Dan J.'s Thoughts for November 3, 2021

Along with his parents and younger sister Gabriella, he lived in one room of a farmer’s house, after several World War II battles had come far too close to the family’s two-room apartment in the city.  For a brief time, he expressed an interest in farming, but since he had had a dream of becoming a professional football (i.e., soccer) goalkeeper since early childhood, he decided to hone his athletic skills.  However, his mother had a different idea about her son’s career, and less than gently persuaded him to become a teacher.  For a while, he even tried his hand at insurance sales. 

But then, an astute music teacher saw — or rather, heard — something that led him to believe that the young man’s time would be far better spent in voice training. 

He was right; the athlete-farmer-teacher-salesman became one of the greatest opera tenors in history.  Luciano Pavarotti drew crowds by the thousands to hear his incredible voice, from the Met in New York to LaScala in Milan to the New National Theater in Tokyo — to say nothing of the millions who heard him on radio, TV, and cable.

I wonder what the apostle Paul’s parents (assuming they were still alive -- the Bible doesn't say) thought of their son’s first career choice, which was rather strange, given his outstanding academic credentials.  For he became a tentmaker, as reported by Luke in the book of Acts:

Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.  There he met a Jew named Aquila…who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius . . . ordered all Jews to leave Rome.  Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.

But why was Paul on the road to Corinth?  And why, for that matter, had he been in Athens?  Why was he not in Jerusalem? Surely there was enough business in Israel to support the tentmaking trade!  An even more important question underlying the matter of where Paul had been and where he was going is this:  Why was he not in Jerusalem’s Temple, dispensing wisdom, teaching the teachers, making a name for himself through his depth of knowledge of the Law and his razor-sharp intellect.

It was because by that time, Paul had found his true, lasting, and life-affirming goal — his ultimate, God- directed, God–ordained career:  that of being an itinerant Christian evangelist whose journeys led him and would continue to lead him all over the Near East, portions of southern Europe, and a part of Asia, as he professed the love and grace of the One he had once despised, but now embraced by faith.

It doesn't matter what your career happens to be; if you have been saved through the grace of God by trusting in the living Christ, your life can become one that honors the Lord through confessing your faith in him and through professing his love for you.