Thought Tapestries

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The first frost came in overnight, and by Thursday evening Walt had the oven door propped open to warm the kitchen. Denny was already there when Amara came in stamping her shoes, which had never happened before. He had claimed the chair nearest the stove and spread a page of notes across the table with a coffee mug pinning down each corner.

“You did homework,” Amara said.

“I did a little looking.” He said it the way a man says it when he did a lot of looking. “Somebody told me to go look.”

Walt was at the counter with his back to them, cutting a loaf of bread he had baked that afternoon. He did not turn around.

“Well?” Amara dropped her bag on the floor. “What did you find?”

“Chapter nineteen starts with Apollos.” Denny tapped the page. “Same guy the last chapter ended on. Down in Corinth, doing his thing. And then in the same breath, Paul shows up in Ephesus. So the chapter didn’t start anywhere. Somebody just stuck a number on a piece of road.”

“I told you that last week,” Amara said.

“You said it about the first break. This is a different one.”

“It’s the same argument.”

“Is it?” Denny looked at her over his glasses. “Because I found out something you didn’t, and I only found it because I went back.”

Tomás had come in behind Amara without anyone hearing, and he stood in the doorway holding a paperback so worn its cover had gone soft. He looked from one of them to the other and then at the bread.

“Sit anywhere,” Walt said, and put the plate down in the middle of the table. “Butter’s in the door of the fridge.”

Tomás sat. He set the paperback beside his mug, and Amara glanced at it.

“Is that a third translation?”

“It was my grandfather’s,” he said. “I don’t know which one it is. The words are old. Some of them I have to say out loud to understand.”

“That’s the best way to read it,” Walt said. He pulled out the last chair and sat down slowly, the way he did when his knee was giving him trouble. “Amara, did you get a chance to look at anything?”

She hesitated. “I read the first verse on the bus. I had a double shift, so that’s all I had.”

“That’s plenty,” Walt said.

“Is it?” said Denny.

“It’s a place to start.” Walt folded his hands on the table and looked at neither of them in particular. “I want to say something before we open the book, and then I’ll stop talking. Last week we watched a man leave one city and land in another, and most of us came away with the idea that we understood him better. I’d like to see if that holds up. He’s about to spend more time in one place than he has anywhere else. That’s what the next chapter is.”

“How long?” Tomás asked.

“Go and find out.”

Tomás looked at Amara. Amara looked at Denny. Denny looked at the ceiling and then, slowly, pulled his page of notes toward himself and turned it face down.

“Fine,” he said. “You read it, then. I already know what mine says.”

Walt smiled, and it was the small kind that only reached one side of his face. Outside, the frost was working its way up the window glass. Somebody’s dog barked twice down the street and stopped.

“Amara,” Walt said. “You’ve got the first verse. Read it to us.”

Amara found the page and cleared her throat. She read the way she read patient charts, fast and flat. “‘While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.’”

“Apollos,” Denny said. “Told you.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“You heard me say it. Now it’s in the book.”

Tomás had his hand flat on the open paperback, as if it might blow shut. “Mine says ‘the upper coasts.’”

“Coasts?” Amara leaned over to look. “Ephesus is on the coast. He’s coming from the inland side.”

“Higher up, I think it means. Higher ground.” Tomás shrugged, and left it there.

“Amara,” Walt said. “Back up to where Apollos starts.”

“Eighteen twenty-four.” She flipped. “Fast?”

“Fast.”

“Apollos. From Alexandria. Sharp, knows the Scriptures cold, teaches about Jesus accurately. Only knows the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila hear him in the synagogue, take him aside, explain the way of God more carefully. He heads to Achaia, the brothers there write ahead for him, and he takes apart the opposition in public, straight out of the Scriptures.” She looked up. “That’s it. That’s the end of chapter eighteen.”

“A setup,” Denny said. “Guy who’s got most of it and needs the rest.”

“Then here’s the payoff.” Walt nodded at Tomás. “Verses one through seven, if you would. Your grandfather’s words.”

Tomás pulled the paperback toward him and read slowly, mouthing a few of the words before he let them out. Paul found certain disciples. He asked whether they had received the Holy Ghost when they believed. They said they had not so much as heard whether there was any Holy Ghost. Unto what then were they baptized? Unto John’s baptism. Paul told them John had pointed to the one who was coming after him, that is, Jesus. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Ghost came, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.

“About twelve men in all,” Tomás finished, and shut the book on his finger.

Denny sat back. “Same problem. That’s what jumps out. Apollos knows John’s baptism and nothing more. Twelve guys in the same town know John’s baptism and nothing more. It’s one story with a chapter number stuck through the middle.”

“Except the fix is different,” Amara said. “Apollos gets a couple at a table. The twelve get Paul, water, hands, tongues.”

“Good,” said Walt. “So which one is the pattern?”

Amara’s mouth tightened. “You’re going to make me pick.”

“I’m asking.”

“My cousin’s church says this is the pattern. Water first, then the Spirit as a separate thing, and you should be watching for the second one. The pastor at my mom’s church says these twelve got stuck in a hallway between two rooms and it never happens again to anybody.” She spread her hands. “Same six verses.”

“They can’t both be right,” Tomás said, so quietly that Walt had to lean toward him.

“Maybe not. Very likely not.” Walt pulled the plate of bread toward himself. “There’s a third crowd that plants a flag on verse five. In the name of the Lord Jesus, and they say that’s the whole formula. All of them are pointing at the same little patch of text.”

“So which is it?”

“I have my own thoughts. They won’t help you tonight.” He tore a piece off the crust. “Notice how much weight six verses are carrying. That’s what I’d like you to take home.”

“That’s a teacher answer.”

“I was a teacher.”

Denny snorted. Amara looked at the ceiling for a long moment, then picked up her pen and wrote something in the margin and underlined it hard.

“Eight,” Denny said, before anybody could soften anything. “This is the part I like. He walks right back into the synagogue. Speaks boldly for three months.”

“After Corinth,” Amara said. “After the garments and ‘from now on I go to the Gentiles.’”

“That was one bad day in one city,” Denny said. “If it had been a rule, he’d have been out of the synagogue for good, and he’s inside one by the next port.”

“Antioch in Pisidia does the same thing,” Amara said. She was counting on her fingers now. “He preaches in the synagogue, they get jealous, he turns to the Gentiles. Iconium, same. Corinth. Now here. In, argue till they’ve had enough, out.”

“Like a guy who keeps going back to the same door till somebody slams it,” Denny said.

“There’s more to it than that,” Tomás said. Denny opened his mouth, and Tomás went on, a little faster than usual. “Think of the hill in Athens. Nobody there had his book. Here he’s got three months of a room full of people who’ve read the same scrolls. By the time the door shuts, there are Gentiles who already fear God sitting in those seats, and half the city has heard something is happening. So when he leaves, he’s carrying a crowd.”

Denny scratched his jaw. “Huh.”

“That’s not an argument,” Amara said.

“It’s an observation.” Tomás shrugged, and for once he did not look away.

“Verse nine,” Walt said. “Where does he go?”

“Hall of Tyrannus.” Denny read it twice. “Tyrannus. Tyrant?”

“His name is Tyrant?” Amara laughed out loud. “Imagine explaining that at parent-teacher night.”

“It was a name people had,” Walt said. “Somebody’s father liked it.”

“Some old copies of the book add the hours,” Tomás said. “Fifth hour to the tenth.”

Amara checked her phone. “Eleven to four.”

“Middle of the day.” Denny nodded slowly. “Hottest part. Nobody’s working, everybody’s home asleep, the hall’s empty. He rents the room for the dead hours.” He looked almost admiring. “I’ve done that with a truck.”

“For two years,” Walt said. “Verse ten.”

“And all Asia heard,” Amara said. “Jews and Greeks both.”

“There are churches out in the valley, Colossae and Laodicea and Hierapolis,” Tomás said, “and some people think they got started about then. Somebody from that hall went home and told people.”

“Some people think,” Walt said, with a small lift of the finger.

“Some people think,” Tomás agreed.

Denny whistled through his teeth. “All that out of one room.”

“Thirteen,” Walt said, “and fourteen. Amara, how many stories?”

She read both verses under her breath and frowned. “Two. First, some traveling Jewish exorcists trying out Jesus’ name. Then the seven sons of Sceva.”

“One,” said Denny.

“Two.”

“It’s one, it says so right in the—” He stopped. “Some fella wrote it up in a commentary.”

“Which fella?” Walt said mildly.

“I don’t remember.”

Tomás cleared his throat. “It sounds like the same men to me. First the wide view, a whole class of people going around trying this. Then somebody walks up close and gives you the names.”

“Wide shot,” Denny said. “Then the close-up.”

“I’ll give you that,” said Amara.

“Why the close-up?” Walt asked. “Why does he bother?”

Tomás turned it over. “So we can see whose sons they are. A chief priest, the text says. Whoever Sceva was, the family had standing. And they’re standing in somebody’s house borrowing a name off another man’s list.”

“Read fifteen,” Walt said. “Tomás.”

He read it in his grandfather’s English, with the old plural on the last word. “‘And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?’”

Nobody said anything for a second.

“Two different words,” Amara said, tapping her phone. “It’s right here. For Jesus he says one verb, for Paul he says another. The Greek isn’t the same.”

Denny reached for his notes, thought better of it, and answered from memory. “So Jesus he knows the deep way, face to face. Paul he knows on paper. Knows his rank.”

“Where’s that from?” Walt asked.

“A commentary.”

“The same fella?”

“A different fella.”

“My app says both of those words can mean know, or recognize, or be acquainted with.” Amara scrolled. “They overlap a lot. Somebody can say one and mean the other.”

“So it’s nothing,” Denny said.

“It’s something. It’s a lot less than what you just said.”

Denny grunted. Walt let the silence run long enough that Denny finally shrugged and made a small, grudging motion with his hand that meant go on.

“What can we stand on?” Walt asked.

Amara ticked it off. “Jesus, known. Paul, known. Seven brothers, unknown.”

“And he doesn’t say ‘I don’t know you,’” Tomás said. “He asks who they are. Like he really wants to hear the answer.”

“That’s worse,” Denny said.

“Sixteen and seventeen,” said Walt.

Amara read them fast. “The man with the spirit jumps them. Overpowers all seven. They run out of the house naked and wounded. Word gets around to every Jew and Greek in Ephesus, fear falls on everybody, and the name of the Lord Jesus is magnified.” She sat back and counted on her fingers. “Known. Unknown. Exposed. Beaten. Name magnified. That’s five beats.”

“A cluster,” Walt said. “Verse fifteen doesn’t stand by itself.”

“It’s tidy,” said Denny, and it was clear that he meant it as praise.

He took a swallow of coffee and set the mug down with some ceremony. “Twenty-three. I’ve been holding this one all week.”

“Oh no,” Amara said.

“Sears.”

“I knew it.”

“Craftsman. Kenmore. Everything in one catalog that the whole country trusted. Then along comes the internet and somebody says, buy it from your phone, and Sears sits in the parking lot looking at its own building. That’s Demetrius. Guy sees his business going and starts a riot instead of adapting. He should’ve gone into jewelry. Jewish, Christian, whatever the new customers wanted. Same silver. Same hands.”

“What was he actually making?” Tomás asked.

“Twenty-four,” Amara read. “Silver shrines of Artemis.”

“Shrines,” Tomás said.

“Little ones,” Walt said. “A miniature temple with the goddess inside. People kept them at home and carried them to the big temple as offerings.”

“So it’s not necklaces,” Denny said slowly.

“It’s an altar you can pick up,” said Amara.

“Twenty-seven,” Walt said.

Amara read it. “‘Not only is there danger that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing.’”

“He says both in one breath,” Tomás said. “The business and the temple. He can’t hear the seam between them.”

“Because there isn’t one,” Denny said. He was quiet a second. “So he can’t just switch product lines.”

“What would he be selling?” Walt asked.

“The other side’s merchandise in the goddess’s hometown.” Denny grinned. “In front of her temple.”

“Christian crosses, hand-crafted in Ephesus,” Amara said.

“I’d have bought one.”

Even Tomás laughed at that.

The oven ticked as it cooled. Walt got up, closed its door, and filled the kettle. With his back to them he said, “Anybody see a pattern in the chapter so far?”

“Names,” Tomás said.

They all looked at him.

“Baptized in the name. Using the name, the wrong way. The name of the Lord Jesus magnified.” He was turning the paperback slowly in his hands. “And the word of the Lord in verse ten, going out through Asia. Twelve men, a hall, seven brothers, a silversmith. Everyone comes in and goes out. That one keeps going.”

“Oh, come on,” Denny said, but he was smiling.

“Who’s the main character?” Amara said sweetly.

“Don’t.”

“I’m only asking.”

Walt turned around with the kettle in his hand and his face carefully blank. “Verse twenty-eight is next week.”

“There’s a riot,” Amara said. “My Bible has a heading that says The Riot at Ephesus.“

“Those headings were added later too,” said Walt.

“Bookmarks,” said Denny.

“Bookmarks.”

Amara reached across the table and turned Denny’s page of notes face up before he could stop her. She read it to herself, and her eyebrows climbed. The page had a date, a scrawled Apollos with an arrow, and the word Sears, underlined twice.

“That’s all you did?”

“I did a little looking,” said Denny.