When Leaders Keep Learning, Part 1

Scripture — Acts 20:7-9a (NRSV)

On the first day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer.

Devotion

In Acts 20, Luke tells an interesting story set in the Greek city of Troas (now part of modern-day Turkey). Following five days in Philippi, the Apostle Paul (accompanied by Luke) traveled on to Troas where he rejoined several others of his traveling companions including Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimums. They spent seven days together in Troas and are now preparing to continue on southward to Assos and then Mytolene. The short account of this visit—told in the first person plural by Luke himself—focuses on Paul’s last evening in Troas when the locals have a final gathering with Paul and his companions to break bread.

The story has been familiar to me for some time. In the past, my attention has focused on the death and resurrection of Eutychus. It is an exciting event, to be sure. There are only a handful of stories in the Bible of somebody being raised from the dead, and each one is memorable. But reading it recently, my attention was drawn to a different aspect of the story: the passion that the Christian believers in Troas had for learning. In the person of Paul, they have an important and knowledgeable Biblical teacher in their midst, and they are eager to take advantage of this opportunity to learn from him. So much so, that they stay awake late into the night listening to him teach.

Although Paul’s teaching was certainly deeply rooted in both his Old Testament knowledge and in his relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit, the scene described here doesn’t seem to be a reading of scripture such as Christians (hopefully) hear in a Sunday morning church service or which Jews would be used to in synagogues on the sabbath. For one thing, the New Testament didn’t even exist yet. And whatever Paul did say at this moment didn’t end up in the eventual canon of scripture through Luke’s account. Which is to say, this evening event seems to be much more than what most Christians today get in our 60- to 90-minute Sunday morning worship services. We really have no idea what Paul was even talking about! What we are told is that he was talking.

And he talks for a long time, too. Luke makes a point of that in several ways. He notes first that Paul “continued speaking until midnight,” and later that Paul “talked still longer.” The wording of the NIV translation of that latter phrase strikes me as a bit humorous: “Paul talked on and on.”  I suspect that most of us reading that phrase can remember times when we have listened to a long sermon or perhaps some other Biblical teaching or lesson that dragged on a bit. I’m sure I’ve used a similar phrase on more than one occasion to describe a speaker—and I’m equally sure that others have used that phrase to describe my speaking. Though perhaps the clearest indication of how long Paul talked is that Eutychus couldn’t stay awake. Given the setting that Luke describes, it seems likely to me that Eutychus was not the only person struggling to stay awake.

Now the point here isn’t to criticize Paul for being long-winded, nor Eutychus for failing to stay awake. Indeed, what struck me is quite the opposite point: it is the commitment of the believers in Troas to continue to learn: to soak up good teaching when given the opportunity, even if it was keeping them awake late into the night, even if they were sleepy and struggling to pay attention.

Reading this passage again, I think of the words that Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth (another Greek city) in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, and those which the author of Hebrews wrote to believers starting at Hebrews 5:12 about the need to move from spiritual milk to spiritual meat: to grow from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. If I were to describe the collective response of the Christians in Troas in this account of Paul’s visit, I would say they were eager to grow in faith and ready to listen to meaty teaching.

I think this can be a challenge to believers today. The world is full of distractions. We can easily spend two hours in a theatre watching the latest film, or three hours on a Sunday watching a football game. The question is whether we are willing to invest time in learning from thoughtful, biblically-rooted teachers of our day—perhaps through conference events or good rich books— in order that we might grow in our faith. For those in positions of leadership, I think it is particularly important that we continue to do so. Of course, spending time in the Word and in prayer, time with Jesus and time reading his words and accounts of his life, is vital. But we might also learn from the example of the believers at Troas and take advantage of opportunities to learn from wise teachers.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Paul’s Concern for Others (Acts 20-28).