§53 Eutychus Raised from the Dead at Troas (Acts 20:7–12)
There is a marked contrast between the meager information of the previous section and the detail that characterizes the remainder of the journey now that the “we passages” have resumed. It includes in this section a description of a “church service” in Troas.
20:7 / On the eve of the delegates’ departure from Troas, they met with the local Christians for a “service.” Luke allows us a glimpse of what was probably a typical meeting of Christians in these early days of the church. First, their purpose was to break bread. We should probably interpret this in the light of verse 11, where the best manuscripts read the definite article in the phrase, “having broken the bread.” The reference, then, is almost certainly to the bread of the Lord’s Supper (see disc. on 2:42) and the full sense of what they were doing expressed in 1 Corinthians 10:16. Second, they met on the first day of the week. This is a Jewish expression, but it must still be asked whether Luke was thinking in Jewish or Roman terms in marking the days. By Jewish reckoning this would have been a “Saturday” night (as we would call it), since the new day started for them at sunset, making Saturday night the beginning of the first day of the week. But because Luke speaks of “sunrise” as “the next day” (cf. vv. 11 and 7) he appears to be using Roman reckoning, according to which midnight, and effectively sunrise, marked the beginning of the new day. In this event, it would appear that the church had already made “Sunday” its day of meeting. Of course, it was still an ordinary working day, hence the meeting at night (Sunday night). Third, during the evening Paul preached a sermon. He used “discussion” as the most convenient means of dealing with any difficulties they had (see disc. on 17:2).
20:8–10 / The upstairs room where they were meeting was probably crowded (see note on 14:27), and what with the warmth of the crowd, the fumes of the lamps, and length of Paul’s sermon, a boy named Eutychus (the term rendered young man suggests that he was between eight and fourteen years old) got sleepier and sleepier, until he finally went sound asleep and fell to the ground from the third story (v. 9). The meeting was probably being held in a tenement building of the kind common in Roman towns, providing housing for the poor. In Rome itself these buildings sometimes rose to nine and ten stories. The boy was apparently killed by the fall. The treatment that Paul immediately gave suggests artificial respiration (cf. 1 Kings 17:21; 2 Kings 4:34). His words, literally, “his life is in him” (v. 10), should probably be understood in the sense that the boy’s life would be restored, though they are sometimes taken to mean that he was only concussed and unconscious. But that is not how Luke saw it. He spoke of the boy as dead (v. 9, not “as if dead”) and alive (v. 12), and the vivid detail of the narrative suggests that it has come from a careful observer (e.g., there were many lamps, v. 8). On this basis, Paul is placed in the front rank of miracle workers with Peter and Jesus himself (cf. 9:36–41; Luke 7:11–15; 8:49–56). It was, of course, Jesus working through Paul who gave life to the boy.
20:11–12 / Verse 11 may indicate yet another feature of these early meetings, namely, the eating of a common meal (the Agape or “Love Feast”) in the context of which the Lord’s Supper was held, for Paul is said to have “eaten” (“tasted”) as well as having “broken the bread.” Luke uses the same word here as elsewhere for ordinary meals (10:10; 23:14; Luke 14:24). The only difficulty here is that the meal would have followed rather than preceded the Lord’s Supper as was the case at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:17–34), assuming that that was the norm. In any case, Paul remained talking with them long after this part of the meeting was finished (v. 11). Meanwhile, Eutychus was left in the care of some of the members until the meeting had ended. He was then taken home. “Thus Paul left,” says Luke, with particular reference to Eutychus’ restoration: that is, Paul left them as the victor (through Jesus) over death.