SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/4/2018 7:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 Availability
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 20:7-17
Message of the verses: “7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. 9 And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. 10 But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, "Do not be troubled, for his life is in him." 11 When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. 12 They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted. 13 But we, going ahead to the ship, set sail for Assos, intending from there to take Paul on board; for so he had arranged it, intending himself to go by land. 14 And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and came to Mitylene. 15 Sailing from there, we arrived the following day opposite Chios; and the next day we crossed over to Samos; and the day following we came to Miletus. 16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. 17 From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.”
In our last SD we wrote about why believers today do not
celebrate the Sabbath like the Jewish people did since that was a shadow of
things to come and Jesus Christ was what came, not being the shadow, but the
real thing. We gave ten reasons why the
church did not celebrate the Sabbath and also spoke a bit about the church and
the fact that it meets on Sunday, the day that the Lord Jesus Christ arose from
the dead.
Luke then takes a second feature of the early Christian
worship service by talking about its meeting place, that of the upper room of a
house. I suppose that in many parts of
the world that there are believers meeting in houses because of persecution
going on or perhaps that is where a church begins, perhaps with a Bible study
in a house that turns into a church, but at any rate churches began as house
churches and that is where Paul was speaking at this time. John MacArthur writes that “the earliest
known church building dates from the first half of the third century (E. M.
Blaiklock, ‘Dura Europos,’ in E. M. Blaiklock and R. K. Harrison, eds., The New International Dictionary of Biblical
Archaeology [Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1983], 165).”
One of the reasons for meeting together according to Luke
was “to break bread”—that is to celebrate the Agape or love feast, or the
common meal. “20 Therefore when you meet
together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, 21 for in your eating each one
takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do
you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of
God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise
you? In this I will not praise you (1 Cor. 11:20-22).” As the meal was being prepared “Paul began
talking to them.” John MacArthur writes
“Talking’ is from dialegomai, from
which the English word ‘dialogue’ derives.
Paul did not stop with preaching; there was discussion, and he answered
their questions.” I would have liked to have
been with this meeting and been able to ask questions of the Apostle Paul, and
as we look at the following phrase we can be sure that the questions went on
for a while: he was “intending to depart the next day, he prolonged his message
until midnight.” We see here another
example of Paul’s great love for the churches and he was to leave the next day
for a long journey, but continued to speak to meet the needs of others. Paul was not giving any thought of his own needs,
but in actuality he was fulfilling what
their “love feast” was about as the word Agape means “to do something for someone without expecting
anything in return.”
I have a little story that goes along with what we are
studying in this section. A wonderful
former Pastor’s wife from a church I use to go to had a cousin who used to go
to the former Soviet Union to preach and bring Bibles in even though this was
against their law. As the Soviet Union
was about to collapse this man was there eating dinner very late with some
believers and they decided to go out into the woods to conduct a worship
service. I suppose that in earlier times
this would have been much more dangerous than at this time, but they began to worship
the Lord in the woods. One of the
believers who was there pleaded with this man (whose name I have forgotten) “Oh
let us stay up all night and worship the Lord.”
I have never forgotten the story even though I forgot the man’s name as
I thought about how precious it was to have an opportunity to openly worship
the Lord in a place where many ended up in prison for doing that. I do remember
that the man was the cousin of our Pastor’s wife.
Paul experienced something similar as the people wanted
to listen to him all night as we see in this passage, and also in this story we
see a great miracle as a young man, Eutychus fell out of a third story window,
perhaps some thirty plus feet to the ground below and died from the fall. Paul must have rushed down to the young man’s
body and through the power of the Holy Spirit revived this man who was dead.
This event pretty much stopped the meeting for a while,
but they went back up and Paul spoke to the people until daybreak. Then at daybreak Paul had to leave. “Luke and the others went to a boat to sail
for Assos, which was about twenty miles from Troas where they were. Paul wanted to go by land. MacArthur writes “Why Paul chose to walk to
Assos is not stated. It is most likely
that it gave him more time to instruct the disciples from Troas who accompanied
him. This act again shows Paul’s love
for the church as he was able to continue to minister through this long 20 mile
walk even after he was up all night ministering to this church.
Luke writes more about Paul’s availability in verses 14-17: “14 And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and came to Mitylene. 15 Sailing from there, we arrived the following day opposite Chios; and the next day we crossed over to Samos; and the day following we came to Miletus. 16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. 17 From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.”
As we continue to read and study the last part of the
book of Acts we see more and more of how Paul demonstrated the love of the Lord
to the churches that he had began through the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul catches up with Luke as they continued
on their trip to get to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost but along
his way as the ship that he was about to board in seven days he had an
opportunity to exhort more to some of the believing leaders of the Ephesian
church which we will talk about as we begin the next section of Acts 20. I have read this section we are about to look
at many things and it reminds me of reading one of Paul’s letters as I read
what he was teaching these leaders of Ephesus.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Showing the kind
of love that Paul showed to the churches is a gift from the Holy Spirit, something
I truly need more of.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Seeking a solution for an issue that has been
troubling to me for a while.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Deuteronomy.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What did the Lord order the
people to place on the bottom of their garments that they might keep his
commandments in remembrance?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/4/2018 8:17 AM
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