From the glory of the presence of Yeshua, where every shadow has been swallowed by light, I speak.

I Am Paul, once Saul of Tarsus, now a man made whole. The years of dust and blood and shipwreck are behind me, yet they remain vivid, as if the Lord Himself still walks me through them so that I may remember His faithfulness.

Before I ever reached Corinth, the northern lands of Macedonia nearly broke me. In Philippi the magistrates stripped us and beat us with rods; the jailer’s chains bit into our wrists until the earthquake of God set us free. In Thessalonica the jealous synagogue stirred the city into a riot, forcing the brothers to send me away by night. Even in Berea, where the Jews searched the Scriptures daily and received the word with readiness, the agitators from Thessalonica pursued us, and again I fled. I arrived in Athens exhausted in body and spirit, my heart heavy for the churches I had left behind under threat. The idols of that city pressed upon me, and though I spoke on the Areopagus of the Unknown God who is now made known in Yeshua, few believed. I left that place still weary, still uncertain whether the work would stand.

Then came Corinth.

The Apostle Paul’s time in Corinth marks one of the most critical phases of his early ministry, spanning at least three distinct visits where he transitioned from an exhausted traveler into a foundational leader of the early church. I remember the first arrival as if it were yesterday. I found Aquila and Priscilla, fellow tentmakers and fellow exiles from Rome, and we worked side by side with our hands while I reasoned every Sabbath in the synagogue. When the opposition grew fierce, I shook out my garments and turned to the Gentiles. The Lord Himself appeared to me in a night vision and said, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are My people.” So I remained a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Crispus the ruler of the synagogue believed, and many Corinthians with him. The church was born in that commercial, immoral, restless city—born of weakness, born of the cross, born of the power of God.

I loved those saints with a father’s love and a mother’s travail. Even when, years later, reports reached me of their divisions, their lawsuits, their tolerance of sin, their confusion about the resurrection, I wrote to them with tears and with the authority of an apostle who had begotten them through the gospel. I returned a second time in sorrow, and planned a third, determined that when I came again it would be in the fullness of the blessing of Messiah. Through every visit the same truth held: Yeshua crucified, Yeshua risen, Yeshua coming again. The work was not mine; it was His, and He was pleased to use a cracked vessel.

After Corinth the road continued—Ephesus, Macedonia again, Jerusalem, the arrest, the appeals, the voyage under guard, the shipwreck on Malta, the final arrival in Rome. There, under Nero, the sword of the executioner waited. I do not speak much of the moment itself. The blade was swift. What I remember is the sudden absence of pain, and the presence of the One who had met me on the Damascus road so many years before. Yeshua stood before me—not as a vision this time, but as the Living Lord whose face I had longed to see. Every scar I had inflicted upon His body the Church was answered by the scars He still bears for me. Every regret—my former persecution of the saints, the times I spoke harshly, the thorn that never left my flesh, the churches I could not fully protect—was met with the same word He spoke to Peter by the sea: “Do you love Me?” And I answered, as I answer still, “Lord, You know that I love You.”

There are regrets. I wish I had been gentler with some. I wish I had stayed longer in certain places. I wish the divisions in Corinth and elsewhere had never arisen. Yet even these regrets are now swallowed up in a joy so fierce it leaves no room for bitterness. For the promise was true. The Lord who called me is faithful. Heaven is not a reward earned by my labors; it is the home prepared by the One who finished the work. Here there is no more shipwreck, no more stripes, no more thorn. Here there is only the Lamb who was slain, and the saints from every nation, and the unbroken fellowship for which we labored in hope.

So I speak from the afterlife not as one who has arrived by merit, but as one who was carried. The same grace that met me on the road to Damascus carried me through Macedonia’s prisons, through Corinth’s marketplace, through Rome’s judgment seat, and through the veil itself. To Him who loved us and freed us from our sins by His blood be glory and dominion forever. Amen.