Readings:
Ecclesiastes 7-9
Acts 28

Acts 28

We close out the book of acts today and the narrative story of the early days of the church. This book closes on something of a cliffhanger; does Paul live to see another day and go on to another missionary journey further west, or is this the final trial he endures and then meets his end here in Rome? We know that the tradition of the early church, is that Paul was martyred in Rome, and this is attested to by many early fathers in their writings, but we don’t know if that is the current trial Paul finds himself in here.

Considering the testimony of some early fathers, it’s likely that Paul successfully defended himself in the trial in Rome and was released, allowing him to go to Spain and bring the Gospel to the very western edge of the Roman world.

It’s always felt to me like Saint Luke intentionally leaves this as an open question though. It would be easy for him to close it out one way or the other, but he leaves it open as a way of saying Paul’s mission is our mission, and we must journey on and continue it.

Back to the text; Paul and crew wash up on Malta and are greeted warmly by the Maltese inhabitants. While gathering supplies and making a fire, Paul is bitten by a deadly snake but just shakes it off and keeps going. This elicits two reactions, first they think he’s a murderer who has escaped a shipwreck but now the gods are catching up to him on land, but when he doesn’t succumb to the poison he is then thought to be a god himself. Luke doesn’t share Paul’s reaction at their attempt to deify him, but it was probably the same as when it happened before and they thought Paul a member of the Olympian pantheon.

Paul makes it to Rome and is greeted by many of the Christians as they come out as far as 40 miles from the city to escort him in. He is also not kept in a prison, but allowed to rent a home and stays there with soldiers guarding him under house arrest for the duration of his two years in captivity. Add to that the time it took to travel to Rome, and his two years in the jails of Felix and Festus, and you get almost 5 years total prison sentence for an accusation that wasn’t a crime.

Paul gathers the Jewish leaders of Rome to him, as he usually went to the synagogue in any new city to see them. And he preaches to the Jews from morning till night, arguing that Jesus is the foretold messiah from the prophetic books and even the Books of Moses.

And that’s where we close this book of the New Testament, with Paul being unhindered in his teaching and preaching, while awaiting his fate in Rome. The church goes on, despite the death of the apostles, their students, their students’ students and so on. It continues on from one generation to another, all the way till the present age. The teaching and proclamation of the Gospel will never be finished until the world ends.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
1 Kings 15
Ecclesiastes 10-12