A Cell Call from Paul

Introduction

Contentment in Confinement

I’m a social person. I like to hang out with friends, meet new people, and make new friends. I had an excellent opportunity to be outgoing and social until the COVID-19 coronavirus hit our world. At that point, being alone at home became my new reality.

Like many, I found the time to get a few things done that had been waiting until I could find the time to complete them. So, I continued my work on this book, keeping my writing theme of taking the Bible personally. I believe the best-selling book in all of history reflects my life through the characters and the writing found inside the book. The inspiration for this selection came from a sermon series out of Ephesians in my home church. I shared the book’s premise with my friend Tim Turner, and he wondered if my inspiration might have been to write about Paul’s lockup during my lockdown. I told him it wasn’t but that I would steal his idea on the subject and use it anyway.

While Paul was under house arrest in Rome, he wrote letters to the people and churches where he had visited and ministered. Some theologians refer to these as the Prison Letters, which I, and my passion for wordplay, renamed “A Cell Call from Paul.” Paul, who had the blessing of prison doors opening up from an earthquake (Acts 16:25–26), also learned the blessings of being in a prison where he did not receive a miraculous delivery. My love of wordplay is so strong that a friend of mine correctly accused me of coming up with the title first and then writing the book.

At the time of Paul’s cell call, Ephesus was a commercial and religious center of Asia Minor. Paul visited during his second missionary journey. It was a short visit, as he had come from Corinth and was going to Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts 18:18–21).

The church in Philippi sent Epaphroditus to Rome with some financial assistance for Paul. It was the return trip that Epaphroditus carried Paul’s letter back to the church. Paul had visited this church on his second journey and the third journey as well.

The church at Colossae, planted by a man named Epaphras, was located east of Ephesus. Ironically, Paul had never visited this church. He had heard of the false teaching and heresy that were taking place when Epaphroditus came to visit. The heresy involved a combination of Greek speculation, Oriental mysticism, and Jewish legalism.

Philemon is not the name of a church or a town like the other three letters. Philemon is a man who lived in Colossae. He owned a slave named Onesimus, who had escaped and run away to Rome. He sought refuge with Paul, who then wrote the letter to his owner about forgiving Onesimus rather than punishing him or killing him. (1)

Similar to my other books, each chapter or story stands on its own. You don’t need to read them in order. Instead, you may pick and choose the chapter or chapters that serve you best. Paul used similar themes in his cell call, and I have used some of the same stories or illustrations with different twists in this book. Please know, in some of the footnotes, I note a change in words to a more appropriate one for printing. The change was not due to the original quote using a swear word, but instead, a word found inappropriate by the publisher.

Paul’s cell call is still an appropriate message for us today. While Paul was in a physical lockdown, his spirit soared freely. We all spend time in figurative prisons. I followed the same organization of thought as chapters and subjects in Paul’s four letters while in prison. I believe we’ll see our contentment in confinement grow as Paul’s guidance and wisdom leads us back to the basics of our faith.

(1) https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/what-are-the-prison-epistles.html