So you area a disciple. You have turned from your old life and trusted in Jesus, been baptised, expressing a faith in what god is doing; you've been baptised in the Holy Spirit and begun to move in the gifts he give. What are you going to do with it? Look at what Paul does with it...
Motivation
This is Paul's last big evangelistic campaign; he still has other things to do, but it will take a different shape. As usual, he begins his preaching in the synagogue, among the people he knows and understands best – the Jews. As usual, conflict happens; discussions give way to insults as people close their minds and hearts to the Christian message. Why does Paul keep doing this? Why does he always go back to the same thing of starting in the Synagogue? I think the answer can be found in Paul’s letter to the Romans where he says this: Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. (Rom 10. 1) His motive is completely unselfish; it is not about being vindicated; it is not about winning the argument; it is not about building up the church; it is not about control. It is about compassion, it is about love. Paul cares so much for these people that he says “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race.” (Rom 9. 2f) Paul cares more about he souls of his fellow Israelites than he does about his own. “If my sacrifice – losing eternal life – could help bring them to know Jesus, it would be worth it.”
Saviour of men our humanity sharing, give us a passion for souls that are lost. Emotions are connected with thought and beliefs. So if that passion is missing – could it be because we have wrong beliefs – like somehow it is all predestined anyway; or like it’s all about recruiting people for the Church; or that we don't really believe our right beliefs: what I mean is, if we really believed in our hearts, that people need to know Jesus personally in order to go to Heaven, maybe we would ha a greater sense of urgency about making sure they hear the Gospel!
Conversation
What is Paul doing in the synagogue? What is he doing in the schoolroom belonging to Tyrannus? He is engaged in a a dialogue about Jesus. The NIV says (quite unhelpfully) that Paul “argued persuasively” in the synagogue (v 8) and “had discussions” in the lecture hall (v 9). The Greek actually uses the same word, διαλεγόμενος, in both verses. Both in the synagogue and the lecture hall, Paul's approach to sharing the Gospel is about dialogue. It is conversational.
Declaration is meant to be done through dialogue. We can bring what Paul brought to this kind of conversation:
1. Conviction. Paul spoke boldly – freely – about what Jesus meant to him
2. Story. Paul had was not afraid of telling his story. Se need to have a story to tell
3. An understanding of our faith. W need to know what we believe and why.
4. A listening ear. We need to understand people's needs and be able to respond to them.
5. Persistence. Paul kept at this for two years, daily. We need to be present with people.
Demonstration
What is this business about cloths and handkerchiefs? I know this practise has sometimes been turned into a “product”. You know the kind of thing. “Send $50 and we will rush your prayer cloth to your address!” Or else the cloth becomes associated with a magical sense of “transferable anointing” as thought the power came from the evangelist, into the cloth, then on to the sick person.
This is an “unusual work of power” and needs careful understanding. Luke says “through the hands of Paul” which is one way of separating power and the healing from Paul's genius and knowledge. What was it about Paul that God used? His hands! And the clothes were carried to the sick. They were not sent; they were carried.
The prayer cloths were a way of involving ordinary men and women, believers, in ministry. They were a away of focussing faith and making the prayer and ministry activities of individuals an expression of the ministry of the wider church. It meant that any other, obscure, un-named believer, could be involved in Paul’s ministry. And it meant that when someone took a prayer cloth to her sick mother, she was ministering as part of the church.
Because it was god, it was done through loads of people in the Church. You can be involved in a ministry that demonstrates the love of God to broken people.
And demonstration involved deliverance; demonstrating “Who's in charge.” When they saw demons being driven out, seven “Sons of the Jewish priest Sceva” tried it. Nobody knows for sure who these guys were; Sceva probably claimed to be a “high Priest” to gain respectability for his activities – kind of like a snake-oil salesman or someone selling expensive alternative remedies on the internet calling himself “Doctor.” With no personal connexion with Jesus, they tried using the name of Jesus as a magic spell. The demons weren’t fooled. “We know who Jesus is; we even know who Paul is. But who are you lot?” and the possessed man beat them up. That sort of little event – not something Paul or the Church went out looking for – simply underlined the point: “Who's in charge!” Jesus is Lord. HE has unique power over the created order. Remember what the disciples said when he calmed the storm? “Who then is then; even the wind and the sea obey him?” He has unique power and authority over spiritual forces, even those that have ranged themselves against God and against humanity made in God's image. Who’s the King? Jesus!
People around us need to see that we are not all about dogma; that our words translate into actions. We are as a Church committed to “learning to show the father’s love.” That hasn’t gone away. We need to show love and we need to show that the Kingdom of God does have power.
Transformation
The result of this was dramatic to say the least. A number of things happened in Ephesian society
1. Fear of the Lord and honour for his name. .
2. Many believed and produced fruit of repentance, confessing their sins and cleaning up their lives. They were experiencing personal transformation at a very deep level.
3. A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. One drachma was approximately one day's pay for one man. Fifty thousand of would pay a crew of 136 for a year. Or put it anther way, a day's labouring is worth about fifty quid. That makes the pile that was destroyed worth a cool £2½ million. That is a significant amount of money; that suggests something deep was happening not only in people's lives but that there was an impact on society.
4. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. . We are not talking about political power but about influence. We area not talking about the kind of power that comes from being attached and backed up by the state; we are talking about a respect and influence that is people's spontaneous response to something they recognise as good, worthy and important. The word of God became public truth. Society began to be transformed, spiritually, morally, psychologically.
It looks very much like revival. And THAT is what we are supposed to be doing with our discipleship, our repentance, turning life over to Jesus, our faith in what god is doing, our baptism in the Holy Spirit and our gifts? We want to see Scotland changed? Scottish Christians do too much moaning about standards in society. We need to be overwhelmed with a passionate love for the people around us; we need to engage in conversations; and we need to face the challenge of demonstration, learning to show the Father's love – and the transformation will come.
© Gilmour Lilly July 2014
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