Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Saturday, August 3, 2013 Read – Acts 20:1-16 With Paul leaving Ephesus and traveling on to Macedonia, the missionary activity of Paul in the book of Acts comes to an end. He is no longer spoken of as someone who goes into the synagogues and the marketplaces to proclaim Jesus, but as a person on a “farewell tour”, visiting the places where he has worked and encouraging the believers he must now leave behind. The “farewell tour” begins in Macedonia and Greece. Having visited the churches there, Paul’s plan was to set sail for Syria, but those plans are changed when a plot to kill Paul is discovered. Paul and his companions journey by land with a destination of Troas – the city in which Paul received a vision of a Macedonian man asking him to come and help them. As we noted earlier, it is precisely at this point that an unnamed character again joins in the story and Luke begins to use the pronoun “we” – “we sailed from Philippi” with the plan to join Paul and his companions at Troas (Acts 20:6). We do not need to say much more about this use of “we” at this point – only to point out that the first time we encountered Luke’s use of “we” was on the sea voyage from Troas to Philippi (Acts 16:10). This is the return voyage! And the same person shows up aboard the ship. As I mentioned earlier, it is tempting to speculate that the mysterious “we” character is somehow connected with the ship business and may in fact be the author of the book of Acts – my theory of the chance encounter where the author and Paul cross paths without necessarily meeting and with the author never becoming an associate of Paul at that time or co-worker in Paul’s ministry. This unnamed character will continue on the journey to Jerusalem and then disappear again from the story. Once the group has met up in Troas, Luke tells us “on the first day of the week, when we met to break bread” (Acts 20:7). This is significant because it is one of the earliest references in the NT to worship on Sunday, the first day of the week. Likely what Paul is describing is a communion service, possibly connected with a longer meal. The story itself is surrounded by humor and tragedy. We are reminded of the combination of humor and tragedy in the story of the martyrdom of James, the brother of John, and the freeing of Peter from prison where a praying church does not believe its own prayers (Acts 12). The story of Eutychus was likely one that members of the church enjoyed telling and hearing. It pokes fun at Paul in a delightful way. On a more serious note, the story amplifies the finality of Paul’s journey – he will not see these people again since his destiny is Jerusalem and Rome. This is truly a “farewell tour.” Some commentators have noted that the description of the meeting place three stories above ground and lit by many lamps provides detail that only an eyewitness would recall or care about, lending to the thought that the author of the book of Acts really was there – remember we are in the midst of a “we” passage. Luke now tells us of an arrangement that Paul has made to be picked up at Assos and sail past Ephesus because Paul does not want to lose time there. Did Paul become aware of his proclivity to preach too long? Perhaps this is another humorous touch by Luke. At any rate the group sails on to Miletus where Paul will visit with some of the elders from Ephesus after all.