Where Do We Go From Here

81 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? welcome is not unusual but rather something more like “extraordinary” (NASB). They went out of their way to welcome Paul and his colleagues. Isn’t this often our experience of encountering new cultures, in which lavish hospitality is shown? The word “welcomed” is actually a more ordinary word meaning “receive” or “take aside”. And isn’t this so vital, to be welcomed, received, placed inside the circle as it were? This succinct verse captures some of the dynamics of this moment of encounter. And reading it this way brings to life a tiny detail (v 3): “Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire” (!!!). Can you see now the significance of this? Paul had accepted the welcome and was participating reciprocally in the encounter. And then, another tiny, but significant detail, brought to light through the lens of cultural anthropology: “a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand”. This tells us that the locals had a pre-existing communal fire ready for guests (and other events of course) that was extremely large! So this was not a “let’s makes a fire on the beach” moment, rather, they had been taken into the heart of the community to the central source of heat, warmth, and light. This is also of course the crisis point and here the clash of worldviews is evident. The locals interpret the snake bite as divine retribution and await his demise. Try to picture the tension of this period of time: “They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god”. And from this extraordinary miracle (for surely the locals knew the viper was poisonous), further hospitality is offered by a local elder, Publius, whose father was dying. Paul, we discover, not only avoided snake bite death, he brought God’s healing to the father and all the unwell locals. But what is most striking of all is that there is no mention of conversion or preaching. That said, it is easy to imagine that the God in whose name Paul prayed lodged in the hearts and minds of these people more deeply than any words would have done. Given all the verbosity narrated in Acts, perhaps this is Luke’s way of gently reminding us that there is so much more to mission than preaching.