Daily Devotion

 

 

There is something infinitely wonderful in the fact that to the end of the day, wherever he went, Paul began with the Jews. For more than thirty years now they had been doing everything they could to hinder him, to undo his work, and even to kill him; even yet, it is to them first that he offers his message. Is there any example of undefeatable hope and unconquerable love like this act of Paul when in Rome. too, he preached first to the Jews?

 

In the end, he comes to a conclusion implied in his quotation from Isaiah. It is that this, too, is the work of God; this rejection of Jesus by the Jews is the very thing which has opened the door to the Gentiles. There is a purpose in everything; on the helm of things is the hand of the unseen steersman-GOD. The door that the Jews shut was the door that opened to the Gentiles; even that is not the end, because sometime, at the end of the day, there will be one flock and one shepherd.

And so, the Book of Acts comes to an end with a shout of triumph. We wonder why Luke never told us what happened to Paul. Was he executed or released? The reason is that this was not Luke's purpose. At the beginning, Luke gave us his scheme of ACTS when he told how Jesus commanded His followers to bear witness in Jerusalem and all over Judaea and Samaria and away to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). The story that began in Jerusalem more than thirty years ago finished in Rome. It is nothing less than a miracle of God. The story of a crucified man of Nazareth has spread around the world and now, without interference, is being preached in Rome the capital of the world.

Life Application:

Praise/Prayer: