Monday, November 12, 2018

Acts 28:11-31 "The Last Word of the Book of Acts"


As we come to the final verses of the Acts of the Apostles we will find Paul finally in Rome. All this began in Acts 21:27ff when he was arrested in the temple in Jerusalem on charges of undermining the law and the temple and Caesar (25:8). He is saved from angry mob justice by a  Roman cohort in Jerusalem, and this begins a process  whereby  Paul is sent from Felix the Roman governor to  Festus another governor, under whom he makes this appeal to appear  before Caesar (25:11)  in Rome.

V. 11 Last time we saw him in Malta, the island where they ran aground in the shipwreck. Here   Paul and his entourage   stayed approximately from mid-November to about mid-February, whilst waiting out the storm season.  Eventually they had found a ship from Alexandria  that had  wintered in the island.  The ship had the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux, patron deities of sailors on her bow.  Luke probably records this intentionally. The pagan  sailors  would have attributed their rescue from the shipwreck  to these twin gods, but it is clear that these were not  the ones in whom Paul had put his trust. In 27:23-25 Paul has made it clear  who  his Protector and Deliverer is.

V. 12  After a  90 kilometre  journey north, the ship  lands in  Syracuse  the provincial capital city of Sicily,  at the tip of the boot of the Italian peninsula.  Here they stayed for three days. 

V. 13 From there they sailed on to Rhegium in southern Italy ,  another 110 kilometres further and from there,  with the south wind in their sails  they  arrived in Puteoli 2 days later,  and 325 km’s further. In Puteoli  they found some brothers and stayed with them for 7 days.  Isn’t this worldwide network of support and encouragement amazing?  This must have meant  that  the centurion  and guard must have given his consent.

v. 14 And now he is in Rome, through many dangers toils and snares ... ship wreck, snakebite  … This marks the  fulfilment of God's promise to Paul (23:11; 27:24).

v. 15   The way he got to  Rome from  Puteoli ( a 210 km  journey) there was on land. First  Paul made his way  about 30 kilometres  up the Via Compana to its intersection with the Via Appia, or the Appian Way.  The Forum of Appius  is about 70 km’s from Rome   and  some 16 km’s  further  was the place called the  three Taverns. At both these places Christian brothers from Rome, who had heard that Paul and the others were coming, came to meet him.  At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and took courage. Why?  This show of support was surely most encouraging  to Paul. He knows that he is in God’s hands, but it is also good to know that there are caring Christian  people, visible tokens  of the love of God. Furthermore Paul knew that the end of the long journey was now in  view. They  had met some significant obstacles.  So, when  with God's help, we achieve divinely appointed goals, the proper response is thankfulness to God.

v. 16  When Paul entered Rome  he  is  put under house arrest and  guarded by a soldier. At this stage he has considerable liberties.

28:17-22 Encounter with Jewish Leaders

v. 17 Three days after his  arrival, and  in accordance with his "to the Jew first" strategy, he called together the local  leaders of the Jews[1] .  It is estimated  that the Jewish community at Rome numbered  some fourty  to fifty thousand people, most  of them being Roman  slaves and freedmen. The names of ten to thirteen synagogues have been recovered from inscriptions in the catacombs[2]As Paul began to speak he addressed his hearers as brothers. He saw each new audience of Jews as potentially containing some of the elect remnant who would hear and respond to the gospel.  This brief address to them contains four statements:

(i)               He is innocent before the Jews (28:17b, 19c). They can bring no sustainable charges against him, and he has none to bring against them. The Jews may have charged that Paul is working against the Jewish people and their customs, but the charges aren’t true because Paul was always working for his Jewish brothers (Rom 10:1). He always respected Jewish customs (21:23-24, 26).

(ii)              He is a prisoner of the Roman government and there are reasons for this (28:17c, 19b).  He was handed over[3] as a prisoner from Jerusalem to the Romans. He was forced to appeal to Caesar (v. 19; also see 25:11).

(iii)            Romans and Jews had  different opinions  toward Paul (28:18a, 19a). The Romans wanted  to release him. The Jews objected to Paul's release (25:3, 7). This situation is very similar to Jesus. 

(iv)             He was  not guilty of any crime deserving death (28:18). Paul is innocent before the Roman state (23:28-29; 25:25; 26:31-32).

V. 20  In this  verse Paul gets to the point.  He has been preparing the ground for the question, "so if you are innocent , then why are you here ?  And Paul answers, "Why am I here?  I am here because of the hope of Israel ...that is why  I am wearing this chain."  The Jewish leaders respond to Paul's statements by saying that they have heard nothing bad about Paul, whether by letter or by word of mouth.  What they do know however,  is that  this sect (Gr. haireseōs) which Paul represents  is spoken against everywhere (v.22). Clearly, Christianity was not viewed positively by them.  

28:23-28 Explaining the Gospel to the Jews 

v.23. The Jewish leaders  want to give Paul a fair hearing and so they agree upon a day. They arrive in force at his rented  lodgings (vv. 16, 30).  He expounded to them from morning till evening,  testifying  (Gk  diamartyromenos[4]-  23:11)  to  the kingdom of God and trying to convince them  about Jesus, both from  the law of Moses and the prophets. All this is just another way of saying that he was preaching the gospel to them with great intensity.

v. 24.The response to the message was mixed: some were convinced… but others disbelieved ( see this pattern also in 13:44-45; 14:1-2; 17:4-5).

vv. 25-27   Now to interpret this mixed response, Paul quotes from the Old Testament (Isa. 6:9-10). Paul takes the Jewish  Scriptures, given in a particular setting in Isaiah’s day, and he does not hesitate to apply this  to  these Romans  Jews. Isaiah in his day  spoke about  what happens when people hear  saving truth without appropriating it.  They  would  be  ever hearing but never understanding (compare the use of parables in  Lk. 8:10 with Isa. 6:9). Isaiah attributes this lack of understanding  to a hard heart, deaf ears , blind eyes. There is nothing defective or unclear in the message. The defect is  found in the audience's sinfulness. This sickness affects the heart (i.e. the willingness to be willing to hear and see) and the mind (whose  access is barred by faulty  hearing and seeing).     If they would but see with open  eyes, hear with open  ears,  and respond with  soft hearts, they would turn (repent)  and  God would heal them. The truth is  that  human sinfulness has made us so hard , so blind and so deaf that no –one would be saved. It takes a miracle, it take intervention from  God  to cure this condition.  

v. 28.  The gentiles will listen …. This is the third time Paul speaks of Jewish rejection and Gentile reception (13:46; 18:6).

28:30-31 The  Gospel is preached  for two years to all who wanted to hear  

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him, proclaiming the kingdom of God  and teaching about the  Lord Jesus Christ… This final summary statement  brings to conclusion the thesis  of the  Book of  Acts, in Acts 1:8,  that  ‘ you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria  and to the ends of the earth.  This also corresponds with Luke’s closing statements by Jesus  in   Luke 24:47.  That "repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in [Jesus'] name to all nations" (Note in  Lk.24:45, Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures)  
And so we read that Paul was able to speak with boldness and "without hindrance" (akōlutōs).   This word points to the work of  a sovereign God whose saving plan, who  determined it that the gospel will be preached in Jesus' name to all nations, will not be hindered.

 SUMMARY

The Book of Acts traces the birth and phenomenal  growth of the church. At the beginning there were only a few hundred believers in Jesus Christ, and at the end, we can scarcely guess how many. Everywhere,  men, women and children  came  to believe in the Lord Jesus  Christ -   in Jerusalem, in Judea,  in Samaria, and also  among the gentile nations, which is where this book now abruptly ends.

The gospel advances despite much opposition. Persecution, beatings, death,  imprisonment, shipwrecks, snakebites all threatened the spread of the Gospel. So, too, did sinfulness and faithlessness within the church (e.g. Acts 5:1-11). However, in spite of all the opposition and difficulties this  account of  Luke indicates  that the Gospel will  spread  without hindrance. 

This is a principle of timeless application. The Gospel  spread  in an unhindered fashion in the early church (cf. 6:7; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20),  and  it does so now. The gospel did not cease to be proclaimed  when Paul was martyred. The future of the gospel  was not in Paul’s hands, but in God’s hands, and it is so   until this very day.  No-one can  stop the progress and ultimate victory of the gospel.

So, what does the Lord require of you, as you continue with  Acts 29, after the Gospel centered fashion  of the book of Acts, following in the footsteps of Paul ?

1.     Share the Gospel clearly and often.
2.     Do not worry too much about the outcome. You cannot save a soul. God alone can do that. You do not have to feel responsible for the salvation or damnation of anyone.
3.     Speak when it is given to you to do so, and do it  with all your heart and with a heart that loves the Lord Jesus  as well as the soul before you.
4.     Don't bully people into decisions. Let the Holy Spirit work.
5.     Be creative. Don’t  feel that you must share the Gospel in exactly the same way each time. Make sure that you know your Bible so that the Holy Spirit can bring the stored up  Word in you  to memory.  6.     Don't get into arguments. You don’t have to win an argument. You are already on the winning side. The Gospel is unhindered. So speak with confidence, urgency and love for this lost soul  before you. 
7.     Avoid developing an Elijah complex. You are not alone in  this gospel  work.

Regardless of how things may seem, the good news of the Gospel is, was, and always will be without hindrance. Jesus is building His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 



[1]  See 13:5, 14; 14:1; 16:13; 17:2, 10, 17; 18:4; 19:8
[2] http://www.catacombsociety.org/jewish-congregations-in-late-ancient-rome/
[3] Gk paradidomi
[4] emphasizes witnessing done with a high level of self-involvement, i.e. with strong personal interest motivating it. https://biblehub.com/greek/1263.htm

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