The Apostle Paul, Faithful to the Finish

On November 9, 2025, guest speaker Walt Smith of Men of the Word did not preach about the Apostle Paul. He walked in as him, bloodied, bruised and wearing a blackened eye, and stayed in character for the whole message. Pastor Linda Reese warned the room on the way in that he would explain the black eye himself.

Walt Smith, a Falling Waters neighbour, is an ordained minister of more than forty years and an endorsed Assemblies of God chaplain who brings Bible characters to life through dramatic monologues.

A cold cell and a short time left

The setting was Paul’s last days: a Roman dungeon, cold, damp, dark and rat-infested. It is from a place like that he wrote to a young pastor named Timothy, with Luke the physician beside him as he had been for years. Shortly he would be taken outside the walls to be beheaded.

In character, he made light of his injuries the way a man does when he has decided they are not the point. They beat him. They blackened his eye. They called him meshuga. Do you know what that means? It means crazy. “Well, when we follow Jesus, we are a little bit crazy.” He noticed a baby in the congregation and said he hoped the child would grow up loving Jesus too.

Two names, two citizenships

He began where Paul began, in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. Tarsus had stayed loyal to Rome through the wars that followed Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and loyal cities were rewarded with citizenship. So Paul was born a Roman citizen and a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, trained as a Pharisee.

Hence the two names. To the Jews he was Saul. To the Gentiles he was Paul. After the Damascus road he used the Gentile name, because the Gentile world was the assignment (Acts 9:1–19). He went from executing believers to founding churches, across long miles and rough seas and repeated beatings.

On his own letters, and his own reputation

He pointed out that thirteen of his letters ended up in the Bible, arranged roughly by length rather than in the order he wrote them, and that he never put in chapter or verse numbers. Those came much later, so people could find things.

Then he took on his reputation, with a grin. Some readers remember only one line he wrote, about wives submitting to their husbands, and never read the next one, where husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it (Ephesians 5:22–25). He was, he insisted, harder on the men. He also noted that he named six or seven women in his letters, and nobody holds it against Matthew that the feeding of the five thousand counts only the men.

Stay faithful, church

The monologue ends with Paul listening for the footsteps of the men coming to collect him. His closing charge was not complicated:

Stay faithful, church. Stay faithful no matter what comes against you, no matter what bombards you. Stay faithful. Stay true.

Walt Smith, in character as the Apostle Paul

He anticipated the obvious objection. You are not called to travel the world the way Paul was. So be a Jesus right where you are: to your family, to your children, to your brothers and sisters, to your neighbour. Do the people near you notice you leaving the house on a Sunday morning and not getting back until noon? Perhaps they already know why.

“They are coming for me now, so I must go. But I want you to know I finished my course. I have run the race.” The words behind that are Paul’s own: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

What redeemed actually means

He closed by leading “Sing of My Redeemer,” then explained redeeming with something the older half of the room remembered instantly: S&H Green Stamps. You collected them at the grocery store, licked them into books, pored over the catalogue, and finally drove to the redemption centre to trade them for the thing you had been saving toward. Redeemed means bought back, and somebody paid.

Something to carry

Pick the one person nearest you this week and be a Jesus to them. No programme, no travel, no title.

Related messages: Sent Out Two by Two, The Hall of Faith and How Serving Others Strengthens Faith.

If something here speaks to you, send a prayer request (name and email are optional) or get in touch. You can browse every message, or plan a visit and join us on a Sunday at 10:00 AM.