The Bible Course Muestra

The Viper, the Gospel, and Rome – to the ends of the earth  

Reflect 

Do you love theatre?  

Seeing the Bible as a drama can be helpful. Hopefully by now you’ve seen and experienced the miraculous harmony there is in the Scriptures and seen how Jesus is its center of gravity.  

But what if there is more? What if there’s an act that remains unfinished – what if God the ultimate screenwriter has deliberately left space? 

Drawing loosely from Professor N.T. Wright: imagine a team of actors who discover a long-lost Shakespeare play. It originally had five acts but only four have survived. How should the actors perform the fifth missing final act and finish the show? Wright suggests that the way they’d do this is by immersing themselves in the rest of the drama. Knowing the story means entering the mind of the playwright and sensing the inner logic and heartbeat of his work. Then after that, they’d faithfully improvise so as to perform the missing fifth act in keeping with the whole. Today we hear the call of God to play our part in the fifth act with faithful improvisation.

What do we learn about Paul and his mission towards the end of the book of Acts?  

We may be nearing the end of the book of Acts, but God isn’t finished. On the island of Malta, he protects Paul from the viper's bite so that he can go on to heal many on the island. You’d think that having been through so much Paul deserved a break!  

Life is unpredictable and opposition will always be there to the gospel. So don’t be discouraged if the trials feel relentless. They never stopped for Paul and they may not for you either, but keep going because God isn’t finished with you! 

The Acts story finishes with Paul following up his letter sent to Rome with a visit. But it didn’t go to plan. Paul was put under house arrest, awaiting trial before the emperor in Rome.  

On death row, guess what Paul was doing? He didn’t give up. He went on sharing Jesus with the guards he was chained to – they were his literal captive audience! Paul was set on finishing well. Are you?  

What does the end of Acts mean for us today?   

You’d be forgiven for thinking Luke, the author, just ran out of ink at the end of this chapter. It feels so wrong to end here: there should be another chapter. But there is no neat ending. And that’s the point – there is no Acts 29 because we are Acts 29. The story is to be continued. 

Respond 

How will you live out your own take of the fifth act?