God’s providence is at work in our lives, and His providence has been operative since Creation. We marvel at God’s wisdom and are thrilled to read of it in His Word. Such an example is found in Acts 18 and in the beginning of Acts 19. In Acts 18:1–3 we read of the apostle Paul coming in contact with a Christian husband and wife in Corinth. “After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them. So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation they were tentmakers” (NKJV). Likely the providence of God placed Aquila and Priscilla so that they would be “found” (v.2) by Paul. Being Christians, as well as being of the same trade (“tentmakers”), they obviously had much in common. At this time, Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia as Paul had previously requested (Acts 17:15). Paul continued to preach, and what a daunting task that must have been in the sensual setting of Corinth. His frustration surfaced as “…he shook his garments and said… I will go unto the Gentiles” (Acts 18:6), which was God’s commission to him (Acts 13:46; Romans 1:16). Fear gripped Paul, and the Lord reminded him that He was with him. “Now the Lord spoke

Immediately prior to Saul’s baptism recorded in Acts 9:18, the Lord informed Ananias of what the future held for this new apostle, “For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake”(Acts 9:16 NKJV). Let’s look at some of the suffering, both mental and physical, Saul, later the apostle Paul (Acts 13:9), endured as he carried out the evangelistic mission given to him by God. This mission was described to Ananias in Acts 9:15 “…to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.” We learn elsewhere in God’s Word that he was an apostle specifically assigned to the Gentles (Romans 11:13), but he was to present the Gospel to the Jews first (Acts 13:46; Romans 1:16) Mental stress and physical trauma were major components of this apostle’s life, who was “born out of due time” (l Corinthians 15:8b). Some of these mentally and physically stressful events can be itemized as follows: Are you a partaker of this grace through obedience to His will?

My earthly father, Captain M.A. Dixon, was a man of the sea. He was a veteran of the Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. He attained his captain’s license in the Merchant Marines at age 26 and spent most of his oceangoing career in that capacity. Being raised as the son of a seafarer in the port city of Norfolk, VA, and spending two summers at sea in the Merchant Marines to defray college expenses gave me a special appreciation of Paul’s sea-time experiences, especially considering the fact that I rode out a hurricane on the Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, I was employed as a surveyor for the better part of two years on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel – one of the engineering marvels of that day. Being on the Chesapeake Bay frequently while being raised there and almost daily while working on that well-known body of water helped me relate to and hopefully pass on a deeper understanding of a side of Paul, not inspired, but gained through close to six decades of water travel. Saul’s contact with the maritime world began at his birth. He was born about A.D. 3 (Webster) in the port city of Tarsus in the Roman province of Cilicia on the southeastern side of the Anatolian peninsula. The city of Tarsus was located on the Tarsus River (Latin: Cydnus), which was located approximately twelve miles north of the Mediterranean Sea. This tributary is named the Berdan River in present-day south-central Turkey. His parents likely