“He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all
who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus
Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.” -Acts 28:30-31 (ESV)
Luke
ends his account of Paul’s life with the close of Acts, seeing him in his ‘own
hired house,’—that is, living at his own expense—but still guarded and a
prisoner. This period was from 60
through 62 A. D. The beauty of this
arrangement was that he was free to proclaim and teach with boldness and
without hindrance, either from the Roman authorities or the Jews, the marvelous
message of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
know from examining the epistles of Paul that he wrote several of them while he
was a prisoner. Those definitely written
from Rome were Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and II Timothy
(this latter after his second Roman imprisonment).
Other information gleaned about
Paul comes from extra-biblical writings.
First Clement 5-7 (ca. 95) relates that Paul ‘preached in the limits of
the west.’ Church historian Eusebius
wrote in 325 A. D. that Paul was freed from his first Roman imprisonment and
was able to continue his ministry until he was arrested again under the Roman
persecution (date ca. 67 A. D) and was martyred. Paul’s time in prison was not wasted. Younger ministers and missionaries were often
with him, hearing his teachings and being mentored by him. Among them were Luke and Aristarchus whom we
have mentioned; Timothy, Thycicus, Epaphroditus, sometimes Mark. Paul wrote to the Philippian church: “All
this has fallen out for the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians
1:12). Even though he was in his own
house, he was guarded night and day by a member of the Roman Praetorian Guard
(see Phil. 1:13). Think of how the
teacher/preacher/evangelist Paul would not have wasted any time in telling them
of Jesus. We don’t know how many of them
might have become Christians. The Greek
word translated “boldness and without hindrance” in the New English Version is
“without let and hindrance” in the Barclay translation (based on Moffatt,
Weymouth and Williams). This one-word
Greek term indicates a cry of victory.
Why did Luke not tell us what
happened to Paul so we would not have to wonder? The fact is that the purpose of Acts is to
tell the progression of the gospel as it went out after Jesus commanded at His
ascension: “”You shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and
to the uttermost parts of the world” (Acts 1:8) With Paul’s sojourn in
Rome, even though a prisoner, that task had then been accomplished. Through preaching, teaching, witnessing and
his letters, he had fulfilled that mission, as had others who had not traveled
as extensively with the gospel as had Paul by his death. The noted English preacher Rev. Charles
Spurgeon once wrote: “What was begun with so much enthusiasm ought
to be continued with ardent zeal since we are assured that the same Lord is
mighty still to carry on His heavenly designs.”
From Paul and other faithful servants we have a great legacy of the
faith. As we say in sports, “The ball is now in our court.” Certainly
the gospel came to us on its way to someone else. Let us be faithful in teaching, preaching,
praying for its furtherance, and witnessing to its power. Since April 15 we have gone day-by-day
through the exciting account in Acts.
This has been 57 days in a walk through the Acts of the Apostles and
early church history. I pray that these
devotionals have blessed your heart even as the Holy Spirit has blessed mine as
I have studied, researched, prayed and written out my very heart in these pages. God bless you and may we all bear witness
every day to the “power of God unto
salvation to all who believe.” Our job is to faithfully sow the seeds of
His word; the Master gives the increase in a harvest of souls.
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