Acts 28:11-31 The Story That Never Ends

The Story That Never Ends: Acts as the Ongoing Biography of the Church

This morning, we are going to be finishing up the book of Acts. For those of you who have been here, some of you have actually been here from the very beginning of this series, which would go back almost three years.

Now, I've preached some other things in between there. I haven't been in the book of Acts every single Sunday for three years, but we went through the book of Joshua somewhere in there. We went through Jonah, some of Matthew.

But really, opening Sunday here at Recast, I preached on Acts chapter 1. So that puts some perspective. That would have been back in September of 2009. So it's been a long journey, and as we dive in, it could be a little bit...

It could almost be disappointing the way that the author, Luke, concludes the book if we don't have the right perspective and we don't understand what he's trying to do. We're left with a lot of questions by the end of this text.

We've gone through the journey of the way that God started his church, and we're left with some questions at the end. Questions like, what ends up happening to Paul? Does he ever get to his trial? Jesus promised that he was going to be standing on trial before Caesar.

What happens with that trial? Does he get found guilty? Is he innocent? Is he set free? What happens to the church moving forward? I think we have some kind of inkling of how that happens and what happens there because we're here in 2012, right?

At a church. And so we have some understanding of how the church, at least that the church, does move forward. But I think there's a beauty in the way that Luke leaves the story. He's going to leave it open-ended for us.

You see, I think in the past few months we could easily have fallen into the notion that the book of Acts is primarily a biography of the life of the Apostle Paul. Could you make a case for that in what you heard week in and week out here, that we're learning about the life of Paul?

But for those of you who have been here from the beginning, you recognize that there were chapters upon chapters that had nothing to do with Paul at the beginning. The book does not start with the birth of Paul and end with the death of Paul, and therefore it's not a biography in that sense.

Paul is obviously somewhat of a main character throughout the book. But in reality, the book of Acts was recorded as a biography of the early church and ultimately about God's movement in starting this thing that we call the church.

His people gathered together for his worship, for his glory, for his honor, and it's really about the ongoing journey from the very birth at Pentecost of the church all the way until Luke can record no longer, and that's what we're getting to.

And so for whatever reason, Luke reaches the limit of his ability to record things, and ultimately we get to where we're at today, and we've got to fill in some of the gaps and think that through. But the reality is, if it's a biography of the early church, well, the church never dies, and so really we're looking at a story that will never end when we're reading the book of Acts.

A story that goes on forever and ever and ever, because the church is something that is eternal, because the church is the people of God gathered together for his worship. And that's what we're going to be doing forever and ever and ever.

So that's kind of an exciting thing to think about, the continuity or the perpetuity, the ongoingness of the church and the ongoingness of the book of Acts. So as we come to worship this morning, we're carrying forward the worship that began 2 ,000 years ago in the upper room in Jerusalem, where 120 people gathered together.

With those original 11 followers of Jesus, obviously Judas wasn't included in that number anymore, but with those original 11 and 120 total, and the Holy Spirit came upon them with power, Peter preached the very first sermon, and 3 ,000 that day gathered into the church, and it's just multiplied and multiplied and multiplied, and we've seen that in the text, all the way to the point where what we saw at the very beginning of Acts has now been fulfilled as we've gone through it.

The church spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth, and it even made it all the way to Matawan, Michigan. Are we a long ways removed from Jerusalem? Yeah, and yet the gospel has come here, and the church has come here, and that's something that's exciting.

That's something that's worthy of ultimately giving God worship for, that he has saved us here in Matawan, Michigan, for his glory. So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Acts chapter 28. We're going to look at the last 20 verses of this, from verse 11 through 31.

It's page 802, 802 in the Bible, that's in the seat back in front of you, and again I say this, if you don't own a Bible, please take that one with you. We strongly desire that everybody owns a copy of the word of God.

Follow along as I read Acts chapter 28, verses 11 through 31. After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria with the twin gods as a figurehead. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days, and from there we made a circuit and arrived at Regium.

And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. And there we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days, and so we came to Rome. And the brothers there, when they had heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and the three taverns to meet us.

On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier that guarded him. After three days, he called together the local leaders of the Jews, and when they had gathered, he said to them, Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

When they had examined me, they wished to set me at liberty, because there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, though I had no charge to bring against my nation.

For this reason, therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I am wearing this chain. And they said to him, We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken any evil about you.

But we desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against. When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers.

From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets. And some were convinced by what he said, but others disbelieved.

And disagreeing among themselves, they departed, after Paul had made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers, through Isaiah the prophet, Go to these people and say, You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen. He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

Let's pray. Father, as we come to this conclusion in this awesome book of Scripture, we sense in this your word for us, that this is the desire for us this morning, that we take this in, that we believe it, and that it changes us.

And we see principles and thoughts in the way that Paul interacted near the end of this book to boldly proclaim and be proactive in his work out in the community and out in the place that you planted him for the proclamation of the gospel.

Father, I pray that you would be honored in our lives. And then as we have an opportunity to worship you, as we reflect this morning on the awesome salvation that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that our offerings, our worship would come before you as an offering.

And Father, that you would be honored and glorified as we sing these songs, not merely singing, but actually worshiping you. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. I encourage everybody to get comfortable. Keep your Bibles open.

Maybe you lost your place, but remember it's Acts chapter 28, verses 11 through 31, or page 802. I mean, that Bible doesn't sit back in front of you. Keep your minds engaged as much as possible. There is some more juice, some donuts, and some coffee if you need to get up and stretch in the back or something that's available too.

We pick up the text and you need to set it a little to the stage. Maybe some of you weren't here the last couple of weeks, but Paul and company were shipwrecked on the island of Malta. So we saw that in the last couple of weeks.

Two weeks ago, there was a shipwreck. Last week, we saw a little bit of the hospitality and the things that happened there on the island of Malta. But Paul is actually a prisoner who's being taken to Rome for a trial before the emperor.

He appealed to Caesar. The right of every Roman citizen was to appeal their trial before Caesar if a verdict hadn't been reached. And so he's being literally shipped under guard to Rome to be tried by the emperor.

And they end up spending three months during the winter of 59 AD on the island of Malta receiving hospitality from the local population. But as soon as the shipping lanes open, again, early in February, they board another ship from Alexandria that is bound from Rome.

And we see that in the text. So we're going to see, I think that the best thing is for me to give you a map here. The island of Malta is over on the left-hand side where the star is. And you see Alexandria.

That's the place of origin of the ship that they're going to board. Ironically, they just shipwrecked onboard a ship that was from Alexandria. So it was quite a common trade route between Alexandria and Rome.

I mentioned last week that a third of all the grain that fed the Roman Empire came from Alexandria, came through that port, that was the port of origin. So it's likely they'd jump on another grain ship in this process.

And it says, it's interesting to note that they mentioned that the figurehead, at the bow of most ships during this time, there would be a figurehead, an actual carved wooden something that would be like the insignia of, you know, like a lot of airplanes in the Air Force or ships in our military force have a name, right?

Well, or a patron or some kind of call sign or something for it. Well, this one was known as Gemini, okay? And it says in the text, the twin gods in the English standard version or in different translations, it might say Castor and Pollux.

That is our Zodiac sign, Gemini, those twin gods in the Roman Empire, in Roman mythology, that is the call sign of this ship. And that's what would have been carved on the front of it. Now, it's interesting to note that Gemini, the twin gods were considered to be protectors of sailors.

But I think that Luke includes that kind of tongue in cheek in the text because we have seen Paul come through significant duress at sea and was it Castor and Pollux that delivered him from the sea? Was it any of the Roman gods that have been involved in this entire process of bringing all of those sailors, all of those prisoners, all of those passengers through the waters of the Mediterranean Sea to shipwreck and all of them saved on the island of Malta?

It was God, wasn't it? It was the one true God who has brought them through. And so I think it's kind of tongue in cheek that he puts that on there. But if I'm with Paul and company, maybe some of you are more brave than I am, but are you really eager to step foot on a ship after everything that they went through a couple chapters ago?

Like for real, are you? Okay, so three months prior, maybe two and a half months prior, they actually shipwrecked on an island and now what are they going to have to do to get off the island? There's no air travel.

There's no bridges from Malta. I'm thinking maybe settle down, raise a family in Malta. Looks good. It's kind of like, okay, well maybe this is where I'm supposed to be. I hang out there for a while. But the map will help us clarify a little bit here.

So we're going to zoom in a little bit. And fancy, huh? Wasn't that fancy? You see how that zoomed right in? Yeah, I spent too much time on this for what it really is. It's not that big of a deal. So you got the star of Malta down there and then you're going to see that in the text it tells us that they made their first stop, safely made a trip to Syracuse on the east end of Sicily.

That was the largest city on Sicily at the time, Syracuse there. And we're all thinking Syracuse like as in basketball, but that wasn't where the basketball team came from. But east end of Sicily, after three days there, they cross the straits, just a really short hop over to Regium.

And they spend one day there and they get a favorable south wind. Now why would they want a wind coming from the south? Because they're trying to get up to Rome, which is on the western shore of, basically just a little bit inland on the western shore of Rome, north of where they're at.

So a favorable south wind means that they're going to be able to stay up close to shore. They don't want to get out in open sea. So they want to kind of hug the shore and then they end up taking off and they make it to Puteoli, which is their destination port.

They're not going to get any closer to Rome than that by ship. So finally they get to step off the ship. They made it. They are now walking distance from their final destination of Rome. Now verse 14 indicates that they found a Christian church there in Puteoli.

So that gives you the notion of how the word of God is spreading in this time, how the church is spreading. Now this is a fairly major town, so I'm not going to try to minimize it and be like, oh, it reached every backwater, little town and rinky-dink place, but this is a fairly major port, but at the same time, they encounter a church of Christ there.

A group of followers of Jesus Christ are already there. Now has an apostle ever visited this place? Have we read, I mean, you've been with me in the book of Acts. Have we read about Peter going to Puteoli and starting a church?

Have we read about Andrew or any of the apostles going to that town and starting a church? So what we have here is the notion that there are things going on that are not recorded in the book of Acts, right?

The church is spreading dramatically and I think it's interesting to note that in that time, in that era, the gospel was not considered to be left to the professionals. It wasn't like, in Puteoli, they were like, I'm sorry, we can't share the gospel because we don't have an apostle here yet.

We need to wait until a professional comes in or wait, wait until we get, you know, somebody who's, no, it was spreading and it was like a third level and a fourth level and somebody was leading their mom to Christ and that mom was leading a friend to Christ and that friend was leading somebody else to Christ and the churches were forming and it was spreading like that kind of grassroots level.

It wasn't waiting for the professionals to come in and I think that's valuable. Can you see how maybe that would be valuable for us to grab ahold of here today in 2012 where we live? Is it primarily up to the elders of Rechash Church to spread the gospel?

We ought to be, right, but ought we not all to be doing that and I think we're going to see that as we kind of move through this text, some principles about that and thinking that through. But it appears that the word spread between Puteoli and Rome, so they're there and they end up spending some time in Puteoli, but the word spreads and beats Paul to Rome and it says that two different groups of Roman Christians come out in what amounts to like a three staged greeting to Rome.

So one group comes out and maybe spends a couple of days, depending on if they had horses or if they just walked, they end up going 30 miles south of Rome to meet Paul. They hear he's coming and they meet him at the marketplace of Appius.

So you have an actual group of Christians who come out and they hear Paul, they meet him there for encouragement. While another group maybe takes off a little bit later and meets him 12 miles south at a place called Three Taverns.

Now the notion of a tavern, tavern is a little bit different in that day and age than it is now, so a tavern is a place where you go and get a drink at the end of work on Friday, right, that's what a lot of people in our culture do and that's the mindset.

This is an inn, okay, a place to actually lay over or stay and so that was really common in those times and there's a place which makes sense about 12 miles south of a fairly decent walking distance for the day, so just south of Rome and they end up meeting them there.

And the greeting shows that Paul was known among Christians in the Roman Empire. People knew him, he was a known quantity and they actually wanted to go out and greet him. And the result of that three-stage greeting, so you have one group that goes out 30 miles and meets him and then another group that goes out 12 and then once he gets into the city, I imagine that Christians greeted him then as well, so that's why I'm saying the three different stages of his greeting into Rome.

And the result of that is that Paul thanked God, it says in the text, and he took courage. So in other words, if you think about our English word encouraged, it means to infuse somebody with courage, that's what Paul gets here.

He's actually encouraged by this greeting. And it is apparent that Paul knew many people in Rome. So between five and 10 years before the events that we're looking at here in the Book of Acts, Paul actually wrote a letter to the church in Rome.

It's called Romans. Have any of you ever read the Book of Romans before? That's a letter that he wrote before these events to the Christians that live in Rome. And he mentions people, if you notice in that book, he mentions people by name.

He says, send my greetings and send my love to so and so and especially in the last chapter, in chapter 16 there, you see a lot of that going on. So he knew people by name. And my question to you is, have you ever been encouraged by the presence of other believers?

Have they ever been an encouragement to you? And I think sometimes it really is just in the simple things that we can encourage one another. Just going out of your way to say hello, just an email saying I'm praying for you.

Sometimes just a call to say that you were on my mind. The believers in Rome don't really do much if you think about it. They don't really go that far out of the way. They do take a day trip out of Rome to greet a friend.

But it results in praise to God and encouragement for his servant. Now, would that be good timing for Paul to receive some encouragement? He's going into Rome not knowing what his destiny is. He's going to be standing trial before Caesar and he doesn't know how that's going to go.

And he's bound in chains. He's a prisoner. And he's going to be on trial. And so encouragement is valuable in his life. And I think the reality is where we live today, we're very reticent to share some of the deep heart levels.

Like even this morning, has anybody here talked with anybody else this morning? I hope most all of you. I hear a lot of chattering anyways before the service and stuff. And how much do you think we really get down to the heart in those moments?

How was your week? Oh, it was really bad and you're never going to believe what happened and how I'm feeling inside and all that. Is that what you got this morning? Or was it like, no, I've had a pretty good week.

It's been going okay. Would you agree with me? We kind of tend to stay on the surface. But the reality of it is we don't know how we could be encouraging others and just what a good, kind word and an active listening ear could mean to each other on a Sunday morning, right?

Or in your small groups or wherever you're connecting with other believers. Sometimes it's just looking for those clues and those cues of, man, that sounds like you've had a pretty rough week. Can I pray for you?

Can I pray with you now? Is there something I can be doing to help? Is there anything I can do for you this next week to help it to go better? You see what I'm saying? I mean, sometimes it's not, we've got to connect a little bit deeper with one another.

In verse 16, we find a very favorable housing arrangement for Paul. We don't really expect it. We expect him to be held up at the barracks or the prison, but he's allowed to remain under house arrest, literally to find his own place to stay by his own means.

He gets his own apartment, but a soldier is assigned to him. And it's still not a perfect situation. As a matter of fact, it's a little creepy, awkward situation because Paul was likely shackled to the soldier by the wrist during this house arrest.

Okay, so he's never far from the soldier that's assigned to him. And we know that from historical documents from the Roman Empire that that's how house arrest was conducted. And so they were shackled by the wrist.

A four-hour rotation, so every four hours, fortunately for the soldier, he got a replacement and another soldier would come in and spend four hours with Paul and then another soldier and there'd be a rotation going on.

So awkward for the soldier, awkward for Paul, but they would get to know. And actually, we see in a couple of the letters of Paul that his reputation began to spread around the Praetorian Guard. That's the guard that's assigned to him.

And we actually see that through this rotation, people were getting a reputation. How many of you know that he had a captive audience? That poor soldier did not have a chance but to hear the gospel multiple times.

I mean, you'd imagine, okay, he's gonna turn him one way or the other, right? But every four hours there was this rotation. Not necessarily a great arrangement for Paul, but at the same time, better than the dungeon.

Okay, in this time, in this era, you died in prison often. And so this was a good arrangement. Only three days at Rome, so he spent three days there and Paul, we see, is extremely proactive. He calls a meeting together with the local Jewish leaders.

He always says this. In the book of Romans, he starts off and he says, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. He always begins with the Jews. Whenever we've seen that, all throughout the book of Acts, everywhere that Paul goes, he goes and he meets the Jews first and then he proclaims the gospel to the Gentiles after the Jews.

Gives them a chance and after they reject it, then he goes to the Gentiles as well. It's just his M .O. It's the way he rolls. And so the first thing he does is he calls together the Jews. I think it's interesting to note he was extremely proactive.

He didn't leave things up to guesswork. He does assume that he's got a bad reputation already among the Roman Jews. He's got that assumption and so he's gonna go in and kind of with a defensive attitude but he tackles things head on.

So we have a first meeting between Paul and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem in 17, verses 17 through 22. And so if you see that, that's what you're seeing. The first meeting and then he's gonna set up another meeting.

So there's two separate meetings in our text at the end here in the book of Acts. In the first meeting, Paul is very focused on explaining how he ended up in Rome. How did he get here? Why is he standing there in front of them talking?

Why did he even call the Jews together to listen to him? You see, the Romans found him not guilty but the Jews in Jerusalem were not satisfied with that and in making a long story short, Paul says, I appealed to Caesar and that's why I'm standing before you.

But whenever you hear a person in Scripture kind of recounting things that they already had experience to them and you see something different in it, it's kind of a clue. You ought to zero in on that, right?

Like if they say something different about it. And at the end of verse 19, we get something different in Paul's delivery. He says, But because the Jews objected, verse 19, but because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar though I had no charge to bring against my nation.

Now he's talking about him charging them. Now, right, he's on trial because the Jews have accused him of something, right? But he says, But I didn't countersue. And we find out that from Roman law he had every right upon his appeal to Caesar to bring charges against the Jews who had tried him because he's being treated unfairly.

He has every right under Roman law to bring charges against his accusers including the high priest of all of Israel. He could countersue. And he says, I didn't. Why would that be important in his context?

He's standing and defending himself before Jews. And he says, I don't have anything against you. I don't have anything against our people. I wouldn't even countersue. I didn't bring anything in return against them.

But in verse 20, Paul identifies why he desires so quickly just after three days in Rome to speak with the Jewish leaders. It's both to exonerate his reputation and to clearly explain that he has been imprisoned because of the hope of Israel.

Do you see that in the text in verse 20? The phrase, the hope of Israel. What is the hope of Israel? The hope of Israel is something that started way back all the way in the beginning of Genesis where there was a promise that one would be born who would crush the head of the serpent.

Way back when Adam and Eve fell, there was a promise that one would be born of woman who would crush the head of Satan. Who is that? Jesus Christ. And then we see from that very first glimpse of the gospel in the book of Genesis all the way through the Old Testament is this promise that one will come who will deliver his people from their sins.

Jesus Christ. And that is the hope. That is what we see. And so that is the hope of Israel is that the Messiah was coming and they all would have understood this. It is almost a technical phrase, a technical term, the hope of Israel.

They heard Messiah when he said that. And so the fulfillment is that the Messiah has come and he has been revealed and Jesus Christ has fulfilled that promise. The Jews in Rome had received no letter they say.

We didn't know anything about any of this. We didn't even know why you were in trouble. We didn't know why you were here. No letter, no visitors from Jerusalem smearing you at all. We haven't heard any evil that you have done.

Nobody has visited and nobody has written about it. And although that might seem surprising, does that surprise any of you who have been here for multiple weeks? It is kind of like they didn't even send a letter.

They were pretty hostile. They were ready to kill him back in Jerusalem. And now nobody has even forwarded anything on. Well, most historians and a lot of scholars and biblical scholars see this, that what we see in history is likely that they dropped their charges.

They would be summoned to basically stand before Caesar and provide an accusation and they are not real eager to do that. Because they knew that they were on shaky ground to begin with and so they actually pull back and never show up.

So his accusers are not going to push it any further anymore. And actually, most historians see that what is likely by trying to harmonize accounts from his letters, he writes letters after this two years.

This is not the end of the road for Paul. This is not the arrest that leads to his demise. He is going to actually stand before Caesar. Most people who try to put the Bible together and understand the history and the historical documents and Rome and all of this stuff and they see that he was released after two years.

He went to Caesar. Nobody came to prosecute. He was released under Roman law and ended up actually spending a few years in ministry before he was arrested again under a new emperor named Nero. Nero had to find a scapegoat for this whole little burning thing that happened in Rome.

So Rome caught on fire and he needed somebody to take the blame. He blamed the Christians and then what ensued was just this hostility towards Christianity that took place over a century or so. And many died including the Apostle Paul who most historians, the most reliable accounts that we have say that he was actually beheaded by the Roman Empire.

And this would be subsequent to, this would be a second Roman arrest later down the road. So you can look up all that stuff and you can study it and some of it is as much as history. When you get into Roman history some of it is speculation and trying to figure things out.

That's the closest that I can get to that. But check out verse 22. The Jews in Rome are actually interested in learning more about Christianity. That's what it says in verse 22. But we desire to hear from you what your views are for with regard to the sect we know that everywhere it is spoken against.

So they're like we want to know more. Would you love that? If you like presented the gospel to a co-worker or a friend and they were like man we want to know more. Would you be like thumbs up? Cool. Awesome.

They want to know. They've heard that it was spoken against by Jews but they don't know what it teaches or why. And at this point in history Christianity was still considered primarily a sect of Judaism.

If you were a Christian in this time most people thought you were a Jew who was kind of just like on a different track. You get what I'm saying? So everybody kind of thought of you as a Jew if you were a Christian.

But it was not until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that Christianity and Judaism began to be really formally separate. Where it was like okay Christianity is something different than Judaism.

And there's all kinds of historical implications to the demise of the temple that brought that about. But how many people in our lives are just like the Jews in Rome? I think we know people that are like these Jews.

They've heard others talk about Jesus. They know that many disbelieve and they know that there's controversies but they do not know anything about Jesus Christ for themselves. They have not studied him.

They have not read about him. They haven't touched the scriptures but they've heard whispers and rumors about the Christian faith. And they kind of want to know a little bit more. They've maybe watched a documentary or two on the History Channel which has led them in the wrong direction.

But all it took for Paul was making himself available. And he found that they desired to hear his views and they wanted to know more and he had an audience with them because he made himself available.

And I imagine that there are some people that you know that actually desire to know what you believe. They would listen. If you invited them for a cup of coffee or to take them out for a Coke and just talk, they would love to hear.

Do you believe me when I say that? Do you think that there are people in your lives who would genuinely love to hear it? Now, granted, I can't only paint a rosy picture, are there some people who would like to just dump the coffee over your head if you did that with them?

There might be a couple. But I would dare say that the majority of the people would actually love it if you cared about them enough. And the worst that you're probably going to get in our culture is that is so good for you, but it's not for me, right?

Isn't that what you're most likely to get in our culture? I'd give it a shot. There are people who are hurting and desiring to know more and they're like, what is this life really about? And God might have put some of you in their lives for the sole purpose that you could proclaim the truth to them and be their friend in a way that conveys the most important love of all and that is the love that God has for them.

So think about that, the way that these Jews responded. They wanted to know more. In verse 23, everybody gets out their smartphones, coordinates their schedule, has their people contact each other's people, and they make appointments.

So they're like, we can't cover this all today. We're going to need to set down a time and actually have this discussion. And the impression is that in that meeting so many people show up that Paul's place is packed.

They meet at his place. I'd imagine it was kind of meager. And so they meet there, place is packed, and Paul spends the entire day from morning to evening, it says, expounding the truth. Okay, pretty long-winded meeting.

Paul could do it. We know in one account in the book of Acts he preached all night and a little kid fell out the window, fell asleep. Okay, so this dude could put people to sleep with his long-windedness and there's a morning to evening.