Acts 20:7-12

Growing up in the church, as a child, the worst part of service (in my humble, childish opinion) was, sitting through those looooooong, dry sermons. Attention span, as measured by sustained attention, varies with age. Older children are capable of longer periods of attention than younger children, and it’s obvious the attention span of a child is only a few minutes, so after the music and singing was done, it was my time to fall asleep, because I knew the sermon would probably do it anyway (don’t judge me; I was only a kid). Whether miracles were taking place, or people were being delivered, I didn’t find out until after service, when I heard about it from others.

If you think me sleeping through sermons was bad, you’ll be shocked to know that worse happened to a man in the Bible…well, kinda. The most prominent Bible author was the apostle Paul. He was responsible for writing 13 epistles (14, if you include Hebrews), and took advantage of every opportunity to spread the Gospel message. He was intelligent, well-educated, and full of the Spirit of God, so when he spoke, his words were never taken lightly. One particular Sunday, as the disciples gathered together to worship, and partake of the Lord’s supper, Paul delivered a profound, yet elongated expression of God’s Word. In the midst of a well-lit room, the apostle Paul preached to his audience for nearly eight hours! Eight hours?!!! Zzzzzz…..zzzzzz….. sorry, I dozed off at the thought of sitting through that sermon lol. On a serious note, I’m certain Paul expounded on some informative, and necessary points, but there was a certain man who decided that naptime was still on his schedule. This certain man sat near a window, and fell into a deep sleep, as the length of Paul’s message was apparently too long for him to pay attention to. While snoozing through the sermon, the man fell from the third loft, or story, then was pronounced dead. Talk about a powerful message; it was so profound, until it literally killed a man.

Imagine that happening today, where a preacher preached so long, someone fell asleep in the balcony, then fell over onto the first floor, and died. This unfortunate occurrence forced Paul to stop preaching, as he rushed to attend to the dead man. It was obvious to the crowd that the man was indeed dead, but Paul embraced him, then encouraged the onlookers to worry not, because a miracle was about to take place. In some miraculous form or fashion, the man who was pronounced dead, had been resurrected, according to the faith in the apostle Paul who believed in the power of the resurrection (Christ). After the man had been brought back to life, the apostle Paul went back up to continue preaching (LOL, seriously! God bless his soul, and those who were in attendance). The people who had witnessed this great event, were left amazed, as was I, after reading this passage of Scripture again.

I’ll conclude this lesson by doing a brief comparison between the apostle Paul, and the modern-day apostle, or preacher. In the midst of his preaching, Paul stopped to perform a miracle, then went back to finish his assignment. This was a classic case of true humility. Men today need to first be motivated by the cords of the organ, before they’ll even begin to “preach”, let alone pray for someone. All attention from the pulpit should be directed to God, and not to self, because it’s our faith that moves God to act, and not our selfish performances.

Walk in love,

Ell