Reading Francis

So there’s no great spiritual lesson in this, but Acts 20:7-12 will make you appreciate even the most long-winded preacher you know.

Paul is on a farewell tour, and on his last night in Troas the community of believers gathers in an upper room for a final dinner (which some scholars point to as an example of early Christian weekly worship on Saturday nights). Paul talks and talks and talks until midnight, and a young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, gets sleepier and sleepier until he finally falls asleep, falls out of the third-story window, and dies.

Paul stops talking, rushed downstairs, hugs him, and declares that the kid will be alright. And then…

He goes back upstairs and says “Now where was I?” And goes back to talking until sunrise, when he leaves town.

Only then does the community confirm that Eutychus is still alive, and they take him home and are comforted.

Who does that? Who literally talks someone to death, revives the victim, and somehow doesn’t take the hint that it’s time to wrap up?

Incidentally, it’s unclear from the text whether they brought Eutychus back upstairs to make him listen to the rest of the sermon, or if they just left him on the ground outside until sun-up.