“Can I get a witness?”  In Acts 23, Paul would have to be his own witness.  The high priest and the Sanhedrin would get more than they’d bargained for.

Some commentators, in fact quite a consensus, think we’re seeing a rare glimpse of Paul’s sinful humanity and an apology to the high priest.  I think not.  Paul is not superhuman, but his one line defense witnesses to many things.  Take a listen and see what you think.

Dear friends and subscribers,

I wanted to let you know that I will resume normal posting beginning tomorrow.  Over the past 10 days, my web site experienced a security issue which resulted in my web site being blacklisted by Google.  Ours is unfortunately a day and age of malicious hacking.  I want to apologize if there were any concerns you experienced about this being identified as suspect.

Upon hearing that my blog had been compromised, I immediately contacted Google Webmasters and my hosting company.  I hired a security company to perform a thorough audit and my web site has been verified as clean during this time, but it does take a while for the blacklisting to go away.  As you know, I don’t collect personal information and I don’t sell anything so there was nothing to be gained from this by anyone with malicious intent.

I did experience significant sadness and frustration, but I also received a word from God about His perfection and timing.  And therefore I also have tremendous gratitude to God for His protective hand.  I’m thankful this didn’t happen during my Advent devotional series, Incarnation, and now the security company will ensure that nothing interrupts this devotional favorite.  I wouldn’t have this protection over this next phase of ministry had it not been for this experience.  God is so good!

Thanks for understanding my absence during the past 10 days as I’ve worked my way through a process I never thought I’d be required to address as one tiny little person whose words go out with significance unknown to me this side of heaven.  It will be good to feel free to bless people from God’s word again.

With gratitude for your friendship and understanding, Barbara <><

Has America been doing through complacency & legislation, what ISIS has been doing with bombs & beheadings? Paul shows how to be a citizen of both earth & heaven.  It’s a tough one, but using the THINK before ACTING strategy described here and asking what history will look like if we fail to act properly, each of us can be a good citizen like Paul.

History is in the process of being rewritten all over our planet. Artifacts destroyed. Landmarks bombed. Books burned. Events are being rewritten whether Columbus or Creation. Whether the Jewish Holocaust or Soviet expansion. History—without landmarks and without accurate retelling—risks becoming a thing like mythology for people to pass off as nothing. Truth–and the freedom it brings—without being defended and protected….is as Ronald Reagan once famously said,

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Likewise, our Christian faith isn’t passed along by genetics. We must fight to keep it pure so that we can hand historic Christianity on to the next generation or like freedom, it will be one generation away from becoming extinct.

In today’s Scriptures, Paul faces the issue of contemporary culture: How do we live as dual citizens of earth and heaven?

Last week in our adventures of the earliest disciples Paul was retelling his conversion story. He talked about how he’d been a Jew of Jews, zealous as any of them, and how he had been persecuting Christians. Then there was the shocking event on the road to Damascus when Paul saw the Risen Lord, not just a vision, not just a dream, but an actual seeing of the last of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. That event forever changed Paul. There were no more excuses. He saw the Light…in more ways than one.

Paul wanted to tell his own people, the Jews, how they’d been mistaken! He wanted to correctly pass along history! He wanted to save his Hebrew brethren from further persecuting followers of their very own Jewish Messiah. God told Paul that they wouldn’t accept his testimony … but Paul responded by asserting all the reasons why they should believe him…essentially, who better than Paul? He’d been one of their number hating Christians, but now he wanted to share with them what he wished he’d understood back then.

Then the shocking answer of God is No. I’m sending you to the Gentiles.

The “Men of Israel” crowd listening to Paul has been right there with him probably saying Amen! Until Paul’s fateful words. Paul shares that whole God-was-sending-him-to-the-Gentiles thing. And then Boom. You could hear the deafening sound of many ears closing simultaneously.

21 “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'” 22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

Worse, even though they’d been all ears, now they’re all convinced he’s lying, and moreover he is a Christian and Christians don’t deserve to live. Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!

I’ve been boo-ed before. It’s not pleasant. But no one…to my face at least…has suggested that I be eliminated from planet Earth. That’s a negative reaction to the extreme. For Paul, it’s a backhanded compliment to his excellence as a speaker and a true witness for Christ.

23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.

Mob justice is not a pretty thing. The crowd is shouting at the top of their lungs that Paul ought to die—they’re unruly and throwing a fit—but Paul is the one taken into custody. He is the one to be flogged and questioned. The assumption was that the crowd was right in all their shouting. That Paul must have done something wrong or the crowd wouldn’t be angry.

Interesting isn’t it, that in cases of many-against-one, it’s often assumed that those in the majority are right and the minority is always wrong?

A friend this past week faced opposition from one of her friends who was publically pointing out that no one was agreeing with this friend of mine, that she was standing basically alone, and no one was supporting her. The attack was grounded in that same concept. If someone stands alone, attack them, because if they’re alone, that means they’re wrong. A crowd somehow always shows who is right.

But Jesus says the opposite is true. Truth is not a numbers game where a simple majority wins. It’s not American Idol or Dancing with the Stars or Beat Bobby Flay.

Sometimes the loneliest and hardest path is the narrow gate of faith and integrity….and we walk it ….alone.

Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

It’s really easy to get a crowd to believe lies. It’s much harder to get them to acknowledge the truth. The harder the truth, the fewer the number who will accept it.

Paul is going to be beaten again, until he reveals something else about himself. Not his Jewish credentials this time, however. He’s not just a Hebrew in his citizenship. He’s not just a citizen of Tarsus, or even just a citizen of heaven as a Christian. He’s got more than dual or triple citizenship:

25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

Paul knows and the centurion knows that it is not legal to flog a Roman citizen without a trial.

Paul is a very bright guy. He knows his rights, but he handles things in a very above board way. He doesn’t scream and shout. He doesn’t protest or demand his rights or threaten to sue. He asks a simple question that makes the flogging they’re about to do something that could get them in a lot of trouble. It will spare him being scourged, whipped with the same kind of whip they used on Jesus.

And moreover, it will spare the centurion and the other floggers from the deep trouble they would have been in for using such tactics as a method of questioning.

Because you see, it was a big deal that Paul was a Roman citizen and he hadn’t even been granted a trial. A right of citizenship.

26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.” 27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes, I am,” he answered. 28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a big price for my citizenship.” “But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.

There were a couple of ways of gaining Roman citizenship. One was to spend at least 25 years on the front lines of military service and after you retired honorably provided you were still alive, you would be granted citizenship as a thank you for putting Rome first. Another way was to pay an exorbitant sum of money and purchase it through a bribe. Those were not the most prestigious ways to become a citizen. The third way was to born into it. Paul had inherited his by birth. His father was a Roman citizen. Which meant that his father either performed some meritorious act of service to Rome, or was from elite class of people. Paul didn’t buy his citizenship, he was born into it.

29 Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.

Paul’s legitimate citizenship meant that Paul should never even have been chained. The commander was understandably alarmed. The commander had broken the law whereas Paul had done nothing wrong other than to be singled out by an unruly mob…for his Christian faith.

Here’s the problem of contemporary culture: How do we live as good Christians when faced with bad governing?

Many people in American Christendom these days reject the way we are being governed. Who runs the government? A bunch of unrepentant sinners, liars, greedy dysfunctional hypocrites and bureaucrats, and the logical conclusion is that the government does not do… what God says… the government actually does. Romans 13:1-7 outlines very clearly our relationship to the government. In one word, submission.

Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Submitting to authority isn’t always easy, but it’s always right.

But that doesn’t mean we should surrender even what authority we do have. Paul didn’t. He was a Roman citizen and that meant that he had certain rights under the law. To use Paul’s Roman citizenship card and to make the authorities aware of it so they could use their authority well and avoid breaking the law themselves was an act of grace.

Paul had done nothing wrong. To have accepted an unnecessary beating because it would somehow prove to the world how great Paul is to suffer for Christ…or to have avoided disclosing his Roman citizenship until he could have done vengeance upon the commander would not have been a good use of his authority. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And sometimes, in Christian circles, the government can be our friend. It’s hard to accept sometimes, especially when we see all the wrong governments can do, especially to Christians these days, but we must always remember that the Bible teaches very clearly “there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

Admittedly, it’s a tough one. Why? Because governing authorities, while established by God, don’t always do godly things in a sinful world.

Supreme Courts make bad decisions. Presidents, senators, and congressmen fail us. Principals, teachers, and yes, sometimes policemen fail us by not using their authority for God-honoring purposes. And yet, Scripture says we ought to submit to them. It’s what Jesus did. And it’s what Paul did here. He went to the barracks of his own accord. He didn’t fight the chains. He didn’t hide his citizenship until he could punch back harder and ruin a few lives on his own. Grace–that unmerited favor—is always visible when genuine authority submits to the Higher Authority—God Himself. Grace always causes the most loving outcome.

Grace is a hard concept. How it plays out in our lives through authority and submission is a complicated thing. Conscientious objection isn’t always clear cut. What’s a Christian to do?

I think of Kim Davis, that court clerk in KY, and wonder about authority and submission and God being our highest authority. A cloud formed when she began to respond to the press and the limelight instead of sticking her moral high ground of responding to God alone. It’s a thin razor’s edge between Conscientious Objection and Insubordination. And it’s complicated. In the pool of all the shades of gray is the single drop of black and white. God is always our Higher Authority. And He’s not the least bit confused! There are no 50 shades of gray with Him. God always knows the Truth. He is the Truth.

I think of Peter and John having been commanded by the authorities to stop teaching way back in Acts 4: 19 But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20 For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

So how do you deal with things when faced with submission to someone in authority who is doing you wrong? Jesus shows us how it was done. Peter tells us about it as he explains why Christians suffer.

1 Peter 2: 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

He entrusted Himself to the Highest Authority possible: our Father in heaven. Jesus was God all the time, even when He walked this earth and He never stopped being God nor did He ever start. And yet, He submitted to the government, entrusted Himself, not to man, but to the Highest Authority. To Pilate, John 19:11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” Leaders sin. But followers of Christ look to the Highest Authority.

Paul dealt with it, too. But here’s an interesting thought: Paul was a Roman citizen all the time. Just like Jesus was God all the time. Paul revealed his citizenship not to benefit himself alone. It was not his ace-in-the-hole or a get-out-of-jail-free card to be sprung on authorities to show them who’s boss. No, Paul’s citizenship was from many places: Hebrew, Tarsus, Roman, and most of all his citizenship was heaven.

So, big questions: How and when do we use our citizenship? It’s something each of us must wrestle with as we engage in relationship with our culture, with one another, with our government, and with our God. So the 10 Commandments being removed, Christian bakers told to make cakes, Little Sisters of the Poor being forced to offer insurance that violates their conscience, Catholic hospitals sued to make them do abortions. Nativity scenes being removed from the public square. Do we just let that slide??? Or do we take a stand for God and against what violates our heavenly citizenship? It’s a tough one to be sure.

So, here’s a strategy: Grab a pencil and some paper to write it down.   2 acronyms==THINK before ACTING

THINK about the information…whether it’s True Helpful Important Necessary Kind.

If the information is not true, or not helpful, or unimportant, or unnecessary, or is unkind, your actions should be nothing. A lot of people–even Christian people–on social media could use a little lesson on that.  God is only obligating us to stand for what is True, Helpful, Important, Necessary, and Kind. If that reflects the information you feel compelled to speak, then proceed to the next step.

Before ACTING, consider your citizenships of earth and heaven: Authority, Conscience, Trust, Integrity, Neighbor, Grace

What authority do you have and what authority are you responding to? Is God your Highest Authority? What does your conscience tell you? The world has a conscience to tell them right from wrong. Christians have a conscience activated in a greater sense by the Holy Spirit. Listen to your conscience. Ask yourself in whom are you placing your trust? Are you trusting God with the outcome or just people? What will give you the greatest integrity as you stand before the LORD someday? What’s the most neighborly thing you can do? After all, when asked Matthew 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

What is neighborly? And then Grace always produces the most loving outcome. Will your actions produce and reflect grace?

After you THINK before ACTING, one last thing is to consider what history will look like if you don’t act. ISIS is demolishing Christian history all over Iraq, Syria, and Turkey (basically biblical Mesopotamia) and Christians are being wiped from the face of the Middle East. But here’s another real question of history:

Are we doing in America through complacency and legislation, what ISIS has been doing with grenades, and bombs, and beheadings?

Our Christian history is being rewritten and some things we cannot let slide. Use that citizenship like Paul did. Press into that dual citizenship of earth and heaven. Just like Paul did. Just like Jesus did.

1. Know what the Scriptures say is true. Your actions will be to stand alone for the truth.
2. Know the Highest Authority: God. Your actions will be to entrust yourself to Him.
3. Know your relationship to the government and to God. Use your citizenship of earth and heaven for pursuing Grace and Truth….and trust the Highest Authority…just like Jesus and Paul did.

Citizenship comes with both rights and responsibilities. Rights to use and to help govern our personal actions. But there are also responsibilities to the next generation.  We must pass along the very best we can to the next generation or history will be forgotten and rewritten. We will be like men who have no memory of where we’ve been and no compass for where we’re going. Pure Christianity is every bit as worth preserving and fighting for as our freedom or both may go extinct.  THINK before ACTING and consider history…this is how we are good citizens of both earth and heaven. Let’s pray.

Today’s passage is Acts 21:27-36 and it’ll help us to see the bigger picture by reading it and then going back to talk about this Arrested Development.

Acts 21:27 When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, 28 shouting, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place.” 29 (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple area.) 30 The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. 31 While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. 32 He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. 34 Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. 35 When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. 36 The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Away with him!”

No sooner did Paul say last week v 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” than God began the process of bringing it about. Paul would not die in Jerusalem though. He’d die years later somewhere in Gentile territory…as a martyr.

But for now, his ministry would experience Arrested Development.  A slowing in the growth and maturity of Paul’s ministry there as bearing positive fruit for the Gospel.

At this point, Paul’s ministry highlights something else: that the Gospel cuts both ways.

It inspires faith…and it exposes the faithless.

People these days would rather view the Bible as being nothing but good and loving and God has no wrath and everyone gets along swimmingly without God until we need Him when we can pray and He’s there for us. Jesus loves you just as you are and won’t ask you to change a thing!

But the Gospel inspires faith and exposes the faithless, just like when Jesus explained why He spoke in parables saying, Mark 4:11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'” Or as Paul would later write to the Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sometimes God gives us good preaching and good teaching to grow our Christian maturity, but wait. The truth is that sometimes it’s to further drive the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

It reveals and seals the hardness of someone’s heart.

That’s why Moses went back all those times to Pharaoh. God was using those 10 plagues to seal as hard…the hard heart of Pharaoh.

So too, here with Paul, he’s showing up in Jerusalem preaching and next week he’ll retell his conversion story…and all the while you can hear the nails going into the coffin lid of those who this week are rioting and arresting Paul.  A few may yet be saved, but overall, there’s a change.  The Gospel is exposing and sealing their unbelief.

Paul had, at the suggestion of the Jerusalem brothers (James and all the elders) had participated in the purification rites as evidence of his purity as a Jew and his adherence to the Law. It was nice in theory, but failed in practice because today we read,

Acts 21:27 When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, 28 shouting, “Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place.” 29 (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple area.)

People assumed that Paul had done something offensive and in-their-faces because it’s what they wanted to believe. They wanted to believe the rumor that Paul was teaching against the Law of Moses just like Paul (Saul) had done with Stephen. And you know what? Paul’s going along with those purification rites last week meant nothing to them.

They saw what they wanted to see. Paul is a problem.

They believed what they wanted to believe.

Paul is teaching lies.

If you stop and think about it, human nature is no different today. If you look at the sphere of politics, people believe what they want to believe. Illegal immigration: a problem or an opportunity? Planned Parenthood funding: a problem or a societal good? The refugees flooding Europe and coming here too: the infiltration, influx and takeover of the West by Islamic young men of fighting age and a real problem or a vastly needed help for a totally humanitarian cause? The list goes on and on and we’d hear it over and over again in the debates if we focused on issues instead of who-said-what-to-whom and who has a face only a mother could love.

How about in the Church? People believe what they want to believe and they will go to churches (or avoid going to churches) in order to hear their own beliefs affirmed. Do you know people who will stop going to a church because they don’t want to hear some stupid pro-life, born-again message? Maybe they don’t want to ruin their Sunday by going to hear some hypocrite preaching at them? Or do you know people who will stop going to a church because there is some woman who is the Bible teacher there? I do. It happens all the time. Over more than just women, too. Way too many people choose churches that preach what they want to hear. And the Bible foretells that: 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

• Creation: is it as the Bible talks about as a miracle or something science refutes?
• Sexual immorality: a sin or just another way the Bible is out of touch with modernity?
• Marriage: between a man and a woman or is the Bible stuck back in a less enlightened era?
• Pro-life: biblical…or just another way Christian zealots are trying to strip women of their rights and for men to exert their dominance by keeping women barefoot, pregnant and wearing denim jumpers?

Human nature doesn’t respond to facts as well as one would like to think.

To justify our own position, we question the source. We look for a consensus among people we trust to believe and affirm what we already believe. We look at who supports it and make judgment calls based on superficial things: gender, color of skin, style of hair, size of nose, where someone went to school, how much money they make, where they work, etc. We are moved less by facts than by opinion—we’re preoccupied with photos and sound bytes; we’re sold on spin; and get a hodge-podge of half-truths that someone else wants us to believe. Oh, we probably suspect it’s all staged, but it’s ok because we already believe it too.

Do you know people…maybe on Facebook, in school, at work, over email or at family gatherings…that you know you have to avoid because they never let inconvenient facts get in the way of their asserting what they believe? Oftentimes in a loud and angry way. I’ve been unfriended on Facebook by such people.

But it doesn’t mean we should stop seeking and speaking the truth!

What did this mean for Paul? He wasn’t about to abandon the truth. Persecution was bound to happen. Agabus the prophet last week confirmed that this would be the result of Paul’s truth-telling.

30 The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut.

Throw the bum out. Get that infidel out of the temple. Shut him out and shut him down!

31 While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. 32 He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

The only thing the “Men of Israel” feared more than good and convincing preaching by a passionate and powerful Christian like Paul…was the Roman authority which had the power to shut the Temple down politically and cut their income stream off significantly. The “Men of Israel” stopped beating Paul to keep from being shut down themselves by those they feared more.

Which, think about it: If they feared God more than the authorities and if they were right, why didn’t they fight to keep on beating Paul, that “infidel”? If God’s honor was at stake? That’s what ISIS does. They kill people who don’t follow their religious teachings. Apparently the authorities–in Iraq and Syria–aren’t keen to get in the way of their religious teachings with the result of having their severed heads on a pole as a warning.

Maybe when people hold to a convenient idea based upon only half-truths, their actions reveal something deeper than their words: whether they truly consider it a hill to die on. I’d like to think that God’s character (His authority, His holiness and His sovereignty) would be a hill to die on. Worth being imprisoned for. And a person would be willing to die to protect the right to believe it. Paul was willing to be bound and to die for what he believed. Why not the “Men of Israel”…if they truly believed…?

33 The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done.

My, how things have changed! If that’d happened in the US… in that order, the commander would be on trial in many US cities. Arresting the guy being beaten by a mob, putting chains on him, and then asking what he’d done. Yikes. That commander would probably be put away for life.

But it kept the crowd from killing Paul so it was actually a good development. Even if it was arrested development for Paul’s evangelistic ministry.

34 Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks.

The commander asked who he was and what he was doing…but then who answers? The crowd was doing a shout-out like Cash Cab’s evil twin. The commander and Paul didn’t even place a call and suddenly everyone else is shouting out answers. Paul gets hauled off to the prison barracks and is willing to go there of his own accord. But…

35 When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. 36 The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Away with him!”

Might as well have been “Crucify him!”

That’s what this same belief-set did to Jesus. People believe what they want to believe. If you can’t shut’em up, and you can’t shut’em down…then shut’em out. Away with him!

Have you ever been shut out?

I have.  Frequently.  One of the reasons I’ve been so grateful to be here among you during the past year is that I’m shut out a lot. It’s not easy being female in my profession.

Ironically, I’ve had a whole bunch of people reading through my old sermons online during the past year. I told my husband about that the other day and his first question was “Is someone plagiarizing them? Stealing your sermons and preaching them as if they’re his?” I said, “It’s quite probable.” Then he said, “It’s terrible that this is my first thought.” My response floored him: I said that I’m used to it. It’s been happening a long time, ever since my words have gone on the Internet 20 + years ago and even before I was a Christian. If some man teaches or preaches what I wrote, maybe not word for word, but close enough that it quacks like a duck…but if lives are changed, then you know what? I’m happy about it. Why? Because there are people out there that would shut out my physical person who would yet welcome every word of the message I preach.

I’d rather have them get the message. The message is that important.

The message saves. The message that Jesus is the Messiah, He is our Savior, there is no heaven without Him, there is no eternal life if He’s not the source of it, there is no forgiveness apart from Him, and also the uncomfortable Gospel truth that Jesus doesn’t save everyone. He wants to save everyone, but some have such hard hearts that they don’t want it. They only believe what they want to believe. They have the real arrested development—never getting out of their man-centered mindset; never willing to trust Christ with their lives; never willing to lay down their pride and admit that they can’t save themselves; and never knowing the freedom that happens when we admit we aren’t gods and the universe doesn’t spin around us.

Paul’s ministry—as an arrested development from a freedom standpoint—was not arrested development from a message standpoint.

His message of the Gospel truth was a hill to die on and it’s from prison that Paul would write some of the letters we have recorded as our NT. From here forward, Paul is not a free man with any regularity. He’s most often a prisoner, sometimes under house arrest, and one can only imagine that he would develop much of his understanding of the “bondage of sin” theology from his various times in custody.

The letter to the Philippians is one such prison letter. Philippians 3:4b If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ– the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

For Paul, the arrested development in today’s passage—his being arrested and losing his freedom—opened another development with eternal significance. It is through his letters in our written record–the Bible—that Truth rolls on like a mighty river, true justice rolls on in Christ. Paul’s view was a good one. For he said in his prison letter to the Philippians 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Far from arrested development, that view is the hallmark of Christian maturity.

In today’s passage Paul has been arrested. It’s not a bad development from a Kingdom of God perspective. It inspires faith and exposes the faithless. It inspires pressing on in spite of persecution. It inspires us to live by faith and not by what the world already believes and wants to sell us on. It inspires us to gain that vision heavenward that puts life’s trials in perspective. Not arrested development at all. Rather, it is God’s plan and a hill to die on. To live is Christ…and to die is gain.

In Acts 21:27-36, there is a development.  Paul is arrested on the same charges he’d made against Stephen before Paul saw the Light.  Far from arrested development, the message would go on through the Apostle Paul’s prison letters.

What’s the difference between fatalism and an honest expression of “The Lord’s will be done”?

What is the difference between a sad state of resignation and a confident trust in Christ?

Where does one gain wisdom and discernment to sort through the mixed ideas of well-meaning Christians and develop the obedience for one’s walk with Christ?

In today’s passage of Scripture (Acts 21:1-26), we see the answer revealed in the life of Paul. I have linked to the entire passage, but would like to focus on but a few verses in this devotional (since I’m away from the pulpit this week… and also explains why there will be no audio version to go along with today’s passage).

Paul is on his third missionary journey and is in the midst of his return trip to Jerusalem. He’d wanted to be there already (had he been able to sail straight to Syria from Greece), but circumstances and that little plot against his life made it impossible for him to be there by the Passover. The best he could hope for, taking that inland route with a few short boat trips, was for him to arrive by Pentecost.

Good-bye Macedonia. Good-bye Ephesian elders. Now say good-bye to Tyre and Caesarea. Paul is compelled by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. It was bound to happen.

Bound to happen but all kinds of obstacles stand between now and then. Obstacles of well-meaning Christians.

Have you ever been plodding along in your walk with Christ and a well-meaning brother or sister in Christ questions whether you’re going about it properly?

In Paul’s missionary journey, he was bound for Jerusalem.  Was it bound to happen? Not if well-meaning disciples had any say in it! Here are the disciples in Tyre.

Acts 21:4 Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

“Through the Spirit”…what does that mean? Paul was “compelled by the Spirit” to go! How could these well-meaning Christians urge Paul “through the Spirit” not to go. Does this mean that the Holy Spirit was giving Paul mixed messages?

Obstacle to obedience #1—the mixed message from well-meaning Christians

The Holy Spirit is not divided against Himself. The easiest reconciliation of these two thoughts (go and don’t go) is that Paul…through the Spirit…was compelled to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22) even though…through the Spirit…he’d been warned that he would face persecution there (Acts 20:23). Flip sides of the same good coin. The Gospel cuts both ways. And the servant of Christ will be persecuted. John 15:20 “Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”

The disciples in Tyre had (probably through a prophetic gift) discerned that there would be trouble in Jerusalem for Paul and therefore assumed God wasn’t in it since Paul’s ministry on earth would end. But Paul had the further revelation of an inner compelling that overrode matters just like when Jesus was compelled to go to Jerusalem and face the Cross. Peter’s understanding of Kingdom matters elicited one statement (below) whereas his incomplete understanding and good desire of love to protect Jesus prompted the second. Compare these two statements about the same individual, Peter:

Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

Matthew 16:23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Six verses separate Peter’s godly wisdom from his brazen obstacle to Christ’s obedience.  Same type of deal here with Paul.

The disciples in Tyre didn’t want anything to interfere with Paul’s good and fruitful ministry. Why would God send Paul to where his ministry would end? (Answer: for the same reason He sent Jesus to finish His work in a place of persecution. God always sees the bigger picture and doesn’t always communicate it widely ahead of time. Jesus knew He was compelled. Paul knew he was compelled and in each case, that was enough.)

But this is not fatalism.

And the difference is there’s choice…and quite simply where you place your trust.

If compelled by the Spirit, but trusting in man for your life, you’ll always be disappointed and at the mercy of your opponents. If compelled by the Spirit and trusting in God for your life, it’s the honest expression of “The Lord’s will be done.”

It was bound to happen because Paul was in step with the Spirit…both in the compelling and in the understanding of the dangers ahead. The Holy Spirit doesn’t suck you in with goodies and then trap you in persecution like luring a mouse into a mousetrap.

The Holy Spirit prompts obedience to accepting both the good and the persecution by appealing to faith.

10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'” 12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

Here’s a second prophetic word about the upcoming persecution of Paul. Luke includes himself among those who urged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.

Obstacle to obedience #2—the mixed emotions of well-meaning Christians

Ironically, the two commandments that are the greatest can be at conflict with one another in the faith of a disciple of Christ. Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Like confusing messages that originate in the mind, mixed emotions can tug both ways at the heart. Conflicting emotions are another obstacle to living a life that exhibits a total confident trust in Christ. Paul loved Jesus and wanted to follow Him. Paul loved the disciples, too!  So when they urged him not to go, he asked,

Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?”

When the love of God pulls you to sacrifice yourself…and the love of neighbor pulls you in another direction, it does break a person’s heart. It makes it really hard to follow God. But Paul passed the test. It was bound to happen, just as Agabus had predicted through his “enacted prophecy” which was along the lines of the ministries of Jeremiah, and Isaiah and Ezekiel.

In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell loves his sister Jenny and the mission. But he loved God more and God brought him to a tough place of decision-making. Out of love for God and honoring God’s gift of excelling as a runner, in the movie, Eric asks his sister to understand and let him run his race for the glory of God before he returns to the mission field in China. The tugging at his heart—love of sister versus love of God—made it hard for him to run unfettered. He needed her to understand that he was compelled. But then the decision not to run in the 100 meter race, but instead to honor God because it was the Sabbath, was something well-meaning Christians did not understand.  In many cases, he was pummeled in the press since some thought it would do God better by his running and proving his love for his teammates, his king, and his country.  Well-meaning Christians can be obstacles to whole-hearted obedience. The mission field was ahead, but that would be after Eric would win the Olympic 400 meter race, become internationally known and then go to occupied China where he would die for the Gospel. Arguably his ministry had eternal significance beyond running and rugby.  He died having been more widely known for his decision not to run on the Sabbath than he would have been known for any Sunday qualifying heat which would have been celebrated for a moment at the cost of his devotion to God.

Paul, in our passage, was compelled and well-meaning Christians didn’t understand but eventually relented, “The Lord’s will be done.”

17 When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. 18 The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present. 19 Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. 20 When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.

Obstacle to obedience #3—the mixed report of well-meaning Christians

The brothers heard all that Paul said had happened and they praised God. But in the next breath, they point out that the Jewish believers were still thinking of the Messiah as basically belonging to the Jews and the Law was still the rule. This whole Gentile ministry of Paul’s was kind of problematic from the standpoint of the average Jewish Christian who was trying to get along and stay alive in Jerusalem. So the brothers pressed Paul to demonstrate his affinity with the Jewish Christians by participating in a vow of four men by funding their purification rites. It was symbolic of obedience to the Law and did no harm to the ministry of Paul since he, like Christ, affirmed that the Law was not abolished.  It was fulfilled. In preserving the unity of Christians, God honored Paul’s heart and it did not compromise anything along the way. It was just an unnecessary step had the brothers in Jerusalem (well-meaning though they were) taught the people the full truth of what Paul had been doing.

Instead, well-meaning Christians engaged in perpetuating a rumor and offered a solution that wasn’t one in reality. The Jewish Jews wouldn’t be convinced by this plan of action… and the Jewish Christians weren’t educated on the finer points of theology. The Men of Israel (the Jewish Jews) will persecute Paul in next week’s passage and the Jewish Christians will be nowhere to be seen. Dealing with the mixed report could have been a distraction for Paul’s obedience.  Had Paul not been discerning, it could have been an obstacle.  The brothers should have dealt with the mixed report by teaching the full truth to the Jewish Christians and inspiring their obedience, even in the face of persecution.

So what about you?

What do you do when you get mixed messages from others about what God is calling you to do? Do you dig into the Scriptures and devote yourself to prayer or do you just talk a lot with your Christian friends to get their opinion?

What do you do when love for God seems to be calling you to a different place than what might be love on a strictly human level? What informs your decision about what to do? Who do you listen to?

When you see the “divine conveyor-belt” of the Spirit taking you to a place that is bound to happen, how you react? Do you try to jump off because of mixed messages, mixed emotions, and mixed reports…or do you respond in faith?  Is your confidence in Christ?

A focus on man will always lead you to fatalism and sad resignation at the “divine conveyor-belt” of life…bound to happen as one’s fate. But a focus on God and a healthy discernment will always lead you to “The Lord’s will be done” and a deep faith in Christ. For Paul and for Jesus before him, something being bound to happen can be celebrated as Paul did: “I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Paul was ready to be bound and bound for death.   If it’s bound to happen, let it be bound to happen… by faith!

There are a few things in life guaranteed to make me cry. One of them is a good good-bye.

In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, the wizard is in a hot-air balloon floating off to Kansas without Dorothy and Toto. He cries out that he can’t come back because he doesn’t know how it works. Dorothy is left crying there in Oz, perhaps ready to strangle Toto for chasing a cat and preventing her going home in the balloon. She’s crying because it was supposed to be good-bye, but it didn’t end up being good-bye. The balloon and the wizard said good-bye to her. Dorothy is left there…crying. Then Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, shows up.

• Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
• Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
• Dorothy: I have?
• Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?

The next thing might have been for Glinda to be honest and say that, well, there wouldn’t have been a book or a movie if she could have gone back right away. No Academy Awards. No film debut of color. Nothin’. But instead Glinda says, “She wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.” Which is probably a bunch of bunk. Dorothy would have caught on right away once clicking those ruby slippers and having that hallucinogenic swirling going on all around her.

And then, there wouldn’t have been that good-bye scene, sure to make me bawl every time.

• Dorothy: It’s going to be so hard to say Good-bye. I love you all too.
•                  Good-bye, Tinman. Oh, don’t cry! You’ll rust so dreadfully. Here’s your oil can.
• Tin Woodsman: Now I know I’ve got a heart, ’cause it’s breaking…
• Dorothy: Good-bye, Lion. I know it isn’t right, but I’m going to miss the way you used to holler for help before you found your courage.
• Cowardly Lion: I never would’ve found it if it hadn’t been for you…
• Dorothy: [to Scarecrow] I think I’m going to miss you most of all.

And the Scarecrow, having a brain, wisely said nothing.

Paul, in today’s passage, probably wasn’t handing out oil cans to keep people from rusting, but a few hearts were breaking and a few people’s courage was failing. This farewell address would address all of that.

It was a good good-bye.

It was typical of farewell addresses of its time, but is also remarkable in what it teaches us about Paul, about ministry, about faith in Christ, of a life well-lived, and of the value of a good good-bye.

John Steinbeck, in The Winter of Our Discontent, writes “Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.”

Which sounds remarkably negative. But it not need to be seen as anything more than Good-bye being the hand letting go of the back of the bicycle so the youngster can pedal and experience all the freedom of riding wherever his feet and mind and daylight can take him. The training wheels are gone and Paul’s hand is off the back of the Ephesians elders’ bicycle, so to speak. Good-bye sets everyone free to do God’s will.

I think I’ll read the whole passage for us today and then go back and point out what we learn from this farewell address. To see what God wants us to know about the good Good-bye.

Acts 20:13 We went on ahead to the ship and sailed for Assos, where we were going to take Paul aboard. He had made this arrangement because he was going there on foot. 14 When he met us at Assos, we took him aboard and went on to Mitylene. 15 The next day we set sail from there and arrived off Kios. The day after that we crossed over to Samos, and on the following day arrived at Miletus.  16 Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, for he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Pentecost.

17 From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. 18 When they arrived, he said to them:  “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. 19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews.  20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. 21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.

22 “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me– the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.  25 “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26 Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.  28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. 32 “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.  33 I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. 34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

36 When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37 They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38 What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

Paul knew he was supposed to go to Jerusalem. He was “compelled by the Spirit”. Much like Christ knew He was going to go to Jerusalem and face the Cross. Paul’s ministry was coming to an end. The Good-bye in Miletus where Paul tells the Ephesian elders he won’t be coming back has a beautiful similarity to Luke 9:51 “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

Compelled. It’s time. It’s time for good-bye.

Just like our observance of Communion today will be a reminder of Jesus’ saying–at His Last Supper–His final good-bye.

All good ministries end.

And new ministries begin.

Seasons in the life of the Church.

Jesus knew the Church would not born if it weren’t for His death. He was eagerly looking forward to being reunited with His Father in heaven after the satisfaction of His finishing well. Finishing well by dying for human sin on the Cross.

Paul, likewise, is eagerly looking forward to heaven after the satisfaction of a job well done. Paul’s mission was different. A job well done was to have finished the task God gave him of introducing the Gospel to the entire Gentile world.

This good-bye Paul says here is a good one. It has several features. It speaks of:

• A life worth imitating v 18 “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. 19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews.
• A Gospel worth proclaiming 20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. 21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
• An obedience worth pursuing 22 “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me– the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.
• A warning worth noting 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. 32 “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. ” A warning finishing with a word of hope. God can protect you, preserve you, and give you an inheritance if you stay the course, persevere, and do what is right!  Press on!!
• An example worth following 33 I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. 34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”
• A prayer worth remembering 36 When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37 They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38 What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

After the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn and everything was ending with a good Good-bye. It just didn’t seem so to the disciples at the time. Especially as Jesus tells them they’ll all scatter and Jesus gets arrested. It was Good-bye.

The character Peter Pan is often quoted as saying, “Never say good-bye because good-bye means going away and going away means forgetting.”  Fortunately that’s fiction.

Good-bye may mean going away, but it doesn’t need to mean forgetting. Because, in our case, we have the Bible to tell us about the life of Christ and the ministry of Paul. It’s written.  It’s a forever reminding. The good-bye is just part of it all.

J.D. Salinger’s character Holden Caulfield says in The Catcher in the Rye,

Only, I wasn’t watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.

You feel worse because it strips things of their meaning when something meant so-much-of-nothing that you didn’t care it was gone.

In a good-bye, one recognizes something’s importance, its value…it celebrates a milestone, marks the moment as having been significant somehow. It leaves one without regrets at never having had the opportunity to say good-bye or to know it was important.

In the movie Field of Dreams, that yes I quote a lot, Dr. Archibald (Moonlight) Graham states this profundity:

It was like coming this close to your dreams… and then watch them brush past you like strangers in a crowd. You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.

A good good-bye sets significance to a moment. It’s how you’ll be remembered if people never see your face again.  For Paul and the Ephesian elders, their last memory was praying together.

People will remember how you left, the manner and disposition of it…even more than the fact of your leaving.

So what about you? When you have the opportunity to choose a good good-bye or a bad one, which do you choose? When leaving the house in the morning and you say good-bye, see-ya-later-alligator to those at home? When you say good-bye at the bus that takes your kids to school or when you drop them off? Easy? To have a good good-bye? Not always. We all have our days.

OK, how about when let go from a job? Will you take the opportunity to launch and poison the watering hole? Leave in a flame of emails or a burst of anger telling everyone exactly what you think? Or will you choose to be remembered for something good? When leaving the hospital while your spouse or a child is stuck there overnight? What will you say to your loved one, the nurses and the doctors, and the person at the visitor’s desk? How about when selling a house? When moving away from neighbors? When leaving a family reunion or your table and your server after dinner at a restaurant? What will be their lasting memory of you, if they never see you again?  When leaving a ministry or a church because God has called you elsewhere? Even in Paul’s case like going to Jerusalem knowing that his life is nearing the end.

Paul sets the tone for remembering well by this farewell address. It’s a good good-bye. He reminds the Ephesian elders and us that it’s okay to weep on earth at the parting of friends, but in Christ and in heaven there will be a beautiful reunion for those who follow Jesus and by His forgiveness have eternal life. But moreover to strengthen us for today, we have a written record. So that good-bye may mean leaving but it doesn’t mean forgetting. No oil cans required even if there is a bit of weeping and a few broken hearts. Good-bye can be good even with tears because it’s a mark of love. And it’s a good good-bye.

A good-bye to mark

• A life worth imitating
• A Gospel worth proclaiming
• An obedience worth pursuing
• A warning worth noting because it can protect you
• An example worth following
• A prayer worth remembering