I am not sure Luke really every meant to give us a biography of the great Apostle Paul. Certainly not a full one! Rather, Luke’s history volume in the New Testament (the Acts of the Apostles, most often called) is a history of the spread of the Gospel! (From Jerusalem and Judea to the uttermost parts of the world … Acts 1:8.)
But outside of Paul’s own Literature (often called the Pauline Corpus of the New Testament, 14 Epistles if you include Hebrews) … we would know precious little of the Church’s greatest missionary of all time… apart from Acts!
Today I’d like to give you an example of one of those “nonspecific” instances from Luke’s pen. Acts 20:1-3 … “And after the uproar (in Ephesus, that riot) was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone over those parts … he came into Greece, and there abode three months.”
What disciples?
What Cities or Churches in Macedonia?
Where in Greece?
And what did he do those three months, otherwise unaccounted weeks of Paul’s ministry?
See what I mean?
Very general, almost vague, “nonspecific” is the best word I could discover to us.
(There is also the question of those “three years in Arabia!” mentioned in Galatians 1:17-18! And the years (how many we do not know) between Paul’s going to Tarsus and returning to Antioch sketched in Acts 9:30 compared to Acts 11:25-26!)
Nonspecifics!
Or the missing years of Paul’s later life … when Acts 28 ends with Paul’s first Roman imprisonment! (We believe there were two such stints.)
Wow!
The “point” today?
I think we are indirectly being told that certain periods in Paul’s life and ministry were more fruitful than other times!
Psalm 1:3 does say we bring forth fruit “in season!”
Any Christian servant of the Lord might face a “dry spell” (less fruit or maybe even no fruit for a time) in his or her journey to Heaven!
Perhaps even Paul!
I say this to encourage someone today. If you’re in one of those “hard times” … stay faithful! Keep sowing the Seed! Fruit will be borne!
Galatians 6:9 … And let us not be weary in well doing: FOR IN DUE SEASON WE SHALL REAP, if we faint not.
Wow!
By the way, back in our text for this morning … even with all those generalities … Luke did add that Paul gave those he met “much exhortation!” (Acts 20:2, where “exhortation” is the great New Testament “encouragement” word!)
THAT is certainly possible … even when your fruit quotient is rather “low” … find someone and encourage, uplift them!
Amen!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
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