As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Jeff Miner):

Although I never watched The Sopranos, I did hear about its infamous last episode. Bear in mind that I’ve heard all this second hand, but my understanding is that Tony — the lead character and all-round tough guy — was in a restaurant eating with his family when he suddenly realized that a hit man might be in the restaurant. As the scene unfolded, loyal Sopranos watchers across the globe held their breath.

Would this be it? Would Tony be gunned down in front of his family?

And that’s where the episode ends. The screen fades to black, leaving frustrated fans to shout, “Wait a minute! That’s not fair! Finish the story! Does he live or die?”

One has to wonder if the writers of The Sopranos are secret fans of another ancient writer — our writer — Luke.

For many days now we’ve been following Paul’s dramatic journey. Many chapters ago, we read how Paul decided to visit Jerusalem, even after others warned that it would lead to his arrest and eventual death. He felt compelled to go to Jerusalem anyway. There, he was arrested and came perilously close to being killed, until he appealed his case to Rome.

We followed Paul as he made the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, almost lost his life in a shipwreck, and then finally landed in Rome for his climatic trial in the Emperors Tribunal. Then, just before the trial, the screen fades to black! Luke tells us that Paul “lived for two whole years [under house arrest] 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.” The end!

For centuries since, Bible scholars have debated why Luke left us hanging. Theories abound. Some say Luke intended to write a sequel, but died before he could do so. Others say Luke wrote during the two years at Rome while Paul was awaiting trail. Thus, at the time of his writing, he didn’t yet know how the trial would go. Others suggest that what occurred at Paul’s trial was so well known to people at the time, there was no need for Luke to retell it.

Yet others believe Luke ended the story as he did because, in his mind, the climax had already been reached. The book began, in chapter 1, with Jesus telling his disciples they would share the Gospel “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” With Paul’s arrival in Rome and the two years of missionary work he did there, the Gospel has now symbolically reached all the way from Jerusalem to Rome, the crossroads of the earth at the time. To Luke, some say, this was the real climax — not Paul’s trial, but the fact that the Good News was now certain to spread around the globe.

Not a bad theory.

But I’m still bummed out. We don’t even know if Paul’s imprisonment in Rome marked the end of his life. Some scholars believe he was acquitted, traveled as a missionary for many years (even to Spain), then was arrested a second time and executed after a second trial in Rome. Other scholars believe Paul was convicted an executed after the “first” trial — the one about to occur as the book of Acts ends.

So why did God allow this critical book which tells the story of early Christianity to end unfinished?

Maybe that’s the whole point – because the story isn’t finished, can’t be finished, until we (and those destined to come after us) have written our parts. We — you and I — are part of the unfolding story that began more than 2000 years ago in Acts 1. We — you and I — are part of the Christian Movement that, despite earth’s best attempts, has spread ever farther.

Thought for the day: What will I contribute to the still unfolding story of Christianity? Will I allow God to use me to add some heroic events to Luke’s epic?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Mark Shoup):

I have said it before, but I think it bears repeating. People in an Emerging Church, particularly one with a lot of GLBT people in it, will have an experience that is similar to the book of Acts. Let me explain.

The entire book of Acts is about the spreading of the news of Christ to people who had not yet heard about Him, or were expecting someone completely different. In many cases, they had been conditioned by their faith tradition to expect a great ruler, and were therefore not likely to believe the son of a carpenter who was born in a stable was actually the Messiah. People in Emerging Churches face similar challenges as we tell of a God who loves us unconditionally and is not standing over us just waiting to smite us for the smallest infraction.

In some ways, I think people want to believe in a harsh God because it gives meaning to their harsh lives. It also gives them license to be harsh with others. It sure does take a lot more energy to try to understand where somebody is coming from than to dismiss them with a snide remark. This is why when we tell people that you can be gay and Christian, or that God doesn’t stop loving someone if they have had an abortion, we are told we are going to Hell or are abominations. Its just much easier to condemn than to try understand why we believe that way. Some believe that if religion isn’t harsh, it must not be of God.

It was the same way in Acts. Most of the time when Jews were told of the good news about Jesus, their response was to curse the speaker, sometimes even to the point of killing them! So great was their outrage that usually the Gentiles were far more accepting of the news, and it wasn’t even their religion!

The same can be true today. Who is more likely to recognize a 20-year committed relationship between two people of the same sex, your average Christian (who is supposed to be full of the love of God), or a humanist atheist?

I have a coworker friend who was getting married a few years ago and her Church refused to marry her because she had started living with her boyfriend. What they didn’t know — and didn’t care enough to find out — was that she had been brutally raped years prior to this and the rapist was at that time due to be released from prison. He had written a letter to her saying “he was coming for her soon”, and she was terrified to live without her fiancé’s protection. She ended up attending and getting married in a more accepting Church than the one that could hardly contain its glee in rejecting her as a “sinner.”

Thought for the day: Am I compassionate towards other marginalized people? Do I continue to spread the good news of Jesus, even if I’m misunderstood or marginalized by other Christians?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Keith Phillips):

I work as a chaplain for a hospice called Odyssey, which means journey. As our patients move toward death, we journey alongside them, providing medical, physical, emotional, and spiritual care. We focus on the journey, but sometimes I have to remind patients, families, and colleagues that every intentional journey (which is far different from just wandering aimlessly) has a destination.

Paul is finally reaching his destination, and it’s been quite a journey. Returning from his third missionary tour, he was delivering the offering that he’d collected for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. He’d told the Christians in Rome that he hoped to visit them on a fourth tour on his way to Spain. But he expressed concern about his reception by unbelievers back in Israel (Romans 15:22-33).

After a couple of riots, a near flogging, being imprisoned by the Roman guard, transported in chains across the Mediterranean, being shipwrecked, having been bit on the hand by a snake, Paul nears his destination of Rome. The journey has been a story of miraculous deliverance and divine intervention.

In today’s reading Paul stays the winter in Malta, three days in Sicily, a day at Rhegium, and a week near Naples. Apparently while in Naples, word was sent to the church in Rome that Paul, in chains, was on his way. The Roman Christians travel thirty to forty miles, probably on foot, to welcome him. I love the statement: “On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage” (Acts 28:15b).

The Acts of the Apostles is not about doctrine, or about right belief, or even the explicit teachings of Jesus. It’s about a new way of living; it’s about the Church, a community of faith composed of brothers and sisters who are filled with the Spirit of Christ. While in Rome, awaiting his execution, Paul writes the Christians at Philippi and tells them that they are a colony of heaven in the midst of another kingdom (Philippians 3:20). They are aliens in a strange land, something I can identify with. In Acts, the Church has become the content of the Gospel proclamation. The question being presented is not “What do you believe?”, or even “Do you believe?”, but rather “Will you join us?”

He “thanked God and took courage” because Paul in chains was not alone. He wasn’t alone on the journey, and he won’t be alone as he comes to his destination.

Thought for the day: I thank God and take courage because I am not alone, either on my journey or as I come to my destination. Who will thank God and take courage because I am walking beside them as a part of Christ’s church?

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Melody Merida):

When I first went to Liberty University many years ago, one of the first people that I met was a freshman girl named Sandy, who was from High Point, North Carolina. Sandy was very friendly and spoke with a really thick southern twang.

I confess that when I first met Sandy, I thought that she probably wasn’t very bright because of that accent. I had brought all of my “northern” prejudices to Virginia with me, thinking that all those who spoke like a southerner must surely be lacking in the intelligence department.

Needless to say, I was surprised when Sandy informed me a few weeks later that she had a full scholarship at Liberty to be on the debate team and that she had chosen Liberty over Harvard. Yes, that Harvard. Unbeknownst to me, Liberty University’s debate team was rated #1 in the country for most of the 90′s. Sandy was heavily recruited as she was considered by many to be the best high school debater in the country; she had chosen Liberty University because of the debate reputation. She went on to become the top debater at Liberty, winning national honors. In the process she proved me wrong. She could outsmart me, and most others, any day of the week.

I thought of Sandy when I read today’s scripture. The people of Malta reminded me of myself. When the snake bit Paul, the people thought surely Paul must be a murderer because he did not escape justice. It is only a few sentences later that we read that the people changed their minds and thought Paul must be a god because the snake didn’t harm him.

The people of Malta were just like me, making judgments on others based upon appearances and circumstances. None of us have the right to try to assume that we know who someone is based on their exterior. Just like the people of Malta didn’t know much about Paul, we don’t usually know what is happening under the surface. It is so easy to try to assess the character of someone from their circumstances, but it’s really not fair. What if God were to do the same with us? How many of us would be able to pass that test?

Thought for the day: How many “Sandys” or “Pauls” have we dismissed because of our own prejudiced ideas about who we think they are? Let’s remember that God looks on the heart, not the outward appearance. As followers of God, we should do the same.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

My thoughts (Tyler Connoley):

As I read this passage, I can’t help wondering if Paul made the right decision by petitioning to the Emperor and choosing to be taken to Rome.

At first glance, it looks like Paul chose well, and that seems to be the perspective of the author of Acts. The author tells us the Jews appealed to Festus “and requested, as a favor to them against Paul, to have him transferred to Jerusalem. They were, in fact, planning an ambush to kill him along the way.” By demanding to be taken to Rome, Paul escaped the ambush that was being planned for him. Without the decision to go to Rome, Paul probably would have been killed on the way to Jerusalem. Since he wrote many of the letters that ended up in the New Testament from his prison in Rome, his decision to save his own life is directly related to the shape of the Bible we have today.

On the other hand, King Agrippa thinks Paul made the wrong decision. In Chapter 26, he says, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.” If we agree with King Agrippa, then that means Paul was never in danger of actually being transferred to Jerusalem. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, he would have been freed and could have gone on his way. The Jews in Jerusalem would certainly have continued to try to kill him, but he wouldn’t have been ambushed this time, and he very well could have lived another forty years and written many more letters. Imagine how much richer our Scriptural heritage could have been if Paul had been able to write four or five more books for the New Testament.

I’m sure that in the following years, as Paul sat in prison in Rome and eventually went to his execution, he had plenty of time to second-guess this decision. But, the fact is, there is no way to ever know for sure what the right decision was in this situation. Both decisions seem equally right. And both seem equally wrong. Only one path could be chosen, and what happened is what happened. End of story.

All of us have had experiences where we had to make hard decisions in which no answer seemed definitely right or definitely wrong. After the fact, it’s easy for us to continually rehash those events in our mind, bringing up those old arguments, trying to second guess ourselves. We can make ourselves crazy reliving events in our minds. In those situations, I think it’s good to remember some of the words Paul wrote while in prison in Rome:

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

Thought for the day: Are you still second-guessing an old decision? Ask God to help you trust that you are exactly where God wants you to be, so you can focus on what is good in the here and now.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.

As you read, consider: What might God be saying to me in this passage? Summarize your thoughts in a sentence or two.

My thoughts (Ben Lamb):

When prisoner Paul is being carted off to Italy, he tries to tell his guard that the journey by ship will be “with danger and much heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” Understandably — from their point of view — nobody pays him much attention.

After much danger, heavy loss of cargo and a banged-up ship, the crew pays him much attention! Paul sort of rubs it in by way of his Paulian manner: “Men, you should have listened to me…” At the risk of offending Paul’s supporters, I’m going to take issue with him here and suggest he might have done better to have begun his response differently.

In verse 10, Paul warns of “much heavy loss. . . also of our lives.” Fortunately however, nobody died during days and days of dangerous times. Then all of a sudden, Paul gets up and says in verses 21-24: “there will be no loss of life. . . there stood by me an angel of God and he said. . . God has granted safety to all sailing with you.”

Why the incongruence between the prediction of Paul (man of God) and the angel (messenger of God)? I’m no logic major, but it seems to be one of two reasons:

1. God told Paul the original version just to scare the daylights out of him as a joke for several days, or
2. Paul didn’t consult with God in the first place before expressing his personal opinion

Since choice #1 doesn’t seem feasible to me, I’ll have to vote for choice #2.

I’m not intending to diminish the truly marvelous work Paul did to spread Jesus’ teaching to humanity. I’m merely pointing out that even the greatest among us isn’t immune to wanting to save face at times. Count me among them. (Not “greatest”, but “wanting to save face”!)

It’s embarrassing to admit things to others. I hate to have to say:

“I was wrong.”

“Remember when we disagreed? Well — you were right.”

“I’m sorry.”

But, as I go along in life, I’m finally figuring out that things do get easier with practice.

Thought for the day: God, remind me to admit what I need to admit — and help me be willing to follow through with it to the right people.

We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the guidelines on the How to Pray page.