ripple effect: vacaville

Read Acts 28:15-31.

1. The brothers who lived in Rome were stoked that Paul had arrived. Imagine how long they must have been waiting for this. I bet Paul was pretty pumped himself. How could you not be?
2. He was basically allowed to live on house arrest until Caesar wanted to talk to him. Not bad for a guy who was about to be killed by an angry mob in Jerusalem.

3. Paul explains what happened to the Jewish leaders in Rome. He reminds everyone that he is in chains because he believes in the “hope of Israel.” That “hope” was Jesus.
4. For some reason, the Jerusalem Jews didn’t send any letters to the Roman Jews, warning them about the dangers of listening to Paul. So…they were actually very open-minded about listening to him. And Paul took that opportunity and ran with it, explaining how the Old Testament Scriptures correlate with what happened with Jesus. (He did win some converts.)
5. People left when Paul quoted Isaiah, explaining that people simply weren’t going to “get” the Truth because of their hard hearts and closed minds. The people who left were the exact people that Isaiah was prophesying about.
6. Paul rubbed a little salt into these Jews when he said that the Gentiles “got it” before some of them did. But, hey, it was true!
7. How cool is it that Paul was able to preach to anyone who wanted to listen to him about Jesus! Amazing.

8. Now here’s what’s crazy. That’s it. Acts ends. The story of Paul ends here. All the letters that he writes took place while he was in prison. Historically, people believe that Paul was finally killed in Rome. He was put to death. In one of his letters, he talked about how he wanted to take the gospel even into Spain. But, I don’t think he ever made it there. But, who can say that Paul’s life was a waste?