But God's Word is Not Chained

     This thing, this burning, it has been with me from the beginning. The road to Damascus there is where it all began... still new and unfolding even here in this cold and dark world I find myself in.  I am chained now for the second time.  This time harsher and more restrictive than the first.  Even my friends whom I called friends have deserted me.  Those who are seen with me are criminals too.  Those who ran must have been ashamed, but I, I am not ashamed of the Gospel.
     For to me it was revealed that now I have run the last course of the race and am to be offered up in a few hours.  A spectacle awaits me.  Leering faces harsh taunts from those I do not know.  Caesars friends...not mine...not my King either.  This is why I am here.  I am now an affront to the "Roman Empire."  For thirty years I was stoned by my own countrymen, beaten and shipwrecked and the Romans just looked the other way.  Now we are hundreds of thousands spread out throughout the Empire and now a threat to Nero himself.  WE are those who love one another? Why can't they see it? It is the ultimate offering, to love one another as he first loved us!  But this is insidious, political and an evil than runs the course through mens hearts and opposes God himself.  Vanity and exaltation to the highest heavens the Last Great Empire of Daniel's Golden Statue.  This is what God will tear down and use us, a lowly people to do it.  This is what Nero fears most,,,he is already judged, he is crazy.
     Fire swept the streets last night and I was told that widespread panic gripped the whole city.  Everyone was in fear of his life.  I am told we Christians are to blame.
     I sit in chains but God's word is never chained, it goes where it will, plants seeds in the hardest of ground and blossoms fruit the world hates.  That is why I will gladly give myself to the blade.  It is Christ in me that lives and not I!
     So many years ago I watched a young man get stoned to death with a smile on his face!  Stephen.  A man I hope to meet tomorrow. A man I need forgiveness from.  A man that I had incited others to kill!  I deeply regret this.  Perhaps he was me. How could I have known?
     My feet are cold and unwrapped, my hands and wrists raw from being manacled to this wall day in and day out.  My eyes, well they are of no use to me at all.  Just as well not likely to see anything worthwhile now.
   My hope is in Christ and Timothy he is the one who will run for me now.   I am spent......and my crown awaits me....

                       St. Paul.
                       from a Roman Prison.