Empire's End Read online

  Praise for Empire’s End

  “As a former newspaperman and one of America’s most respected biographers, Jenkins has the know-how to assimilate massive amounts of data about the life of the apostle Paul. However, as a best-selling novelist, he also knows how to unpack this information and turn it into a fast-paced, highly entertaining story. We readers get to enjoy this double bonus.”

  Dr. Dennis E. Hensley, Chairman, Department of

  Professional Writing, Taylor University

  “Once again Jerry Jenkins’s amazing imagination and literary skills captured my interest, and I found Empire’s End pure intrigue! The relational surprises were fascinating, but more importantly I was blessed spiritually with Jerry’s unusual ability to weave relevant passages from Paul’s subsequent letters into what may have been God’s personal messages to him during his three years in the Arabian desert!”

  Dr. Gene A. Getz, Pastor, Professor, Author

  “The best writers don’t explain history or spin tales, they show us our own hearts. This is what Jerry Jenkins has done in Empire’s End.”

  Chris Fabry, Award-Winning Novelist & Host,

  Chris Fabry Live, Moody Radio Network

  “Jerry Jenkins takes biblical records and historical data to weave a fascinating story about the apostle Paul. The intrigue, danger, and mysterious romance in Empire’s End will keep you turning the pages and leave a ‘wow’ in your heart. Be entertained and inspired.”

  Sammy Tippit, Author and International Evangelist, San Antonio

  “When Jerry Jenkins crafts a novel, he makes every word count. Our senses are engaged and our hearts beat faster as the story moves at breakneck pace. In Empire’s End, we find all that and more. The apostle Paul lives and breathes on each page, and the God who calls him on the road to Damascus clearly speaks to us as well. Biblical truth and storytelling excellence make this a wonderful read.”

  Liz Curtis Higgs, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Mine Is the Night

  “Built upon good knowledge of both what the New Testament says and what it does not say, Jenkins enhances Luke’s history with his own masterful storytelling skills while still restraining imagination by theological respect.”

  Wallace Alcorn, Ph.D., Biblical Scholar and Author

  “The divine revelation poured into the apostle Paul would help launch a movement that would change the world. Empire’s End brilliantly tells the powerful, supernatural yet very human story as Jerry Jenkins imagines a journey through Paul’s extraordinary calling and early ministry life. I couldn’t put it down, and highly recommend it!”

  Ray Bentley, Senior Pastor,

  Maranatha Chapel, San Diego

  EMPIRE’S

  END

  EMPIRE’S

  END

  A NOVEL OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

  JERRY B. JENKINS

  WITH JAMES S. MACDONALD

  Copyright © 2015 by Jerry B. Jenkins and James S. MacDonald

  Published by Worthy Books, an imprint of Worthy Publishing Group, a division of Worthy Media, Inc., One Franklin Park, 6100 Tower Circle, Suite 210, Franklin, TN 37067.

  WORTHY is a registered trademark of Worthy Media, Inc.

  HELPING PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE HEART OF GOD

  eBook available wherever digital books are sold.

  __________________________________________

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937636

  __________________________________________

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  For foreign and subsidiary rights, contact [email protected]

  ISBN: 978-1-61795-007-0 (trade paper)

  Cover Design: Brand Navigation

  Cover photography: Parthenon Image—Getty Images, Street and Trees Image—iStock, Sky Image—iStock, Parchment Overlay Texture—Dreamstime

  Digital Illustration: Mike Chiaravalle

  Printed in the United States of America

  15 16 17 18 19 RRD 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Trisha White Priebe

  with thanks

  CONTENTS

  Preamble

  Part One: Called

  1. Terror

  2. Narrow Escape

  3. The First Miracle

  4. Still Small Voice

  5. The Presence of the Divine

  6. Revelation

  7. Truth

  Part Two: Set Aside

  8. Love

  9. The Discovery

  10. The Vision

  11. Assigned

  12. The Horror

  Part Three: Sent

  13. Setting Off

  14. The Cypriot

  15. Joseph

  16. Recognized

  17. The Watchman

  18. The Brother

  19. Flight

  20. The Slave

  21. Freedom

  22. The Ache

  23. Becalmed

  24. Shunned

  Postscript

  Acknowledgments

  PREAMBLE

  AFTER HAVING DISTANCED HIMSELF from the execution of Jesus, Roman Prefect of Judea Pontius Pilate further alienated Jerusalem’s Jewish leaders by failing to maintain the protocols of his predecessors.

  Those before him had deferred to the sensitivities of the Sanhedrin by not allowing Roman troops to enter the capitol city bearing the ensigns and effigies of Caesar. Pilate allowed them in under the cover of darkness, which only infuriated the citizenry the next day. Then he assigned mounted troops to surround the protesters and threaten them, backing down only when they expressed willingness to die before accepting such a desecration of Mosaic Law.

  Later Pilate installed gold-plated shields outside Jerusalem’s Herod’s Palace, so antagonizing the Jews that when he refused to remove them—claiming they were meant only to honor Emperor Tiberius—the people appealed directly to the emperor himself. Tiberius, apparently sensing the shields were meant to annoy rather than to honor, forced Pilate to move them to the great Mediterranean port city of Caesarea, where the prefect’s administrative offices were housed.

  The next time Pilate addressed the Jews on an unpopular topic, he infiltrated the crowd with soldiers incognito. When the protest arose, he signaled his troops to randomly attack and kill several to keep them from appealing to Tiberius.

  Eventually Prefect Pilate learned of a contingent of Samaritans planning to visit Mount Gerizim to view holy artifacts they believed had been buried by Moses himself. To draw attention away from himself, Pilate left Jerusalem for Caesarea and summoned the most ruthless military leader under his charge, General Decimus Calidius Balbus, to his administrative headquarters.

  The prefect had never seen General Balbus dressed other than for battle, armed, and ready to strike. When Pilate pointed to a chair, Balbus told him he preferred to stand.

  “Do you ever smile, General?”

  “When something amuses me.”

  “And when was the last time?”

  The general squinted, a hint of crow’s-feet appearing around eyes matching the color of his short gray hair. “During our last campaign one of my men delivered to me the severed head of a woman who reminded me of my wife. That made me smile. At least the wench has borne me no children.”

  Pilate roared. “I wish I could say the same of mine! Yet you keep her. Why?”
r />   “Maybe I will sit, Prefect.”

  “Please.”

  “I keep mine for the same reason you keep yours.”

  Pilate studied him. “Ambition. You seek higher office. There’s that smile. You seek my office!”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  “And why should you? You’re right that a divorce would hinder you. But I won’t hinder you. It’s no secret I seek Vitellius’ chair myself, so my own may soon be vacant.”

  General Balbus nodded. “I can see you as governor of Syria. But you didn’t call me here to tell me that.”

  “True enough.” Pilate told him of the planned Samaritan foray to Mount Gerizim.

  The general shook his head. “Why can’t they just exercise their superstitions where we allow them—in the temple where they belong?”

  “Precisely.”

  He tilted his scabbard and crossed his legs. “Well, they’ll have to go through Tirathana, that village at the base of the mount. Just tell me where you got your information and the result you desire. I’ll have some scouts infiltrate, determine how many are going and when, decide how many troops to take with me, and it will be done.”

  “Do what you have to do to keep them from the mountain, and bring me the leaders. I will reward you with a private home right here in Caesarea, and you will be my handpicked successor when the time of my ascension comes.”

  General Decimus Calidius Balbus led a heavily armed infantry and cavalry that easily overwhelmed the large contingent of Samaritans. He and his men killed several in the village before they got near the mountain, captured the leaders, and chased off the rest. Pontius Pilate made good on his promise of a private house in Caesarea for the general, then had the Samaritan leaders executed without trials.

  In short order, Roman Syrian Governor Lucius Vitellius deposed Pilate and ordered him to Rome to answer to the emperor for his actions, but by the time he arrived, Tiberius had died and Caligula had succeeded him.

  To General Balbus’ abject disappointment, Vitellius appointed his friend Marcellus as prefect to replace Pilate. But then Marcellus stayed largely in Caesarea and looked the other way when the Jerusalem Sanhedrin stoned to death a zealous follower of The Way named Stephen. Carrying out a punishment to the point of execution was something the Sanhedrin was not to do without the permission of Rome—even if the guilty party had been a devotee of the crucified Galilean the Jews considered a blaspheming false messiah. So suddenly Marcellus was out, and Balbus believed his time had come.

  When the governor invited the general to his Caesarean office, Balbus was so convinced of his good fortune that he dressed not for battle but for pageantry and even deigned to have his despised wife accompany him as a masquerade of domestic harmony.

  By the time he and his driver and aide-de-camp set out from his new home for the meeting, Caesarea was alive with rumors that the emperor himself was in the city. When the streets leading to the administrative offices proved impossible to navigate, General Balbus knew it was true. Had the emperor sailed all this way just to see him installed as prefect of Judea?

  Balbus directed his driver through an alleyway that led to a rear entrance, but as they rattled near he was alarmed to see Lucius Vitellius in the back of a plain wood wagon—a conveyance far beneath the dignity of his station—shoulders slumped, his head in his hands.

  “Governor Vitellius!” he called out. “I’ve arrived! Where do you want me?”

  Vitellius turned slowly with a forlorn look. “I’m no longer your governor. Publius Petronius is your man now.”

  “I barely know him! What—?”

  But Vitellius waved him off as his wagon pulled away, and the general climbed down, not knowing what to do. Petronius appeared with a younger man hurrying along beside him. “General Balbus, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir, I—”

  “Why are you not in uniform?”

  “Well, I was given to understand—”

  “And who is this?”

  “Sir, this is my wife, she—”

  “No women are allowed at this entrance,” Petronius said, grabbing the general by the arm and turning his back on the rest of Balbus’ party. “This is Marullus. You know each other?”

  “We’ve met.”

  “He’s the new prefect and he has an assignment for you. Now I must get back to the emperor. I wish you’d have come in uniform. You could have appeared with us. No matter. Marullus, you may meet with him in the library, but find me in ten minutes. Balbus, as you’re out of uniform you’ll have to join your party around front.”

  The general set his jaw. He would do no such thing. As soon as he was finished with this young man who had the job he believed should have been his, he would find his wife and his men and head back to his home—he didn’t care how it looked. New emperor, new governor, new prefect, same old general to do their dirty work.

  When he and Marullus were alone in the cavernous library, he told his new superior he preferred to stand.

  “It wasn’t a suggestion, General,” Marullus said. “It was an order.”

  “Very well, sir,” Balbus said with an edge, sitting.

  “Have no fear. Your role is secure.”

  Actually, that is what I was afraid of.

  The new prefect sat with his back straight and his hands clasped before him. “Everyone from me on up knows that all you did was what you were ordered to do.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever done, sir.”

  “And you’ve done it with excellence and honor.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And General, there is more for you to do. The emperor believes the time has come for Rome to support the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. What better way than to have our best military leader aid them in their quest to maintain order among their own?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They have an insurrectionist. One who for years had led the opposition to The Way, those the Jews believed were threats not only to them but also to Rome, has become a traitor.”

  Marullus sat back as if to let that sink in.

  “What? Who?”

  “The name is Saul bar Y’honatan of Tarsus. He was assistant to the vice chief justice of the Sanhedrin.”

  “Nathanael?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “His assistant has what, become a follower of The Way?”

  “So it appears. And this was the man instrumental in the stoning of the man these people now call their ‘first martyr.’”

  “How did this happen?” the general said.

  “No one knows. But he is abetting these people who are a threat to Jerusalem, to all of Judea.”

  “To us.”

  “To Rome, General. We could show no greater support to the people under our jurisdiction—and the emperor wishes to make up for many recent missteps—than for us, for you, to find this man.”

  “I can find anyone.”

  “We believe you can.”

  “May I stand?”

  “You may.”

  “Tell me the result you desire.”

  “My desire is the desire of the governor, which is the desire of the emperor, which in this case is the desire of the Sanhedrin: the end of The Way.”

  “Which means the death of this Saul.”

  “Prefect!”

  Marullus looked up with a start at the voice of Governor Petronius. “Coming, sir.”

  General Balbus leaned close as he walked Marullus out. “I will deliver the heads of Saul and as many members of The Way as I can find, but I want the truth. What’s in this for the emperor? He’s no more interested in pleasing the Sanhedrin than you are or I am.”

  “The Temple.”

  “The Temple?”

  “He sees himself as Saturn. A statue of him as Saturn is being built, and he wants it moved to the Temple in Jerusalem as soon as it’s finished.”

  “The Sanhedrin will never—”

  “He believes they will, if you deliver Saul.”

&
nbsp; Part One

  CALLED

  1

  TERROR

  THREE WEEKS EARLIER

  OUTSIDE DAMASCUS

  FROM THE MEMOIR

  OF SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE

  I NEVER REFERRED TO the stoning of Stephen as murder, because even standing close enough to hear the blows that tore his flesh did not weaken my belief that we had carried out the judgment of God Himself.

  A student of the Scriptures, I knew the sin of putting another god before the one true God. The Jesus-followers had the audacity to elevate that common carpenter to the position of a Christ, the Messiah. And even though this Stephen had been able to conjure some of the same miracles, he had also proved merely mortal in the end.

  Now would they worship their new leader, the uneducated fisherman Peter, who may not have had the silver tongue of Stephen but was convincing enough to persuade thousands to become followers of The Way? Or would they revere Peter’s brother James, or the other James among them—one of the brothers of Jesus? Perhaps the new favorite would be young John, who apparently everyone agreed had been Jesus’ favorite.

  It didn’t matter to me. I had undertaken a new assignment with complete confidence that I served as an agent of God. It also raised my stature with the chief priests and most of the rest of the Sanhedrin. Most, because some agreed with my old mentor, Rabbi Gamaliel, who felt the council had overreacted in the matter of Stephen. Gamaliel tried to reason with me, but his advice fell on deaf ears. He had lost my respect. I felt no need of his approval, as I had for so many years.

  I admit, however, that the death of Stephen did not have the effect on the people of The Way that I expected. Continuing to insist that Jesus had resurrected from the dead, they referred to Stephen as their first martyr. Rather than cowering in fear of the same fate for themselves, some expressed envy that Stephen had been privileged to be persecuted for Jesus’ sake!

  His violent death seemed to have discouraged no one from stepping up to replace him—neither the young men of the sect nor even their mothers. Within days of his burial, dozens of devout believers seemed determined to take his place. Their new leaders were bolder, their proclamations louder, their resolve more intense. Even worse, they now began traveling to distant lands to expand the influence of their lies and subversion.