I don’t know why I'm finding the ending of Acts so anticlimactic. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading it through a contemplative lens, and there’s nothing very contemplative about what’s going on here. We get told about maneuvers by the Roman authorities to keep Paul safe, and there’s something of the potboiler about this section, … Continue reading Acts 23:12-35 Playing with status
The very last line of this passage might seem like an odd little coda, but to me it’s the whole point. This is the second meeting between Paul and Jesus that we’ve heard about in Acts. Their encounter on the Road to Damascus was much more dramatic and strange, and the low-key nature of this … Continue reading Acts 22:30 – 23:11 Paul and Jesus have a private chat
Arrested and manhandled by the mob, Paul doesn’t claim the safety of his Roman citizenship right away. How easy it would have been, after having been carried by the soldiers to the barracks, for him to say to the tribune “protect me, because I’m a citizen by birth, and therefore my person is inviolate throughout … Continue reading Acts 21:27-22:29 Fearless Integrity
This passage presents a real challenge to what I’ve been thinking and saying about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Ever since reading Luke 12, I’ve been assuming such blasphemy has something to do with ignoring the intuitive, improvisational urging of the Holy Spirit, and yet here Paul is, twice ignoring very clear indications that the … Continue reading Acts 21: 1-26 Does Paul ignore the Holy Spirit?
This is Paul’s farewell address, and I hear an echo of Jesus’ own farewell address in it. In the twenty-second chapter of Luke, Jesus also meets with his disciples in a room. He has more clarity about what’s going to happen to him than Paul does, who doesn't know that the journey he's undertaking will … Continue reading Acts 20:17-38 Saying Goodbye
KPB Stevens 