Acts 20
This week’s example of “Weird Deaths in the Bible” is a young man named Eutychus. While in Troas, Paul is speaking late into the night in a third-floor meeting room of someone’s home. Eutychus is sitting in a window opening, listening to Paul. While not the first and definitely not the last person to fall asleep during a sermon, he may be the only person in history to fall out of a window and plumet to his death as a result. Reasonably shaken up, Paul rushes downstairs to examine Eutychus and declares him alive again. Shortly thereafter, Eutychus is picked up by a few friends and goes about with the rest of his life. Paul returns upstairs to continue his sermon, which lasts through the rest of the night.
The events themselves are not as important as the setting. Pastor Bob reminded us, “If I’m going to get to know Jesus, I need to get to know him in your living room.” Paul was in homes, forging relationships, issuing challenges, impacting lives. So much so that he “never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears,” and the community he was leaving acknowledged, “what grieved them the most was his statement that they would never see his face again.”
God presents us with tasks and opportunities regularly, specifically with people. He wants us to be all in on them, to the point that we are having clear emotional responses to them. Do something great in God’s name this week, and don’t be afraid to tear up about it.
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