I Tertius, The Writer Of This Letter
Stories
Contents
"I Tertius, the Writer of this Letter" by David O. Bales
"Gathered in My Name" by Craig Kelly
* * * * * * * *
I Tertius, the Writer of this Letter
by David O. Bales
Romans 13:8-14
Tertius, a third born son, had the best of luck, so his friend Ploution said. Tertius, as the third son, had little chance for an education and less for wealth. His two older brothers would receive everything. However, as Ploution pointed out, the storm that took his brothers' lives at sea was responsible for Tertius' learning his letters, which allowed him to be a scribe, even though five years later, when he was finally prepared for life as an educated gentleman, his father's final gamble in the shipping business sank in a grain ship from Egypt.
Ploution, who didn't feel fortunate, still compared himself to Tertius. "You stay indoors when it rains. You sit under the trees and copy when the weather is good. You don't have to dash out in the cold or heat to convey a few papyrus bundles from one businessman to another. You don't have to stow in a ship's hull or walk for a week and ford streams. Did you know that sometimes I also have to carry heavy packages?"
At the direction of Ploution Tertius attempted to feel content. Contentment, however, always escaped him. Yes, he had a home, although his mother was dead and his father, now in financial ruin, seemed ready to share his wife's grave within the year. Yes, he never lacked for food, although it was now barley bread instead of the fine wheat bread he grew up eating. And lately he'd been retained by a new employer who allowed him to apply his learning instead of merely spending endless days copying someone else's writing. He was enlisted as scribe for one Paulos of Tarsus.
Paulos seemed strange to Tertius. His dictation wandered all over a column of papyrus. Paulos paced back and forth in front of Tertius, spouted another phrase or sentence, stopped and said, "No, drop that," or "read back that last bit." After a month of trying to get the man's words into final form, Tertius was exhausted. Yet, Paulos seemed as fresh after each day's intellectual labor as when he started, actually thrilled by uttering words and ideas.
"I saw you and that Tarsian yesterday," Ploution said as he took another drink of his sour wine. He and Tertius, having worked from dawn until dusk, reclined in the tavern. "You were looking down at the papyrus sheet on your thigh and scribbling like mad. You didn't even hear me running on the other side of the apple tree. "What's he like, Paulos who owns your ear and hand?"
"He treats me fairly," Tertius said. "Even asks help choosing a word or phrase. He's got a lot of believers around him, coming and going. He treats them like apprentices but better than I've seen anyone treat an apprentice." Tertius paused with his bowl near his lips. "But he's exacting. When I get the strike-outs corrected and the inter-linear scratches composed into an adequate document, then he fiddles with it. It's some pretty tough philosophy. A couple times he's stopped and said, 'Do you understand what I'm saying? This is about your eternal life.' "
"You're kidding me," Ploution said.
"He's dead serious. It's about a preacher in Judea -- southwest side of the inner sea who was executed by the Romans, crucifixion. Paulos argues he didn't stay dead."
"Garbage!" Ploution said.
"Maybe to you but such rubbish produces the best money I've ever earned."
"I've always said you were fortunate," Ploution said, spilling wine in his laughter. "You're set for a life of wealth and luxury."
"Not from him," Tertius sighed. "He doesn't stay long anywhere, a couple years at the most. He won't stay long here. All he prattles about is journeying to Spain. First he's going back to Judea to deliver money for their poor."
"There's a job I can help with," Ploution said, taking another drink and falling on his side laughing.
"He's generous. I remind myself of that when he's wearing out my fingers and contributing to my fuzzy eye-sight."
Tertius continued three more months as scribe for Paulos. Ploution could tell, from their evening chats, that the loyal listening of Tertius as a scribe was moving toward personal loyalty to Paulos. One day Ploution stopped to see Tertius. First he sidled up to one of the believers, "Why does your teacher hire an unbeliever to write for him when some of you could do it?" No one knew why.
"He pays well," Tertius repeated to Ploution that evening in the tavern, "but he won't stop badgering me about his faith." Ploution, however, didn't hear Tertius. He'd fallen asleep.
A few weeks later Paulos began composing a letter to Christians in Rome. Now he stopped after each idea and commented to Tertius about how the message of Jesus' resurrection was for everyone.
Late one afternoon, Paulos dictated what later was designated Romans 13:8-14. Paulos fell quiet and Tertius realized Paulos was staring at him. "What?" he asked.
"It's for you, Tertius. This isn't just where my letter leads. This is where God's message in Christ leads: To you."
For generations to come Christians have wondered about the only one of Paul the apostle's secretaries who signed his work. The signature was a statement of faith, "I Tertius, the writer of this letter" (Romans 16:22).
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years, a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary. In addition to his ministry he also has taught college: World Religions, Ethics, Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek (lately at College of Idaho, Caldwell). He has been a freelance writer for Stephen Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Interpretation, Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching the Great Texts and other publications. For a year he wrote the online column "In The Original: Insights from Greek and Hebrew for the Lectionary Passages." His books include: Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace, Toward Easter and Beyond, Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story, and To the Cross and Beyond: Cycle A Sermons for Lent and Easter. Dave has been a writer for StoryShare for five years. He can be reached at dobales.com.
Gathered in My Name
by Craig Kelly
Matthew 18:15-20
It had started out as a great day. The Tigers played a great game, their starter pitching a complete game shutout against the White Sox. As part of a day out with the grandkids, they wandered through the ballpark, taking in the baseball museum, riding the Ferris wheel, and enjoying a Coney dog or two. All in all, a great day.
He was walking with his grandsons beside Ford Field, their Tigers pennants still being waved around in the air. Obviously they hadn't come down from their high of seeing an actual Major League Baseball game yet.
And then, as they approached the parking garage....
He first noticed the pain and tightness in his chest. Then his vision started to blur. He couldn't breathe. He thought he felt his knees hit the pavement. As he blacked out, he felt himself falling forward.
He never felt the impact of the pavement.
* * *
"We managed to get his heart beating again. However, your father's brain was deprived of oxygen," the doctor said sadly. "He's slipped into a coma. I wish I could say he'll come out of it, but experience has shown me that patients in his condition very rarely recover."
Tears streamed down her face as she held her son close to her. As soon as he had seen his grandfather collapse, he had grabbed his grandfather's cell phone and dialed 911. Even as quickly as the paramedics had arrived, it had appeared the damage had been done. He had a deathly pallor about him as he lay motionless in the hospital bed.
"What are we gonna do, Mom? Is Grandpa gonna be okay?" the younger child asked.
"I don't know, baby," his mom replied. "We've got to pray." She knelt down, wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked her son in his face. "Can you pray for Grandpa?"
The boy silently nodded, still holding his pennant.
* * *
Dear Lord, I pray right now for my father. God, they're saying it doesn't look good. I don't know what else to do but I come to you and plead for him right now. Please touch his body. Help him to open his eyes and see us and talk to us again. Lord, he loves you so much, and I know you love him, too. Please, God, in Jesus' name, help him.
* * *
God, I pray for my friend's dad. I know what it's like to lose a father to a heart attack, and I pray that he will recover and she'll be spared that pain. Lord, I know you're bigger than doctor's reports, and you're bigger than sickness itself. Please touch him now, Lord, and help him to live out all his days. In Jesus' name, amen.
* * *
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for the patient in 7B23 right now. After spending time with that man's family, I know that this is a man who loves you very much, as does his family. I see so much death here in pastoral care and I know that all life is in your hands, but I pray that you would let this family see your healing power displayed in this man that it would be a testimony to all that know him. I pray that you would be glorified in this man's life even more. In Christ's name, Amen.
* * *
Dear Father, I pray for George, that you would minister to his body and heal him, in Jesus' name. He's been a wonderful neighbor and an even better witness for you all the years that I've known him. Forgive me for not taking the time to talk with him more. I know he's an amazing man of God, and I know your eye is continually on him. You love him with an everlasting love, and I pray that you would show that love in his life by healing his body right now. Let there be no brain damage, in Jesus' name. I thank you for what you're doing and what you're going to do. In Jesus' name, Amen.
* * *
God, please heal Grandpa and help him to wake up and not be sick anymore. Amen.
* * *
The eye flicker was so faint, it was hard to see it at first. The soft groan was what first got everyone's attention. Slowly, his eyelid raised showing eyes that no one had seen for three days.
"Dad? Dad, can you hear me?"
More groans.
"Dad, it's Jamie. Can you hear me?"
Another groan. Finally, words started coming out, soft and raspy. "Jamie?...The kids... the kids okay?"
Jamie covered her mouth, stifling the ecstatic scream that wanted to burst out of her mouth. "They're... they're fine," she managed to say. "I've got to let someone know." Hurriedly she ran from the room. "Doctor! Doctor!"
The youngest of the two Tigers fans pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and then climbed on it, letting him look his grandfather in the face.
"Grandpa? You okay?"
George's eyes started to come into focus. His mouth curled into a small smile seeing his grandson. His voice was still weak, but he managed to speak.
"How bout... that pitcher for the Tigers?"
Craig Kelly writes copy for CSS Publishing Company in Lima, Ohio.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 4, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"I Tertius, the Writer of this Letter" by David O. Bales
"Gathered in My Name" by Craig Kelly
* * * * * * * *
I Tertius, the Writer of this Letter
by David O. Bales
Romans 13:8-14
Tertius, a third born son, had the best of luck, so his friend Ploution said. Tertius, as the third son, had little chance for an education and less for wealth. His two older brothers would receive everything. However, as Ploution pointed out, the storm that took his brothers' lives at sea was responsible for Tertius' learning his letters, which allowed him to be a scribe, even though five years later, when he was finally prepared for life as an educated gentleman, his father's final gamble in the shipping business sank in a grain ship from Egypt.
Ploution, who didn't feel fortunate, still compared himself to Tertius. "You stay indoors when it rains. You sit under the trees and copy when the weather is good. You don't have to dash out in the cold or heat to convey a few papyrus bundles from one businessman to another. You don't have to stow in a ship's hull or walk for a week and ford streams. Did you know that sometimes I also have to carry heavy packages?"
At the direction of Ploution Tertius attempted to feel content. Contentment, however, always escaped him. Yes, he had a home, although his mother was dead and his father, now in financial ruin, seemed ready to share his wife's grave within the year. Yes, he never lacked for food, although it was now barley bread instead of the fine wheat bread he grew up eating. And lately he'd been retained by a new employer who allowed him to apply his learning instead of merely spending endless days copying someone else's writing. He was enlisted as scribe for one Paulos of Tarsus.
Paulos seemed strange to Tertius. His dictation wandered all over a column of papyrus. Paulos paced back and forth in front of Tertius, spouted another phrase or sentence, stopped and said, "No, drop that," or "read back that last bit." After a month of trying to get the man's words into final form, Tertius was exhausted. Yet, Paulos seemed as fresh after each day's intellectual labor as when he started, actually thrilled by uttering words and ideas.
"I saw you and that Tarsian yesterday," Ploution said as he took another drink of his sour wine. He and Tertius, having worked from dawn until dusk, reclined in the tavern. "You were looking down at the papyrus sheet on your thigh and scribbling like mad. You didn't even hear me running on the other side of the apple tree. "What's he like, Paulos who owns your ear and hand?"
"He treats me fairly," Tertius said. "Even asks help choosing a word or phrase. He's got a lot of believers around him, coming and going. He treats them like apprentices but better than I've seen anyone treat an apprentice." Tertius paused with his bowl near his lips. "But he's exacting. When I get the strike-outs corrected and the inter-linear scratches composed into an adequate document, then he fiddles with it. It's some pretty tough philosophy. A couple times he's stopped and said, 'Do you understand what I'm saying? This is about your eternal life.' "
"You're kidding me," Ploution said.
"He's dead serious. It's about a preacher in Judea -- southwest side of the inner sea who was executed by the Romans, crucifixion. Paulos argues he didn't stay dead."
"Garbage!" Ploution said.
"Maybe to you but such rubbish produces the best money I've ever earned."
"I've always said you were fortunate," Ploution said, spilling wine in his laughter. "You're set for a life of wealth and luxury."
"Not from him," Tertius sighed. "He doesn't stay long anywhere, a couple years at the most. He won't stay long here. All he prattles about is journeying to Spain. First he's going back to Judea to deliver money for their poor."
"There's a job I can help with," Ploution said, taking another drink and falling on his side laughing.
"He's generous. I remind myself of that when he's wearing out my fingers and contributing to my fuzzy eye-sight."
Tertius continued three more months as scribe for Paulos. Ploution could tell, from their evening chats, that the loyal listening of Tertius as a scribe was moving toward personal loyalty to Paulos. One day Ploution stopped to see Tertius. First he sidled up to one of the believers, "Why does your teacher hire an unbeliever to write for him when some of you could do it?" No one knew why.
"He pays well," Tertius repeated to Ploution that evening in the tavern, "but he won't stop badgering me about his faith." Ploution, however, didn't hear Tertius. He'd fallen asleep.
A few weeks later Paulos began composing a letter to Christians in Rome. Now he stopped after each idea and commented to Tertius about how the message of Jesus' resurrection was for everyone.
Late one afternoon, Paulos dictated what later was designated Romans 13:8-14. Paulos fell quiet and Tertius realized Paulos was staring at him. "What?" he asked.
"It's for you, Tertius. This isn't just where my letter leads. This is where God's message in Christ leads: To you."
For generations to come Christians have wondered about the only one of Paul the apostle's secretaries who signed his work. The signature was a statement of faith, "I Tertius, the writer of this letter" (Romans 16:22).
David Bales was a Presbyterian pastor for 33 years, a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary. In addition to his ministry he also has taught college: World Religions, Ethics, Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek (lately at College of Idaho, Caldwell). He has been a freelance writer for Stephen Ministries. His sermons and articles have appeared in Interpretation, Lectionary Homiletics, Preaching the Great Texts and other publications. For a year he wrote the online column "In The Original: Insights from Greek and Hebrew for the Lectionary Passages." His books include: Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace, Toward Easter and Beyond, Scenes of Glory: Subplots of God's Long Story, and To the Cross and Beyond: Cycle A Sermons for Lent and Easter. Dave has been a writer for StoryShare for five years. He can be reached at dobales.com.
Gathered in My Name
by Craig Kelly
Matthew 18:15-20
It had started out as a great day. The Tigers played a great game, their starter pitching a complete game shutout against the White Sox. As part of a day out with the grandkids, they wandered through the ballpark, taking in the baseball museum, riding the Ferris wheel, and enjoying a Coney dog or two. All in all, a great day.
He was walking with his grandsons beside Ford Field, their Tigers pennants still being waved around in the air. Obviously they hadn't come down from their high of seeing an actual Major League Baseball game yet.
And then, as they approached the parking garage....
He first noticed the pain and tightness in his chest. Then his vision started to blur. He couldn't breathe. He thought he felt his knees hit the pavement. As he blacked out, he felt himself falling forward.
He never felt the impact of the pavement.
* * *
"We managed to get his heart beating again. However, your father's brain was deprived of oxygen," the doctor said sadly. "He's slipped into a coma. I wish I could say he'll come out of it, but experience has shown me that patients in his condition very rarely recover."
Tears streamed down her face as she held her son close to her. As soon as he had seen his grandfather collapse, he had grabbed his grandfather's cell phone and dialed 911. Even as quickly as the paramedics had arrived, it had appeared the damage had been done. He had a deathly pallor about him as he lay motionless in the hospital bed.
"What are we gonna do, Mom? Is Grandpa gonna be okay?" the younger child asked.
"I don't know, baby," his mom replied. "We've got to pray." She knelt down, wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked her son in his face. "Can you pray for Grandpa?"
The boy silently nodded, still holding his pennant.
* * *
Dear Lord, I pray right now for my father. God, they're saying it doesn't look good. I don't know what else to do but I come to you and plead for him right now. Please touch his body. Help him to open his eyes and see us and talk to us again. Lord, he loves you so much, and I know you love him, too. Please, God, in Jesus' name, help him.
* * *
God, I pray for my friend's dad. I know what it's like to lose a father to a heart attack, and I pray that he will recover and she'll be spared that pain. Lord, I know you're bigger than doctor's reports, and you're bigger than sickness itself. Please touch him now, Lord, and help him to live out all his days. In Jesus' name, amen.
* * *
Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for the patient in 7B23 right now. After spending time with that man's family, I know that this is a man who loves you very much, as does his family. I see so much death here in pastoral care and I know that all life is in your hands, but I pray that you would let this family see your healing power displayed in this man that it would be a testimony to all that know him. I pray that you would be glorified in this man's life even more. In Christ's name, Amen.
* * *
Dear Father, I pray for George, that you would minister to his body and heal him, in Jesus' name. He's been a wonderful neighbor and an even better witness for you all the years that I've known him. Forgive me for not taking the time to talk with him more. I know he's an amazing man of God, and I know your eye is continually on him. You love him with an everlasting love, and I pray that you would show that love in his life by healing his body right now. Let there be no brain damage, in Jesus' name. I thank you for what you're doing and what you're going to do. In Jesus' name, Amen.
* * *
God, please heal Grandpa and help him to wake up and not be sick anymore. Amen.
* * *
The eye flicker was so faint, it was hard to see it at first. The soft groan was what first got everyone's attention. Slowly, his eyelid raised showing eyes that no one had seen for three days.
"Dad? Dad, can you hear me?"
More groans.
"Dad, it's Jamie. Can you hear me?"
Another groan. Finally, words started coming out, soft and raspy. "Jamie?...The kids... the kids okay?"
Jamie covered her mouth, stifling the ecstatic scream that wanted to burst out of her mouth. "They're... they're fine," she managed to say. "I've got to let someone know." Hurriedly she ran from the room. "Doctor! Doctor!"
The youngest of the two Tigers fans pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and then climbed on it, letting him look his grandfather in the face.
"Grandpa? You okay?"
George's eyes started to come into focus. His mouth curled into a small smile seeing his grandson. His voice was still weak, but he managed to speak.
"How bout... that pitcher for the Tigers?"
Craig Kelly writes copy for CSS Publishing Company in Lima, Ohio.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 4, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
