Paul’s third journey through Asia (modern Turkey), Macedonia and Greece continued. After being run out of Ephesus, Paul traveled to Greece through Macedonia. He planned to sail from Greece to Syria, but the discovery of plot on his life prompted a return tour through Macedonia and western Asia (modern Turkey). During the journey, Paul’s prolific preaching made Eutychus “fall asleep in the LORD” literally and euphemistically, but Paul resurrected him. In another city, Paul confided to the elders of Ephesus that he was “innocent of the blood of all men” by fearlessly proclaiming the good news about God’s mercy for Jew and non-Jew through Messiah Yeshua, yet the Spirit was telling him continually that part of completing his task involved “facing the music” in Yerushalayim.
This chapter also includes a number of references to “Jewish observances” that Paul continued to observe now some three decades after his conversion to belief in Yeshua, and Lukas also makes note of these references. These include delay of travel until after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, an expectation of being in Yerushalayim for Shavu’ot (Pentecost) and an assembly of believers that seems to have been a havdalah service, a tradition to “separate” the Sabbath from the new week.
Thought questions
When did the meeting occur, on Saturday night or Sunday night? What is the Greek behind the translation “on the first day of the week”? How is that phrase used elsewhere in the Bible? What is the Didache? What does it tell us about how the late first and early second centuries believers named the days of the week?
Here is the passage from the Didache:
8:1 And let not your fastings be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and the fifth day of the week;
8:2 but do ye keep your fast on the fourth and on the preparation (the sixth) day.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-lightfoot.html
The same passage In Greek:
8:1-2: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lake/fathers2.v.html
What’s interesting to note:
- This passage in Didache reveals the background of Luke 18:12, which refers to fastidious fasting “twice a sabbaton.”
- Days of the week are called “second,” fifth,” “fourth” and “the Preparation” in the context of Shabbat.
- The “sixth of Shabbat” was referred to as “the Preparation” in the first century.
- This is contemporary indication of not only what “on the first of the sabbaton” meant in Matt. 28:1 etc. but also what was meant by “Preparation” in Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54 and John 19:14,31,42.
- That year, it was the Preparation for the Shabbat and for the Passover (John 19:14).
- That year, the Pharisaical way of figuring the Wave Offering and, thus, Shavu’ot on the 16th day of the first month and the Sadduccean way of figuring on the day after the Shabbat both aligned. Neither party had any excuse — no presentation of the Firstfruits of the resurrection to the LORD on the Wave Offering day — for denying Yeshua as Messiah.
For more on “first of the sabbaton,” see the notes for the study of Matt 28:1.
Why did Paul talk so long in this meeting?
How is Paul preparing the leadership of the ekklesia in Ephesus to “step up” after he left?
What was the point of Paul’s final talk in Ephesus? What were the main elements of his mission?
Speaker: Jeff.