Scripture Spotlight

Eutychus in the Window

David Scott Fields II, Senior Writer • July 9, 2023

If you are ever tempted to think that your Sunday Church services are too long, I invite you to take a look at Acts 20:7-12. Here Paul is teaching on and on for hours! He goes past midnight, and a young man who was sitting on the windowsill dozes off and falls out the window to his death. Paul races downstairs, and, by the power of Christ, resurrects the young man, of course, to the amazement of everyone.

Now, you might have thought that such an ordeal would have broken up the meeting – certainly no one would have been blamed for calling it a night – especially the young man, Eutychus, or even Paul himself. But nope!

Paul goes back upstairs, shares communion with everyone there (breaking bread), and goes on teaching until daylight! The Bible does not indicate at what time he started teaching, only that the fall was after midnight, and he stopped around daylight. He was leaving the next day and was eager to share everything he could before then. Nevertheless, that sermon would have been 6 to 7 hours long – at the very least!

I attend a great and biblically solid church with powerful sermons coming from the pulpit every Sunday. But none of those sermons in the nine years I have attended hold a candle to what must have been on Paul’s heart that night to share. I am not sure many of we modern Christians could have made it to the end of that sermon. At the very least, we would have been Eutychus in the window needing to be brought back from the dead! I know I won’t be complaining the next time my Sunday service runs long.