Journey Through The Bible
    Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 5-7
    New Testament Reading: Acts 20

Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I never stopped warning each one of you with tears (Acts 20:31).

We all use exaggeration to make a point. It’s just a figure of speech we’re not really lying.

In speaking to the Ephesian Elders, the Apostle Paul said, that night and day for three years I never stopped warning each one. Paul also made similar statements to the Corinthians and Thessalonians (2 Cor 11:27, 1 Thes 2:9, & 2 Thes 3:8). If Paul truly worked night and day for three years, when did he have time to sleep? Like the rest of us, Paul sometimes used exaggeration to make his point. Or did he?

A week before speaking with the Ephesian Elders, Paul spent 6-days teaching the believers in Troas. Then, On the first day of the week, we assembled to break bread. Paul spoke to them, and since he was about to depart the next day, he kept on talking until midnight (Acts 20:7). What happened at midnight has given every pastor encouragement for the past two thousand years. A young man fell asleep during Paul’s preaching! Not only did he fall asleep, but he fell out a 3-story window to his death. After Paul revived him, the meeting continued with Paul teaching until dawn.

After this all-day and all-night preaching and teaching service, Paul and his companions were to set sail to continue their journey to Jerusalem. If I were Paul, I know I would have been the first one to the ship to find a comfortable place to curl up and, with the gentle rocking of the ship in the cool Mediterranean breeze, go sound to sleep. But not Paul. Not this Apostle.

The plan was to sail from Troas to continue their journey to Jerusalem, but Paul changed the plan. He sent his companions with the ship around the peninsula to Assos and he would cut across the land to meet them there. A journey of about 30 miles, a walk of 10 to 12 hours.

He would not make the journey alone. The men that would go with him were the reason for the journey. This would be the last time he would ever see them, and he just had to spend those few precious hours together that day. He would not sleep the day away when there was work yet to be done. He could not! Paul concluded a week-long ministry with a 36-hour marathon of preaching, teaching, and discipling with a 30-mile hike thrown in. The Apostle Paul was driven by his purpose, and he had a message he needed to impart to those Christians in Troas.

Paul had compassion for people. He saw the new Christians in the churches he started and knew they needed to be discipled to maturity in Christ. He saw the people in the towns he traveled to and saw the aimless lives they lead, and he had to tell them about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He had such compassion for people he had no choice. As he did in Troas in Acts chapter 20, he had to work night and day, often without sleep, to accomplish his ministry.