22 June 2008

St. Paul's Blog 4: Acts 18:23-21:17

I'm kind of tired lately. There has been a lot to do here in Asia. For instance, it seems like every time I turn around, someone is wanting me to use their handkerchief. I do my best, but there's only so much snot one man can expell before his nose gets sore. This is definitely not what I meant when I said "all things to all men."

Here's how exhausted I am: I hardly even put up a fight when my friends told me not to go down to the big riot at the Ephesus Theater... and you know how much I love a good riot every now and again. It's probably for the best that I didn't go, because the city clerk stopped the riot pretty quickly without even preaching a lot to make the people madder at him. What a boring ending.

I guess I'm not the only tired one around, though. A few weeks ago I was preaching in Troas, and some kid named Eutychus fell asleep during my sermon. I was kind of ticked off because I had only been talking for a few hours and I was barely halfway through my first sentence! He died (a fall from a three-story window will do that to you), but I wasn't done preaching yet, so I raised him from the dead, gave him something to eat, and made sure he was sitting on the front row for the rest of my sermon. THAT should teach him a thing or two.

We're in Caesaria now, on our way back to Jerusalem. I've been trying to get some rest, but it's hard since about every half hour, one of Philip's daughters starts prophesying. Most of their prophecies are pretty good, but every once in a while, one of them will talk about a tiger in the woods and how he will be the master of some tournament of catching eagles and other birdies with traps made of sand. Now that just doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaking of prophets, one stole my belt the other day. When I tried to get it back, he tied me up and basically said that there was a lot more where that came from if I kept going toward Jerusalem. You might think I was in quite a bind, but really I was knot. I knew that with Christ on my side, I would never have to be afrayed!

Jerusalem, here I come.

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