Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00022A
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00:22 Welcome to Books of the Book. I'm glad you've joined us for
00:25 our study in the book of Acts. I'm Pastor Mark Howard, I'm here 00:29 with my brother and cohost, Pastor Jim Howard. We have been 00:32 learning some exciting things in the book of Acts about not only 00:37 the history of the church, Jim, but what we see the church can 00:41 be through the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Now we have 00:45 started our studies each time with a word of prayer asking God 00:48 to guide us and I would invite our viewers to join us in that 00:51 prayer at this time. Heavenly Father, I thank you so 00:54 much for your word and I pray that the Holy Spirit who 00:57 inspired the writing of the word would give us understanding as 01:01 we study it today. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. 01:03 Now, Jim, as we start in chapter 20 verse 1 of the book of Acts, 01:10 we're picking up the aftermath of the riot that took place in 01:15 Ephesus where Paul escapes by the skin of his teeth, so to 01:20 speak, and he's brought now it says in verse 1, After the 01:25 uproar had ceased, Paul called the disciples to himself, 01:29 embraced them and departed to go to Macedonia. So he's on his way 01:33 again. He makes a narrow escape as seems to be the case often 01:38 with the Apostle Paul as the Lord whisks him away to 01:41 Macedonia. We read on there. In the next few verses it talks 01:44 about his ministry in Macedonia and Greece, throughout the area 01:48 and then he heads for Troas. In verse 6 it says, We sailed away 01:52 from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and in five 01:55 days joined them at Troas where we stayed seven days. 01:59 That's right. Now we come to verse 7 and we have an 02:02 interesting account that is shared here in Troas. It starts 02:06 on the first day of the week. It says, Now on the first day of 02:10 the week when the disciples came together to break bread Paul, 02:14 ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his 02:17 message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper 02:20 room where they were gathered together and in a window sat 02:24 a certain young man named Eutychus who was sinking into a 02:28 deep sleep. I can't help but think as I read about Eutycus 02:32 here that I may have had a few Eutychuses in my congregations 02:36 before and I'm not sure how to feel about that. If it's an 02:40 indictment on the Eutychuses or on my preaching. 02:44 But we can feel good because if the Apostle Paul had people 02:47 falling asleep during his teaching, we're in good company 02:51 right? That's how I felt too. Anyway, 02:53 It continues and says, He was overcome by sleep. And as Paul 02:57 continued sleeping, he feel down from the third story. So this 03:01 was the bigger problem, he was all the way up on the third 03:04 story and he was taken up dead. But Paul went down, fell on him 03:07 and embracing him said, Do not trouble yourselves for his life 03:11 is in him. And now when he had come up, had broken bread and 03:14 eaten and had talked a long while, even till daybreak, he 03:18 departed and they brought the young man in alive and they were 03:21 not a little comforted, which is Luke's way of saying they were 03:24 very comforted by this. So the moral of the story for 03:27 our viewers is don't fall asleep in church. That's right. Thank 03:30 you for making that first and most critical point about this 03:33 passage. Now we need to pause here for a moment because this 03:37 passage is one of two primary passages in the New Testament 03:42 that are used by some to say well the reason that the seventh 03:46 day Sabbath that was commanded in the 10 commandments, the 03:50 fourth commandment in the Law of God in Exodus 20 verses 8-11, 03:55 that that particular commandment the sacredness of it was changed 03:59 from the seventh day to the first day by the apostles. There 04:03 are some who believe that that is why we see in Christianity 04:07 today so many who worship on the first day of the week. 04:10 Now myself, I'm a Sabbath keeper I continue to keep the seventh 04:14 day of the week as I believe the Bible teaches so this is very 04:17 important to me to understand, could it be that the disciples 04:20 would have changed that, but I don't find evidence for that in 04:24 the Bible. The two places where many point to to give evidence 04:28 are 1 Corinthians 16 and then this passage here in Acts 20. 04:32 So we need to look closely at it. They believe in many cases 04:36 that when it says that the disciples came together on the 04:39 first day of the week to break bread that that must be 04:43 indicating that they were taking the Lord's supper or a communion 04:47 signifying a worship service of sorts. But I'm not sure this can 04:50 really be a good conclusion because we go back to Acts 04:54 chapter 2 verse 46 and it says they were breaking bread from 04:59 house to house and eating their food and they were going to the 05:04 temple daily and all these things with gladness and 05:06 simplicity of heart and I can't help but think that it's just 05:10 a description, very clearly, of sharing a meal together, just 05:14 spending time fellowshipping together. So when we see here 05:17 that they broke bread we can look at other passages here in 05:20 Acts and see that breaking bread did not signify communion 05:24 necessarily or the Lord's supper But if we look at another point 05:27 in here that I think is valid, it says that Paul was getting 05:32 ready to depart the next day and that he continued his message 05:37 until midnight and in this room were many lamps. Now the reason 05:41 I would think that there would be these lamps or he would make 05:45 mention of it was the fact that this is happening not during the 05:48 day but in the evening. What many of our viewers may not be 05:52 aware of is the fact that in the Bible a day was reckoned in the 05:56 dark part first and then the light part. In Genesis chapter 1 06:00 it says there was evening and there was morning the first day. 06:04 There was evening and morning the second day, etc. So we see 06:08 that the first day of the week would actually begin, the first 06:11 day of the week we would consider Sunday, it would 06:14 actually begin on what we would call Saturday night. So this 06:16 more than likely, don't you think, would have happened on a 06:19 Saturday evening. More than likely. It's a pretty good 06:24 chance that the Apostle Paul was worshipping and ministering on 06:29 the Sabbath day and as he spent all day worshipping with the 06:33 believers there, they came upon evening and he was going to 06:37 depart the next day so he spent time together with them. So this 06:41 is just a very natural account of Paul spending time with them 06:44 It just happened to be that it fell on the first day because it 06:48 was after the Sabbath. But there's nothing in here that 06:51 indicates anything about worship or the Sabbath or the changing 06:55 of any sacredness. You don't find any of that in the text. 06:59 Let me interject here, Jim, if I could. We talk about a proper 07:02 worship service. You could call it worship and we've already 07:05 mentioned he's preaching. To some people he's preaching and 07:09 that makes it a worship service but I've preached on every day 07:12 of the week and just because I preach on a Sunday night or 07:16 Tuesday morning or whatever doesn't make it the day of 07:20 worship. It doesn't replace what the commandment says, so even 07:24 if we wanted to call it worship because he was preaching the 07:27 custom of Paul in the New Testament, as we've seen 07:31 repeatedly was to worship on the Sabbath day. 07:33 That's right and I believe that if God was going to change the 07:37 solemnity and he was going to make that clear to us, change 07:41 the solemnity of the Sabbath to the first day of the week, we 07:45 have to remember that when God instituted the Sabbath he did it 07:49 in the heart of the 10 commandments which God spoke 07:52 with his own voice, wrote with his own finger on stone to 07:57 signify it's permanence and if he was going to change that, it 08:01 would be a lot clearer than a little narrative like this that 08:05 doesn't seem to indicate anything about a change of the 08:08 sacredness of the Sabbath. You would certainly expect that. 08:11 Absolutely. Why don't you pick up for us in verse 13. 08:14 Yeah. In verse 13 Paul heads from Troas to Miletus and we see 08:18 he takes a circuitous route and goes a few different places. 08:23 It says that in verse 16 Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus 08:29 so that he not have to spend time in Asia, for he was 08:34 hurrying to be at Jerusalem if possible on the day of Pentecost 08:37 We touched on this a little bit before. I want to pick up on it 08:41 again this time that some people refer to this, in fact we talked 08:45 about the seventh-day Sabbath and, Jim, I've had people who 08:49 say well the seventh day Sabbath is, I see that it is something 08:52 that is still valid in the Bible You know what, if we're keeping 08:56 the seventh day Sabbath like the Jews did, we ought to also keep 08:59 the feasts days of the Jews and they lump them together. 09:02 It needs to be understood that the Bible doesn't do that. 09:05 The 10 commandments are different from the laws and 09:07 ceremonies of Judaism. Where there was some commonality 09:12 between the two there also are clear differences. I think of 09:15 I Corinthians 7:19 where the Apostle Paul says, circumcision 09:18 is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of 09:21 the commandments of God is what matters and he draws a clear 09:24 distinction. Leviticus 23 that talks about the feast Sabbaths 09:27 and the seventh day Sabbath draws a distinction in verses 09:31 that I believe it's 38 and 39 of Leviticus 23, where the writer 09:38 Moses mentions the feast Sabbaths in Leviticus 23 and 09:40 then he says these are besides the Sabbaths of the Lord, so he 09:44 separates them there. Now people will refer to this text and they 09:47 will say, but Paul was racing to be in Jerusalem on the day of 09:51 Pentecost and that proves he was a feast keeper. However, we're 09:55 in chapter 20 of the book of Acts, we're many, many years 09:59 into the book of Acts. We go back to verse 6 in this chapter 10:02 and it mentions also that they sailed from Philippi after the 10:07 days of unleavened bread. Of course that links in with the 10:11 other and people say well Paul's keeping unleavened bread, Paul's 10:14 keeping Pentecost, but again we're many years into the book 10:17 of Acts and this is the first real account we have of their 10:21 desire to keep the feasts or rather to be there at the feasts 10:25 It doesn't really even say anything about keeping the 10:27 feasts. Furthermore in verse 16 it says that they were hurrying 10:33 to be at Jerusalem if possible. So it wasn't even a requirement. 10:39 What we see happening here is the Apostle Paul realizes that 10:44 the Passover season at Jerusalem is where the crowds are gathered 10:49 It's going to be his best opportunity to preach the 10:53 gospel of Christ. We've also mentioned in a previous episode 10:56 that the Passover Jesus fulfilled when he died on the 11:01 cross. He died on the 14th day of the first month at twilight 11:04 just like that Passover lamb had so many years before. 11:06 Paul was preaching Christ from the scriptures, from those types 11:11 and prophecies and so what better time, what time would 11:15 people be more open to the preaching of Christ and seeing 11:18 those fulfillments but during that season. So we see him 11:22 looking at this as an evangelistic opportunity. 11:24 We don't find it in the scripture as a practice of the 11:27 apostles. While we do find the keeping of 11:30 the Sabbath to be a very clear practice of the apostle all 11:33 through the book of Acts. Well let's move on to verse 17 where 11:36 he comes to Ephesus and he addresses the elders of the 11:41 church. In verse 18 it says, And when they had come to him, he 11:46 said to them, and now this is this beautiful last words as it 11:51 were for the elders of Ephesus of the Apostle Paul. He says, 11:54 You know from the first day that I came to Asia in what manner I 11:58 always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with 12:02 many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting 12:05 of the Jews, how I kept back nothing that was helpful but 12:08 proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly from house to house 12:12 testifying to Jews and also to Greeks repentance toward God and 12:17 faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is a beautiful 12:20 description of what he did and I think that we need to learn 12:24 from the example of the Apostle Paul here. Notice he said he 12:29 preached publicly and from house to house. There are some who 12:33 believe that we need to preach publicly but they get so 12:37 involved in just giving sermons from a pulpit and there's so 12:42 much notoriety that can be gained from that... 12:44 You can almost say enamored. 12:45 enamored by it and the type of response that people give and 12:50 that sort of thing. It draws some preachers, evangelists and 12:54 the like to just give sermons all the time and think their 12:58 work is done. But the Apostle Paul showed here that personal 13:01 work, house to house work, visiting with people, caring for 13:04 them personally, giving personal appeals to them was a very 13:08 important part of his work. Not only that but there are 13:11 others who say, Well, you know what, there's no need to 13:14 publicly proclaim. People don't do that anymore. People don't 13:18 come out to that anymore. As a Seventh-day Adventist minister I 13:22 know that I try to do a public seminar regularly that teaches 13:25 the truths of the Bible and there are some people who say 13:28 no need to do that anymore, we just need to do personal work. 13:31 And I think that's wrong because it doesn't follow the example 13:35 of the Apostle Paul either. I believe that the two perfectly 13:39 joined together, public proclamation followed up by 13:42 personal visitation and appeals and work and those two together 13:46 made the Apostle Paul's ministry effective. 13:49 That's right and this was not a one-time thing he's recounting. 13:51 This was his practice. Everywhere we see him going he's 13:54 doing public proclamation and personal labor. 13:57 And if we are going to model our church after the church of Acts 14:01 then we should have that same practice. Well he has more to 14:04 say here but it looks like we are in need of going to our 14:08 break. So at this time we ask you to just stay tuned and we'll 14:11 be back to study the book of Acts. |
Revised 2014-12-17