NOTES for Act 20:1-16

Paul's path is that of an apostle and a missionary, in the fullest sense. It is not only that, having traveled throughout Asia Minor, he left churches in all its major cities. It is also what he carries with him. It is no accident that the author of Acts mentions the story of the young man who, while listening to the apostle's preaching, fell to his death but was raised by Paul.

This is the only event the sacred writer recounts separately; he describes the rest in outline, without details. It is as though he wants to say: such events are now fairly ordinary. They can happen anywhere and at any time, simply along the way, almost in passing. Not because of any exceptional abilities of Paul or anyone else, but because Paul, like every other true witness, lives the life of the Kingdom of which he speaks and to whose King he bears witness.

The Kingdom accompanies Paul and the other apostles everywhere; they live by it and live within it. Their outward appearance as ordinary people is connected only with their mission. The risen Christ, walking beside the disciples on the road to Emmaus, also seemed to be a person of our untransfigured world—but only for a time, until He vanished from His disciples' sight.

Then it became clear that between His world and the world in which the apostles then lived there was a very definite boundary, though not immediately visible: the Kingdom and the untransfigured world are two distinct realities, even though they touch. Paul, too, while remaining an inhabitant of the Kingdom, nevertheless acts in a world that has not yet become part of it, so that in the end this may indeed happen. His entire journey and ministry are simply a means of fulfilling this central task God has set him.