Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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March 30, 2010
            Greetings, dear people.
            We set our alarms this morning for 3am so we could be at the airport in Rochester, NY, just after 4am…to connect with our first leg of our return at about 6am. Needless to say, it has been a big day of travel.  I typed this out at the airport in Rochester.  But I couldn’t find a free connection to send it till here at home.  Not a lot of sleep.  Now…how do I approach my big pile of work?
            I trust things are reasonably well in your corner of the globe.  May the Lord bless you in surprising ways.
                        In Him…Dad/Ray

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30 March 2010
Passage: Acts 28:1-16
Focus: “At the sight of these men, Paul thanked God and was encouraged.”  Acts 28:15.

            I don’t know how many companions traveled with Paul to Rome.  We can be sure Luke was along.  I’m sure Paul deeply appreciated Luke’s friendship and loyalty.  We know that Paul and Luke had just passed through a long spell without any good fellowship with other believers.  I would find it hard to believe that Paul kept the Gospel message quiet on this trip as a prisoner to Rome.  But there is no mention of any stirring evangelistic success, even though many were healed of all kinds of infirmities on Malta.  If this was so, that fact could have been a bit disheartening for Paul.  It could have accommodated a kind of dry spell of faith.  Having had such an exciting vision of world evangelism, and having received such a dramatic call from God to be an ambassador for Christ, and having had such powerful results in his former ministry, he may have been feeling a little blue, wondering if his usefulness and even the power of the Gospel were waning.  He was certainly not surrounded with a lot of observable evidence of effectiveness to help him resist these thoughts. Biblical and church histories reveal the fact that even great men of faith encounter valleys of discouragement.
            But when Paul met the believers near Rome, men whose lives God had revolutionized by the Gospel, perhaps as a result of Paul’s former missionary ministries, all excited to see Paul, all expecting his arrival with great anticipation, the dry spell came to an end.  It says that when they arrived at Puteoli, “we found some brothers who invited us to spend a week with them.  And so we came to Rome.  The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us.  At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged” (Acts 28:14-15).
            As standard equipment for your own Christian sojourn, may I recommend that you carry with you a good clear copy (memorized) of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:58?  “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (KJV).  It’s a concept that will help to greatly minimize “down” time.  If you will establish such perspective boundaries for your faith and behavior, you can make it through loneliness, shipwreck, the appearance of ineffectiveness, and spiritual dry spells without wandering off course.
            While you’re at it, carry this along too: “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand” (Ps. 37:23-24).