Scripture Daily

Context No. 3167 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 20:7-12: in context

7On the first day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day; and continued his speech until midnight. 8There were many lights in the upper room where we were gathered together. 9A certain young man named Eutychus sat in the window, weighed down with deep sleep. As Paul spoke still longer, being weighed down by his sleep, he fell down from the third floor and was taken up dead. 10Paul went down and fell upon him, and embracing him said, “Don’t be troubled, for his life is in him.” 11When he had gone up, had broken bread and eaten, and had talked with them a long while, even until break of day, he departed. 12They brought the boy in alive, and were greatly comforted.

At Troas, on the first day of the week, the believers gather to break bread, and Paul, leaving the next day, preaches on and on until midnight. A young man named Eutychus, sitting in a third-floor window, sinks into a deep sleep as Paul talks, and falls, and is taken up dead. Paul goes down, embraces him, and says, do not be alarmed, his life is in him. They break bread, talk until dawn, and take the boy home alive, greatly comforted.

It is a scene both human and wonderful. The gathering is long, the hour late, and a tired young man drifts off and falls; Scripture honestly records a listener asleep during a sermon and a tragic accident in the middle of worship. But God works through Paul to restore the boy's life, and the meeting goes on, ending in comfort and fellowship at daybreak. Even accidents and interruptions in the life of God's people are not beyond his power to redeem; what began in tragedy ended in comfort.

When accident or interruption disrupts the ordinary life of faith, do I trust that God can bring comfort and even life out of it?

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