Chapter 28

Note: From tomorrow night to Friday I shall be at camp, so I cannot guarantee the timely release of Johno’s Commentary. It will still be written, but it might not be able to be uploaded until I come home. My apologies if this is the case. Also, people who receive the Commentary via email will be receiving a digest of the three chapters on Friday evening. If email readers are simply PINING for their daily serve of borderline heretical ramblings on an obscure part of the Bible, they should feel free to check the blog and see if I’ve been able to upload.

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At the end of some movies, something happens that I’m sure must have a name if you’re a cinematographer or an English professor. I don’t know what you call it, but you see the hero doing something significant (for example, talking to a parent he hasn’t seen for ages, or working as a cop, or perhaps going back to the lifestyle he loved). As he does, the camera zooms out, showing the hero as smaller and smaller until he vanishes.

The idea of this image is to leave you thinking “This isn’t the end of the story. The hero went on and had more adventures after this.”

I think that’s the kind of ending I imagine to the book of Acts. Tradition tells us that Paul had a lot more living to do after his trial in Rome (which presumably had yet to occur when the book was first circulated); that he eventually traveled to Spain (and according to some accounts, as far North as Great Britain), and that eventually he was executed by the sword at the persecution of Nero. So the scenes recorded in chapter 28 are far from the end of the story.

Zoom out on a scene of Paul doing what he always does – preaching the Gospel.

But how did he get here? Time to skip the disc back to the start of the chapter.

As we saw yesterday, Paul came ashore (with his other bedraggled shipmates) on Malta. It turns out that the local people are friendly and intelligent, and they look after Paul like royalty. They also have a well-developed sense of justice, hence their assumption that Paul was on the run when a snake bit him!

However, Paul impresses them here. Mostly by not dying, if truth be told. And instead of a murderer on the run (their idea when they saw a snake happily chomping onto his arm), they now think of Paul as a god.

Fortunately for Paul and his comrades (given how quickly things go bad when someone thinks you’re divine – see chapter 14! – there is someone on this island with a little more objectivity, who takes Paul into his home. Perhaps Paul damages the credibility of his claim to be no more than a man when he manages to heal their host’s father (as well as basically anyone who visits), so eventually Paul is being mobbed by the sick and demon-possessed.

After three months, the gang all manage to find a ship going to Rome. This time it’s an Egyptian vessel with the figurehead of the “Gemini” constellation. It would appear that the trip to Rome takes relatively little time. On arrival, Paul is permitted to live under house arrest again, and gets talking about the Gospel again. Zoom out and fade audio.

So where does this chapter find us?

We have seen what God does with a person when that person (even reluctantly) makes himself available to God. Acts is really mostly Paul’s story, and we see how he goes from a self-righteous thug to a powerful and innovative (not to mention peaceful, unless you’re on the receiving ends of one of his tirades!) missionary speaker, bringing much of his skill to be used by Christ instead of against Him (to be fair, he can still be a bit self-righteous!).

It’s also the story of the other apostles, as they receive the Holy Spirit and change from the bumbling fools they were for most of the Gospels to the powerful, wise and passionate leaders that History remembers them to be.

Finally, Acts is the story of God’s people as a whole – a church, existing out on the edge long before it was cool to do so. A church which, in the first flowering of its youth, went through the most explosive growth imaginable in the most appalling of circumstances, simply because they went out in the power of the Spirit, not imagining they could ever fail.

I wonder what the characters in this drama would have said if you could some how lift them out of their time and into ours? Would they shake their heads at the way we are now, silently willing us to lift our game and return to our previous excitement? Or would they say “Glory to God!! The Church will survive!”?

I don’t know. I DO know that the book of Acts has inspired me to be a better leader, better Christian and better follower than I was before, and to return to my old life more willing to share the Gospel.

Maybe if that’s the result, Paul would feel that he’s succeeded.

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Next time: Introduction to the book of JEREMIAH.