OPEN BOOK – HINTS FROM THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS: LATE NIGHT TEACHING IN TROAS

BRUCE C WEARNE, in his ongoing series looking at the Acts of the Apostles, examines an account in chapter 20 in which a young man listening to Paul falls out a window…

On the first day of the week, we gathered together to break bread, and Paul talked with the gathering, prolonging his address to them until midnight, intending to depart [early] on the morrow. Many lights lit the upper chamber where we gathered. A young man named Eutychus sat in the window and sank into a deep sleep. Paul talked on and on; eventually, the young man, overcome by sleep, fell from the third storey. He was considered dead, but Paul went down and bending over and embracing him said, “Do not be distressed, there is life in him.” Then Paul returned upstairs and breaking bread and eating, he conversed with them for a long time, until daybreak, and that was when he left. They took the revived lad away with them and were not a little comforted. – Acts 20: 7-12/transliteration by Bruce C Wearne

HOW PAUL RESPONDED: Bruce C Wearne says Luke may have included an account in which Paul helped a young man who fell from a window to show that Paul “kept his cool”. PICTURE: Guilia C/www.freeimages.com

IN A NUTSHELL
Luke tells us how a young man recovered after falling from an upper-storey window. Paul had been teaching long into the night.

Luke is known to us as a doctor. Here he gives testimony about Paul’s single- mindedness, his devotion to his work and his care for the people he served. Doctor Luke tells us about Paul’s willingness to take personal responsibility. It was a serious accident. We can wonder what the impact would have been if the lad had died. Clearly some assumed this straight away.

Not everyone there was able to stay awake during the long hours of the night. Midnight is not the usual hour for listening to a travelling rabbi explain the work of Jesus. Paul, as usual, had lots to say. He kept on talking. But when the lad fell, the gathering was alarmed. Some felt such a fall had to be fatal.

It’s a poignant account. Paul embraced him. Maybe in his sleep the boy was able to fall without serious injury. Some may suggest that the “embrace” was Paul’s administration of “mouth-to-mouth” resuscitation. But I think it is more likely that Luke is telling us that Paul “kept his cool”. Had Luke thought the fall was fatal? That might explain why Dr Luke does not tell us what he did in response to the accident. Paul seems to have had some basic medical skills and Luke tells us he had the presence of mind to check up on young man’s recovery.

Despite the fact that these believers might have had to go to work the next day, they allowed their routines to be suspended in order for Paul to instruct and encourage them. And that is what he did.

It would have been a massive tragedy to the little community if the boy had died. But he fell from a height and lived. So what Luke tells us is of an event that lived on in community’s story of itself and they too were able to tell any who asked of the spiritual comfort that had come to them through the work of Paul and the Good News he had brought to Troas.