In today’s world he might have been the Fuller Brush man, or he might have sold cutlery door-to-door. In those days though, his trade was tent making. He was an ordinary man making a living in a simple trade.

            It is a fascinating notion to picture Apostle Paul soliciting customers for his tent making business. I suppose tents came in several sizes, maybe a couple of shapes; and it is likely that color didn’t matter much. Then once the orders were taken, I can picture him laying out the material and cutting it to size. But the most vivid picture I have of Paul’s work setting is the sewing circle.

            Can’t you visualize people like Priscilla and Aquila sitting around him asking questions and listening to his answers as he was sewing the pieces together? Wouldn’t it have been a great setting for him to share his story—for him to tell how he moved from Tarsus to Jerusalem to become a rabbi; for him to explain how his zeal for the law allowed the stoning of Stephen; for him to describe the fear he felt when he encountered the blinding Light on the Damascus road, and the need he had to go into exile in the desert while he sorted out the transformation of his life. I imagine the sewing circle to have been a great setting for him to introduce Christ to the workplace. But there is one thing I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine that Paul ever considered his daily work to be separated from his mission as a herald for Christ. About that his mind was very clear.

            Paul was a man on a mission. The mission was clear enough for him to write it down in a few words for his young disciple, Timothy. And as he wrote it down, he made the surprising discovery that he had become something that he never dreamed of being— of all things, he was a teacher, and his subjects were people he never expected to care for.

            We remember Apostle Paul today as the author of some of the richest material in our Sunday school curriculum. But we should also remember him as an ordinary man who might just as well have been a barber, an auto mechanic, or a custodial servant. His mission did not define his vocation. Paul’s vocation served his mission. And if we follow his model, who knows, we may find ourselves reaching lives in ways we never dreamed.