Sample Chapters

Chapter 1: The Story We Enter

The door to the old lecture hall opened with a groan, like a confession trying to find its voice. Inside, the air still held the musky scent of old books and polished wood, of a place steeped in thought. Dusty daylight filtered through high windows, scattering gold rays across the shelves that lined the walls—each row packed with dog-eared volumes and leather-bound texts marked not just by time, but by use.

He stepped in quietly, as he always did. His pace was slow—not out of age, though the silver in his hair betrayed the years—but from memory. This room was his sanctuary. His altar. It was the place where he invited others not to study a book, but to enter a story.

He stood at the front of the room, placed his tattered satchel gently on the desk, and pulled from it a leather journal—the same one he had carried through villages in Eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall crumbled, the same one he scribbled in while brushing off pottery shards in the ruins of ancient Tralles and Magnesia. Its pages held outlines, prayers, fragments of sermons preached by candlelight in makeshift churches, and reflections jotted down beside ancient roads once traveled by apostles.

As the students trickled in, Professor Alexander surveyed them quietly. Some came eager, others unsure. A few arrived with coffee and laptop in hand, ready for notes, ready for content, ready to complete another requirement. What they didn’t yet know was that the prof would give them none of those things—not in the way they expected.

He waited until the room settled. Then, stepping forward with his usual gravity, he closed his notebook and began.

“You may have come to study the New Testament. But the New Testament is here to study you.”

He let the words settle over the classroom.

“This,” he said slowly, “is not a study of ancient texts.”

“This is the story of a mission. Of God’s mission. And if we do it right, this will not just be a course you take. It will be a story you find yourself living.”

The Story Behind the Story

“What do you mean Prof Alexander?” A student asked while others chuckled as everyone knew they called him simply “prof.”

He turned to the whiteboard and wrote two words: Missio Dei.

“You won’t find these words in the Gospels,” he said, “but you’ll find their heartbeat on every page.”

He looked out over the room, his eyes bright.

“Missio Dei means ‘the mission of God’ or ‘the sending of God.’ The noun form indicates that this is not the mission of the church. Not your mission. Not mine. God’s mission. The verb form tells us that this is a movement initiated not at Pentecost, not at the birth of Jesus, but from creation to the garden when God came walking in the cool of the day to seek out the lost, and all the way to you. He sends Himself!”

He paused, letting that land.

“I didn’t learn this in seminary,” he said, voice softening. “I learned it in a dark apartment in the Soviet Union. We gathered quietly—Bibles smuggled in under our coats, window shades drawn to muffle the singing. They had nothing. But they had mission. They didn’t think of it as such. They just knew that if Jesus really rose from the dead, then everything had changed. And they couldn’t keep it to themselves.”

He ran a hand through his hair, remembering.

“The mission wasn’t born in Acts 2,” he continued. “It was born in the heart of God before creation. Acts is just the explosion. The fire had already been lit. Mission begins with God. It is His nature.”

He turned and wrote two more words beneath the first: Missiological Theology.

“Now, I’ve warned you—this class won’t follow a typical outline. That’s because I don’t believe theology is meant to be dissected like a frog. It’s meant to live and breathe and move. It breeds curiosity and discovery at the wondrous God who created all.”

He circled the phrase.

“Missiological theology doesn’t begin in the academy. It begins out there.” He pointed toward the window.

“It is in the field. With God who never stops working.” He paused and wrote omnioperatio on the whiteboard.

“And Jesus shows us what it looks like to live it out. We see it with His feet in the dust, His eyes on the crowds, His voice calling fishermen to follow Him. It culminated when the Word became flesh and set up His tent among us. And it continues as His body, the ekklesia, incarnates among people.”

“Prof?” a hand raised, “I thought theology was about studying biblical themes and doctrines. You are making it sound like a journey with the person of Christ. Is that what you mean?”

“When I began my studies, I felt much the same and it quickly became dull and dry until I realized the Subject of theology. It was then that my mind began to intersect with my heart and theology became devotional and lived. A journey and adventure of discovering God and His story. His promise. His Person. His purpose. And to my astonishment and wonder I learned that I was also a part of that story. Not passive, but an active participant in the missio Dei.”

“So does that mean there won’t be any tests?” the students chuckled.

The prof winked but then responded, “What it means is that the ‘test’ will be how we let God’s story affect our everyday lives!”

That seemed to sober up but also intrigue the students.

“Let’s begin by zooming out and getting a feel for the big picture.”

Promise, Person, Purpose

He moved to a fresh part of the whiteboard and drew a triangle: Promise → Person → Purpose.

“This,” he said, “is the shape of the New Testament.”

He tapped the first word: Promise.

“The Old Testament ends in longing. For four hundred years, the people of Israel could not hear from God. Four hundred years of waiting. Oh, God was there. He was speaking. Israel had the Scriptures, the temple, the Levitical sacrificial system, the Law—but they were still blind and deaf and searching. For rescue. For fulfillment. For the kingdom of God to come.”

He paused. The students were leaning forward at their desks.

“And then… a cry in the night. In a Bethlehem home. No fanfare. No legions of angels in battle formation. Just a newborn. Fragile. Vulnerable. But in that cry, heaven declared: the mission is moving forward. Motus Dei!”

He tapped the next word: Person.

“Jesus is not just the fulfillment of promise. He is the embodiment of God’s mission. He is what missiological theology looks like in flesh and blood. He crossed boundaries—religious, ethnic, moral—not to start a religion, but to announce that the reign of God had drawn near. He made the missional move to people. That is the Motus Dei.”

He looked out at the class. A few were nodding their heads. Others seemed confused.

“God didn’t send an idea. He sent Himself. That was the movement of God toward us.”

He underlined Purpose and turned to the class.

“What is it?”

Four Stories, One Movement

He turned again to the whiteboard and wrote four names: Matthew. Mark. Luke. John.

“Each Gospel tells the story. Each relates Purpose.” Pointing to the word on the board. “Each from a different angle. Each shaped by its audience and its missiological parallelisms.”

He paused at the words, “Missiological parallelism.” He reached up to the corner of the whiteboard and wrote in block letters: MISSIOLOGICAL PARALLELISM. Then drew a box around it as this would remain as a reminder for the semester.

“Missiological parallelisms. You’ll see them everywhere,” he explained. “The Gospels aren’t written in a vacuum. They’re written in contrast to something. To empire. To religion. To philosophy. To the cultural narratives that shaped first-century lives. They bring clarity to God’s movement among people. They unveil His revelation and open the eyes of the spiritually blind. They say in essence, ‘what you do or believe unknowingly, this is what it means.’ And in this sense, they are missiological— engaging people with the superiority of Jesus over and against the prevailing order.

He pointed to Matthew’s name.

“Matthew writes to Jews, showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of Torah. Five teaching blocks—mirroring the five books of Moses. Jesus is the superior Moses. But more than that, He’s the true deliverer. ”

Claudia ventured, “Is he trying to create a contrast between the current Jewish understanding of the Messiah and Jesus as its fulfillment?”

“Precisely. He’s helping to remove the veil covering the eyes of the Jewish people so that they can clearly see Yahweh’s intention.”

He stepped to Mark.

“Mark is fast, breathless. He’s writing to a Roman audience obsessed with power. His Jesus is a suffering servant—not a Caesar on a throne, but a Savior on a cross.”

Then to Luke.

“Luke is a Gentile writing to a Gentile. His Jesus is the Savior of the kosmos—women, the poor, the outcast. He’s making a political statement without ever using the word politics.”

Now they were catching on. Caleb said, “So Mark’s gospel is in contrast to empire and Luke’s is in contrast to Gentile assumptions…”

The prof added, “And even more. They are profoundly missiological. They expose errors in thinking and belief but also propel the story forward. ”

“And finally, there’s John. It is missiological through and through. He makes his case against Greek dualism, against religious exclusion. His Jesus is not just Christ—He is the Logos, the light, the door, the vine. He is everything your heart was designed for. He is ego eimi.”

Andrew raised his hand, wary of disrupting the professor again, “Prof, what do you mean ego eimi?”

“Great question!” he said as his eyes brightened. Then turning to the whiteboard, he scrawls “Exodus 3:14” in red marker. “Ego eimi speaks to Jesus’s origin. It literally means ‘I am.’ He is ‘I am,’ God Himself, sent from Himself, moving to people.”

From Story to Movement

He flipped open his tattered Greek New Testament and read:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses…”

He looked up.

“That promise launches the Book of Acts. But notice: the Spirit isn’t given just for personal renewal. He’s given for global witness.”

He stepped back to the whiteboard and drew a line from Jerusalem outward: Judea → Samaria → Ends of the Earth.

“This is the outward movement of the gospel. It doesn’t stop in a synagogue. It doesn’t stay in a house church. It spills into streets and cities and empires. It always moves outward just as God is always moving to people.”

He smiled now. “I once taught in a crumbling building in Odessa, Ukraine. The walls were cracked, and power cut in and out. But every seat was full. And every student wanted to know just one thing: How do we carry this gospel to the next village? But that was the wrong question.”

The students looked perplexed. Some stirred in their seats.

“Rather, the correct question is: How do we join with the move of God to name Jesus where He is unknown?”

The Unfinished Chapter

He walked slowly now back to the desk and lifted his Bible.

“Acts ends with Paul in Rome. Reasoning. Unhindered. It doesn’t resolve. There’s no epilogue. Why?”

He looked out again, eyes sharp.

“Because the story isn’t over.”

He let that linger.

“You see, the Gospels are not just history. Acts is not just a church movement. Together, they are the blueprint for God’s ongoing mission. And you—every one of you—are being written into the next chapter.”

He returned to the whiteboard and wrote: You Are Here with an arrow pointing past Acts 28.

A Question of Calling

He paused and finally asked the question he’d been building toward.

“So let me ask you the question I asked myself sitting in a damp apartment flat in Craiova, Romania in 1990. The Iron Curtain had fallen. The dictator executed. A new world was opening. A story waiting to be written.”

He looked at the students.

“What story are you living in?”

He closed the journal, slid it back into his satchel, and folded his hands on the desk.

“If you’re here to study the New Testament as a textbook, you’ll leave with notes. But if you’re willing to step into it as your story, then God may just change everything.”

The bell rang.

Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped, but no one spoke. The students filed out slowly. Some glancing back curious about the word omnioperatio on the whiteboard. Others, as if they had stepped through a portal and weren’t sure how to return, wondered what the prof meant when he said, “You may have come to study the New Testament. But the New Testament is here to study you.”

And the professor? He remained at the desk for a moment longer, staring at the maze of words on the whiteboard. But omnioperatio loomed larger than the rest, knowing that in every language he had learned, every dig site he had knelt in, and every dusty page he had turned, that word had always pointed him home. This is God’s work, it always has been, it always will be. And he wondered to himself, “will these students get it.”

The story had begun again.

Chapter 10: Let the Stones Speak

Professor J. T. Alexander placed six photographs face down across the classroom desk. The students recognized the battered canvas satchel beside them. It had traveled with him through airports, archaeological sites, and villages where the road ended before the map suggested it should.

Without opening a book, he wrote a question on the board: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A PLACE FORGETS JESUS?

“Do you mean when people stop believing?” Daniel asked.

“That is one kind of forgetting,” the professor said. “But what happens when communities disappear, churches collapse, languages change, and the people who once worshiped Jesus in a place are no longer there to tell their story?”

He turned over the first photograph, revealing an ancient inscription above a doorway. “The literary record explains the faith. Archaeology locates it. Texts tell us what Christians believed. Material culture shows us where belief became embodied—in homes, markets, gathering rooms, public buildings, and deserts. The stones do not speak by themselves, but sometimes, after the living community has fallen silent, they still remember.”

The City That Wrote to Jesus

The first story took the class to ancient Edessa, modern Şanlıurfa in southeastern Türkiye. “According to Eusebius, King Abgar heard that Jesus healed the blind, cleansed lepers, cast out demons, and raised the dead. Ill himself, the king invited Jesus to Edessa. Jesus, the story says, promised instead to send a disciple who would heal him and bring life to his people.”

“Did Jesus really write the letter?” Kyle asked.

“Probably not,” the professor replied. “But calling a story apocryphal does not make it meaningless. It changes the question. Why did Christians in Edessa remember Jesus as healer and sender?”

He project an image on the monitors, a lintel from a house near the theater at Ephesus where part of the tradition may have been inscribed above a doorway. “A royal story became household memory. Someone once walked beneath those words every day, trusting the name of Jesus at the threshold. The familiar cultural form was retained, but its allegiance was redirected.”

The Logos beneath the Marketplace

The second photograph showed a five-by-five Greek word square scratched into plaster beneath the marketplace at Smyrna. Logos stood in the center and crossed both horizontally and vertically.

“So it is Christian,” Rebecca said.

“Perhaps,” the professor answered. “Logos was used by philosophers, rhetoricians, and ordinary Greek speakers. But Christians in Smyrna also knew the Logos who was with God, was God, and became flesh. The setting makes the possibility compelling.”

He described the cryptoporticus beneath the agora: merchants above, footsteps echoing below, walls covered with names, ships, jokes, prayers, and puzzles.

“If the square were Christian, it did not wait for people to enter a church. It placed the Logos at the center of ordinary urban life. We often assume missions becomes important when it becomes visible. The kingdom of God has always had much in common with charcoal on plaster.”

God Jesus Christ around the Table

The fourth photograph showed the Megiddo Mosaic dating to AD 230, discovered near the Roman military center of Legio. The room was not a later basilica but an adapted gathering space. Its best-known inscription read: “Akeptous, the God-loving, offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”

The class fell silent.

“It calls Jesus God,” Daniel said.

“Directly,” the professor replied. “But the confession is not abstract. It is attached to a table.”

Other inscriptions remembered Primilla, Cyriaca, Dorothea, Chreste, Gaianos, and the artisan Broutis.

“We cannot assign each person an office,” he said, “but we can see participation. Akeptous gave a table. Gaianos provided resources. Broutis used his craft. Women were named. People gathered and ate. Movements become embodied when people redirect their rooms, food, relationships, money, and skills toward Jesus.”

The Family Who Gave

The third image came from Sardis, where a monumental synagogue stood next to the Roman bath-gymnasium complex. Its inscriptions preserved donors who funded mosaics, marble, and ornamentation. One fourth century dedication named a man, his wife Regina, and their children, who provided marble and painting “from the gifts of the Pantokrator of God.”

“Pantokrator means Almighty?” Miriam asked.

“Ruler of all,” the professor said. “The title belongs fully within Jewish Scripture, though Christians also used it for the sovereign God revealed through Jesus. We must not force the inscription to say more than it does. However, we must read the inscription for what it does say.”

He walked to the board and wrote to Greek letters with a line above them.

ΘΥ

“This is a nomen sacrum,” he said, “A sacred name.”

Then, as he often did, the prof became excited to explain that this sacred name was the tell-tale sign of Christian. “Indeed, the Greek is in the genitive form giving it possession. The pantokrator is God’s! A clear referent to Jesus Christ as the ruler of all.”

He drew an arrow on the board:

DIVINE GIFT → HUMAN GENEROSITY → DIVINE PRAISE.

“The family participated in the Roman system of benefaction, but redirected its logic. They gave because God first gave to them. Gratitude became marble and paint, and Regina was remembered as part of the vow. And Jesus is remembered as the pantokrator.”

The Symbol Everyone Forgot

The fifth image showed an eight-spoked symbol cut into pavement at Thugga in Tunisia.

“A guide told me it was just a sundial,” the professor said. “Perhaps it was. Archaeology requires documentation, not anecdotes. Yet similar symbols elsewhere can be read as superimposed Greek letters, a monograph for Jesus Christ God.”

The professor looked again at the photograph.

“What stayed with me was that the mark remained while the community that knew how to read it had disappeared. That is the difference between material and living memory.”

Rebecca asked whether recovering such evidence amounted to reclaiming Christian territory.

“No,” he said firmly. “The heritage belongs to the people who inhabit and steward those places now. Archaeology is not a property deed. But it can remind North African Christians that their faith predates Arab and European colonialism and that African Christianity helped shape the global church.”

A Prayer in the Desert

The final photograph showed black basalt beneath a vast Jordanian sky. Tens of thousands of Ancient North Arabian inscriptions preserve the journeys, losses, and prayers of mobile peoples. One short text invokes a figure written as ʿsy:

“O ʿsy, help him against those who deny you.”

“If the reading is correct,” the professor explained, “this is a pre-Islamic Arabic form of Jesus. The inscription does not tell us the writer’s full theology, but Jesus is more than a dead teacher. He is addressed as someone who can hear and help.”

The writer used local script, a local prayer form, and local stone.

“The memory of Jesus became vernacular,” the professor said. “This should not be weaponized against Islam. It is shared regional history and an invitation to ask how Jesus entered the spiritual imagination of the desert.”

What the Stones Remember

The professor arranged the six photographs in a wide arc.

“Do not force them into a neat progression. They differ in date, language, place, and certainty. Responsible interpretation begins by locating the artifact, interpreting it with the necessary disciplines, remembering the people behind it, entering dialogue with those who live among it, and only then asking how it might inform faithful participation today.”

He lifted the photographs one by one.

“Edessa remembers the healer and sender. Smyrna may remember the Logos at the center. Megiddo remembers God Jesus Christ around the table. Sardis remembers the giver behind human generosity. Thugga may preserve a visual confession after its interpreters disappeared. The Jordanian desert remembers the one who can still hear and help.”

Together, the artifacts showed that memory became material. A story moved onto a lintel. Theology entered graffiti. Christology became mosaic and table. Gratitude became marble. Confession became symbol. Prayer became rock.

“What the archaeology does not preserve,” the professor said, “is a strategic manual. It preserves people—women, donors, artisans, travelers, householders, and anonymous writers. That may be its greatest correction to us.”

The classroom clock had passed the end of the hour, but no one packed.

“Many places in Asia Minor, the Middle East, and North Africa once held vibrant Jesus communities,” he continued. “Their churches diminished or disappeared, but material memory remained. Archaeology can encourage local Christians, correct the arrogance of missionaries who imagine God arrived with them, and complicate easy stories about Christian history.”

He gathered the photographs. “Recovery is not reclamation. The stones are witnesses, not property deeds. Nor should we exaggerate them. They do not preach, prove, or compel faith. They preserve the marks of people who believed, prayed, gave, gathered, and remembered.”

At the door, Professor Alexander turned back toward the question still written on the board.

“The task is not to make the stones say what we already believe. The task is to listen long enough to hear what they still remember. Perhaps Jesus’s own words help complete the story: ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

This time, the students knew that when a place forgot Jesus, the answer was not always silence.

Chapter 17: The Road Goes On—The End that Wasn’t the End

It was the last day of the semester.

Not that anyone needed a reminder. The air in the lecture hall was thick with anticipation. Jackets draped over chair backs. Notebooks spread open to blank pages. Phones silenced but checked more often. The end of the academic year was always bittersweet, and this professor—steady, story-rich, and steeped in the Scriptures—was not one to let it pass lightly.

He arrived with less fanfare than usual. No relics. No maps. Just a small stack of worn papers tucked into his leather-bound Bible.

After clearing his throat, he spoke softly. Some students detected a tear welling up in one of his eyes.

“Some stories don’t end the way we expect. And some never really end at all. Today, we trace the rest of Paul’s journey—not just the one Luke records in Acts, but the one pieced together through letters, tradition, and historical breadcrumbs.”

He looked around the room. “And I’ll share a bit of my own story too. Because this course hasn’t just been about Paul. It’s been about us—about how we live and move and speak the Gospel in the world.”

Released, But Not Retired

He opened to Acts 28 and read:

“For two whole years Paul stayed in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He looked around the room catching the eyes of those focused on what comes next.

“That’s how Luke ends it. Not with martyrdom. Not with a final sermon. But with mission unbound.”

The evidence, he explained, suggests Paul was eventually released from Roman custody. The charges, flimsy to begin with, failed to hold up.

“And once free, Paul didn’t retire to the countryside. He went back to work and even back to the road.”

Spain: The Dream Unfulfilled?

He paused and walked slowly across the front of the room. “Paul had one more destination on his heart: Spain.”

In his letter to the Romans, Paul made his desire clear—to preach Christ where He had not been named, to reach the farthest western edge of the empire.

“Did he make it?” AJ asked eagerly. Hoping he did…

The professor shrugged slightly. “The church of Rome says he did. In an early letter written shortly after Paul’s death, the Roman leaders believed he went even to the shores of the British Isles. Others disagree. But whether his feet reached Spain or not, his heart did. Because Paul wasn’t just mapping geography. He was mapping opportunity.”

He quoted Romans 15 again:

“I make it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation.”

“That,” he said quietly, “is the heartbeat of missiological theology. To move with God as He moves. To go not where it’s safe, but where it’s silent.”

The Final Journeys: Strengthening the Saints

From Spain, Paul traveled again. Crete, where he left Titus to organize the churches. Asia Minor, where he met with old friends—Trophimus, Tyrannus, Theophilus, the household of Onesiphorus and Nympha. Philippi, Corinth, Dalmatia, and Macedonia.

“These weren’t grand crusades,” the professor noted. “They were visits. Encouragements. Doctrinal tune-ups. Paul was more mentor than maverick now.”

Still, everywhere he went, the pattern remained:

He proclaimed, he equipped, and he passed the baton.

The Second Imprisonment: Chains and Companions

The professor continued, outlining Paul’s final arrest, likely during Nero’s wave of Christian persecution.

“This time,” he said, “there was no rented house. No visitors coming freely. Just a cold cell, some faithful friends, and the knowledge that the end was near.”

He mentioned Luke, ever present. Tychicus, sent to Ephesus. Timothy, urged to come quickly. Mark, once a deserter, now a comfort.

And Demas—a painful reminder. “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me…” (2 Tim 4:10)

He looked down for a moment. “Even the great apostle knew the sting of betrayal. Yet he kept writing. Kept mentoring. Kept finishing the work God had for him.”

The Final Words: A Life Poured Out

Then, the professor read the words he had saved for last:

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness…” (2 Tim 4:7–8)

Paul didn’t die with regrets. He died with resolve.

“He had done what the Spirit called him to do,” the professor said. “He had proclaimed Christ going both east and west. He had confronted emperors and artisans. He had stood in synagogues, marketplaces, lecture halls, and prisons. And he had planted churches that outlived every empire.”

A Family’s Call to Go

The professor closed his Bible gently, then looked out over the room.

“You’ve heard a lot about Paul this semester,” he said. “But let me tell you a bit about my own family.”

He walked to the desk and retrieved three photos, holding them up. “Miriam and I have three children. And every one of them follows Christ.” He smiled as he recalled when he and Miriam baptized them in the Jordan river.

“One is on the East Coast of the US, teaching in an urban school, mentoring students who’ve never opened a Bible. Another, my videographer and his wife a nurse in West Africa, bringing healing in body and spirit to villages barely on the map. And the third, an engineer, and his wife a teacher, are working among Muslim people, helping build infrastructure in places recovering from war.”

His voice softened. “They don’t preach–just as Paul never preached at non-Christians. But they live like him, reasoning daily and discipling those they meet.”

He walked slowly across the front of the room. “They’re passionate about naming Christ where He is not yet named. Whether through equations, conversations, or quiet acts of compassion—they embody the missio Dei.”

He stopped. “And that’s our calling, too.”

Making the Missional Move

He wrote three words on the whiteboard:

Go. Name. Disciple.

“We are not just called to go. We are always going—not necessarily across the globe, but always across the street. To name Christ boldly, clearly, compassionately in words and actions. And to disciple—not just convert, but walk alongside people as they walk toward Christ.”

Then he added: “As God made the missional move to us in Christ, we make the missional move to others. That’s the missio ecclesia.”

He turned back to the class. “You may be preparing to be a teacher, a barista, a software developer, a social worker, a parent, a pastor, or an archaeologist. But whatever your title, your vocation is mission.”

He paused. “You carry what Paul carried: the Spirit, the Gospel, the burden to go. What does that burden look like in your life and circumstances? Go ahead and share with your classmate.”

The room buzzed with enthusiasm. Every once in a while the prof would clearly hear the name of a country in the midst of the murmuring class discussion: “Azerbaijan.” “Turkmenistan.” “Japan.” “Tunisia.” “Russia.”

The Last Word

And then, the bell rang, not abrupt but firm, signaling the end of the class. The professor let it ring out before speaking one final time.

“Wherever you go from here,” he said, “go in the power of the One who called Paul from a dusty road to Rome’s highest courts. Let the resurrection shape your courage. Let the Spirit guide your direction. And let the mission—not safety, not tradition, not reputation—move your feet.”

He picked up the old leather case that had traveled with him since his days in Eastern Europe and smiled. “And who knows,” he said with a wink, “maybe we’ll meet again in Ephesus. The grandkids love showing visitors the theater and climbing the stairs to the top to show them how easy it is to hear those on the stage.”

The students rose to applaud—not out of obligation, but affection. Not just for the lecture, but for the life behind it.Because now, it wasn’t just the apostles and Paul’s story they carried. It was their own. And the prof was visibly moved.

When God Wiggles His Fingers

 Now, in his office, he sat translating new inscriptions he discovered. Four students came to his door and quietly knocked. “We don’t mean to interrupt, but can you tell us more about how you decided to go into missions?”

He paused, iPad pencil in hand, gazing delightfully at the students for a moment. What a great question, he thought to himself, “I wish I had said more about this in my last lecture.”

“Come, sit down. You know,” he said softly, “when my kids were little, I’d sometimes close the door to my office to write or prepare lectures. And without fail, I’d see it—five tiny fingers wiggling under the door. No knocking. No shouting. Just a quiet, persistent gesture: ‘I’m here. Come see me.’”

The students smiled. The professor didn’t exactly answer their question, but they understood where he was going.

“I think God does that. He wiggles His fingers under the locked doors of our plans and assumptions—not forcefully, but faithfully. A quiet invitation. Not demanding, just saying: ‘Come here. This is where I’m at work. Why don’t you join Me.’”

He looked at each one of them intently. Then he looked back at the inscriptions.

“The real question is whether we’ll stop what we’re doing… and open the door to join Him.”

And with that, the students left excited about the trip to Asia Minor in the summer.