The End - Acts 28:17-31

I feel like I’ve been in the book of Acts for a really long time and when I went to look back, I realized that I’ve been studying it almost 8 months. To be fair, I have really slacked at it recently, but it has still been a really long time and I feel like I’ve learned a lot about ancient church history after the death of Christ, and I’m really grateful for it. I get all sentimental about it now because today we finish the book of Acts and then go into the epistles of the prophets, so that will be exciting.

While in Rome, Paul isn’t imprisoned like the rest of the prisoners on his ship, he’s allowed to live in “his own hired house,” which I think means he rented a house and was under house arrest. Within the first “three days” Paul called for the “chief of the Jews” and even though it sounds like it is only one person, it seems like this included many people. Maybe the “chief of the Jews” is the “chief (priests) of the Jews,” that would make more sense.
 I don’t really understand what Paul is trying to tell them but it almost seems apologetic. Because he couldn’t leave his house, he would have had to call the people he wanted to talk to, to him, he couldn’t go out to the synagogue on the Sabbath or anything like that. Paul gives his background saying that he had “committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers,” the Romans wanted to let him go but “the Jews spake against it,” he had to appeal to Caesar, which he only did to save his own life, not because he “had ought to accuse my nation of.”
The chief of the Jews answers that they have not received any letters or word concerning Paul, neither had anyone coming up from Judaea “shewed or spake any harm of thee,” but tell us what you have to say. They didn’t know anything about Paul but were eager to hear his message, the one that had so upset their brethren in Jerusalem. Interestingly, they didn’t just hear him out right then and there, but “appointed him a day” to preach and it attracted many people “into his lodging” where “he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.”
The IM points out that in Rome, Paul first taught the gospel to the Jews, just like he had every other place he had ministered in. And like most places he ministered in, he had mixed results where “some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.” After they couldn’t agree on whether or not Paul was telling the truth, everyone left and Paul quoted “Esaias” as saying basically that they have ears but won’t hear and that the gospel will now go to the gentiles who “will hear it.”
One of the most interesting phrases in Esasis’ quote from God is the promise that if they do “see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” It’s this “and I should heal them” that really strikes me because I don’t see the chief priests having deep, gaping, spiritual wounds that need to be healed by God, those are the types of wounds that I usually attribute to myself.
But it’s interesting because if we think about all the benefits the gospel can bring into our lives, Jesus always seems to focus on the healing. It makes me think that we are all deeply troubled, even if it appears that we have our lives together, we are all hurting, we are all in pain and suffering, either from our own sins or from those of someone else which have victimized us. But we all need Jesus’ healing, and that’s the first thing he offers us.
If we think about it in a physical way, if we are all physically wounded, some worse then others, nothing can happen to change how we think or feel until we are safe and whole. It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but for the spiritual. The bottom level of the pyramid or physical safety, physical well being, food, water, air, and safety, and until those needs to met, we can’t experience anything outside of the purely primal and instinctual.
If it is similar spiritually, unless we are spiritually safe and well and whole, we can’t learn about the kingdom, we can’t learn about the gospel, we can’t understand the principles that help us live righteous lives. It’s like we are seeing that spiritual progression must start at a level binding up each of our wounds, regardless of how superficial or deep. And just like I can’t explain the intricacies of physical healing, I can’t explain how spiritual healing works either but it does, I’ve experienced deep, profound, and lasting healing that has come from God and I’ve tried, even just a little bit, to be closer to him.
Paul is confident that the gentiles will hear the gospel and we are kind of left with a “and Paul spent two whole years under house arrest in Rome teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.” I always thought that after this, he was killed, but apparently that isn’t the case at all. The IM speculates that Paul was the first missionary to preach the gospel in Rome and continues, “While under house arrest, Paul wrote what some term his ‘prison epistles’- Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Philippians. After he spent two years under house arrest in Rome, it is believed that Paul was tried and released and that he thereafter ministered in Asia, Greece, and perhaps Spain before being imprisoned again in Rome. According to tradition, he was killed during the persecutions under Nero, sometime between A.D 64 and 69. Paul alluded to his future death in 2 Timothy 4:6-8.”