Welcome back to the Book of Acts. We are going to finish up Chapter 9 today. We left our intrepid hero, the Apostle Paul in the city of Tarsis, where everything got too hot for him in Damascus and then in Jerusalem and so they sent him off to Tarsis. We'll pick him up a little bit later in the story. But in Chapter 9 verse 32, the scene shifts to the Apostle Peter. And we have a few verses to cover as the Apostle Peter. If you see by the map that is on the screen is found down here toward the coast from Jerusalem. He's going toward the sea, and he's got to stop in Lydda. And then he is got to stop in Joppa where he will stay for a period of time before he's going to go up to Caesarea for what is one of the very momentous moments in the story of the church, which we'll cover in Chapter 10. So, let's pick it up in verse 32. We have his passage through the parts of the country.

Acts 9:32 "That he also came down to the saints who dwelt in Lydda."

This is where, again, Luke just inserts here that there are saints, members we would look at them in the city of Lydda, a small village. How did this group come to be? Again, Luke doesn't tell us every detail about the startup of all the churches, although we're going to find one soon, the church at Antioch, how that begins. But Lydda's got a group of saints, and it seems like Peter is out on a visiting tour. Again, there's no explanation given as to why Peter decides to go down toward this part of the country except to make it a visit of some of the churches. And, were there news of needs, people sick, or just checking in? I don't know. Part of the role of a shepherd, a pastor at his church is to get out and visit people, and sometimes to anoint, sometimes to counsel, sometimes just to sit and have a cup of coffee.

And one of my most favorite times in the ministry was to do what... I used to employ a cowboy term, you go out and you ride fence. You go out and you just drive to where your people are living and you visit with them, and you don't have to have a reason necessarily. There's not a crisis. You're just visiting with them, and you sit for a while. You have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, whatever it might be, and maybe a meal and just talk for a while on the front porch, on the back patio, wherever it might be. Those were some of the most enjoyable times that I had in the field ministry. And I'd like to think of this particular passage as Peter kind of going out and checking up on the churches. And so he stops in Lydda here.

Acts 9:33 "He found a certain man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed."

That's the way it's put here, he found. Tells us that he maybe did not know about this man or did he hear about him, and maybe this was the reason for the visit. Let's just take it as it comes, but here is a disciple who is quite ill.

Acts 9:34 "And Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed. And he rose immediately.’”

And again, very similar to the lame man that was at the temple when Peter and John in Chapter 3 had gone into the temple at that time and Peter had raised him back to life, a lame man as well. And so here is perhaps a little different type of malady that Aeneas has, but Peter performs this act of healing.

Acts 9:35 "And so all who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord."

Again, one of the reasons for the miracles we read about in the Book of Acts and as well as in the gospels, was to draw attention to the gospel or to Christ Himself and His power as the Son of God. But this has the benefit of turning many people to God, and to the worship of the Lord, the risen Christ. And so, Peter now moves on.

Acts 9:36-38 It says, "At Joppa," which puts him down on the coast. Again you look at the map here, he's down now on the Mediterranean coast at Joppa. There's still a settlement there, a town, in that locale. "And there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. But it happened in those days that she became sick and died," perhaps a brief short illness that resulted in her death. "And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. And since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples heard Peter was there, and they sent two men to him imploring him not to delay in coming to them."

So, they had heard he was there, word had filtered through as again, people were going back and forth. So, they sent to Lydda for Peter to come down. Now, it says about this woman here that she was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. One thing about Luke that we've I think already commented on is Luke tends to focus on women a great deal in his gospel and in the Book of Acts. We learn about a lot of different women in the church and in the story of the church in those two books. And also Luke will focus on the marginalized of society. That's why you will find the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel of Luke. You know, as we've discussed earlier, the Samaritans were marginalized at least with the Jews. They had their own community up to the north, but they were not welcome, let's say, in Jerusalem and at the tables of the Jews. There was a longstanding animosity between them, but it's on that story that Luke focuses and puts in his story of God.

So, here is another woman, Tabitha, who is known for her good works and charitable deeds which she did. So, she was kind of a standout among the women in the church, if you will. And so they laid her out. She died. They sent for Peter and allow enough time for him to come down. So, in this case, they didn't put her in the grave right away. There's no explanation given for that. Maybe it was just because they wanted to take the time to mourn. Maybe it was so sudden, so stunning to the disciples here that this woman who had been perhaps, you know, so vibrant and a part of the church, now all of a sudden, after likely a brief illness, she's gone. And that put a shock into the congregation. So, perhaps they were not ready to, in a sense, part with her. Were they looking for something beyond that? They sent for Peter to come down. He did go. In verse 39.

Acts 9:39 "When he came, they brought him to the upper room. And all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and the garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them."

So, she was known for her handy crafts, for her ability to create clothing, a basic necessity of life, which obviously would've been distributed to people who needed that. She was that type of woman. I don't know how you would find your congregations, those of you listening online, students here in the room from which you come, but I would think that as you look around at the individuals in your congregation, you would have certain individuals like a Tabitha, a Dorcas who stands out, who quietly goes about taking care of people's needs and you don't hear about them.

They're not in the announcements every week, but they know who needs something, maybe a meal when somebody's sick, maybe a coat for winter, maybe a little extra money here or there, and they take care of it, or see that it gets taken care of. Those are the people that make the congregation work and also provide that glue that just causes things to stick together. It's not always a woman doing that as well. Many, many men perform those unseen, sometimes unknown roles.

I would marvel through my years, again in the ministry that at times I would find out what was being done for so and so in the congregation that I didn't have to tell them to do it, that people just began to do themselves. And I always thought, "Man, that's great." Those were the greatest situations because that's what you want, people to take initiative. And you want to see people taking care of one another, and providing for each other's needs within everybody's abilities. Such was Tabitha and Dorcas here, and that's why they stood by weeping. And perhaps it's what they were hoping for as they called for Peter to come and see them.

Acts 9:40-42 "Peter put them all out, knelt down, and prayed." This was his response. "And turning to the body he said, 'Tabitha, arise.' And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up." Another miracle. A miracle here of an individual being brought back to life. "He gave her his hand, lifted her up; and when he had called the saints and widows, he presented her alive." And so he either called them in or he brought her out to where they were. "And it became known throughout all Joppa." Again, the miracle drew attention to God, not to Peter. "They believed on the Lord," it tells us at the end of verse 42.

Any good deed, any healing that would take place amongst people when there would be sickness in our midst, always give credit to God, not the minister, not the individual. Give credit to God. This was meant to do that.

Acts 9:43 "So it was that he stayed many days in Joppa with Simon, a tanner."

And so he's down on a sea coast, and he just decides to stay here and remain here for a while. He finds lodging with a man named Simon, a tanner. So, really the story now just blends into Chapter 10. It really doesn't... There's no ending at only kind of a contrived chapter demarcation here at this point. But Peter's now about to be involved in a significant step of, call it evangelism, call it an opening of the door to the Gentiles as he is going to go up to be called up to Caesarea, and he's going to encounter there an individual, and there's going to be quite a scene, quite an event that finalizes and puts, in a sense, the final stamp on things.

So, just before we go to that, I just want to comment, you know, that Luke is inspired by God here at the end of Chapter 9 to give us just a few verses of two different events that Peter does as he is heading out, you know, writing fence. Did he intend to go up to Caesarea? Probably not. Was he going to kind of backtrack through Lydda, maybe go back up to Jerusalem, or stop along the way? I don't know. He seems to come to a terminus of where his intent was in what he had set out here. But in the two stops that he's had, his mind, and his ministries is drawn to the power of God working in the church, the power of the risen Christ working through the disciples, and through here he as an apostle.

And I think that we should look at that as a preparatory for what is going to happen as he gets into Chapter 10 because God is going to lead him into a situation that he must understand is of God. And he could not have designed it, Peter and James and John and the apostles in Jerusalem, guess what? They did not have a strategic plan for what was going to take place. They hadn't written all this up in advance. They didn't chart it all out with bullet points and flow items and everything else. It wasn't in their strategic plan, but it's in God's strategic plan, as all things ultimately worthwhile are.

But he's prepared by being drawn to the, again, two dramatic events in the lives of simple members, simple disciples, unknown names of people other than Aeneas and Tabitha. The rest of them are encouraged by what happens, and they are the glue of the church, and what is happening is the gospel is spread. So, his attention now is going to be turned to someone quite different, a different type of an individual. And again, this is the variety of what we see. So, let's go ahead and turn over to Chapter 10, and let's begin to look at this. There's a lot to deal with here in Chapter 10 as we move into this remarkable scene. Luke opens it this way in verse 1.

Acts 10:1-3 "There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all of his household, who gave alms generously to the people and prayed to God always. And about the ninth hour, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, 'Cornelius.'"

So, we've moved up the coast of Caesarea. Just a few quick pictures to give you kind of a setting for this. I showed this to you last time, but Caesarea again, remember, it is Caesarea Maritima, the technical full name. Caesarea, you should recognize commemorates Caesar and Maritima by the sea. So, it's Caesarea by the sea, but it's a city essentially built by Herod the Great. You have a handout that I've already given to you here that shows you the family tree of the Herodian family. And you will need to keep that because it's important that you know the different Herods in the gospels and in the Book of Acts especially. There are different ones. And this particular family tree, I'll just hold it up here. We'll have that on the website or in the web, I believe, for those online. Shows the tree of the Herodian family as it pertains to Scripture. And that's what we'll focus on, and that's what you need to know because there's a lot of information here.

But Herod built this Caesarea. And as I said last time, it was a seaport. And you can see, he built out this artificial harbor. He enclosed it to where boats could come in and safely anchor. This jetty that comes out is man-made. You see the excavations that have been done there that are quite extent. Interestingly, this is a Crusader castle that is there in Caesarea. But the Romans knew how to pour concrete underwater in their day. And you can still see that in Caesarea today. They used that to build up the port.

I was reading an article about that particular process recently and how that works, but it's still there. And it was quite a feat. As he built the city, this became the seat of not only Herod the Great but then all the successive Roman governors. And we'll find this will be the scene for the Apostle Paul's imprisonment later on. So, we're going to come back to Caesarea.

Just one thing that I will note. We don't have it up on the map up here, but this was a seaport. And a port serves needs for transportation. Ships come and go, and for commerce. And really somebody like Herod the Great and the Romans, they didn't build up a huge city on the seaside and a port like this without wanting to make money, which is what this was all about. And Herod the Great became quite wealthy through this as it enabled him to control and have duties on and be involved with the transport of spices, perfumes, and other goods that were a part of the caravan route, going back and forth east, west in the Mediterranean world at that time.

If you remember, I told you when we were studying Daniel 11 and the back-and-forth battles between the King of the North, the Seleucid, and the King of the South, the Ptolemies in Egypt. A lot of those battles of Daniel 11 deal with trying to control the trade routes that went through that part of the world. It's all about money, then and now. The adage "Follow the money" helps to understand a lot. And when it comes to, in a sense, geography and why the city is here, follow the money. It enabled Herod the Great to build up a large amount of money for which he built a lot himself. He had multiple palaces all over the countryside. And don't forget, he refurbished and built out the temple in Jerusalem, that second temple that we referred to. He expanded the temple mount, refurbished the temple, made it even grander. That took a lot of money, the gold, the silver, and everything that was there, the labor to do all of that, and his palaces.

And Caesarea Maritima was a part of the cash flow for Herod the Great at that time within the greater Mediterranean world. And so that's why it's here, and it becomes the... At this time now, as we were dealing with here in the fourth decade of the 1st century AD, we find now that there is a centurion here named Cornelius, from what was called the Italian Regiment. What's this all about? Well, keep in mind the city is the headquarters for the Roman governor, and Roman governor had to have troops with him. And the Roman soldiers and parts of the legion at least had to have a presence here for this scene to be in front of us at this time.

So, just an aside. Look at this as kind of a sidebar here for a moment. I didn't put it on my slides, but let's do it right here. We are introduced to a member of the Roman army, and the Roman army basically they were called the legions, right? Now, there were many different legions or armies, at least 15. I know there's the 15th Legion and throughout the history of the Roman Empire, the Roman legions were basically responsible for creating the empire. When you see the movies about Rome, they inevitably will have scenes about the legions. Probably one of the better-known ones that was done recently was that of "Gladiator." Again, put that on your movie list if you haven't seen. Everybody's seen it. Anybody here not seen "Gladiator?" Okay. They creep up with their hands. You need to see "Gladiator." But opening scene, it's the legions up in Germany fighting the Germanic tribes. But my point is it's the legions that essentially went out and they built the empire for, first, the republic, and then later the Caesars.

At this time, the legions are under the direct control of the Caesar. He is the commander-in-chief, and they literally in so many ways, are responsible for all that was Rome. They conquered the territories. They enforced Roman order, they put down uprisings, and they, in some cases, even dealt with trade. Now, why is it important to know a little bit about the Roman army? Because they are found throughout the New Testament. Think about it. John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing, and some soldiers come to him, and he tells them how to conduct themselves. He doesn't seem to baptize them, but some feel that those could very well have been Roman soldiers, not just Jewish soldiers.

When you see the scene in Matthew 8, Christ heals a centurion's servant. It's not likely the same centurion as Cornelius here, but that was in Capernaum on the north shore of Galilee. Why was a Roman centurion in Capernaum? Probably to make sure that the taxes were collected. Remember, Matthew is a tax collector. He's in Capernaum. And if you've seen "The Chosen," you'll see that he enter... In the movie, "The Chosen," my wife and I were watching that recently, and the scenes with Matthew. He answers directly to a Roman soldier. They were there to make sure the money was collected. And so Christ interacted with a centurion. And, of course, the Roman soldiers arrested Christ and crucified Him. It was a Roman soldier that put the spear through Christ. 

And here in Acts, we see now soldiers, and we're going to see them arrest Paul and accompany him to Rome. So, we need to know a little bit about the Roman army and the Roman legions as we go about this. So, we need to put up a Roman centurion right there. Roman legion was the largest group, several thousand. We'll get into all the numbers here. But there was a subdivision called a cohort, and then under a cohort was even a smaller group called a century. Originally, the century was a unit of 100 men, hence the name century, for 100. In later years, this probably went down to about 80-plus they think. So, the sizes of the legions were diminished through the years. But over a century was a centurion. And that's where we come in with Cornelius here, right?

So, a centurion was responsible for 80 to 100 men under his charge, right? And there were several centuries within a cohort, and then over there was kind of a primed overall centurion over all the other centuries. So, it was a very well-organized army, and here is Cornelius, who is a centurion. Now, we're told that he's from the Italian Regiment. Commentators feel that that was a regiment probably originating either near Rome, Southern Italy, and a contingent of them find themselves here doing duty in Caesarea at this time. Cornelius is over them.

Just a little bit more something about a centurion. And a lot of it will apply to that of a Roman soldier, the rank and file, but typically a Roman soldier and a centurion would be engaged for up to 20 to 25 years of service in Rome. Now, keep in mind that this would've been a pretty good job for a lot of Roman men to do. And if they lived and if they survived all these years and all these campaigns and wars and battles, after 20, 25 years of service, they were discharged. If they were still alive, they would be given sometimes money, but more lucratively, they would be given a plot of land. And a lot of retired Roman soldiers were given land in what is today's Spain, and they wind up there. That's why in the movie "Gladiator," the Russell Crowe character, his land is in Spain. But over a period of time, you know, as Rome expanded, parts of their expansion was also to provide more land for people and also for money for the Senate, and also land for these retiring soldiers that they had to kind of pay off at that time.

When we come to Antioch in Pisidia, later in the story here in Acts, which is a city in Asia Minor, that city was largely made up of retired Roman legionaries furloughed there by Caesar Augustus, the big guy who founded the Empire. And he settled a lot of them in Antioch of Pisidia, other places as well. So, this is what would happen.

Now, let's go to verse 2 here, and let's look at the character of this man, which is unusual. Keep in mind, he's a Gentile, he's a Roman. The Romans were hated among the Jews, and the church is having a... They're seeing now that the gospel and converts are going to be involving people that were not like them, okay? Think about your group. What's your group? We like people who are like us, right? Look like us, think like us. Groups get like that. Whatever the group might be. You fill in the blank. Every group of people, ethnically, religiously, racially. People come together because everybody has common interests, common background, common race, common religion. And we like people who are like us, right? It's just human nature.

The church is a group of called-out ones now, very specially called, but they have, as we've talked of earlier, they've been holed up in Jerusalem until the martyrdom of Stephen, then Christ is spreading them out. And the Romans now, they've gone to Samaria. Phillip went to Samaria, baptized people. Phillip then baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch. That was a difference there. Now, Peter is coming in contact with a Roman, a Gentile from Italy. It doesn't get any more Gentile than that in the story.

And we find that he is a devout man who feared God with all of his household. That term, "feared God," is a term that we call in Scripture a God fear. I'm not going to give you the Greek term here today. We'll come back to it maybe in Chapter 13. But I want you to understand this term as it is applied here. It is a Greek word here. And it means one who fears God and is applied to Gentiles by the Jews who attached themselves to the synagogue and to all things Jewish or Judaic and seek to worship the God of Abraham. And this became a class of people.

You will find... Well, I did put this in here. This is a picture of a Roman officer. Pause and comment on this for a moment. And this is a centurion. This is a reenactment from the city of Jerash, which is in modern Jordan. I didn't take this picture, but I've been to Jerash and I saw this reenactment on the tour that we took. And they had a group of Roman soldiers, probably 40 or 50 in this reenactment, and they were all dressed up in Roman garb and they came out in this stadium, and they did certain maneuvers. They marched, they turned, they did their turtle shell, which is interesting. The Roman soldiers had a huge shield that covered most of their body, kind of curved, and as part of their defense, they obviously used it individually, but when a group of them would all band together and they would either cover themselves with their shields or wrap it around them, they were kind of invincible.

They would kind of get, like, a turtle shell with these shields over them, and then they would move against a body of the enemy or against the wall of a city, and they would be able to repel the spears and the arrows and whatever might be thrown down and make an advance upon the enemy like that. So, they were very disciplined. They showed us how that was, done and I remember seeing some of the soldiers dressed up in this bright, orange garb. So, that's the dress of a centurion, how he would've looked in the first century.

This is a mosaic in a synagogue in the ancient city of Sardis. Do you know where Sardis is? It's one of the seven churches. Hopefully, we'll see this. We'll be able to walk out into that synagogue this time. I was there two years ago, and they were working on it. We couldn't walk on the mosaics. But there's a mosaic, and this mosaic basically says "Godfearer." The word there, “theosebes” is in the middle. Theo for God, sebes, fearer, a Godfearrer. And it's right in here. That's the “theosebes” right there. And this is in a Jewish synagogue. Godfearers, Gentiles came into the synagogue. And this was a classification of people.

And I'm going to show you another reference. This is the same engraved theosebes or Godfearer. This is from a stadium in the city of Miletus. I actually saw that last year when I was in Turkey. But that's from Miletus. Now, we'll know Miletus when we get to Chapter 20. Paul goes to Miletus and he calls the elders from Ephesus down for a meeting with them. They have a ministerial meeting. We'll read about that. But this is a seat in a huge Roman amphitheater, and it's in a section reserved for the Godfearers. They were a classification of people. And if they were worshiping the God of Abraham, they were...do we call it segregated to a section of the theater? But they had their name on the seats right there. And this is one that survives.

And so this grouping of people called those who fear God we're introduced to them with Cornelius. Paul's going to address them in Chapter 13. So, it's important to understand what is being said here as this takes place. So, Cornelius is a devout man. He fears God. He is associated with the Jews. He gives alms generously to the people and praise to God always. If you look over in verse 22, just jump ahead in the story, again, further description about Cornelius.

Acts 19:22 It says, "Cornelius the centurion, a just man, who fears God, "theosebes," and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews."

Alright? So, that gives a little bit more specificity to what this man was. He was not a typical Roman centurion who was learning it over the locals, in this case, the Jews. The Jews would've been coming and going in Caesarea. They would've been merchants and providers, and they would've had their role within the community of Caesarea and would've been interacting with the Roman government, with the members of the army there. They would've had a synagogue. And Cornelius becomes a believer. It doesn't say that he's circumcised but just says that he's a believer and he has a good reputation with his household.

Now, some commentators think that what's going to be meeting Peter when Peter comes into the scene here a little bit later is upwards of 50 people in what would've been a typical household. That's kind of an extrapolation, speculation in terms of the numbers, but his household would've been, you know, more than a handful of people that he would've been responsible for. So, his example was spilling over to them, and was it coercion? This is what happened in the 1st century in the Roman world, and we'll see that as people are baptized, they and their household, it says, and, you know, whether it was servants or family members, just like today, you know, families will come into the church together, but because a lot of families had servants in the...just go ahead and call it what it is. They were slaves. In the 1st century, they were part of it as well. And that could be what is being discussed here with his household. But he's a devout man.

And again, he's not your typical Roman centurion. You see the movies and the depictions of the Roman soldiers, they were a pretty rough lot as soldiers typically are, regardless of the army of whatever nation. But this man stands out, and he is one that got his eye on. And so he is at the ninth hour of prayer, which is what time of the day? Yeah, 3:00 in the afternoon. He has a vision of an angel of God coming and saying, "Cornelius."

Acts 10:4 “And when he observed him, he was afraid, and he said, 'What is it, Lord?' So, he said, 'Your prayers and alms have come up for a memorial before God.'"

God has heard his prayers. God hears the prayers of a Gentile, Godfearer. Again, you get what God is teaching and leading Peter, and by extension the church to finally grasp the church is not about you, Jews, children of Judah. It's not just about descendants from Abraham. It is about all people, all nations, all ethnicities. That's what the church is about. And God has heard this man. Now, keep in mind what we started with, the sermon that Stephen gave back in Chapter 8.

And the point of his sermon as we brought out at that time was that Stephen was saying that, "Look, God called Abraham, our father, in a Gentile land outside of the Promised Land. Moses was in Egypt. Joseph was in Egypt. And so, it's not the land, just the land, and it's more than just the covenant, people, as the message now goes out and is spread." And so Cornelius is heard of God.

Acts 10:4-6 "So, he said, 'Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now, send men to Joppa,'" down the coast. "'Send for Simon whose surname is Peter. He's lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He will tell you what you must do.'"

One point I forgot to link with, at the end of Chapter 9, Simon, the tanner, tells us what his occupation was, right? We all know what a tanner did. He dealt with hides. He tanned animal hides. And have you ever done...? Anybody been around tanning or worked around that? It's kind of nasty work, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. Most people don't do it. We just go out and buy a leather jacket. We don't make our own or chew our leather or anything like that today. You didn't chew leather, did you do? No. Good. But working with animal hides, it's a very stinky business. There's a lot of chemicals involved. And Simon, the tanner, lives by the sea. He had access to the waters there. He probably had fresh water but, you know, he would flush out the contaminated water from the tanning process into the sea is why he put his house, and his shop would've been right there with him, right there by the sea.

But here's another thing to understand. Peter is staying with Simon, the tanner. Now, if you remember your studies from the Old Testament, you touch a dead animal, what are you? You're unclean. No self-respecting Jew would've been spending a night in a bnb that was a tannery, right? They wouldn't have looked that up on Vrbo. That wouldn't have worked for them. They would've bypassed that one. But Peter, at this point, actually he's already beginning to take a step out. He's staying with a tanner, and he's not worried about being unclean by being near these dead animal hides. So, is that telling us something about Peter's mindset at this time? Possibly. But that's where Simon, the tanner, is.

Just an aside, I'll tell you a little story. A few years ago, Scott Ashley and Steve Myers and I did a tour of Italy, a study tour. And this was the footsteps of Paul in Southern Italy. And when we were in Rome, they took us to a place that you wouldn't normally go on the normal tourist beat in Rome. They took us into an underground excavation site in the old Jewish quarter of Ancient Rome. And I remember we went down a lot of steps, and they had lights on down there, but there was an excavation down in there. The tour guide, the teacher that we were with, was showing this to us, and his speculation was that we were in the neighborhood within what he called a couple of hundred yards, perhaps, of where the Apostle Paul could possibly have been imprisoned when we see him at the end of the Book of Acts and he comes to Rome where he's imprisoned. Why? Because in their excavations, the archeologist found traces of chemicals from the process of tanning hides.

What was Paul's occupation? Do you know that? Anybody know? He was a tent-maker. That meant that that wasn't just working with boy scout canvas. That was working with animal hides to make tents, sails, and other things. That was his occupation. He was a card-carrying union member of the tent-making guild. It kind of makes sense that when Paul comes to Rome, because a Roman prisoner had to pay their own expenses, it wasn't a gift from Rome to be a prisoner of them, that he went to a neighborhood where he was, you know, familiar with a Jewish neighborhood and perhaps near where tanning went on and maybe he even could have done that or would've done some of that in the time because he was in prison for a period of time.

So, this is the speculative trail that they think, and they were showing us this. Now, was he there? I don't know. But it was an interesting little morning that we spent in this area there. So, you know, you can build these things out as you tour these sites in Turkey, Israel, Italy, and speculate a little bit, and you might be close to something, and then you might not be. So, I'm not saying that what I saw was the actual place, but it was quite interesting. So, Peter now is having something... Cornelius is being directed.

Acts 10:7-8 "When the angel who spoke to him had departed," verse 7, "And Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. And when he explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa."

So, he sends them to go down to Joppa. This is what Joppa looks like and its harbor. And this is actually a scene from a house, a traditional house of Simon, the tanner, in what was Joppa. This is a photo taken back actually between 1900 and 1920, and it's been colorized, as you can tell, but I think the house is still there. I've seen some recent pictures of it, but it's a traditional site, and it's a rooftop that Peter could have been on. Wouldn't be the original house, maybe near the site, but it's at least the site of Joppa. So, these three are heading down. Verse 9 then begins to tell us about Peter.

Acts 10:9-10 "The next day, as they went on their journey, they drew near the city. Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour," so about midday, noon. "He became very hungry.”

He wanted to eat, right? Was he doing intermittent fasting, and it was time to eat? We don't know, right? But he had been at least fasting since sunup, probably, and he was hungry.

Acts 10:10-12 "But while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and he saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth." This is the vision that he receives. "In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts,"

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. What would they have been in there? Cougars, mountain lions, wild beasts, “creeping things,” snakes, lizards, frogs. Anybody ever ate frog here? This group wouldn't, but I had a chance to eat frog when I was a kid, but I wisely decided not to. Not that I didn't know it was unclean, but the idea of eating a reptile just never appealed to me. But some people, they say it tastes like chicken, fried chicken. I think anything that you might roll in cornmeal and fry up, anything tastes like chicken, even frogs' legs. But where I came from, that was a delicacy. Anyway, all kinds of creeping things and birds of the air.

Acts 10:13 "And a voice came to him, 'Rise, Peter; kill and eat."

Kill and eat. So, here's a vision. Middle of the day about noon. He's probably in kind of a trance-like state, absorbed in thought, probably thinking about a lot of things. He's gone up probably to pray and to think, and as this happens, does he get drowsy? Does God supernaturally puts something over him?

It doesn't give us all the details, but he's fixed on now something from the realm of the divine, from the spirit realm, a voice and this vision that he has, and he sees it, and to him, in the sense, it's a reality. The voice says, "Peter, rise; kill and eat."

Acts 10:14 "But Peter said, 'Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.'"

Right? This is referring to clean and unclean food, according to Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, the specific laws that God gave as part of the teaching to Israel that you do not eat. Very specific listing we all know about there, and Peter is saying here now, many years after the death of Jesus, having, of course, been a practicing Jew and knowing all the law, but now even after Christ's death and having heard Jesus expound the law in that 40-day period from His resurrection to His ascension, and not hearing obviously anything that would do away with this part of the Mosaic law in terms of what is clean and unclean, what can be eaten, cannot be eaten. His immediate response, "I've never done this," right

Acts 10:15-16 "And so a voice spoke to him again the second time, 'What God has cleansed you must not call common.' This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again."

So, what is Peter seeing? What is he being told? We'll come back in the next class and we'll pick it up at verse 17, and we'll discuss that, and show exactly what Peter is being shown as he deals with the people God is calling into the church. We'll pick that up next time in the next class.

[Darris McNeely] Good morning, class. Welcome back to the book of Acts. Those of you that are watching online, we are into Chapter 16 of the book of Acts here today. Just a program note, again, for those of you that are watching these online at whatever point in time, these are being given during the ABC class here in 2023. So, any of my references to events that are current to the time, just under understand that. Also, appreciate the notes that I've received from many members and others watching these Acts classes. If you want to continue to send those in, I appreciate hearing how you are hearing them and how thoughts and input, but I appreciate all of that as well. It seems that a number of people are benefiting from these classes. So, I know for you guys here, it's a little bit different than the way I would present things. We're kind of stuck here within the camera, but it all works.

But at Chapter 16, we are into the second journey of the Apostle Paul, and this is moving into a few chapters here in this journey in the episodes of Chapter 16, 17, 18, and 19 that are, personally, these are my favorite passages within the book of Acts. They're wonderful stories. There's a great deal of instruction for the Church and understanding to gain from them. And it's just packed with, to me, just the essence of what the Church was like, and the mission work that Paul was doing, the evangelizing during that period of time in his ministry. We're going through, today, we're going to leap over into the continent of Europe and go to Philippi, and ultimately, he'll come back around to Ephesus. And then as the chapters progress, we will talk about what he did at Ephesus and that part of the story as well. And so, let's look at the story here in Acts Chapter16. Let me pull it up here in my scripture, make sure I don't omit anything here.

Acts 16:1 “When they came to Derbe and Lystra.”

Now, they are making their way back through the area of Asia, Asia Minor at the time. They started down here in Antioch, and they are working their way back. Remember that Paul and Barnabas wanted to visit the Churches, or at least Paul did. And then he and Barnabas had a dispute because Barnabas wanted to bring John, Mark along. Paul didn't. And so we wind up with two different teams going out, and Paul and Silas are now involved in this. And they retrace the steps. They come to Derbe and to Lystra. Remember, it was that Lystra that Paul was stoned in his first journey and dragged out of the city for dead, but got up and went on down to the city of Derbe. So, it is in Lystra, it says here in verse 1 of Chapter 16.

Acts 16:1-2 “That a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium.”

Lystra and Iconium, you'll see on the map. Again, they were not that very far apart. And so it gives you an indication there was a bit of communication between the two groups of disciples that had been formed into a Church here in those two cities that Timothy had a reputation among both of them who were in these two areas.

His mother was Jewish. And when you get into the book of 1 Timothy, you will find that Timothy comes from a line, not only his mother but his grandmother were members, it seems, or at least they were not members of the Church, as we look at it, but they were Jewish, they were believers. And so this is the lineage. Timothy's mother married a gentile, and he was Greek. And so he is following along, let's say, in the path of his mother's teaching. And she must be very active in teaching him the scriptures, schooling him in the Jewish history, and the Old Testament scriptures from the synagogue and all there. But we don't hear anything about... We don't even have a name for the father. We assume that he is not in the picture in terms of a religious upbringing. We know nothing else about him. But the example of Timothy, and obviously, his faith and all commends him to Paul.

Acts 16:3 It says, “Paul wanted to go on with him and join he and Silas.”

It would become then kind of what we would term today a trainee, a ministerial trainee. And again, Timothy then becomes a full minister. And again, 1 and 2 Timothy are written to him when he is pastoring later at the city of Ephesus, the Church at Ephesus. So, keep that in mind. So, here is the drafting, if you will, into the ministry for a training period of Timothy.

Acts 16:3 Now, it says, “Paul took him and circumcised him.” And so he had a Jewish mother, but a Greek father. And so the father had not had him circumcised. And for whatever reason, the mother didn't prevail upon him to have that done. “But he does it because of the Jews who were in that region for they all knew that his father was Greek.” All right?

In the eyes of the Jews, Timothy was Greek. But in the eyes of the Greeks, Timothy was a Jew because he was following along with his mother. And Paul wants to remove any problem and point of discussion. He goes ahead and has him circumcised, and we assume he is a young man. This is a little bit different than doing it at eight days for an infant. He just settles the issue. It was socially expedient for Paul to do that but not legally required. This issue, remember, has been settled back in Chapter 15, but it would not be wrong to have had left him uncircumcised. And it is not, you know, violating any principle to have him circumcised. It's not backtracking whatsoever. So take that as you will from the example here. Luke notes it, is inspired by God to note this, but then Paul just did not want this to be of an issue because of the mixed parentage and the issue that had just been settled.

Acts 16:4 And so, “As they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep them, keep, which were determined by the apostles and the elders at Jerusalem.”

And this was what we read about at the end of Chapter 15. After the conference in Jerusalem settled the issue of circumcision, there were four items. Remember that the gentiles were admonished not to do to, what was it? Verse 29 of Chapter 15.

Acts 15:29 “They were to abstain from things offered to idols from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”

Those were specifics dealing with the temple worship. Essentially they were told, “Stay out of the temple.” And these four things, which seemed to be, let's say, a temptation and a problem. But if they kept away from all of those, then everything else would follow. But they read all of this and reported on it to these Churches. And remember, these were the congregations that Paul had started on the first journey.

Acts 16:5 Tells us, “So, as a result of this, so the Churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily.”

And so there's a period of growth. There is a period of excitement and activity that is taking place here, reminiscent of the early days of the Church in Jerusalem that we read about at the beginning of the story of Acts. And the efforts that are being made here are quite strong, and obviously quite valuable. And so at this particular point, in verse 6, it says…

Acts 16:6 “When they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia…”

I'm going to put this, if you are watching on the map on this screen, and you've got this map in your syllabus, but those of you online, this hopefully will pick up too. The region of Galatia is this southern part of Asia Minor here that he's already been through. And they're making their way up to Pisidian. Obviously, Pisidian, Antioch would no doubt be one of the stops that he's making, even though Luke does not mention this. And it says here that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia at the end of Chapter 6.

Now, as we look at what is being referred to here as Asia, at one level, this entire area of what is today Turkey, an anciently Asia Minor. North, southeast, and west would be considered Asia, and certainly even regions, you know, further east. But for the intent of our story of the geographical range of the book of Acts here, given where Paul is, what I think we are being told here by Luke is that Paul's intent is to go from the area of Phrygia here at Pisidian and Antioch. And as it says, he probably wanted to go into the well-populated area of Western Asia, which would've put him over here in Ephesus. And all the other cities that we read about in Revelation 2 and 3 that are the seven cities where there were congregations and the messages of Christ to those Churches, including many, many other cities. It was quite a heavily populated region, very fertile, a lot of manufacturing, a lot going on. And Paul knew that. And he saw that there were Jewish synagogues. There was a presence and a very ripe area for preaching the gospel.

And so I think what is being said here they are forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Word into Asia. Now, how are they forbid it? Luke doesn't say that Paul had a vision. He's going to later say that he did to go into Europe. There's no other voice, no other indication. You know, it could have been circumstances that arose that forbid them to go there. It could be that he had a vision, and Luke is just not led to record it. It just doesn't say. What it does tell us, though, is that it is God and Christ who are guiding and directing. And at this point in time, he doesn't go into that area. And so what he seems to do, it says in verse 7…

Acts 16:7 “They came to Mysia. They tried to go into Bithynia.” That would've put him, and the route turns north, Bithynia then would've put him over further east. But here's what it says, “The Spirit did not permit them.”

They tried. Maybe they couldn't get transportation. You know, there was something else going on, or something that stopped them from turning east and going into that area. Now, it's very obvious that God is guiding this journey, and He has a plan in mind. And it is not what Paul, and Silas, and now Timothy have in mind as good as their plan would be. And one reason that we can pretty well assume, I think, and it's a good logical assumption why they were not able to go further east into Bithynia and over into the area that is also called Pontis, is this is territory where Peter will be, and he probably already is. And there's somebody doing the work over there, Peter. God has other designs for Paul, and it is into, essentially, new territory that no one else has gone to before. And so what they do.

Acts 16:8 “They pass by Mysia and they come down to Troas.”

So they turn west, and they come down to the coast, to the city of Troas. And here is where they, in a sense, stop. They might be thinking, “What do we do now? Where do we go?” Maybe from here, they could have easily gone south towards Sardis toward, eventually, you know, Ephesus being the leading city in the region at the time. But what happens here is a vision.

Acts 16:9 “A vision appeared to Paul in the night.”

So, here's a very explicit reference as to what happened. Again, we don't know what forbid him to go to other places other than God stopped it and guided his steps. I think sometimes, you know, you could say that perhaps circumstances over a period of time led Paul to conclude that by going to Philippi over into Macedonia, which is what is going to happen, he then concludes maybe some days, weeks, or even months later that God was guiding it. It could have been something a bit more to the moment, in the moment that he concluded, “Wait a minute, God's not wanting us to go in either of these directions.” Then he gets this vision and he knows where God wants to go. But at some point, it becomes very clear.

Acts 16:9 Is the very clear path because. “He receives a vision and he sees him as a man of Macedonia, stood and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’”

All right. Now, Macedonia is across the water here from Troas, and he'll take a boat and he's going to go up to Philippi, and he is in the region of Macedonia. We all know the famous personage who comes from Macedonia, don't we? We studied in the book of Acts. Who is that, or the book of Daniel, I should say. Alexander, the Great, Alexander of Macedon. He's the most famous one from antiquity there. And so this is what he does.

Acts 16:10 “After he had seen the vision, immediately, we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”

Now, here in verse 10, the we pronoun is a definite indicator that Luke now joins the party. All commentators see and understand that Luke, as he writes this history, inserts himself. Now, at this point, he joins. Where does he come from? Some think that he is from Philippi. Some commentators try to think that maybe in the vision, the vision is of Luke. But we can't really conclude that. But Luke joins him here, and it's obvious that that is where they are to go. So now we have four in this party, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke.

Acts 16:11-12 ”Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, the port, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days.”

End of verse 12. So, they cross over into Macedonia, not only to Macedonia but to Europe, an entirely new continent. And this is really a turning point, and in the story in Acts and in history, a lot of commentators comment on what this means, because now the gospel is going out of Asia. It is now going to Europe, what will become Europe and an entirely different region. And Paul will in time go to various cities here and spend 18 months down in the city of Corinth and all on this particular journey. So, here's what I think is a big takeaway. There's many, but as I said, God was guiding Paul, and He didn't want him to go to Ephesus this time. Ephesus was on God's timetable, but not Paul's, not at that moment. He's going to spend nearly three years in Ephesus, but not now.

God's directing him to Macedonia, and he's going to have a number of experiences and adventures, as we will read about in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and then Corinth. And it's going to be a very productive period of his ministry. We get several congregations here, two of which, three of which letters of the New Testament will be written to, Phillip, Thessalonica, the two letters to the Thessalonians, and then the two letters to the Corinthians. And so there's a lot of fruit here. And then there's actually, if you will, a base and a platform as Paul writes to them, these letters then become a part of the canon or the New Testament. And we read a lot of instruction and get a lot of information about the times and the situations that we're dealing with here at that point.

And so this is where God wants him to go. And, you know, whether it's in our own life or it's in the work of the Church, we have to always seek God's guidance and in a sense, you know, test the spirits, test the opportunities, make sure that what we might think is an open door isn't a trap door or leading to a trap door on the other side. In whatever, you know, a job, or a relationship, or a place that you may think that you need to move to, for whatever reason, always seek God's guidance, and use good judgment, use wisdom, and get good counsel on that.

When we consider our efforts of preaching the gospel and the endeavors that we get into in the Church, sometimes we can't go here, we can't go there, and time and circumstance show us that we’ve  got to go a different direction. And we don't always know why we can't go here or there, but we find out later why God was guiding us. And sometimes it might be several months, it might be even several years. I've experienced this on a personal level, and the Church has experienced it at their level as well. I've been transferred to locations in my field ministry career, I had no idea why somebody decided to send me someplace. And it was not until after I got there and time, and some cases, a few years went by that I finally realized God was behind this, even though I thought it was a bunch of men doing it, that it was God that was behind it. And I've seen that in my own life, and you will too. You will too. So, here, they come over to Philippi.

Acts 16:12 And it says in verse 12 that “It was a foremost city of that part of Macedonia and a colony.”

What it was, was a Roman colony. Philippi has a rich history. It takes its name from Philip, who was the father of Alexander the Great, Phillip of Macedon. All right? And so that's where we get Philippi, Philippi. It also has a rich history. It was a location of a battle during the civil wars of Rome between the armies of Octavian, who becomes Augustus. And at that time, Mark Anthony was aligned with him, and they defeat the assassins of Julius Caesar at Philippi in a battle in the second or the first century BC. And so that is a significant event that takes place there. In subsequent years, Philippi becomes a place where there are a number of Roman soldiers who when they leave the legions, they settle here. They've been settled here. So, like we saw down in Antioch and Pisidian when we went there, that was also a place where Augustus retired a lot of his soldiers. Philippi's the same place. And we'll understand that when we come to one of the characters in the story here.

And so it was a Roman colony administered by a Roman government and had a lot of retired Roman soldiers there and that influenced the city quite a while here. Now, Paul is going to do something here then that is his custom, as we move along through the story. They were there for a few days. For some days, it says. And so we would take that within... I would take that less than seven days because verse 13 says…

Acts 16:13 “On the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made. And we sat down and spoke to the women who were there.”

And so this tells us that there's not a synagogue in this city. The other locations, Paul's gone to the synagogue because there was a large enough Jewish population. In Philippi, it's mostly Roman, and there's not enough men. I think you had to have 10 men as a quorum to form a Jewish synagogue in that period. So, that tells us there weren't even 10 Jewish men there. And so very small Jewish population. And yet, there are people who go on the Sabbath, and it's a group of women who are on down by this river on the Sabbath day.

Now, how does Paul know that? Well, he just probably asks around. He finds out there's not a synagogue. He probably talks to some people in the agora, which is the marketplace, the open-air marketplace. And Paul was not bashful to inquire and find out if were there any believers. Were there any God fearers here? If there's not enough for a Jewish synagogue, then what's going on? Anybody in that city, and a group of women, who were known to go down to the river on the Sabbath day to pray, would have caught the attention of other people in the city and the tongues would've been clacking and people would've talked, but they knew that. And so Paul was led somehow to find out what was going on. And so that's where they go. And here is where we are introduced to a certain woman in verse 14 named Lydia.

Acts 16:14 “Who heard us.” So, Paul begins to teach here. “And she was a seller of purple.”

So, there must be a large, let's say, a large group of women, among whom was Lydia. And it tells us that she was a seller of purple from the city of the Thyatira. Where have we heard about the Thyatira? One of the Churches of Revelation, the fourth message, the fourth Church referenced there, the one right in the middle, the longest message of the seven messages in Revelation. And when we talked about Thyatira in our class in Revelation, we talked about the fact that the Thyatira was a place where purple was manufactured, this dye. And so Lydia, very likely, was from Thyatira, but she's now in Philippi. Why is she in Philippi? Because she's a seller of purple. She got the franchise for the purple franchise in Philippi, and it's very lucrative. And she was probably driving around in a purple Cadillac, not a Cadillac but maybe a purple chariot. All right? Okay. Because she was probably pretty successful. We're going to find, she's got a household and a place where Paul and his company can stay. And so it must have been a substantial house. She was probably doing quite well.

The purple that was sold was sold to the upper classes, and primarily the royalty. In the Roman world to wear the purple was a designation of the Caesar. Most people wore a white toga. If you were a senator, you might have a colored band that went across that designated a particular status or class that you were in. But if you wore purple, you were at the top of the heap. And so the purple was in a sense reserved for them. There's a great story, I'll tell you when we come to Revelation 13, about the wearing of the purple as it pertains to a story out of Revelation 13. But we'll keep going here with Lydia, who's a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira. Now, beyond being obviously a woman and let's say a businesswoman, she's obviously successful.

And keep in mind, in the Greek world, in the Roman world, the Greco-Roman world, she's standing out. Women didn't normally rise to independent status like she evidently has. And so she's an anomaly, an outlier in the world at this time. There are some inscriptions in other cities, I believe in Ephesus and in Sardis. They have found pillars, tablets with inscriptions of people's names and the prominent people of the cities. And on two places, they have found the name Lydia. And it's in connection of a group of names that we know are of a prominent class of people in those cities. And so where we have seen the name Lydia found it from archeological evidence it is of prominent people within the city. So, maybe that's also telling us something about this Lydia in Philippi.

But what is most important is what is in the last part of the phrase, she worshiped God. She was a God fearer. She's probably gentile and she is a probably a God fearer. Maybe she began doing this in the synagogue in Thyatira, that's a speculation. But she continued in Philippi.

Acts 16:14 It says, “The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.”

And so she's already tuned into something of, you know, the God of Abraham, the Old Testament, the scriptures that she no doubt heard, very likely in synagogue in Thyatira. She brought that with her. And she listens.

Acts 16:15 Tells us, “When she and her household were baptized, she begged us saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.’ So, she persuaded us.”

So, she's got a house that's big enough for four people to stay in it, but she's also got a household, which means probably servants, and that's a euphemism for slaves, all right, that you probably owned. That was very common in the world. I'm not getting into the issue of slavery, as it pertains to the teachings of Paul. I think your epistles class probably gets into that with more time there. But as you see in the letter to Philemon, Philemon owned Onesimus, who becomes a member. So, you had this unique situation in the Church. You had two members, one owned the other. Is that right? No, not by our standards and not by God's standards, but it was the custom of the day and Paul didn't seek to change it.

So, her household probably included that, as well as her own people, maybe some of her own family. But they were baptized, and this is the custom. And we'll see that again. "And she begged us saying, 'If you judge me faithful, come to my house and stay.' And she persuaded us." So, we have Lydia who becomes the first convert, the first member in her household of the Church. It's going to be in Philippi. Very likely, they begin meeting in her house. We're not done. Let's continue on.

Acts 16:16-17 “It happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, ‘These men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation.’”

All right. Here's a, it's a girl. She's enslaved to a group of men that are exploiting her, but we'll call her a diviner. She's another woman, another female in the story. And she latches onto Paul here and says that, "These are servants of the Most High God," which is an inscription for the deity. It was even used in the Old Testament. The Greeks used the particular term for Zeus, but she was led by this spirit that she was in touch with to see something about Paul. And she did this for many days. In verse 18, she followed them around, popped up where Paul might have been teaching or engaging people to the point where Paul greatly annoyed after subsequent encounters with her.

Acts 16:18 “turned and said to the spirit, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out of her that very hour.’”

And so this spirit of divination in the Greek here is telling us that she's got a spirit of what is called the Python. And it's connected with the Oracle at Delphi. And in the mythology, Delphi is over North of Corinth, in Greece Major. The Oracle at Delphi, there was a snake, a large python, that was connected with that killed by Apollo in the myth. And so when you see depictions of the God Apollo, he is often depicted killing this great python snake. But you can sense the immediate connection to the serpent, the great serpent Satan, who deceives the world, Revelation 12, and the evil spirit that is working in this woman, as she is making a great deal of money for her masters in her fortune telling. And so you look at this, and it's an unfortunate situation. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on the details of the spirit and whatever else except to focus I think on what we're being told about this woman. I've dealt with people who've been bothered by demons, some who have had demon possession. I've dealt with one woman, in particular, who used to actually be a witch. She practiced witchcraft. We actually interviewed her for an early Beyond Today program. It's still up on the web. But she was in one of my congregations at one time.

And when you start to touch that world of black arts, black magic, fortune telling, you know, you want to stay away from it. But when you look at the impact on this woman, she has given herself over. She somehow got in touch or became possessed and she used it, allowed herself to be used, and then she becomes owned by her masters. This woman is abused. Let's just use the modern term. This is a very dysfunctional, problematic woman. And she's agitated by the spirit in her that's seeing Paul representing the Most High God. And she keeps coming back around because this demon wants to, again, attack Paul. We see a pattern. Remember the Jewish sorcerer in the city down in Cyprus who dealt with Paul and Barnabas at that time, and Paul rebuked him, Bar-Jesus, and Satan follows around the work of God. Satan hinders the work of God. That's one of his aims and desires is to hinder God's people or to hinder the work that God is doing through His Church. And in the book of Acts, we see, you know, close on the heels of the Church, in this case, Paul preaching the gospel, there is the demonic world, the spirit world. And so Paul cast out the demon that very hour.

Acts 16:19 “Her master saw that their hope of profit was gone. They seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.”

You know, the cash cow's gone. I don't mean to say anything about her, but it's gone. Their income stream is over. And so they are up upset. They take him to court. They're going to sue Paul. Now, they don't care about the girl. They care about the money. They've abused her. They have exploited her. Now, the account doesn't say anything more about the girl, other than that Paul casts out the demon. Was she baptized? Did she become a member like Lydia? It doesn't say. Some commentators suppose that she possibly did. We can't say that she was, but she's the second person that we encounter here. And let's just say for the sake of discussion, as the way Luke writes it, that she did not just disappear from the story. What if, and it's a what if, what if she gets acquainted with Lydia? What if she begins to listen to Paul and his teaching while he's here in Philippi and becomes acquainted? What if Lydia takes pity on her, and Lydia is a prosperous woman and gives her a place to live, takes her into her household? What if?

See, if you were writing a story about the Church of Philippi, one of these fiction based on scriptural fact-type stories, you might take that particular approach to it. I've always said that if I ever retire, I might have the time to write such a story about the accounts here in Philippi and what happened and take a little bit of artistic license on that. But it's not unreasonable to assume something like that. Let's keep going because there's a point to this.

Acts 16:20-21 “They brought him before the magistrates. They said, ‘These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city. And they teach customs, which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or to observe.’”

That's a direct comment upon the gospel because the gospels we're going to see in Thessalonica when Paul goes down there, is a message that turns the world upside down. And it was designed to turn the world of the Romans upside down because Christ is king, not Caesar. And we'll see that more direct in the next chapter, but this has also got to be about what they're saying.

Acts 16:22 “And so the multitude rose up together against them. The magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods.”

There's this great tumult that erupts in the likely, right in the agora. And there would've been a place at the end of Agora, the archeological work there shows this location where, let's say, the court would've been. And so there would've been a lot of other people there. And so they're upset. They get agitated, kind of like they did down in Lystra. And they commanded them to be beaten with rods.

Acts 16:23 “When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.”

This is Paul and Silas. Now, this is a unique situation. Paul is beaten, he's a Roman citizen. You don't do that. And we're going to see that he'll claim his Roman citizenship later, but he didn't do it in this moment. Why? We don't know. It may have been that events happened so quickly that they couldn't do it. It may be that Paul did not consciously want to call out his Roman citizenship, which would've stopped the beating because you could not do that without a trial. And he may have wanted, in a sense to, because his others couldn't have done that, and the other members that would've been with him, probably caught up in this. And he may have wanted to be in solidarity with his own fellow travelers and other members there. That's one possibility. One commentator thinks that maybe he just didn't have his passport with him, his proof of citizenship. And in the Roman world, there was a proof of citizenship that you could carry to show that because that was a passport to good thing, to have that Roman citizenship. You'll see that later in the book of Acts. But he's thrown into prison and a jailer is to keep them securely. So, now Paul and Silas are in prison.

Acts 16:24 “And he puts them into the inner prison, and fastened their feet in the stocks.”

So they don't go in the outer prison. They go beyond that into the deepest part of it. And they're put in chains, blood coming out, beaten, sore. Are they embarrassed? I don't think Paul would've been the type to be embarrassed, but they were hurting. And now they're thrown in. And I don't think they were given a Swanson's TV dinner along with that, or whatever else. They probably didn't get anything. And here they're in prison verse 25.

Acts 16:25 “But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.”

What do you do when you're upset, discouraged, under stress? You know a good thing to do? Sing the hymns. Sing the... What's your favorite hymn? There was a time I was kind of under a lot of stress and, “Oh, how love I thy law.” I would sing and that picked me up. Others can do the same for you.

Paul and Silas sang psalms and hymns to God, right out of the psalms, just like we do with our own hymnal. The prisoners were listening to them. So, instead of blaming God, Paul and Silas praised God, prayer and singing, to keep their spirits up, very powerful elements that are at work here.

Acts 16:26-27 “Suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately, all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, waking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.”

So, here's a dramatic scene. Again, Peter was released from his jail that one night in Jerusalem by an angel. Here, it didn't matter how far they threw Paul and Silas into the prison. God can go wherever. In this case, he had a little earthquake there, which may or may not have been noticed by everybody else in the city. It could have been so localized in the area of the prison, or it could have been felt by the entire city. It shook the foundations where they were. And the doors came open, the jailer awakes and he comes and he's supposing, it says, that the prisoners had fled. He drew his sword and was about to kill himself when Paul said…

Acts 16:28-30 “‘Do yourself no harm for we are all here.’ He ran in with a light, fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas, and he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”

Which tells you that he knew about the message of Paul. Maybe he had listened to him in the marketplace. Now, this jailer, very likely, was a retired Roman soldier, some speculate, and it's a sound plausible speculation. He would've been an Army veteran and he had the ability, he had a franchise on the prisons. Now, prisons are not nice places then and now. In my ministry, I've been into a lot of prisons to visit people who are already there, not that I've ever been thrown in prison or anything like that.

You know, the Indiana Women's prison in downtown Indianapolis, I made a lot of visits there over the years and other prisons in Indiana to visit with people who had written in for a request. Sometimes we had members there. I did one prison baptism. Remind me at another class at another time, I will tell you about that prison baptism that we did, it's a hoot. That was a fun day. But, you know, going into a prison yourself, they treat you like a prisoner going in, the way you have to be, you know, treated, frisked, and everything else. And it's an experience. It was even worse in the time of Rome.

Let me make a comment about this prisoner or the jailer who was about to kill himself. It says, “He drew his sword.” There's something behind this that you have to understand. Number one, several things. Number one, in the Roman world, if you had charge of a prisoner and you lost him, they escaped, you were killed. You would be killed. All right? Probably your head lopped off, which is what they did with Roman citizens.

They crucified Christ and outlaws and non-Romans. They didn't do that to Roman citizens. They would've cut their head off. But to save your honor, if you knew that you were headed for that, you could take your sword and you could fall on it and run it through yourself. That's where you get the phrase, “To fall on your sword.” You admit you own the problem, you take responsibility. This man was doing... He knew that he would've been killed. And to him, this was the honorable way to end his life. Strange to our ears, but this was a feature of the Roman system. Here's what's important. You were a Roman and for you, how you died was more important or as important, and in some cases, more important, than how you lived, how you died. A senator who may have fallen afoul of the Caesar was given the opportunity to run a sword through himself, so he wouldn't be beheaded and he'd take it or drug through the streets by a mob and his dead body thrown into the Tiber River. It was honorable for him to kill himself. And that's what this jailer is doing.

Now, take that, but we're going to a little diversion here. The story of Jesus at His death, you remember the Roman soldier that looked at Him when all the events happened, and he saw this, and he says, “This indeed was the Son of God?” It was a Roman soldier who said that. And he was saying it to a man that was hanging on a cross bloodied with all the other thieves, the most ignominious death in Rome that they could administer. And this Roman soldier said, “Indeed, this was the Son of God.” He was giving Christ the highest compliment he could give Him, hanging there treated like a criminal because no Romans, no self-respecting Roman, would've wanted to be subjected to the death by crucifixion. And for him to say that, and for it to be recorded in the gospels, is telling us something. But you understand the depth of his admiration for Jesus. When you understand the system of Roman honor that for a Roman, it was more important how you died than how you lived. Christ lived a perfect life. That's more important. His death is important, too, but He lived a sinless life to become the lamb of God and how we live is important. And so understanding that in the Roman system helps you to appreciate something that was said even at the death of Christ.

Acts 16:28-33 “Well, Paul calls out and he says, ‘Do yourself no harm. We're all here.’ He called for a light, ran in, and fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved, you and your household.’ And so they spoke the Word of the Lord to him. They taught him a period of time there, all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes, and immediately he, the jailer, and all his family were baptized.”

So, here's the third remember. It's a jailer and his family. He's quite a bit different from the diviner, if she was a member, and he's certainly different from Lydia, who was an upper-class businesswoman. These people would've never found themselves in the same social gathering in Philippi. But if, again, she is one, but just take even the jailer and Lydia. Now, they find themselves sitting in Church together, coming from two different worlds. Think about that here for a moment here.

Acts 16:34-38 “When they had brought them into his house, he set food before them. And he rejoiced having believed in God with all of his household. And when it was day, the magistrate sent the officer saying, ‘Let these men go.’ So, the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul saying, ‘The magistrates have said to let you go. Depart, go in peace.’ But Paul said ‘They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed. Let them come themselves and get us out.’ And the soldiers told these words to the magistrates, took it back. And they were afraid when they heard they were Romans.”

Now they realize, “Uh-oh, we're in trouble. We have beaten Romans.” They came hat in hand, pleaded with them, brought them out, and said, “Will you guys do us all a favor and just depart from the city?”

Acts 16:40 “So, they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia, Paul and Silas. And when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and they departed.”

They move on down the road. We'll pick that up in Chapter 17. But one final comment to make here, and that is, this is the beginning of the Church in Philippi. This is going to be a very favored Church for Paul. When you read the letter to the Philippians, he says, “Nobody else communicated with me when I left Macedonia, but you. You gave me money.” And he speaks positively through the four chapters of the book of Philippians. It's a very positive, encouraging letter written from jail to this one Church with whom he had a very close relationship. And here we see the foundation of it in this chapter. And if you look at the two or possibly three types of people who we could speculate make up the foundation of that Church, people from different walks of life. That's what the Church is. That's what the Church is, people drawn by God from different walks of life into a spiritual fellowship. A gentile, a gentile, a gentile, but from different strata even of the gentile society.

Now, there's neither male nor female, neither Jew nor gentile in the Church and in the body of Christ. And when that is understood that the depth of every congregation and every one of us, you have the makings for a beginning of a Church like we read about here and in the letter to the Philippians, the Church of Philippi, that is a dynamic, spirit-led Church composed of people from different backgrounds, different ideas, different experiences, but God's spirit draws them all together. So, think about that and appreciate what is happening here. And with that, you see the beginning of a significant congregation that we are exposed to in the book of Acts and into the New Testament.

[Darris McNeely] All right. We are in Chapter 20, and at Chapter 20, we find Paul going up to Macedonia and then coming to Greece, where he stays for three months. And it is during this period of time that he's in Corinth that he's going to be collecting what is something that's very important to him, and that is an offering for the saints and the members in Judea, Jerusalem. This seems to be kind of a recurring theme we've talked about in Acts, and there were hardships that Paul wanted the gentile Churches to take a part in and to help alleviate, to show their solidarity with the Church in Jerusalem and their appreciation for what the Church in Jerusalem was and meant in terms of the story of the Church and during this time. And there is a need. And so he is going to be doing this. It's while he's in Corinth here at this time, this three-month period that Paul writes the letter to the Romans. And we know that from the internal evidence of Romans 15.

And I think what is important to note is, as you've gone through Romans in your study, you understand how deep the subject matter is within Romans. Very high theology about God, about the Jews, the gentiles, the baptism, the work of the Spirit of God, and all that is involved with the story of salvation. There are several just great themes in Romans, and it's probably Paul's most thorough exegesis and or description laying out of his theology. And the timing of the Book of Romans, being written during this stay in Corinth after three years in Ephesus and the flowering of the work there, his teaching, daily teaching in the School of Tyrannus and all, has given Paul an opportunity to, in a sense, work out the teaching, the theology that he's known from the moment that he was struck down on the road to Damascus about the resurrected Christ. But through these years of his ministry, and work, and teaching, as with any teacher, the more you go over it, the more you refine your presentation, you refine your thinking. And that's probably, no doubt, happened here. And then God is able to inspire through Paul this remarkable Book of Romans, this Letter to the Church in Rome, that comes off of his most productive period of ministry in Ephesus and in Asia during this time.

And so, it's important to recognize that because with what's going to begin to develop here in Chapter 20, as Paul now will begin to make his way to Jerusalem, he will be arrested in Jerusalem. And that will conclude the chapters, the remaining chapters of Acts. Because after Chapter 22, he will be under arrest. And what we read from that point to the end of the Book of Acts will be his time appearing before certain magistrates, making his trip to Rome, and will leave him there. And he will not, at least in the narrative of Acts, have the freedom that to this point, he has had. And so, he writes this very important letter to the Romans. And then it's his intent to go to Jerusalem, as we're going to see, to keep the feast, to fulfill a vow, likely a Nazarite vow. And he has probably other things in mind because he tells the Romans he's going to come to them at the end of Romans, if you remember. Well, he is going to go to Rome but not on his timetable. It's going to be on God's timetable, which we will see as we get into this. So, let's pick it up in verse 3 of Chapter 20 that he stays here in 3 months in Corinth, in Greece.

Acts 20:3 “And when the Jews plotted against him as he was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.”

Now, here's what he does. He's going to sail and his intent is to book passage and sail across the Mediterranean. But he's now going to go back up through Macedonia. So, he'll retrace his steps back through the areas toward Philippi and then he's going to come down here. You'll see Troas right here, which we'll see as an interesting story when we get to it. And he does this to avoid a plot against his life, against him from the Jews. Again, this deep-seated feeling against Paul and who he was and what he was doing, never died, never went away. We'll see it in full bloom in Jerusalem. And so, he's got to kind of do an end run around the Jews to keep from being captured by them. So, he returns through Macedonia. So, he retraces his steps.

Acts 20:4 Says, “And Sopater of Berea accompanied him to Asia. Also, Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians.”

So, he picks up two people from Thessalonica. He picks up a person from Berea when he goes back up there. So, he goes to Berea, he goes to Thessalonica. And then it says that there is an individual, a Gaius of Derbe. Now, here's the only mention of anybody from the little village of Derbe way down here in Cilicia where Paul first went. Remember, he went to Derbe after he had been stoned nearly to death in the city of Lystra. He gets up and he walked on down to Derbe. And then, so here's a disciple from Derbe named Gaius. Was he the pastor there? Was he a deacon? Was he a leading member? Possibly all three. If you were to, you know, that would be choice D on a test, possibly all the above. But he becomes a traveling companion. So, Paul, he's got this plus Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus. So, here's a party of at least six that are with him at this time.

Acts 20:5 He says, “These men going ahead waited for us at Troas.”

And so it's at this point that we get then, Luke seems to rejoin Paul at this point. He's not been with Paul. So, it seems like at least seven people plus Paul, eight total in this traveling party that are moving at this time. And these men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. So, Troas is right here. It's north of Ephesus. It's on the Asian continent. They wait for him there.

Acts 20:6 “But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days,” stayed for a week.

And so, we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread. But Luke uses the Holy Days as a marker. This is one of those places where we find a reference, the first holy day we have a reference to in the Book of Acts. Remember, was what? Pentecost. Yeah, Pentecost.

So, here's another reference that Luke just puts in, and he's writing. Remember, Luke is a gentile and they're in a gentile party. And he's writing this to a man named Theophilus. Remember, the Book of Acts is written to Theophilus who is a gentile as well. And he throws in and he just mentions as a point of time reference the Holy Days. He doesn't go into a theological discussion about the Holy Days. It's not his intent. We might also add that there's not a need to. And sometimes people want to rip the Holy Days out of Pauline theology, but I think that those are always steps too far. And even some scholars today realize that as well. He taught the Corinthians to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread, 1 Corinthians 5, “Let us keep the feast.” And Chapter 10 and 11, he talks about the Passover and how to come together to keep the... Remember, the death of Christ, we've used those verses as we do every year at the Passover, to focus in upon Christ's death and how we are to remember Him and take the symbols of the bread and wine.

And so Paul's teaching that. He's teaching it to gentile Churches. And Luke is using these references scattered throughout the Book of Acts. Well, when Paul is on a ship going to Rome, he'll reference that on the day of atonement will be mentioned. So, we see these along there and that's important to note. And again, the absence of large theological discussion is not proof that the Holy Days were not important or they were fading, or whatever from the...and not a part of Paul's teaching or the early Church practice. That's reading far too much into it. And again, honest scholars and teachers will know that and will understand that. So, something happens now in the city of Troas, that is both humorous and instructive. Let's look at it, beginning in verse 7.

Acts 20:7 “Now, on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread.” But keep in mind we're kind of in this period between Unleavened Bread and Pentecost. “And so on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.”

That's a long sermon, isn't it? That's no break there for water or whatever. I mean, he goes till midnight. I've been in a few Bible studies that went close to midnight in my time in the Church, but I don't think I've ever gone as far as midnight with that. Although with my young thinking and the way I looked at things at age 18 or 19, or whenever, I probably thought it was midnight and thought it was time to pack it in. Things have been said. I got to go home, I'm tired. But Paul just keeps talking.

Acts 20:8 “Now, there were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together.”

They were in a multi-story building where people lived, and again, in the Roman world, any sizeable city, it had what we might call apartments or multi-level residential places for people. They were built out of wood, they were not very safe. There were no building codes. In Rome and in these cities, they would very frequently have fires and they would catch on fire and they would burn down a whole block of buildings very quickly. Water would have been carried by pail from the nearest aqueduct or large reservoir in a city or well. And before that, you know, could have been probably organized and effectively managed. The whole building could have gone down.

The lamps that it refers to here are oil lamps, and I don't have any pictures of an oil lamp to bring in, but many of them were rather small or larger sizes. But think about this, oil lamps. Have you ever looked at a kerosene lamp? You got your Harmony of the Gospels there. Yeah, right there. Somebody bring that up to me real quick. Okay, here we go. Here's an oil lamp. Here's a typical ancient Middle Eastern oil lamp. Okay. Actually, it seems to be working. You can buy these anywhere you go in Israel, and I have one in my office someplace. And the oil would have gone in here and a wick would have come out of a little hole here at the end. You light it and it burns, and it gives off smoke, heat. Look at that. They are in an upper room, verse 8, it tells us. Is it the second floor, the fourth floor? Just an upper room. Heat rises, doesn't it? Now, keep in mind the time of year, this is early to mid-spring, and it's in the Mediterranean world, so a little bit warmer than where we are right now. And so it's been a warm day. Heat collects in a building like this. You fire up a few oil lamps, probably a lot of oil lamps to keep the lights going. And you've got heat being generated, you got smoke moving around and the heat goes up, not the beat goes on, but the heat goes up here and it gets hot. And Paul keeps talking, okay? Kind of, like, ministers do, they just sometimes keep talking, don't they?

Acts 20:9 “In a window, sat a certain young man, Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep.”

It's 2:33 at ABC. Sometimes you sink into a deep sleep. I sink into a deep sleep. Some sermons at 2:30, 3:00, 3:15 as well. Yes, I know. It seems to be amazing, but we're all human, aren't we? I usually tell my friends that are speaking in the afternoon service on a holy day to keep it interesting, make it exciting, because I need to stay awake and I've got my lemon drops or whatever it is that I use to do so. This is what's going on. He was overcome by sleep.

Acts 20:9-12 “And as Paul continued speaking,” wouldn't stop, “he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him and embracing him, said, ‘do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.’ And when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till daybreak.” So, he continues on. “He departed, they brought the young man in alive and they were not a little comforted.”

And so, they probably took him someplace and he rested. He just kind of recovered a few hours later. And before, you know, everybody broke up, the meeting broke up, they were encouraged to see him and just slapped him on the back. And Eutychus lived, probably a long, full life and told stories about the night that he fell out of a window, listening to the Apostle Paul preached to midnight and beyond, and that he was... Maybe he told the story, and maybe it got embellished through the years. Who knows? But it says, “Paul embraced him and took him in his arms.” Maybe he felt a pulse and whatever. We're just not given any details, so I don't want to read too much into it, but he determined his life was in him. Here's this interesting story. And we are told that they break bread and they continue to daybreak, and they were gathered here on the first day of the week.

But go back to verse 7. Now, here's what happens with this particular story. In Protestant commentaries and language, this is used to justify or to explain and say that the Church is already meeting on the first day of the week or Sunday. They break bread at the very end of this. And so this is used, believe it or not, as a proof text for keeping Sunday by many. And you can pull any one of the commentaries off of the shelf in the library or anywhere else, and you will see this being explained by many but not all commentaries. I mean, there are some who understand that, as you parse these words and you put it together that it's not a justification or even an explanation of keeping Sunday, even though the breaking of bread is not communion service. It's not a Eucharistic service to use the Catholic or Protestant terminology, it's a meal. And it is what has been used all along to describe breaking bread. Here, in about in a few minutes, when we gather for lunch, we'll say a prayer and we will break bread together. And it's still a common usage. It just means to sit down and have a meal, to share a meal.

And frankly, that's what this is describing here. It is not a Sunday worship service, but it is on the first day of the week. It is on what we would call Sunday. You cannot get away from that. And what it likely is "On the first day of the week when they came together to break bread, Paul ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued till midnight." It's probably very likely. And one commentator, Craig Keener, in his commentary on Acts, puts it this way, they had a service on a Sabbath and then they just continued going, they just continued talking after sundown. And by the Biblical reckoning, which Luke does use throughout his gospel. And the timing of God in His Holy Days, Luke is consistent in the scriptures of using God's method of reckoning time. You see this in the Gospels, the chronology of the death of Christ, and we see it here in Acts, references to the holy day, references to the Sabbath. And he's not using a Roman methodology, which would start the day at midnight. He's using the Jewish, Hebrew, let's say, God's form. And so what is being described here is a meeting on Sunday, but begins on the nighttime portion after the Sabbath. In other words, they had a Sabbath service, but just kept on talking. And Paul kept preaching and he kept teaching. Why? Because he hadn't been there for a long time, may not have ever been there, we don't know. And he knew he may never come back through there. And so, he was using the time.

I spoke till Friday night. My Bible study to Myanmar started at 10:30, but I guess I was done about midnight. So, I went to midnight, but it was the next morning for them, so they were bright-eyed and ready to go in Yangon when they were listening to me. And so, this was just an extended meeting of members after the Sabbath then ended and Paul preached into the night, kept talking and teaching past midnight. And Eutychus, just being normal human being, got tired. He probably had too many chicken and dumplings at the potluck they had after the afternoon service. And you don't think it had chicken and dumplings there, Jonathan?

[Jonathan] No, that sounds very logical.

[Darris McNeely] Yeah, chicken and dumplings back then. Yeah. Whole wheat dumplings, do you think? Yeah, even probably so. But beyond Unleavened Bread, so they'd have leavening in them. Yeah. So, anyway, Eutychus ate too much, and the smoke, and everything from the oil lamps, and the upper stories, he just fell asleep. And he lived to tell that story. Now, this is, let's say in the early '50s AD. And I brought in some commentary from Craig Keener's, commentary on Acts. And he goes through several pages on this particular story, and he shows that at this time in Church history, nobody had gone to Sunday, probably not even in Rome. Rome was where the Sabbath was changed from the 7th day to the 1st day, probably first, and that would have been into '60s, and into '70s, and '80s when that began to develop in Rome and then gradually would have spread to other Churches. But it seems from what histories we can gather, and Samuele Bacchiocchi in his book, Bacchiocchi being a Seventh-day Adventist historian, theologian who we relied on quite heavily during the period of the 1994-'95 era when the Sabbath was being debunked. He shows in his extensive research that it seems to begin very early and first in Rome. But not this early. Not as early as this account here in Luke. So, again, Keener brings that out in his commentary. And so, any attempt to shoehorn communion keeping first day of the week into this story is just not being honest with the text, it's not being honest with Luke's style of writing, and it's not being honest with the known history of the changes on the Sabbath that we know from the history of the time. And so Paul continues moving on.

Acts 20:13 “The next day, he went ahead to the ship and he sailed to Assos,” or we did, Luke writes, he gets inclusive here. “We went ahead to the ship and sailed to Assos, there intending to take Paul on board, for so he had given orders intending himself to go on foot.”

So, what Paul did was, and this particular map doesn't show it, Paul walks overland for a short distance, about a day's walk to another port and the others, Luke and the others get on a ship and they sail around and they meet him at this place called Assos, A-⁠S-⁠S-⁠O-⁠S here.

Acts 20:14 “And then Paul comes on board and came to Mitylene. We sailed from there.” So, they're making their way down the coast of Asia. “And we sailed from there, from Mitylene. We came the next day opposite Chios. The following day, we arrived at Samos.”

These are islands off of the coast of Asia. Those of us that are going on the trip here in a few days, we're going to sail very near these particular spots on the day we go out to Patmos, part of our trip takes us to the island of Patmos and we'll sail close to these as well. And Paul then comes and stayed at Trogyllium.

Acts 20:15 “And then he comes down, it says, the next day we came to Miletus.”

Now, Miletus is just below Ephesus, and it was a significant city with a port. And in other words, Paul does not... He bypasses Ephesus. That's the important thing to note in what Luke is telling us. They came to Mitylene, they sailed opposite Chios, arrived at Samos, stayed at Trogyllium, and then came to Miletus. See, if I've got Miletus here on a map. We do. Miletus is right here. Here's Ephesus, and here's Miletus. Paul doesn't go back to Ephesus. Why? That's the question that people ask. Why didn't he go back to Ephesus? Why didn't he put in there? There was a harbor at that time. He could have got off, and as he got off the ship, he would have seen the theater and walked up Broad Street. And he had a sizable group there, many people, number of elders, as we're going to find out. Why didn't he stop at Ephesus?

Acts 20:16 Says, “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 at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost.”

There's another reference, again, to a holy day, the Day of Pentecost right here. You might want to note where these are in your notes, or however you're taking notes or not taking notes, or daydreaming, or whatever else, and kind of remember where these references are in the Book of Acts. You just never know where they might show up on a test sometime because they're pretty important. But this gives us a little bit of a clue as to why Paul didn't stop at Ephesus. He seems to be in a hurry to get to Jerusalem for Pentecost, so he did want to spend time. So, time may be a factor. I mean, that's what Luke says. Again, go back to the theory that Paul had been in Ephesus, in prison at the end of his ministry there, and maybe he didn't want to bring any notoriety to himself and step foot back in Ephesian soil and be subject to arrest again, or “What are you doing back here? We told you to leave and stay gone.”

Possibility. Luke does put the focus upon the timing. And if he had stopped at Ephesus, a lot of people there, a lot of members, and he would have had to have spent time in order...some people probably would have come in from some of the other cities. Keep in mind that Paul's time in Ephesus, you got all these congregations from all the way up in Pergamum down to Colossae and around cities that are not even mentioned on a map here that held probable congregations. There's probably a congregation in Miletus. Miletus was a sizable port city. I made a trip there back a year ago. We stopped in Miletus and they have a big theater there as well. And you can actually see where Paul would have come in. It's quite interesting to get a view of all of that. But what happens here, in verse 17.

Acts 20:17 Paul puts in and he stays and “He sends to Ephesus and called for the elders of the Church.”

And he wanted them to come down. He didn't want to stop where they were, but he wanted to meet with them. And so, he probably sends runners from Miletus around, there's a mountain there, and they would have gone through Magnesia and then down to Ephesus. It would have been a day or a day and a half for a runner. Probably some part of his traveling group here, maybe Trophimus. Some say it was Trophimus of Asia. Again, it doesn't say that, but he's mentioned back in verse 4, as part of his traveling party. But Paul sends somebody to Ephesus and says, “Look, we're all down here at Miletus, Paul wants to meet with you.” And he gathers the elders and then they go on a return trip. So, a minimum of three days Paul stays at Miletus. What did he do there? We don't know. I don't think he was probably inactive, but he calls them together.

And so here in Miletus is a gathering of the ministry. And what Paul says here is one of the most poignant scenes in all of the Book of Acts as Paul is going to rehearse to them his story, what he did, the time that he was with them, and he's going to give them certain warnings. So, let's go into that here in the time we have remaining in the class and read what he says.

Acts 20:18-19 He says, “You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews.”

And so in one sentence, he talks about probably working with his hands, teaching publicly, you know, the tent-making years, supporting himself. “I lived among you in this way with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews.” What's he referring to during this time? Unknown events not always referenced. In 1 Corinthians 15, remember when you were there? Paul uses a phrase. He said, “I wrestled with beasts at Ephesus.” I wrestled with beasts. What does that mean? Lions, tigers, bears, oh, my? What did he wrestle with? Well, it's pretty well understood that he wrestled with what he says in Ephesians 6, against spiritual wickedness, principalities, powers of the air, not against flesh and blood, but that it's the Jewish opposition, the Roman opposition, you know, evidenced by the riot. This is all part of the background here that he says, “I dealt with when I came to Asia,” in verse 18, and what I had to deal "with many tears, many trials." And he specifically mentions the plotting of the Jews.

Acts 20:20 “How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly and from house to house.”

And so he's opening himself up. He's saying, “I didn't keep anything back from you. I gave you the whole gospel, all the truth. Nothing but the truth, the whole truth. I gave you everything and proclaimed it to you in a public setting, School of Tyrannus from house to house.” Would that mean a house Church? More than one Church? Maybe in Ephesus or some of the areas covered by this? Possibly. But a gathering of people in a home, that may be invited for a meal and then it just goes into a Bible study and he would teach as there.

Acts 20:21 “Testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Repentance and faith, two elements of salvation, repentance, the metanoia, whole turning around of life, and faith. Right there you have the elements that lead to baptism, the receipt of the Spirit, and testifying to Jews and also to Greeks.

Acts 20:22-23 “And see now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.”

Now, keep in mind that he had to change his route because of a plot. And word was, no doubt, beginning to come to him of his enemies and those that were against him, plotting and setting traps to deal with him. But none of these things move me. None of these things move me. In other words, he wasn't so frightened that he just was going to run and go to ground and not continue with what his mission was and his purpose.

Acts 20:24 “These things didn't move me nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I might finish my race with joy and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

And again, pretty succinct statement of an intense faith and of an intent on his part to continue to the last breath that he would have to finish his race, to do it with joy in his ministry, knowing full well the problems and what he would deal with if he's already been thrown in prison. I mean, at least he was. We know that in Philippi, he was beaten in Philippi. He was beaten in Lystra. Other things have gone on that are not even recorded. He records this, again, in the letter to 2 Corinthians, even shipwrecked. And we haven't got to the shipwreck that is a part of his trip to Rome. So, he's referring to some other incident where he was shipwrecked in his work and his travels. So, again, just keep in mind that a lot took place in Paul's life outside of what Luke records in Acts. Remember, there's a 10-year gap from the time he goes back to Tarsus to when Barnabas goes from Antioch to bring Paul into the ministry. We don't know from the Scriptures what he was doing during that time. Again, that feeds a lot of speculation in terms of a ministry, and it could very well be. I cannot see him being idle for 10 years. But some of the things that he references in 2 Corinthians about his trials and tribulations could fit into the situation of that timing there but none of it deterred him.

Acts 20:25 he said, “Indeed now I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God will see my face no more.”

If you're an elder that's come down from Ephesus, and he comes to that statement, I'd probably be thinking, "What does he mean by that?" I will see his face no more. Wait a minute. We have plans for this or that. And we were planning further evangelistic efforts and maybe meetings of the disciples and the ministry. We'll see your face no more?

Acts 20:26-27 “Therefore,” he says, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.”

Again, a reference to the fact that he's given them all that is necessary to understand about the truth, salvation, the way to salvation. Nothing has been held back. And keep in mind, he's telling this to a group of ministers and close traveling companions, Timothy, Luke, unnamed elders from Ephesus. We don't know how many three, six, a dozen, we don't know. But enough that he's having a full-blown conference with them here in some public location in the city of Miletus. And he's giving them a rehearsal of what he has done and a bit of a warning about his own life and now other things.

Acts 20:28 He says, “Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.”

Now, verse 28 gives us then a clear reference to the name of the Church, the Church of God. But that it is not Paul's Church. It is not their Church, these elders, it is the Church of God, purchased with His own blood, purchased with the blood of Christ. And that's what every elder, every minister, every pastor of God's Church, through the ages then, and certainly today, must know from verse 28, this is not our Church. A minister that stays in a congregation for, 5, 10, 15, 20-plus years in some cases, you know people. And a good pastor is going to be taking care of his people, giving them good sermons, visiting, anointing, marrying, burying, baptizing, laying hands on children, the whole life cycle of a Church. And as the years go by, every pastor feels a deeper calling. But then to the people that you have been joined with for a number of time, every pastor's got to recognize at some point you're going to leave.

I pastored in Indianapolis for 23 years and in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for about that long as well. And you go through different cycles, you go through a lot of emotion, and events that draw you together. And sometimes there's abrasion and problems, and not everybody gets along, and not everybody likes you, the pastor, and you cycle even through. I found that in Church life, you can have somebody go off and they don't like you. And then in time, one of my early mentors told me, “Time wounds all heels.” You've heard the phrase, “Time heals all wounds.” Turn it around, “Time wounds all heels.” A heel being somebody that makes a mistake or acts like a heel. And time can wound a heel. In other words, people can, "You know, I shouldn't have said that to them. I shouldn't have got that bent out of shape." And they come back and they apologize. And I've had that happen with people, and toward people, and people toward me. Those things happen. But above it all, you have to realize you're working with God's people purchased with the blood of Christ. They were never mine. Today, they're not pastor so-and-so's. You love your pastor, and hopefully, you're sad to see them go when they will be transferred or whatever. But to the degree that we recognize that it is the Church purchased with Christ's own blood, keeps it all in perspective.

Acts 20:29 “For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.”

What a strong statement to make. Savage wolves. I've seen a wolf in a zoo. That's about as close as I've ever been to a wolf. I've never encountered a wolf in the wild out in the open. That would probably be a chilling experience. But Paul likens those who would ravage the sheep as a wolf, and they will come in not sparing the flock. The analogy of the sheep.

Acts 20:30-31 “And from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch. Remember that, for three years, I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.”

This is where we get the idea by this reference, for three years, I didn't cease to warn everyone in terms of the length of Paul's ministry there. And he says, “Watch. Watch this.” And he's speaking to the ministers, and he's saying, “From among yourselves, some are going to tear at the fabric of the fellowship of the Church.” And that happened. You will be going through Timothy, yet you haven't gone through 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus, I understand starting that this week.

The pastoral Epistles give us a rather grim scene of events in these Churches in Asia, Ephesus, and others. Keep in mind, 1 and 2 Timothy is written to Timothy, who was the pastor of Ephesus. And so what Paul describes there will develop, from this point of this encounter here in the years to come. And it seems that, as the years went by, the problems got bigger, heresy kept coming in, the Church got divided and Timothy had his hands full. And what Paul warns about came to pass. When you come to the end of 2 Timothy, Paul says that everyone in Asia has forsaken me. And you begin to realize that the apostasy that must have spread through those Churches representing Paul's prime years of ministry and life, ripped his own heart out as people turned on him. But he's giving the warning here, and that's why Chapter 20 is so important to understanding that but also on our own life.

Look, I went into a congregation 12, 13 years ago that was being ripped apart in a division in the Church. And I preached out of this Chapter 20, and I called the pastor that was ripping the Church apart and dividing it. I called him a wolf. Actually, I didn't call him a wolf, Book of Acts calls him a wolf. I just read the Book of Acts. Some people didn't like me that day who were there to listen to me, but I said it anyway because that's what was happening. And I've been a part of divisions from the very first months of my time in the ministry when the Church I was in, 60% of the Church was ripped away by a wolf. And it's never good. There's no good fruit from it, no matter what the justification can be. And so, that's why the latest one that we've had to deal with was so insidious and unnecessary. And frankly, a pack of lies and a ripping of the body of Christ. But Paul calls them wolves, savage wolves. And people will speak perverse things. That's a lie. So, if I hide behind that, I think I'm safe to describe what people have done through the years. I've witnessed it firsthand more than once in my 50 years in the ministry. And if any of you ever become a minister or ministers that are listening to this, this is a pretty strong teaching as to what not to do in order to preserve the unity of the faith and the fellowship within the Church. And so verse 32 comes to a very poignant statement.

Acts 20:32 He says, “Now, brethren, I commend you to God and the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

That's my favorite verse in the whole Book of Acts, if you want to know. Verse 32, he said, “I give you to God.” He's done all he can do. He's now given them a warning, and he gives them over to God. And that's the best place to be. And He's able to build you up, to give you an inheritance.

Acts 20:33-35 And he says, “Look, I've coveted no one's silver, gold, or apparel. Yes, you know that these hands,” and he probably held his hands up, “have provided for my necessities and for those who were with me. I have shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Remember, he worked as a tent-maker during this period of time.

Acts 20:36-38 “And when he had said these things,” so he comes to a conclusion, and I like to imagine there was a pause and he finished. “He knelt down and prayed with them all. Then they all wept freely and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him.” Quite an emotional scene of men praying on their knees and hugging one another in a right way, but it's an emotional reaction. “Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke that they would see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship.”

And so these elders went back to Ephesus, and Paul's little traveling party takes him down to the ship, and he gets on the ship, and he then begins a journey to Jerusalem that is going to result in his arrest. So, that takes us through Chapter 20 and sets us up to pick it up in the next class with Chapter 21. And we'll get into then Paul's journeys to Jerusalem and what happens at that point. So, we'll pick it up there.