Last updated on December 8, 2024
Today’s reading is from Acts 20-21.
After Paul’s three years in Ephesus, he spent three months back in Corinth. This is where he wrote Romans. He then began to make his way towards Jerusalem. On the way he called for the elders from the church in Ephesus to meet him. He knows that this will be the last time that he sees them. He lets them know that. They don’t like hearing words like this.
They also don’t like hearing him talk about Jerusalem being the place where he will die. He tells them this, but he also tells them that he is ok with this. He says, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).
After he spoke to them for awhile, they knelt together and prayed. Luke says that they all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. And then he says, “What grieved them the most was his statement that they would never see his face again” (Acts 20:38).
You see here the impact that Paul had made on this group of people. They loved him. They didn’t want to see him suffer. They wanted to do whatever they could do to keep him safe. But they also knew that Paul had made his mind up. He was going to Jerusalem, and he was willing to die there.
At each of Paul’s next stops his friends urged him to turn back and not to go to Jerusalem. But he would not be dissuaded.
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