John Bytheway: 00:00 Welcome to part two with Dr. Susan Black. Acts chapter 16 through 21.

Dr. Susan Black: 00:07 And so then you get by verse nine, Paul has a vision in the night, so here we go again. But in the vision, he is told, “Be not afraid, but speak. Hold not thy peace.” In other words, don’t give up Paul. You know he thought, “Hey, I’m done with you guys.” And now it’s like, hey, maybe you could look at family. Where you go, “Okay, kids, what could I have done more?” I’m now shaking my raiment at you. I’m clean from henceforth, I’m going to go to somebody else. But you go, “Wow, the Lord’s not through with the Jewish people, the Lord’s not through with your family, your children. And it’s be not afraid. Continue to speak. Hold not thy peace.” In other words, Paul, you know who you are and I’m working with these guys too as I work with you.

Hank Smith: 00:59 And the Lord’s not upset with him. It’s not like, “Paul, why do you get so angry?” Or, “Why do you get so frustrated?” He says, “I get it.”

Dr. Susan Black: 01:10 Don’t have a meltdown.

Hank Smith: 01:10 “I get it, Paul, you’re frustrated. Don’t be afraid.” That’s the Lord’s stepping in and kind of calming the situation, saying, “It’s okay.”

Dr. Susan Black: 01:19 And notice the next verse, verse 10 in chapter 18. “For I am with thee.” How would you like to hear that? You’re out there as a missionary, you’re frustrated, you’ve tried your best, or even as a parent and the Lord’s saying, “Hey, I’m with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.” And then he’s told, Hey, guess what Paul? I’ve got a lot of people in this city that want to hear from you. Don’t be discouraged. Just get out there.

  01:48 And although he ultimately is going to be accused of wrong doing, even taken again to a Roman official, he is going to continue. Sometimes when you get that personal revelation where you’re so confident the Lord is with you, and that there are many people in the city, it’s like, don’t give up, keep going. That then in Corinth becomes the end of his second journey, his second mission. He’s done a pretty great mission, don’t you think?

Hank Smith: 02:21 Yeah. Isn’t Luke interesting where he just covers a year and a half in one verse and he was there 18 months teaching the word of God. And you’re like, “What happened?” Yeah.

Dr. Susan Black: 02:31 Then we move on to his third mission. So, this is then the longest one, perhaps three to four years, he’s going to journey that 3,500 miles. He’s going to visit congregations he’s been to before. That’s kind of his mode of operation. He goes, “Wherever I’ve been, I’m coming back.” And so it’s kind of like you wonder the missionaries, do they just come home and forget, or do they keep in contact? Do they make an effort to remember those they’ve shared the gospel with? And I think Paul really sets the example that on each of his journeys, he’s heading back to the same places to make sure, hey, everybody still got this? You know what I know? Christ is resurrected.

Hank Smith: 03:16 He’s writing to them as well.

Dr. Susan Black: 03:18 Yes, he’s writing to them. And we think that on this third mission is when perhaps he writes Romans, he writes first and second Corinthians and perhaps other epistles. But on the third mission, if you were to say, “Where does he stay the longest?” And some historians will say, “Stays the longest in Ephesus.” Some say even three years. Now you’d go, “Can I get a transfer?” And he’d go, “Nope.”

Hank Smith: 03:48 Three years.

Dr. Susan Black: 03:49 You’re going to be there, Paul, for three years. It’s then in Ephesus as we move to chapter 19, he finds people not only prepared for the gospel, but remember how the Jewish people have spread all over. Well, some of those who were baptized with the baptism of John the Baptist, who had not known Christ, and he then finds a pocket of them. Notice in Ephesus, we’re not seeing him going into the synagogues. And you’d say, “Oh, for sure this great city, there had to be synagogues.” Well, he’s got a new plan. I’m going to visit everybody else now. I’ve seen them. I find people, they’ve got John’s baptism and I’m going to teach them about Christ and I’m going to re-baptize him and I’m going to give them the gift of the Holy Ghost.

  04:43 And then you start to see all kinds of miracles that come from Paul on this occasion while he is in Ephesus. You get he casts out demons, perhaps he even organizes additional missionary activity. But I think one of the great was he’s saying, “Hey, you have sick among you, I’ve got handkerchiefs or aprons. You take it, touch it, whatever it is, and the diseases will depart from them.” Verse 12. And even evil spirits are going out. You’d say, such is the faith and power of Paul.

Hank Smith: 05:23 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 05:25 Isn’t there a story from church history?

Dr. Susan Black: 05:28 Wilford Woodruff, July 22nd, 1839, it’s always called the Great Day of Healing. And Joseph has healed those in his household, his house by that point, almost like a hospital, as he and Emma and family have moved into a tent in their front yard. And Joseph walks along what we call Water Street today in Nauvoo, and then crosses over the Mississippi River to a small town in Montrose, Iowa. He is healing all the great, Elijah Fordham and others. And a man comes to him that has two twin children that are about five months old, and he claims that his children are lying sick.

  06:12 They’re nigh on to death and they’re about two miles away from Montrose. And the prophet Joseph thinks he’ll go, and then he says, “No.” He goes, “I’m not going to go.” He says, “I’ll send a man to go with you to heal your children.” Joseph will take out of his pocket a red silk handkerchief and give it to Wilford Woodruff. And Wilford said, “Joseph told me to wipe their faces with the handkerchief when I had ministered to them and they should be healed. I went with the man and did as the prophet commanded me, and the children were healed.” Perhaps much like the time of Paul in Ephesus, we have a more modern account of healing.

John Bytheway: 06:58 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 06:59 So, Paul comes into Ephesus, and it sounds like this Apollos, this other missionary, had come in preaching John’s baptism, but had not taught them about Christ. And Paul’s like, “Well-

John Bytheway: 07:14 Unto what were you baptized? Yeah.

Hank Smith: 07:16 Yeah. You’ve got to have both parts here. And then with all this special miracles, it says in verse 11, with the handkerchiefs and people being healed from disease, is Ephesus going to kind of blow up with converts?

Dr. Susan Black: 07:30 I think enough so that it’s going to come to the attention of at least Demetrius and other silversmiths that become very, very concerned about their craft. Because in Ephesus, they have one of the seven wonders of the world. And as the temple to Artemis, which is also called the Temple to Diana, right? Suddenly they’re making these little artifacts that John was talking about, artifacts out of hands where people could almost take their little temples into their own houses and then worship and feel like God had come to them, right?

Hank Smith: 08:11 Yeah. Paul is bad for business, sounds like.

Dr. Susan Black: 08:14 Yes, Paul is bad for business, his message.

Hank Smith: 08:19 In verse 19, Susan, it sounds like he teaches this group of people who then get rid of all of their books. Many of them which used curious arts brought their books together, burned them before all men, and counted the price of them. It was 50,000 pieces of silver. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong here, John, you know this stuff more than I do, but that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of their old life that they’re giving up for the gospel. And I didn’t want to miss that verse that they’re, who is it, John, in the Book of Mormon, “I will give up all of my kingdom.”

John Bytheway: 08:57 King Lamoni’s father, “Give away all my sins to know thee. It’s a beautiful verse.”

Dr. Susan Black: 09:03 So, Demetrius starts on verse 24. “For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which had made silver shrines for Diana.” That’s what John’s talking about. “But no small gain unto the craftsmen.” So, he calls together all these workers of occupation and he says, Sir, you all know that why we’re well-to-do is because of our craft, but now we’ve got a great problem. And it’s one of the seven wonders of the world, this temple to the great goddess Diana. And suddenly it’s starting to be despised. In other words, you’re taking away our tourism.

Hank Smith: 09:45 Yeah. Everybody’s converting.

Dr. Susan Black: 09:47 Yeah, everybody’s converting. And what are we going to do with this wonder of the world? And it says, “Magnificent, should it be destroyed?” And it says, “Whom all Asia and the world worshiped. When they heard these sayings, all these people of like craftsmanship,” in other words silversmiths, “Cried out saying, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.'” So, they had a theater there. I’ve actually spoken in the theater. They claimed they could seat 24,000 people. The towns folk were gathering in and in one voice they repeat over and over again for two hours, can you imagine? “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” Saying it over, I could see saying Hosanna being something you’d want to repeat again, again and again, but great is Diana of the Ephesians.

Hank Smith: 10:39 Two hours, yeah, over and over.

Dr. Susan Black: 10:42 You’d think you’d get hoarse, it seemed very rote. I think you’d be saying, “Hey mom, when can I go home?”

Hank Smith: 10:49 Yeah.

Dr. Susan Black: 10:50 I think I know what’s coming next. Finally, it will stop when a towns clerk comes appease the people saying, You men of Ephesus, hey, we know this. Diana’s great. Basically, Go home. And it appears that Paul wanted to address the crowd. I mean wouldn’t that be the ultimate place? But he was dissuaded by church members, government authorities concerned for his safety. After this, Paul will travel through Greece and Macedonia strengthening church members and will begin to take off.

Hank Smith: 11:26 John, I know one of your favorite verses is in Acts 19, do you want to read verse 32 for us?

John Bytheway: 11:32 Yeah, I just feel like this sounds like our world. They all rush into this theater and some cried one thing and some another, the assembly was confused, and the more part of them knew not wherefore they were come together. What are we doing here? I don’t know. There was a protest. I thought I’d come. What should we yell today? And I just felt like that kind of is a good description of our world right now. Some cry one thing, some another, some just show up. Well, I heard there was a protest. I don’t know why I’m here really.

Hank Smith: 12:05 Yeah. And the biggest part of them have no idea what’s going on.

John Bytheway: 12:09 Yeah, no idea why I’m here. They just keep yelling, like you said, for two hours. And I think one of the things you mentioned was the fact that not only was it a local business, but people I guess made pilgrimages there. And you guys both know you’ve been to places, every site it seems has a gift shop.

Dr. Susan Black: 12:30 Every site has a gift shop, and we could probably buy something pretty similar to what they were selling. Probably not made of silver though, but colored silver.

John Bytheway: 12:42 Yeah. Even today, you could go buy a statue of Diana or Artemis and they still have the gift shops. And I think that phrase being bad for business, when I was there, I thought, What? How is the gospel bad for business? I mean my first thought was word of wisdom, but then I thought anything that is a substitute for God is what we have to be aware of. So, idolatry isn’t the same in our day, but having other substitutes for God, things that are of prime importance in our life, boy, that’s the danger.

Hank Smith: 13:19 Yeah. This seems to be very parallel to what the early church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints experiences. They move into an area, no one really cares. They’re just kind of these odd ducks. They’re over doing their own thing, but as soon as they get big enough to start impacting voting or impacting shops, then comes out the hatred.

Dr. Susan Black: 13:42 Correct. I mean you see it time and time again, you’d say Carthage, Warsaw, little towns that looked like they could boom. But when the Saints come in and like you say, it starts out first welcoming, but then they become a threat economically, politically, and the Saints need to move on.

Hank Smith: 14:03 Yeah. And the same thing has happened in Paul. He has great success until it starts to hurt someone’s business, and then there’s a huge uproar of persecution.

John Bytheway: 14:14 I just think it’s wonderful that Paul had friends that were trying to protect him. And you can just imagine, Paul, “I’ve got to get in there, look at all those people. I could talk to them.” “No, you can’t go in there. This could be really bad,” and protect him from going into that theater. And it’s huge right now, but from what I’ve heard, there’s another layer of seats on top of what still remains.

Hank Smith: 14:37 That you can’t see.

John Bytheway: 14:39 Yeah. So, like you said, that’s more than the Marriott Center of people shouting the same thing for two hours.

Hank Smith: 14:47 And I like this towns clerk of verse 35 where he says, Everybody calm down, everybody knows Ephesus worships Artemis, Diana. That’s not going to change. So, we’re really getting ourselves into trouble here. Verse 40, “We are in danger to be called into question for this uproar. There’s no cause that we’ve done this.” So, if Demetrius has a problem, he can go to the law and work it out.

John Bytheway: 15:14 Right. If our local autonomy gets out of hand, the Romans will come in and do something. That’s what I understand. And so he’s like, “Everybody, calm down.”

Dr. Susan Black: 15:24 Right. He’s like a voice of reason.

Hank Smith: 15:27 Yeah.

Dr. Susan Black: 15:28 He’s not a voice of faith. He’s just a voice of reason to keep them safe.

Hank Smith: 15:34 Reminds me of Alexander Doniphan, not a member, but someone who says, “Let’s work this out. Calm down. Everybody calm down.”

John Bytheway: 15:43 Gamaliel that we’ve talked about before.

Hank Smith: 15:46 Yeah, yeah. Gamaliel. Okay, Susan, are we ready for chapter 20?

Dr. Susan Black: 15:51 Chapter 20, you see Paul is on the move again. Finally after probably three years or so in Ephesus, he’s heading back to Macedonia or Greece where he is going to stay three months. From there he is ready to continue on to Syria. He’ll be kind of back and forth to Macedonia because he thought some of the Jews were plotting against him. Finally, he’s talking about heading back to Jerusalem. But along the way, you see he stops, he visits and he is seeing places where he’d been before, even stops in Caesarea.

  16:33 But along the way he gives talks. And the part that I thought was so funny, and perhaps reminds me of some of my talks occurs in verse nine. So, there’s seated in a window, a certain young man, he falls into this deep sleep. And why is he falling into sleep is because Paul was preaching so long that he sank down with sleep, and eventually he falls from the third loft and is taken up dead. I think that’s so funny. Have you ever had somebody fall asleep when you were just kind of at the apex of this important topic you’re trying to shove down their throats, right?

John Bytheway: 17:21 They start snoring.

Dr. Susan Black: 17:23 Oh yeah, that’s the worst. That’s the worst. So, Paul went down and then adding to his problems, he’s already on the floor. And then it says, “And Paul fell on him.” And you’re like, “Wow, is he having a bad day or what?” And he’s listened to a long talk. Although I mean maybe it’s a message to all of us, there is a time limit. Keep on that schedule. So, the kid’s fallen down, he is taken to be dead. Paul goes down to see what he’s doing, he goes down from the perch where he was speaking, then he falls on him, but then he embraces him and says, “Trouble not yourself, for his life is in him and he does survive.” I’m grateful that he survives, but comedy of errors perhaps.

Hank Smith: 18:14 Yeah, that is a funny story. I’ve always said, you can make a great talk a not so great talk by going over your time.

Dr. Susan Black: 18:21 Yes. Yes, the time limit.

Hank Smith: 18:27 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 18:27 Who was it that said that a great talk has a good beginning, a good ending, and very little in between?

Hank Smith: 18:36 Yeah. That’s great.

Dr. Susan Black: 18:36 So, that’s for all of us that have given one too many talks. Okay. So, the story of the guy that fell out the window because the talk was boring or at least too long. As a historian, they always say that the reason that you became a historian was because you could only do one darn fact after another. And unfortunately, in speaking, I’ve shared those one facts after another, right? And I can’t remember anybody falling out the window, but we used to have a department chair named Paul Peterson that used to say, “Every true historian has to write one fiction book so they’ll know you had a personality and that you were more.” And so after all these nonfiction books, I actually teamed up with George Durrant and we just published a fiction book, and it’s my first, and I’ll probably never do it again, saying it’s so much dribble, but it’s very funny. And it’s called Wesley: An Eye for an Eye. That’s my attempt to keep people from falling out of windows as I speak.

John Bytheway: 19:46 That’s great.

Hank Smith: 19:47 They know you had a personality.

Dr. Susan Black: 19:49 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 19:50 Paul Peterson was in my master’s program. We were the first cohort of the Master’s of Religious Education and really delightful, kind of passed sooner than any of us wanted. But I love that guy.

Dr. Susan Black: 20:05 Me too. Paul now is pretty emotional. He’s going to kind of begin bidding farewell, and obviously part of the various towns he is going to, he is saying goodbye. But the one account we get here in chapter 20 is he’s bidding farewell to the friends he’s had for so long in Ephesus, and it’s emotional on his part. And he talks about, “I neither count on my life dear unto myself.” He said, “I just want to finish my course with joy.” I’ve still got things to do. I want to be joyful about it. He testifies of the grace of God. He tries to remind them, it’s kind of like he’s giving his farewell almost a little bit, but he reminds them he has given a lot of faithful service and now he wants the leadership in Ephesus to feed the church. He even begins to quote words of the Savior that you can’t even find in the four gospels.

  21:06 So, the one I liked is, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” It’s coming here from Paul that he says the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in his departing, he becomes one of the first to talk about apostasy. And he says, verse 29, “For I know this, that after my departing, after I’ve said goodbye to all of you, shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock.” And this is one of the first passages in the New Testament that foretells, hey, an apostasy is coming. And when he had spoken, he kneeled down, he prayed with everyone. He said, “They all wept sore. They fell on Paul’s neck, they kissed him,” because they realized they weren’t going to see him anymore. And at this point, you get his third mission is now done.

John Bytheway: 22:00 It’s a beautiful farewell to read that. And I don’t know, I think all of us may be on missions saying goodbye to people that you probably won’t see again. It’s a beautiful part, I think, the end of Acts chapter 20.

Dr. Susan Black: 22:15 It’s kind of like when somebody leaves your house, it takes seven goodbyes to have them really go. But in this case, there are some goodbyes that are just heart rendering because you know you won’t see them again. And he’s made such an incredible difference in their lives that they no longer are worshipers of idolatry, Diana. No longer rushing to the temple there of Artemis, and suddenly the man that’s brought such amazing changes, blessings, miracles to them, is now leaving. But in that leaving is the warning, “Hey, behind me follow the wolves.” And you church leaders just don’t go off thinking you’re having just such a good time. You make sure that you watch over and you care for that flock. Look after the 99, but don’t forget the one.”

John Bytheway: 23:09 It’s interesting to me that they, I don’t know if you’ve ever done this when you’re taking a child to the MTC or something, you have a family prayer with him. And I’m reading from verse 36 of Acts 20, “When he had thus spoken, he kneeled down and prayed with them all and they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship.” And that’s how it ends. I mean they walk with him down to the ship, but I love that they had a prayer to kind of say goodbye, kind of a, “God be with you till we meet again,” type of moment.

Hank Smith: 23:48 Yeah. He says in verse 24, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy.” He has dedicated his whole life to this. He says, “For three years,” in verse 31, “I have not ceased to warn every one of you night and day with tears.” Yeah, he has really given it all there in Macedonia.

John Bytheway: 24:12 That road to Damascus was quite an event, wasn’t it? That just turned him.

Dr. Susan Black: 24:17 I think what I like is that although his mission is over, he knows the course of his life is not, and his plan is he wants to still have joy. I mean there’s incredible joy in sharing the gospel and seeing converts in our baptismal waters. But it’s like this sacred ground he had gained on those three journeys on his mission, he wants to take it with him as he now returns to Jerusalem and he wants to finish his life with joy. Not just where you say endure to the end and blah, blah, you know, just kind of fall off, you’re the back row of the church. He wants to finish it with that same sense of I have this inward joy, inward peace that I’ve done my best.

Hank Smith: 25:05 He really believes it is more blessed to give than to receive. Ever since the road to Damascus, he’s just given and given and given.

John Bytheway: 25:13 And suffered prisons. And gosh, what’s coming in Acts 21, he’s going to go to prison.

Dr. Susan Black: 25:20 Well, for him, he’s now taking off. It’s going to be a seven-day journey. And he’s being told, “Don’t go back to Jerusalem.” Who can tell you not to go back to the Holy City?

Hank Smith: 25:33 Right.

Dr. Susan Black: 25:36 Tell me not to go to Orem or something, I’m good. But wow, don’t go back to Jerusalem. Along the way, he stops in Caesarea, which is pretty Roman looking. He enters the house of Philip, which is one of the seven. He abides with them. And while he is there, a prophet now comes and after he has been there a few days, and the prophet does something pretty tangible. He takes Paul’s girdle and he binds his own hands and feet and says, “Thus saith the Holy Ghost,” verse 11, “So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.” In other words, “Hey Paul, I’m giving you like a little patriarchal blessing.”

Hank Smith: 26:25 Yeah, it’s quite an object lesson, isn’t it?

Dr. Susan Black: 26:27 Yeah. Here’s a heads-up. I’m going to make it really visual so you’re not just talking. I’m showing you this is what’s going to happen to you if you keep heading up to Jerusalem. And I like Paul’s answer, verse 13, “What may need to weep and to break mine heart, for I’m ready not to be bound only.” In other words, so they’re going to bind me, so what? Have you seen what else has happened to me? He goes, “For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem. And why am I willing to do this? For the name of the Lord Jesus.”

  27:04 So, you’d say, “Does he have both feet in the water? Is he totally converted?” And I’d go, “Oh yeah, he is.” And even a prophet for telling what will come upon him does not stop him. And he heads up to Jerusalem. And when he gets into Jerusalem, he goes on to James and all the elders when they had saluted him, in other words, welcome. And it’s like he’s going to tell you, “Well, let me tell you what I’ve been doing. I’ve been away for a while. You probably wondered if you heard about me.”

Hank Smith: 27:34 Yeah. Gives a mission report.

Dr. Susan Black: 27:36 Mission report. Verse 19. “He declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry.” And when they heard it, notice their response. “They glorified the Lord and saith unto him, ‘Thou see us, brother,'” and I like they called him brother, of all the names of Paul, Saul, how many thousands of Jews there are, which believe. So, if you were to say, “Well, what’s the number of converts that Paul brought into the church?” Although we can only name a few like Lydia, but he says how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the law. In other words, they didn’t just enter baptismal waters and then scoot out the door and never to be heard of again. They’re still in and they’re zealous. Paul then takes off after the report and he’s heading to the temple. He is going to participate in purification rights.

  28:38 Because you realize for a Hebrew, a Jew, tribe of Benjamin, you go out and you travel in gentile lands, you’ve got to purify yourself. And for a Jewish person, I mean that literally means you’ve got to go under the water. The Jews didn’t baptize Jews except for the purification. You’ve got to go under water. It was very important that you be immersed, because you couldn’t have your hands sticking up because you would still have what might have polluted you in those gentile lands. So, he’s in there participating in the sacred ordinance, and some of the Jews that have been in Asia and known to Paul, they see him in the temple. They stir up the people, they lay hands on him and they’re crying out, “Hey everybody, come help me. Help me get him.” And I’m talking about, “What are you talking about? He’s five feet tall.”

Hank Smith: 29:31 Yeah.

Dr. Susan Black: 29:32 How many men do you need to help? Help me get this man. And remember, his words seem to be much bigger than his stature. They say verse 28, “This is the man that teaches all men everywhere against the people.” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” “And the law in this place and further brought Greeks also into the temple.” In other words, perhaps its converts, “And hath polluted this holy place.” Well, they take Paul out, they threw him out of the temple and they shut the doors of the temple and you’re like, “Wait a minute. Doors of the temple are open. It’s not time to close them.” Soldiers, centurions come, they bind him with chains. The chief captain demands to know, “Hey, what’s going on here?” And then by verse 37, Paul says, “Hey, can I speak to thee?” And then the guy goes, “Well, canst thou speak Greek?”

  30:23 And you go, “Well, hey, this guy seems to be, I mean if you’re looking for the intellect, the guy that was prepared to be a missionary on so many front, he’s like, ‘Oh, sure.'” Then verse 39, Paul said, “I am a man which is a Jew of Tarsus. I’m a citizen of no mean city. I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.” He is given license to do so. Paul stands on the stairs. He now beckons the hand unto the people, “Come unto me.” There’s a great silence. He’s going to speak unto them in Hebrew. So, basically what Paul has done, he’s about to give his defense, but you’re now left on a cliffhanger because you’re going to find his defense in chapter 22, which will say to the listening audience, “Don’t be left on a cliffhanger. Don’t hesitate to read in advance for the next episode.”

Hank Smith: 31:19 Yeah, keep reading. Wow. Paul going journey after journey, city after city, speech after speech. He feels tireless. I’m tired just reading it. He just does not stop.

Dr. Susan Black: 31:35 The kid fell out of the loft. He’s getting long-winded the older he gets, right?

Hank Smith: 31:42 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 31:43 Can you imagine this report when Paul goes in with James, all the elders that were present, verse 19, when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. So, he’s going to tell them everything that happened in Athens. He’s going to tell them everything that happened in Corinth and in Ephesus. And their reaction when they heard it, they glorified the Lord.

  32:10 Maybe someday we get to see all this stuff. I want to hear that mission report about how Paul reported to them and how excited they must have been to hear what God has wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. I just think those were fun verses to me to imagine.

Hank Smith: 32:30 That’s awesome.

John Bytheway: 32:31 I like how that is such a cliffhanger. Who decided to divide the chapter there?

Dr. Susan Black: 32:39 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 32:40 That is kind of funny.

Hank Smith: 32:41 And even the come, follow me lesson too, the come, follow me lesson ends at 21.

John Bytheway: 32:45 So, it’s so fun to see what Paul’s able to do because of his background in education. And I’m just wondering, I’m looking at verse 37, “Canst thou speak Greek?” How many languages do we think that Paul may have spoken?

Dr. Susan Black: 33:00 Well, we know Greek for sure and Hebrew, right? But possibly Aramaic and Latin.

Hank Smith: 33:08 Because he’s going to go to Rome. Yeah.

Dr. Susan Black: 33:10 Right. Multi-talented.

Hank Smith: 33:13 Susan, you’ve done such a great job of walking us through these chapters in Acts. I know you’re a church history expert as well. Does anybody stand out to you as a Paul type missionary? Maybe there’s nobody who has the type of impact Paul has as a missionary, but does anybody come to mind?

Dr. Susan Black: 33:28 Well, probably several. I mean there was such excitement about they have a new message, the restoration, the gospel is restored, but the one who keeps the best journal account is Wilford Woodruff. 63 years he keeps a journal, and at the end of each year he did a summary page in which he would write down how many he had baptized, whether sea captains, whether kin’s folk. And at the end of 63 years, he is close to his death and he asks that all his journals be brought to him. And he just tallies the summary page, much like you do in Excel spreadsheet. And he figures out how many talks he’s given, 7,555. And he just kind of goes, “How many is baptized?” And finally at the end he announced, “I made it.” And he mathematically announces, “I made it.” And then said that when he died, as people would come to the tabernacle, he didn’t want anyone to wear black because basically it was a celebration of a life that he had devoted to the Lord.

John Bytheway: 34:40 Just a shout-out to Wilford Woodruff. When I went to get a marriage recommend to marry Kim, I had to see her stake president. He was Kim’s next door neighbor. His name is Wilford Bruce Woodruff. That was so fun to go see President Woodruff and to see his full name there on the recommend and to feel like I was being interviewed by him. What a delightful person. And I asked him, “Do you have access to all those journals?” He sure did-

Hank Smith: 35:13 Wow.

John Bytheway: 35:13 … because he was a direct descendant. And remember when we used to do Presidents of the Church for Relief Society and Priesthood meeting? He grew out his beard like Wilford Woodruff later in life and did presentations on that and came to our stake. It was just really fun. I wanted to shout out to President Woodruff for that great memory.

Hank Smith: 35:36 That’s fantastic. So, Susan, as I look back over these chapters, I see Paul in Macedonia. They convert Lydia, they get thrown in prison and end up converting the jailer. Then they go to Thessalonia where they teach, and then Paul gets kicked out and he has to go to Athens. And in Athens he gives this beautiful speech at Mars Hill, “We are God’s offspring.” Then he’s rejected by the Jews in Corinth and he says, “I’m done. I’m not teaching Jews anymore. I’m going to the Gentiles.”

  36:11 The Lord says, “Calm down, hold not thy peace.” Then he spends 18 months in Ephesus and converts and heals all sorts of people. Then he’s back in Macedonia. I mean the guy’s all over the place. And he heals the kid who fell asleep during his talk and he finally finishes in Jerusalem where he is bound up. My hope for our listeners is that there’s just a wow factor here of the guy was nonstop. He was nonstop. What do you think some major takeaways could be from these chapters?

Dr. Susan Black: 36:49 For me on that road to Damascus, he had a square one spiritual experience and he just never forgot it. I mean his theme was Christ wherever he went. And you’d say, if you slowed down on that theme, you might not be beaten, you might not be put in prison, you might not have to escape at night. Through this, I think Paul knew who he was, he knew who his God was. He wasn’t about to take a backseat. I really like that about him. I think he was bold when some of us could be quiet, stutter maybe. He didn’t hesitate, and that is such a message. I mean the most amazing thing, I mean do you realize we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? I mean that’s phenomenal. And we’re learning about the early Christians who Paul never seemed to be, “Look at me.”

  37:58 He was always pointing a way to the Savior. And his message was the same. I see him as fearless. I think if I had been Luke and I could have chosen any missionary to write about, I mean maybe Luke’s up there saying, “I should have given Barnabas a second chance,” with John Mark. I just know John Mark was going to stay with him and they were going to have this amazing mission, but Luke couldn’t stop writing about Paul. But I think it’s so interesting. He never writes about Paul’s letters. He’s none of that. He just wanted to do the biography of Paul as he did his travels.

  38:41 I don’t know, as somebody that’s been a serial missionary now, as I’ve gotten older, Paul is just an example. You don’t stop. You keep going. You still have a message and you may not always have the forum in which to share it with the crowds and things like Paul wanted to speak to those, perhaps 24,000 there in Ephesus, but it wasn’t the time. But you do have neighbors. I mean you can be that number one Christian to the people around you. And when the time is right to tell them about temples and covenants and prophets on the earth. I mean it’s a message that any other message we share just pales.

Hank Smith: 39:25 Yeah. I think there’s also something to be said for as you look at these chapters, there is going to be opposition. Almost everywhere he goes he has success, and then serious opposition. And we shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Dr. Susan Black: 39:38 When you’re going to do something good, you probably know you’re on the right path when you’re getting some opposition along the way. It only comes in the ways that causes the greater pain. To be braced for it, to be able to accept it and still remember who you are and the message you have to share.

John Bytheway: 39:56 We spent some of the early parts of the book of Acts just going, “Wow, what a transformation Peter went through,” and the other apostles after the apostles at the end of the gospels, seem suddenly just powerful and transformed.

Hank Smith: 40:12 Invigorated. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 40:13 Yeah, at the beginning. And that’s Paul’s story too. And what was the big difference? The resurrected Christ appeared to them, changed everything for them, and that’s all they wanted to talk about as you just beautifully said. That’s all they wanted to testify on, is that he lives again and we saw him, and we’re going to point you to Christ regardless of the opposition that comes at us.

Hank Smith: 40:35 That’s beautiful, both of you. One of my major takeaways is Acts 21:13, “For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” That’s an impressive verse. Sometimes we read through scripture and it’s black and white for us, but when you put flesh on that type of statement, the courage, and he does, he goes to Jerusalem and he is going to end up dying in the name of the Lord.

John Bytheway: 41:06 It’s so fun to see what Paul did, and then we have this whole other way of looking at it, what Paul wrote to these different people. So, in Second Corinthians chapter 11, he kind of gives this quick biography of himself. I’ll start in verse 24 of Second Corinthians 11, “Of the Jews five times received I 40 stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods. Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my known countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger, in thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

  42:02 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not? If I must need to glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not.” Wow. So, yeah, he’s been through everything, but that last testimony, it’s all that power he draws from that road to Damascus.

Hank Smith: 42:38 Susan, I should call you Dr. Susan Easton Black. Thank you so much for being with us today. We have loved having you back.

Dr. Susan Black: 42:47 You’re welcome. It was such a treat. Same.

Hank Smith: 42:51 Yeah. We’ve loved having you. And John, the book of Acts to me has become more alive in the last few weeks than ever before. I am really just loving these stories. I was familiar with them before, but now I feel like I’m really getting to know them.

John Bytheway: 43:03 Yeah, and that’s why I love this when he goes to report, because you can just imagine the audience, “Whoa, you did what? Oh, you said that? Oh wow. That’s great. Then what happened?” “Well, I wanted to go in and they wouldn’t let me.” “Oh, how many? Oh, two hours?” You can just imagine them listening and glorifying God the way they did, hearing his mission report. And that’s why I want to see that one day and see not only what Paul says, but how they reacted when they’re hearing this stuff for the first time. So, yeah, book of Acts is coming alive.

Hank Smith: 43:32 Yeah, the work rolls on. We want to thank again Dr. Susan Easton Black for being with us. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen. We want to thank our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and we always remember our founder Steve Sorensen. We have one more lesson in the book of Acts coming up next week on followHIM. Today’s transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co. followhim.co. And you can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on Facebook and Instagram.

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