We left Paul in Ephesus ,
having spent a couple of years, teaching, discussing and sharing first with the
Jewish community there in the synagogue and then with a predominantly Gentile community
in a hall he hired from Tyrannus.
When the silversmiths who made a living from the temple of Diana
And so we take up the story in Acts 20.
After the uproar had
ceased, Paul sent for the disciples; and after encouraging them and saying
farewell, he left for Macedonia
It was quite some tour he did, re-visiting the area around Corinth and Athens . It’s possible to match up the letters of Paul
with the story in Acts and work out that one of the things he was doing as he
visited those churches again was making a collection for people back in the area
around Jerusalem
who were facing particular hardship.
He devotes two whole chapters in the second letter to the
Corinthians urging them to give generously and describing the way he had
organised the collection.
It’s a wonderful couple of chapters on giving and where we get such phrases and ideas as …
God loves a cheerful giver.
Cast your bread upon the waters.
From each according to their means to each according to
their need.
Paul had a small group of people travelling with him,
looking after the money he was collecting.
Here they are named. Notice how
they are identified as coming from some of the churches Paul had founded and visited.
He was about to set
sail for Syria when a plot
was made against him by the Jews, and so he decided to return through Macedonia Asia .
This is one of those points at which the narrative changes
person. And it is as if the writer begins
describing things he had seen. Is the writer
of Acts drawing on someone’s journal who was travelling with Paul? Or is it that the writer of Acts is himself
the one who at this point is the travelling companion of Paul. Lots of good reasoning leads me to the
conclusion this is Luke, the beloved physician, who for a while is a travelling
companion of Paul.
Notice the detail he gives of the journey, and the length of
time it takes.
It’s the days of Unleavened bread, around the Passover, what
we think of as Easter.
5They went ahead and
were waiting for us in Troas; 6but we sailed from Philippi after the days
of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we
joined them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
Now comes one of those precious little insights into what
was happening in the church at this time.
It’s interesting that the followers of Jesus by this time had taken to
meeting not on the Sabbath, but on the first day of the week, on the
Sunday. And when they met they broke
bread together.
What Paul does is interesting. He holds a ‘discussion’ with them. The word translated ‘discussion’ is the word
that comes into English as ‘dialogue. It’s
easy to picture Paul always preaching – actually a lot of his sharing of the
gospel is done in the context of dialogue and discussion.
Very interesting.
As they meet Paul also teaches and preaches, until midnight …
and on until dawn. Wow! It’s only 7-00 as I’m telling this story … so
I have another five hours to a break at midnight and another seven hours until
dawn!!!
There’s a salutary tale to tell about the dangers of falling asleep in a sermon. Let those who have ears to hear, hear!!!
7 On the first day of
the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them;
since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight.
8There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. 9A young man
named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep
sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground
three floors below and was picked up dead. 10But Paul went down, and bending
over him took him in his arms, and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in
him.’ 11Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he
continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left. 12Meanwhile they had
taken the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.
There’s more detail about the itinerary of their travels as
Paul in the company of Luke and the others travels on. There’s a sense of urgency about Paul.
He was already mature in years when he first encountered
Christ on the road to Damascus . There was a fourteen year gap before his ministry
began as he got his mind round all that he would be sharing of Jesus and the
Gospel. This was the third of his
journeys … and he was still planning one last journey that would take him to Rome and on to the other end of the Mediterranean, to Spain .
Another interesting detail is to notice how Paul wants to be
in Jerusalem
for Pentecost. That gives a good
indication of his anticipated travelling time.
But it also gives a hint that just as the followers of Jesus marked the
feast of unleavened bread, the time at which Jesus was crucified and raised to
life, they also, it would seem, marked Pentecost, the time of the out-pouring
the Holy Spirit.
13 We went ahead to
the ship and set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there; for he
had made this arrangement, intending to go by land himself. 14When he met us in
Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. 15We sailed from there, and
on the following day we arrived opposite Chios .
The next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that we came to Miletus
Paul realises that he hasn’t time to re-visit Ephesus , but he longs to
meet up with the people he has got to know so well there, and give them the
kind of encouragement he loved to give in re-visiting churches he had helped to
found.
He decides instead to meet up with the elders, the ones from
the church who in Ephesus
who are older, the senior members, older perhaps in faith, not necessarily in
years.
From Miletus
he sent a message to Ephesus
He knows this is going to be the last time he meets with
people from this church, indeed the last time he will meet with people from the
churches of Asia and so he wanted to share
with them the things that were really important to him.
It’s fascinating to see just what it was that Paul had to
share and to look out for some of the key things that go to the heart of the message
as he understands it.
In our service one of our members read the first half of the
speech Acts 20:17-24, then I led the congregation in reading together as a
statement of the faith we share together with each other, together with that
church in Ephesus and together with Paul Ephesians 1:3-12. Rachel then read the remainder of the speech
to the end of the chapter and we sang a wonderful hymn, God of grace and God of
Glory, come among us in your powers.
I then returned to the speech and drew attention to some of
those things Paul had to say to the elders of Ephesus on this occasion that go to the heart
of the faith we share.
‘You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. 20I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus.
Repentance was at the heart of John the Baptist’s
message. Repentance was at the heart of
Jesus’ message. Repentance is at the
heart of Paul’s message.
But what does ‘repentance’ mean?
It’s very easy to think of it as saying sorry for the personal
sins you have committed. But there’s
much more to the word used here than that.
It’s very easy to think of it as an about turn but in a very
personalised way that I make in an interior kind of way as I make an about turn
from my sinful life, and turn to Jesus.
The word is even richer than that.
It’s a bout a whole change of your mind, of your way of
thinking.
Paul uses an intriguing set of words here when he speaks of ‘repentance
towards God’. It is as if he is saying
we have to come to the point at which the whole we think about God and the
whole of life is changed, our whole world view is different.
That whole different way of looking at God is so important.
I had a fascinating conversation with one of our youngsters
this morning who for RE homework had to write the arguments for the existence
of God and then the arguments against the existence of God and then say what he
felt.
It was a fascinating conversation … and he had got those
arguments off well.
I shared what I believed as a Christian.
I think it’s brilliant working out and thinking through all
the arguments for the existence of God … but you’ll never prove the existence
of God through those arguments. There
will always be arguments for and against.
I, as a Christian, want to start with Jesus. You can find out about him. You can see what he taught, what he did, the
way he came into a hurting world to bring healing, the way he experienced
abject suffering to the extent of feeling that God had abandoned him. And the way he gained a victory over death
in resurrection.
Then Jesus opens up a way of seeing God that’s very
different from those philosophical arguments.
Start with the God of the philosophers and you end up down a
blind alley: if god is all powerful, all loving, all seeing, how can there be
suffering in the world?
Start, instead with the world as it is and focus on Jesus …
and you discover God to be one who is there in the middle of a suffering world
always working through the likes of you and me to alleviate suffering, to set
things right and inviting us to be part of that.
Then that releases within us a sense of the presence of God
as a God of love who brings love into a suffering world in such a way that
nothing, not even death itself, can separte us from that wonderful love. And where do we find that love? In Christ!
So coupled with a whole new different way of thinking of God
(repentance towards God) comes faith that finds its focus in Jesus (faith
towards our Lord Jesus)
This is powerful stuff!
Then with that kind of sense of the presence, released for Paul
by the Holy Spirit of God, he feels able to face whatever the world will hurl
at him. It has already hurled some pretty awful things … and it will do again!
22And now, as a
captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will
happen to me there, 23except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city
that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me.
Paul is determined to run the course, finish the race … and
take that collection in person to Jerusalem .
And at this point he goes to the heart of what the faith is
all about.
He arrives at a little word that is fundamental to the
thinking about God he has come to … and we must too.
For me it is a word that’s really significant because it is
a word that for me represents a complete turn around in my thinking about God.
I started out by thin king that being a Christian was all
about meeting the demands of Christ’s teaching to love God, love your neighbour
and love your enemy. The heart of being
a Christians is to live out the Sermon on the Mount.
I was growing up at the time of Martin Luther King.
Christian faith was a wonderful way of life to follow.
My problem was that people accused me of being inconsistent,
of failing to live out that perfect way of life … and that troubled me.
Then I brought to mind the fact that Jesus not only taught such a high standard, but he accepted and mixed with precisely those who failed to live up that high standard, the Zacchaeuses, the tax collectors, the sinners of this world!
I discovered, ironically while worshipping in a Baptist
church, that for me the heart of Chrsitianity was not a way of life to follow,
not even faith, but grace. The
initiative God takes in reaching out to us before ever we know anything about
us – that plan he has for us from before the beginning of time, the way he
knows us from the womb.
From having loved the verses Love God, Love your neighbout I
discovered the verse in 1 John 4 …
This is love.
It is not that we loved God.
But that he loved us.
And gave his son to be the means by which our sins are
forgiven.
That’s grace.
The free gift of God’s love. And nowhere is it more vividly expressed than in the sacrament of baptism as it is shared with a tiny little baby and we celebrated the initiative and the wonder of God’s gift of grace. With the prayer that as that little one grows older they will make this love of God their own in faith.
For me salvation is by grace through faith.
And that’s what Paul alludes to here!
24But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only
I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.
[It was at this point that we had broken off for all of us
to read together Ephesians 1:3-12. We
used the church Bibles, not the NRSV I have been using … but the Good News
Bible. A lovely passage to read together
as a congregation …
Let us give thanks to
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he
has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world.
4 Even before the
world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ,
so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love
5 God had already
decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his sons and daughters —
this was his pleasure and purpose.
6 Let us praise God
for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son!
7 For by the blood of
Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace
of God,
8 which he gave to us
in such large measure! In all his wisdom and insight
9 God did what he had
purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to
complete by means of Christ.
10 This plan, which
God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together,
everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.
11 All things are done
according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in
union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from
the very beginning.
12 Let us, then, who
were the first to hope in Christ, praise God's glory!
Returning to Acts 20 – the remainder of Paul’s speech
continues to highlight some of those things fundamental to our faith.
It’s very easy to overlook.
We often think of Paul preaching the Gospel of salvation.
Actually he did exactly as John the Baptist had done before
him.
He did exactly as Jesus had done before him.
He proclaimed the Kingdom
of God
Just as John the Baptist had done, just as Jesus had done
Paul lived in a world that was dominated by the Roman way of doing kingdom – they
called it Empire and it regarded the Emperor as Son of God, as Saviour, it told
good news ‘evangelion’ about the Emperor and his achievements.
And as John the Baptist had done, and Jesus had done, Paul
proclaimed a diffeent way of doing ‘kingdom’, God’s way. It was a way that held the kind of values
Jesus put across in that Sermon on the Mount and throughout his teaching.
And the prayer Jesus taught us to pray is that God’s rule,
God’s way of doing kingdom should come on earth as it is in heaven – and that
happens when God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
The centrality of the Kingdom to Paul’s thought comes across
so clearly in these powerful words.
25 ‘And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone
about proclaiming the kingdom, will
ever see my face again.
This is a poignant moment as Paul this is the last time he
will meet with people who have become close friends and who have been through
so much with him.
He knows full well, they will face difficult times.
He felt sure that that would be within the purposes of God.
26Therefore I declare
to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you, 27for I
did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.
Paul was very conscious the world of that Roman
empire had a myriad of things on offer that would purportedly make
life better.
Not much diffeent from our world – where there are so many
alternatives presented to us.
We have a tendency, sometimes even within the church, to say
anything goes. So long as people have
faith in something it doesn’t really matter.
That’s not what John the Baptist felt.
It’s not what Jesus believed.
It’s certainly not
what Paul believed.
He reminds those older members of the church in Ephesus that they share a
responsibility as ‘episkopoi’ – that’s the word that is often translated ‘bishops’.
But for Paul here the bishop is not some individual who has
charge over a whole region – all those who share in pastoral oversight of this
particular church in Ephesus
are ‘episkopoi’. I love that word pastoral
oversight – it captures what Paul means by shepherding as overseers. We often speak of someone being called to the
pastoral oversight of the church – that’s exactly what Paul is talking about
here.
How important it is to steer people away from so much that’s
on offer and to point them to Christ and to the Kingdom and God’s way in the
world
28Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God
Paul’s coming towards the end and he has a wonderful commendation. It’s back to that wonderful little word,
grace.
Hold on to grace, the free gift of God’s love and that more
than anything else will build you up in the Christian faith and in the Christian
way of life!
32And now
I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you
the inheritance among all who are sanctified.
Paul reminds his friends how he paid his own way – he must
have been involved in his tent-making while living and sharing in Ephesus . But then there’s a hint of a reference here to
that collection he has been making.
He may have paid his own way … but he was convinced that it
was important for people then to share what they have earned with those who are
most vulnerable, those who are weak.
That kind of giving to others is at the heart of the
Christian way as far as Paul is concerned … and at the heart of all we stand
for too!
3I coveted no one’s
silver or gold or clothing. 34You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.
35In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the
words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than
to receive.”
It’s rare for Paul to quote Jesus directly. Isn’t it
interesting that one of those rare occasions is this comment about giving. It shows how high on the scale of priorities
is a commitment to the poor in Paul’s understanding of the Christian faith.
The speech over there’s one thing for Paul to do.
36 When he had
finished speaking, he knelt down with
them all and prayed.
In a moment we too will share in prayer … the very
life-blood of the Christian’s life.
There’s no mistaking just how heart-rending this occasion was. Everyone there knew they wouldn’t be seeing
Paul again. It was a very emotional
moment.
The chapter ends as Paul is accompanied to the ship and
ready to make his last fateful journey to Jerusalem .
37There was much
weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, 38grieving
especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then
they brought him to the ship.
What better way to finish than with that most wonderful of
prayers from Ephesians 3 …
Maybe we can hear Paul praying these words for those very
people in Ephesus ,
maybe we can hear him praying these words for us …
For this reason I bow
my knees before the Father,
from whom every family
in heaven and on earth takes its name.
I pray that, according
to the riches of his glory,
he may grant that you
may be strengthened in your inner being
with power through his Spirit,
and that Christ may
dwell in your hearts through faith,
as you are being
rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that you may
have the power to comprehend,
with all the saints,
what is the breadth
and length and height and depth,
and to know the love
of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the
power at work within us
is able to accomplish
abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,
to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus to
all generations,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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