promise me you will not reject it merely because you lack sufficient other evidence from which a logical or rational proof may be drawn. Are we agreed on this?”
“Yes, yes, agreed! Oh Timothy, I had so hoped to discuss these things with you on the voyage. Thank you! This will be most appreciated!” I could hardly contain my excitement. “Where shall we begin?”
“With that prayer you asked for,” Timothy replied in his usual calming manner. “And a good night’s sleep.”
Chapter 4
I awoke to the stirring of the crew as it made ready for our departure. We were heading southwest for Melos, an island with a tragic history. As recounted by Thucydides, Melos had initially been sympathetic to Sparta during the Peloponnesian war. The Athenians sent envoys to Melos to persuade them to fight instead with Athens, or else be annihilated by superior numbers. When the Melians offered instead to remain neutral, the Athenians besieged the island, massacred the men, enslaved and deported the women and children, and resettled the island with Athenian colonists.
Sitting in the stern as we got underway, I could still feel the rise and fall of the ship, although much less than in the bow. A few meters away Timothy was already talking about the Way to one of the passengers, a Cretan merchant whom we had met the day before. Saving souls was never far from Timothy’s mind at any time of the day or night.
At length Timothy finished the conversation by embracing the man, and then turned back toward me with a nod and a smile. “This man knows Titus and some of the faithful in Crete. By God’s grace, he is coming to believe! I must write Titus to welcome him on his return. That, however, can wait until after we eat; I am starved!”
We made ourselves as comfortable as possible, and over our breakfast of wheat cakes and pears, I could barely wait to open the conversation we had started the previous day. But Timothy was his usual relaxed and unhurried self. At last he seemed ready to talk. “All right, Mark. Where shall we begin?”
“Let us speak first of the new covenant, the one foretold by Jeremiah. What are the details of this promise by God, and what performance does He require of us in order to obtain it?”
“Mark, you seem to want to define all the terms of this new covenant as though it were a contract produced by many lawyers! Let us simplify the question if we can. Is your question not simply this: what must one do in order to be saved?”
“That does capture the kernel of my meaning, yes.”
“And should we not first define salvation, define being ‘saved,’ before we attempt to answer this question?”
“I agree.”
“I think you have touched on the meaning already, Mark: eternal life with God. Is that not what you meant—life eternal, precisely as our Lord has promised?”
“It is. Of course I still expect to die one day, but the hope of a life after death, at least in a spiritual if not physical realm, in a paradise of joy and happiness with God and His angels—that is what I mean.”
“You say the hope of eternal life, Mark—not the certainty of it. Are you unsure whether your soul is immortal?”
“As a matter of pure logic, I confess I am unsure. I struggle even with the notion of a soul as existing
