Thursday, February 17, 2011

Acts 19 & 20

Early Christians gathered together for a meal as part of their worship. It was sometimes the only good meal a poor slave would receive all week. These feast happened at night after the day's work was done so that everyone could be a part of the gathering. There they ate together and cared for one another. Immediately after they the meal they celebrated the Lord's Supper. Just as Christ had done with His Disciples.


This explains a lot about the case of Eutychus. Known forever through history as the guy who fell asleep and fell out of a window in front of Paul. He had probably put in a hard day of physical labor, and then ate a good meal. The room most likely would have been hot and dark. So Eutychus sits by the window to maybe catch a cool breeze. And it all makes him a little sleepy. He's leaning against the window. There isn't any glass in the window and soon he drops right out of the window. It creates quite a commotion, until Paul tells the crowd that he's ok.


All of us who have sat through dry long winded sermons can relate. But Paul probably wasn't delivering a lecture. The style of the day would have been more of discussion format. So Eutychus probably wasn't just bored.


This little snippet gives us a glimpse of what an early Christian service would have been like and more importantly what it might have felt like. Simply put it probably felt a lot like 'family.'

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