245 Dozy-defenestration

Wow, today as we follow Paul, there will be no mobs. Hey, and no beatings, and nobody goes to jail. No violence. But Somebody's gonna die. Yeah, but it's not all bad news.

Let's see it today. On More Than Inc.

Well, hey, welcome. We're so glad you're here. We're sitting at our dining room table talking about Paul in Ephesus. And we left off last week with Paul narrowly escaping a massive riot, 20,000-ish people, throwing a tantrum and screaming great as Artemis of the Ephesians. And it was finally brought to order by the town clerk, which was an interesting, interesting turn of events.

Yeah, yeah. That was a massive, that was a massive public uprising. We think probably the biggest uprising against Paul. Yeah. And you would think it would get him killed.

But he had wise counsel. He said, don't get involved. Don't get in the middle of this. Say it.

So he lived to see another day. And today is that other day.

So we're starting in chapter 20. And we are still, as we open up chapter 20, still in Ephesus. But not for much longer. But not for much longer than chapter 20. And remember that Paul had been there for two, three years.

He'd been there quite a long time. Quite a long time.

So, today he's going to push on past that now that things get quieter. But there's still action on the road as he's in the middle of his third missionary journey. And so, that's what we're going to look at today.

So, if you want to follow with us, we're in chapter 20, verse 1. Starting in verse 1. Want me to do it?

Well, let me start.

Okay. After the uproar had ceased. Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.

Okay, so that's interesting to me because it looked like he was just camping out in Ephesus until this riot, until the local opposition got so loud and so potentially violent that he thought, you know, it's time to just... Move on. Right, right. Lest he endanger the new church that had started. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And, you know, I want to make a point again, another obvious point. The two years plus that Paul's there, Paul is making disciples. He's teaching them about the word. He's bringing out the word and he's talking about what's there about Christ in the Old Testament. But he's bringing understanding so that they can be more firmly grounded in the truth of who Jesus is.

So that's why he's spending so much time there.

So.

So we're going to move on now.

So you don't know whether he was planning this exit now or whether he just suddenly decided, time to go.

So he gathers them all together, encourages them, says farewell, and he takes off for Macedonia. This is a good time to mention you need a map.

Okay, yeah. In fact, we know this story well, but we still have maps in front of us. Because it's hard to keep track of what's going on.

So remember, I said he's sitting in Ephesus, which is on the western coast of present-day Turkey, kind of poking into the Aegean Sea. And now he says, where is he going to go in verse 1? Macedonia.

Well, that's way up the north end of Greece on the other side of the Aegean Sea.

So when he says he's going to Macedonia, he's going a long ways away.

Well, but he had been there before. Remember, he had been camped in Troas some years before and saw that vision of a man from Macedonia saying, come over here and help us.

So he had gone and established churches there. And now on this third journey, he wants to go back and see them again. He just mentions with very few words a very long trip. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah.

A lot of sailing, a lot of walking. He's in Asia, and now he's going to go on the other side of the Aegean Sea where Macedonia and Greece are.

Okay. So he departs for Macedonia. Verse 2. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.

Okay, so he goes up to Macedonia and through all the churches that he had established, kind of heading south, and then he came to Greece, which is shorthand for Corinth. Probably Corinth. Probably Corinth. Yeah. Probably Corinth.

Oh, so he comes to Greece, and there he spent three months when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria. He decided to return through Macedonia.

So he's come all the way down this long peninsula, and now he's going to turn around and go back. Yeah, so he traveled from the western edge of. Of Turkey, travels by land up to the top of the Aegean Sea, enters into Macedonia, going westbound, goes all the way down to the bottom of the Greek peninsula, down to Corinth, turns around and actually turns around and goes back up. Although he's intending, instead of walking back up, he's intending to get in a boat and then go all the way from there in Greece, all the way across half the Mediterranean back to Syria.

So we're talking, you need a map. That's all I'm saying. You need a map right here. But so as he's getting ready to get on a boat in probably Corinth or near Athens to go all the way across the Mediterranean, go back home, because remember, Antioch is in Syria. He's not going to take a land route now.

He realized that there's some kind of plot against him and decides to fake him out and walk on land instead. And go back on the north. And go back where he came from, back north from Greece up into Macedonia.

So there was some kind of plot, I guess, we think, that had to do with getting him while he was on the boat. Yeah, or on the way. To the boat, or something.

Something like that. But it says that he spent three months there in Greece, and there's some thinking that probably those were the winter months because he would not have sailed in the winter months.

So he's going to hang out there until the sailing weather is good. And at that time, he learns about the plot that was hatched. Yeah, and coincidentally, while he's cooling his jets for those three months, he writes the book of Romans. Yeah. So the people that he talked about earlier that he really his plans were to eventually make it to Rome.

So while he's here in Corinth, wanting to go home, wanting to go all the way back to Syria, he writes Romans and gets it sent off somehow.

So that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing today.

Okay. So let's see. Where are we? He was about to set sail for Syria, decided to return through Macedonia. Verse 4.

So Pater the Berean. I don't know how you say that. I'm just like, I like Sopater.

Son of Pyrrhus accompanied him.

So that tells us that Pyrrhus was probably known to the church. He had to tell them who his son was, right? Probably.

So Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him. And of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derby, and Timothy, and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.

Okay. Hey, we know these names. This is the whole team all in one place. And these guys are from all the places he's visited. Yeah, these are believers that came out of the results of Paul preaching there, probably on his second tour.

Could be the third. We don't know. But I mean, yeah.

So remember the Bereans?

So Pater comes from Berea, the guys who actually checked up on the scriptures on Paul. Good for them, right? And then Thessalonians, where there was a gigantic, well, there's a mob again there. And then, and then. The Thessalonians followed him to Berea to kind of cause more mobs there.

The two guys from Thessalonians, their names have always made me, I kind of smile when I read them because it says well, well, in verse 4, Aristarchus and Segundus, because Aristarchus, you know the word aristocrat, right? Aristarchus is a wealthy, ruling person. I mean, this is a well-placed person. At least that's what his name would indicate. That's what his name would indicate.

So this guy is highly placed in society. If you're named Aristarchus, you're up there. There's no way around that. But the guy with him, Segundus, is actually the name for the second slave.

So if you had the first slave, like your main slave, you know, that you have that serving your household, you'd call him Primus. That's Primus because he's number one. Like thing one, thing two. Exactly. That's Primus.

He's the number one slave. The number two slave is Segundus. That was a very common secondary slave name. Do you think Segundus was Aristostarchus's Aristarchus' slave? Could be, but it's fascinating.

That out of the people who are helping Paul that came from Thessalonica, you have one guy from the very top of the social order and one guy from the very bottom of the social order. Yeah, so it just paints a wonderful picture that God is no respecter of persons or what you accomplish. You can be a slave and come to Christ. You can be an aristocrat and come to Christ. You can both serve with Paul in spreading the gospel.

I just think that's, I smile when I see that.

Well, and this is, I think, the biggest list of names on the team at any one time. Yeah, yeah. And the reason for that might be that part of the purpose of this journey was to gather an offering from the churches to take back to Jerusalem. And he writes about that in 2 Corinthians, I think he writes about it. And also in Romans, yeah.

So, and to have this number of men from all these various places would have allowed for accountability regarding the sum that they would have been carrying because it would have been a significant amount of offering. Yeah, so you're saying these guys could be actually the caretakers of the offerings from those regions. Yeah, I think that's probably true. True, that's probably true because the money is going to go to Jerusalem to help what's going on in Jerusalem.

So, yeah, that could very well be. And then in the next verse, Luke is going to join him because we're back to the first person. Hey, how did you figure that out? These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas.

So suddenly Luke is back with the party. We don't know exactly where we picked him up, but. But he's with them on their way back to Troas. We're pretty sure he was left at Philippi. Right.

Pretty sure. And we're pretty sure that originally he got picked up in Troas. Oh, so for Luke, this is going home. Yes.

So, yeah, if they're going by foot, well, yeah, so we were coming back through Philippi.

Well, they go by foot up to the top of the peninsula there, but then they have to take a boat to get over to Troas. That's right.

So, when they get to when they, yeah, right.

So, but they, but they walked through Philippi, most likely. And they probably left from Philippi at Anneapolis, where they docked the first time.

So, when they came through Philippi on their way to get a boat in Anneapolis, there's Luke in Philippi. Very likely, that's where he was.

So, because the last time we see Luke is back, I looked in Acts 16 in Philippi. And then all of a sudden, he stops using the we-us terms and starts using the they.

So, it looks like they walked to Philippi, picked up Luke, went down to the coast at Philippi, went to Neapolis, picked up a boat, and took the boat all the way over to Troas. Yeah, because he says in verse 6, and we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

Okay, he's giving us the number of days because this is important because we find out by the end of the chapter that Paul is intending to be back in Jerusalem for Pentecost. Right, right. And if they celebrated unleavened bread in Philippi, and then they spent five days at Troas, or five days to get to Troas, another seven days, that's almost two weeks. Right. And it's 50 days between Passover.

Seven weeks. And they've used two of the weeks already. They've used up two weeks already.

So they got to hustle. They got to hustle to get back. Because they're a long ways from home. Yeah. So again, if you're scratching your head saying, Where are these places?

This section of Acts, you just got to have a map in front of you. I mean, and I and I do this exercise as well. I've done this many times. I went on Google Earth, which is a great online map service. And you can type in the names of these cities right here, and it'll take you with a little pinpoint right to where they are.

Now, some of these, less than half of them, some of these are, when you put it in Google Earth, it'll show you where the archaeological dig is. But some of them, it turns out, they're still there to this day, named by these things.

So if you don't have a map, if you don't have a map of Paul's journeys, which is easy to find, you can go on Google Earth and just type in these city names and you'll see where he was. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, this is a real historical story. These places are still there. And they're in the right order.

And in their right order. Yeah, it makes sense if he's working his way back to the eastern Mediterranean where Syria is, he would be going in this order in these towns.

So that's really, it's kind of cool. It works. It's great.

So um So he's moving.

So what he does, he came. See, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

Okay, so we're at Troas.

So, want me to pick up? Yeah, you want to?

Okay. Yeah, interesting little story. Because this is a fun story. Side story. It's actually kind of a humorous story.

It's kind of humorous, yeah.

So, especially if you know what the name of this guy is, what it means. Anyway, so we're in verse 7.

So, on the first day of the week, of course, that's Sunday, day after Sabbath, the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day.

Now, we're in Troas, remember? And he prolonged his speech until midnight. Until midnight. I can believe that. Paul's long-winded.

Yeah, so if they were, he says in verse 7, they're breaking bread, that's dinner time, think 6 p.m., right? And now it says he prolonged his speech until midnight. That's six hours.

Okay, so that's where we are. He's been speaking six hours when we finish verse seven.

Now, verse eight, now there were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered, as Luke's saying in first person again. And a young man named Utychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. Past midnight.

Okay, wait a minute.

So we're in an upper room. Right. So it's warm anyway. It's warm. There's a lot of lamps because it's dark.

Right. And there's a lot of hot air. A lot of people breathing, and Paul's been talking.

So this all makes a lot of sense. You would be drowsy too if someone pushed on speaking after midnight after sitting there for six hours listening already, right?

So it says he fell into a, you know, the young man named Uticus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talks still longer, and being overcome by sleep, sounds like he fought it, he fell down from the third story, from the third story, that's quite a fall, and was taken up dead. Really, not just mostly dead. Dead. Really dead. I mean, he fell out of the third story window, and that did it.

Oh, no talk about putting a bad spin on a wonderful evening. Verse ten. But Paul went down, bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, Oh, don't be alarmed, for his life is in him. And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them awhile longer, until daybreak all night. And so departed.

And they took the youth away alive, And we're not a little comforted.

Okay, talk to us about this young man's name.

Well, Anytime you see this, the the prefix you, it means good. Right. Right?

So, um, uh And the last part of his name means chance or luck.

So his name means good luck or good chances. Or good luck. Or fortunate is the is the one word we need fortunate.

So Uticus, so this this young man named Fortunate fell out the window and apparently died. And but apparently didn't die.

So they would have had to change his name on his gravestone to unfortunately.

However, some people have speculated that maybe he got this name after he was brought back to life. Hmm. Because sometimes people change their names midlife. That's true. And they'd say, Yeah, he fell out the window, but he came back to life, and Paul was there.

And boy, is he lucky. Let's name him Uticus. That's kind of interesting. I don't know. We don't know.

The way Luke tells the story, it doesn't seem like that. Yeah, I know. But it still makes me chuckle every time I see it. It's amazing. I mean, the way that is said in verse 9, it indicates he really was dead.

It sure seems like it. He was taken up dead. Yeah, he was taken up dead. And so Paul immediately knowing he's partially responsible, because we're in the early hours of the morning now.

So he goes down and he takes a look and. Don't be alarmed, his life is in him. Oh my gosh. And then they just go back to what they were doing. Yeah, and it goes back to teaching.

Isn't that amazing? And he has a little midnight snack for another six hours until daybreak. I mean, this looks like a 12-hour teaching session in Troas. But here's the thing, Paul knows he's on his way home, he doesn't know when he'll get back here. And there presumably were quite a number of believers there.

So he's kind of making sure that they are grounded and they understand their own history and they know what has taken place.

So, you know, I could see this happening. If you are with a group of people that you especially love and someone you know is on their way through and you just want to use every minute, I could see that it's getting late into the night. Yeah, I can see it too. I mean, I don't fault Paul for this at all, but But uh But, you know, I can use this when I preach on Sundays and say, as long as no one falls out the window, I'm preaching 12 hours. But we do that.

You know, it's clear that this was really a young man, because at the end of this part, they say they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted.

Well, who was comforted? Probably his parents. Probably his parents. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So.

Third story. It's a great story. And the fact that we have his name just personalizes it so much. You know, so often we don't have the names of people who were healed. But this is a memorable one.

Don't you wonder how that young man's life was changed? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And how it changed the church as well. Yes.

So, you know, we speculate that many times when the Gospels or when Paul's writings mention specific names, it's because they're recognizable to the first readers of these stories.

So maybe Luke's account in Acts here, as it circulated first, they'd read, you know, the young man named Eutychus, and they might say, you mean that old guy Eutychus that comes to church every Sunday? You mean that guy, that Eutychus? Yeah, that Eutychus.

So we wonder. We don't really know, but the names are mentioned not to protect the innocent, but in order that the innocent might give glory to God if they're still around.

So that's what's going on. That's Eutychus. That's Eutychus. It's very likely since he was a young man that that story spread by him and others for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Shall we pick it up in verse 13? Let's do that.

Okay. Do it. But going ahead to the ship. We set sail for Essos, intending to take Paul aboard there. For so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.

Okay, so that's not a real long journey. No, because Assos is just like the next port south from Troas.

So he takes a land shortcut. He walks across some land to get to Assos, but they get on a ship and go around the point to get there. Was it a shortcut for him and why didn't they all take it? Or was he just desperately in need of some time alone? It's hard to say.

It's really hard to say. We don't know. It is kind of interesting. They go by boat to Troas, and then he debarks the boat there at Troas, walks across the land to Assos. They stay in the boat and go around the point to come around to Assos and pick him up.

Nobody knows. We don't know what he did. We don't know. That seems an interesting arrangement. Again, you need a map to follow this.

That's right.

It's all on the map.

Okay, verse 14. And when he met us at Essos, we took him on board and went to Mytilene. Mytilene. Mytilene. How do you say that?

I say Mytilene. Mytilene. Okay. I don't know. Okay, verse 15.

And saying from there. Sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chios, and the next day we touched at Samos, and the day after that we went to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem if possible on the day of Pentecost. Yeah, so he knew, he knew if he dropped into Ephesus. You know, we started this with him being in Ephesus in the two plus years.

He knew that if he dropped in there again, it might be a couple other years, and he's trying to get back.

So, yeah, when they, when they, again, you can follow these places on Google Earth or on a map, they're still there to this day. Samos is still a very famous place today on an island, and it's named Samos, and it's spelled the same. But when he gets down past Chios, which is another island off the coast there, I have to guess Chios, he could go into the port that's near Ephesus right there, but instead deliberately bypasses it and goes to Samos, which is deliberately going past Ephesus. You know what this reads to me like? Rather than taking a direct flight, he takes the puddle jumper to avoid the big city.

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of fun. It kind of just felt like that to me reading it because they name all these little ports in the effort to avoid stay up. They want to stay on the ship, but they don't want to go into Ephesus. Yeah, because Paul knows. He knows what's going to happen if he goes into Ephesus.

Yeah. But as it turns out, he does actually see some of the people from Ephesus. Yeah, but that's next week. If you're feeling sorry for the people. In Ephesus, that Paul snubbed him on this part of his tour.

Don't feel sorry for him. Go ahead. Yeah, you'll see what happens a little later. He still does not go into Ephesus, but he'll see them.

So, you know, one of the speculations at the end of this is that why was he pushing so hard to get to Jerusalem at Pentecost? That's what I was going to ask. Do you have any thoughts about that? I have. Mine's all speculation as well.

We don't know what was pushing Paul. But it is interesting. Pentecost here.

Now, Pentecost is not a Christian holiday. It's a Jewish holiday, right? It's the Feast of Weeks. And so it was at Pentecost that the whole thing started. Exactly.

The Holy Spirit came. The church was formed. Yeah. So the Christian movement and its identity is as much. Connected to Pentecost as the Feast of Weeks is for the Jewish community.

But in this particular case, he's going back for this celebration. And again, we mentioned this once before. Paul, although he's a Christian and though he was a Pharisee, and although he's come out of that and as a follower of Jesus, he hasn't lost his Jewishness.

So he's going back for a very significant Thing at Pentecost.

Now, Pentecost or Feast of Weeks is what it's called because it's a week of weeks. It's seven times seven days. That's 49 days. The 50th day is Pentecost. It is one of the mandatory return to Jerusalem, one of the three that you have to be back for.

The other one was Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the other one was Yom Kippur.

So you had to go back for this one.

So maybe he's just saying, you know, as a Jew, I'm compelled to go back.

So I need to go back.

So it's kind of nice to see him holding on to those Jewish roots, which is not wrong. And I'm thinking, too, because at that original Pentecost celebration where Peter preached so powerfully, there were Jews from all over the world speaking a lot of different languages. And now all these years later, Paul has actually been there and done that, right? He has traveled the known world or the easily reached world, heard all these languages, and is coming home to celebrate. The gospel has gone beyond the borders of Israel.

Yeah, could. Could very well be.

So, I wonder if that was part of his celebration. Yeah, and in the narrative that follows on in Acts here, it doesn't explain to us anything why. No. But still, there it is. He's still hustling back to Jerusalem for one of the three festivals that you're supposed to show up for.

Well, it gives us a very specific time frame for the journey, right?

So, it would have been late spring or mid-spring. Right. And so we know when that is, and the weather would have been amenable for sailing. But we know the clock is ticking because they already had spent two weeks in the northern part of their journey before they actually started back for Jerusalem. And now they're going to spend a little time with the Ephesian church in spite of not going to town.

Plot spoiler. Plot spoiler. Yeah. Yeah. So here they are.

They're in Miletus. They're actually in the middle of a very long boat journey, a ship journey, but they're at Miletus before they take off again for probably the largest leg of it. Yeah. Of the sailing back to the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

So.

He lingers there for a while.

So, next time, if you want to read ahead, since we've already plot spoiled for you, you might as well plot spoil for yourself. But they're in Miletus and they're actually south of Ephesus, but they're not in Ephesus, right? But they're close enough that you could walk it if you want to.

So, next time, we're going to pick up on verse 17 in chapter 20. And maybe, I don't know, maybe feels a twinge of guilt for bypassing the port of Ephesus. It's actually not a port, there's another port, but I don't know. We don't know. He loved the Ephesians.

He loves the Ephesians. And next week, you'll see he asks, He sends someone to say, Why don't you guys come visit me? And we'll have a talk. This is something we do with other people that we feel like, you know, if I can control my exit criteria, this discussion may not take all day. And so, Paul says, I can control this discussion.

I'll have them come to me. Or I don't want to be mobbed, I just want to have a conversation with you, leaders of the church. Yeah, so they're within walking distance, and he sends word and says, If you guys want to, come visit me in Miletus.

So, next time, next time, we get a really wonderful, very warm look at the relationship between Paul and these people that he's built into for all these years, including the two-plus years that we've been talking about for the last couple weeks. And you see this remarkably wonderful, touching, not just parting scene, but a reminder and almost an overview from Paul's perspective about what it is he did with him for so long. And it just engenders a wonderful love.

So, you're not going to miss that. No mobs next week, no fighting, no violence, just a wonderful get-together in another town. And you see the heart of the early Christian fellowship, the Christians who came to Jesus, and in this case, through the speaking of Paul. And it's just a tender thing.

So, if I've got you enticed enough, go read that slowly. It's just a wonderful section of Acts. I think we're about out of time. I think we're out of time.

So don't forget. Don't forget. Get your maps on the table. It's a really sick. It's a really big deal.

Otherwise, you'll be lost. It's a really big deal. And nine out of ten Bibles, if they have maps in the back, they have maps of the missionary journeys, the three missionary journeys.

So that's a great place to do it.

So anyway, we're AR out of time. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad that you're joining with us on this adventure as we join the adventure with Paul and now Luke again. I'm glad he's back on board.

And we'll see you with us next week together on the boat here on Mook of the Inc. Uh There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Uh Wow, we covered a lot of ground today. We took a cruise near GNC and we saw somebody raise from the dead.

Yeah, I'm tired.

So is Paul. Come back with us next week here. Unworthy ink. That's good enough. I think so.

Hehehe This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.