Disgust at idols strengthened his love for idolaters, and the man who once held Gentile neighbors at a distance now listened to their problems, fears, and temptations.

New converts displayed a most un-Roman concern for the sick man.

His joy was a release of Paul's conversion, not the heavy backslapping practical-joking humor of the Victorians, nor the cynical satire or the flippancy of the twenty first century mass media, just the gift of not taking himself or his adversaries too seriously.

A colleague like Barnabas could comfort him (Paul) in illness and keep him from overstrain when fit.

In his late forties, an age when men settle to comforts and seek a firm base, Paul began his roughest travels.

His (Paul's) entire personality within mutation. He was being turned inside out as he led Jesus light the recesses of his soul.

Though blue sky and the road’s yellow dust and the green of the nearing oasis were all snuffed out, he (newly converted Saul) did not miss them. Light suffused his blinded eyes, his mind.

Faith in Christ leaped from person to person like some divine epidemic, not of disease but of spiritual health.