Luke continues the story of Paul's third mission journey: after the riot in Ephesus, Paul heads off to Macedonia, at the Northern end of Greece. Luke doesn't give us details but in Romans 15. 19 Paul says that he has “fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ, from Jerusalem all the way round to Illyricum.” This was probably the time he reached Illyricum (which makes the line for the journeys of Paul in most Bible maps wrong!) Paul just loved breaking new ground, going to new places and new people with the gospel. But Paul also loved the Church: and much of what he did in this stage of his third journey was about the Church. Luke doesn’t' give us details of the mission – but does focus on the inner life of he Church. And it's good to do that. Emil Brunner once wrote “The Church exists by mission as a fire does by burning”. Although he was a great theologian, I believe that is a dangerous statement. It can lead to an unhealthy emphasis on the activities and outcomes of mission, and a productivity-driven and pragmatic vision of Church which undervalues the quality of our life together and the needs of the people who make up the Church. The Church is both the agent and outcome of mission. Mission and pastoral care go hand in hand.
Mike Breen and the 3D Mission movement talks about the balance between invitation and challenge. Both are needed for a healthy Church and a growing Church. We need the challenge to be engaging in mission; and we need the invitation to be cared for and loved as God's people. As we've looked at Acts 19 we have been hearing a challenge; now it's invitation time!
Comfort and encouragement
So we find Paul revisiting the Churches of Macedonia and Greece – to “encourage” them. Encourage is of course παρακαλέω... the word that speaks of invitation, encouragement , comfort, motivation; the word that refers to the activity of the Holy Spirit, the “paraclete” – the one called alongside us, who encourages us and comforts us and motivates us as he invites us to the journey of discovering what God has for us. .
We need encouragement. Some of us are going through difficult times; some of us have been through difficult times; some of us simply have something in our hearts from god's word, that we hetcan use to “encourage” one another. That encouragement, that motivation, that accompaniment, is something we need to be able to find within the Body of Christ. If it's not there, something is wrong. If all “church” does is make demands, there's something wrong. If all Church does is purvey sentimentalism, something is wrong. The word comfort comes from two Latin words: con meaning with and fortis meaning strong. When people are comforted they are strengthened together. Real comfort, someone effectively drawing alongside, will give s us the strength to continue the fight.
Teamwork
Paul is surrounded with people. Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea (a relative of Paul's), Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. And Luke the physician. Notice he refers to the group as “we”. Paul is in a team. The work he does, whether it involves missionary initiatives, breaking new ground, or pastoral care, is done in a team. There are a number of advantages to team work:
1. Witness: a team of keen believers from all over Asia and Greece, would confirm to the Elders in Jerusalem that Paul really was doing a good work as eh travelled the world. Having a team means we can can confirm and support one another, whether in discerning God's will or in fulfilling or call, the responsibility is shared.
2. Accountability: one of Paul's projects is gathering funds from the gentile church, to help and support the struggling Church in Jerusalem. Having a team that was pretty representative of the churches that had given the money, meant Paul was accountable: he wasn't going to disappear to Rome and live in luxury for the rest of his life. A team makes us accountable for our actions and how we steward the resources God has given us
3. Protection. This was a decent sized company of men, some of them at least quite young and presumably fit. Robbing Paul wasn't going to be an easy matter. In a team, we look after each other. “As a fellow team member, “I've got your back.” I love the image of Marcello kneeling by the injured Neymar and shouting for help. That’s the role of a team-member.
The Worshipping Community together
Once again Paul is in Troas. This time, there is a church in the town. Paul spends a week there and his last full day is the Sunday. Now, it's difficult to tell whether Luke is reckoning the time by Jewish reckoning that meant a day began at sunset the previous evening, or by the Roman reckoning that meant the day began at Sunrise. What is important is that the Church met of the first day of the week – the Sunday – in a conscious and deliberate focus on the resurrection of Jesus. They were the people of resurrection, and the natural day to celebrate that was resurrection day, Sunday. The time was interesting: it was an evening meeting – when people had finished the day's work. In a struggling, working class community, the Church met when people could get there. The convenience and needs of the poorest and most needy people was what mattered.
Their worship included breaking bread: that included a meal. As Paul says in 1 Cor 11.21, some came to church hungry (not surprisingly if they had been working all day). And at that meal, bread would be broken in remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice for us on the Cross, wine shared in remembrance of his blood shed on the cross. We need to remember that church is people and to retain the human side of Church. Communion is not just a ritual but a family meal.
But it took them a long time to get round to breaking bread. Paul was teaching the people. Once again, the word Luke uses suggests dialogue. You remember (from three weeks ago) how we saw Paul having a dialogue in the Synagogue (Acts 19. 8) and in the lecture hall (v. 9). Well, he is doing the same thing in this upstairs room, with a group of committed believers. He's teaching them. He is ministering the word. He kept talking until midnight. (The Greek says he stretched out the word until midnight!”) But the shape of that ministry was conversational.
We place far too much of an emphasis on monologue – the preacher as lecturer or stand-up comedian. That has its place, and it is wrong to suggest that people can't listen for more than five minutes these days. But Biblical preaching was interactive and dramatic, not always a monologue; People learn when they are involved. they learn by action; by being able to ask questions; by answering questions and testing out their own understanding. We have strayed from the Bible, and from good communication by our overuse of monologue. We need to rediscover dialogue.
Power.
The conversation went on for so long, the room as full oil lamps which were using up the oxygen, and people got drowsy after a hard day's work. A young man called Eutychus who was sitting in a window, dozed off, lost his balance and fell from the second floor window to his death. Luke says “He was taken up for dead” and as a Doctor, he gives us the benefit of this professional knowledge. When Paul says “his life is in him” he is not saying “he survived the fall” but “he has returned to life.” In other words, Luke is describing a miracle. Plain and simple. And that miracle took place in the context of a situation of real need within the Church. When eventually – at dawn – they took Eutychus home alive and well, the Church were “Greatly comforted.” Again, the Greek word is παρακαλέω which implies comfort, encouragement, stirring up.
We need to recognise that the Church is not just “there to reach the lost” it is there: the people of God, and needs to live as though people mattered. Comfort and encouragement, teamwork, space for our humanity around a table, conversations about faith – and space for the God of miracles to be at work. And when the Holy Spirit is at work in the church, people are encouraged and comforted.
© Gilmour Lilly August 2014
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