Hey family. This is a piece that I shared with some of the leaders of our church this morning.
I was encouraged last night, especially when we spoke about how we need to relate to God and not just the “institution.” We heard some stories about how politics can get involved in our life in Christ and how important it is to find our full selves as men and women in Christ.
It got me thinking about guilt as motivation, and how much of my background “in church” was about guilt and fear. I want to do something a little different today, and share with you a “Bible Story” from volume 10 of my children’s book called “The Bible Story.” I don’t know how many of you had access to such resources as children…Caucasian Christ and his pearly white disciples and the Arian angels. The racist and inaccurate images are not the worst part of this book and others like it. The commentary that is mixed in with the text that it’s translating is scary and fear-based. We say, in one of our proverbs, that “Jesus is the lens through which we read the bible.” I challenge you to take some time this week and read this passage through the lens of Jesus, and see if you have similar thoughts to this author at the end of your time.
I found this story based on Acts 20 particularly amusing and definitely read the last paragraph twice.
“The Boy Who Slept in Church”
It happened at a place called Troas on the coast of Asia Minor. Paul had just returned from Greece, where he had gone to encourage the new believers.
After spending a week with the Christians in Troas, he had met with them again on the first day of the week in an “upper chamber” on the third story of some local building.
The grand old missionary had no doubt already preached in the morning and perhaps again Sabbath afternoon. Then, “on the first day of the week” which, in those days, began at sunset Saturday night, he held yet another meeting. He wanted to celebrate the Lord’s Supper before leaving in the morning.
Nobody knows the exact hour when this meeting began, but we do know when it was interrupted and when it finally ended.
Paul had so much to say and so many wonderful stories to tell that he “prolonged his speech until midnight.”
How many people dozed during that long, long service we are not told, but the name of the boy who went fast asleep will never be forgotten.
Eutychus was “sitting in the window” and “sank down into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.”
Evidently the window was open, for the poor lad fell out and hit the ground with a fearful thud three stories down.
You can imagine the commotion. Paul was forgotten. Women screamed, and men ruched outside to see what had happened.
Everybody was wide awake now as the word was passed from one to another, “Eutychus fell out of the window, and he’s dead.”
A lantern held high in someone’s hand showed where the body lay, and a crowd quickly gathered around it. Nobody could see much in the dim light.
Then [Pablo] came striding through. Pressing his way to the front, he knelt down beside Eutychus and put his arms about him, much as Elisha, long years before, had embraced the dead son of the Shunammite woman.
After a few moments he stood up again. “Don’t worry,” he said. “He is alive.”
Everybody was amazed. They couldn’t understand it. But there was no doubt that what Paul said was true.
Some of the members picked the boy up and took him home, “and were not a little comforted.”
You might thinking that this would have brought the meeting to a close. Oh, no! after a little break Paul went right back to the pulpit and carried on from where he had left off. The Bible says that when he had gone upstairs again and “had broken bread and eaten, he coversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.”
What happened to Eutychus afterward we are not told. But when he grew and heard his friends talking about that wonderful night when the apostle Paul preached in his church, he must always have had a feeling of regret. That was the greatest night in the history of Troas, and he knew nothing about it! He had slept through it all! It doesn’t pay to sleep in church.
I am sorry if it is painful for you to see how the key elements of the scripture can be prioritized (especially back in 1957 here). What Paul was actually doing in Troas or why he was there didn’t seem real important. The miracle of the boy being brought back to life plays second fiddle to this message to the kids to not fall asleep in church or you will have bad feelings of regret later on (!).
When we talk about women leading or whatever else the Spirit brings up, it is important to look to Jesus. I am so blessed that when we come off an evening like last night, we seek God for truth, rather than twisting some weird, guilt-ridden point out of the texts to keep people under control. Let’s let Jesus be King.
Love,
Joshua
