The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold. Acts 28:2
Really, in many ways, this is my favorite part of the Bible, the bits told by Luke, Dear and Glorious Physician, which by the way was one of my favorite dorky fourth or fifth grade books when I didn’t know how to do anything except read.
This is real life. The Bible mostly chunks up life into Moses forty years herding sheep in the wilderness of Midian, and Joseph was in prison two more years, or Rebekah was barren for twenty years. And it is hard to imagine or relate to this sort of record. But you remember the moments, such as When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.
And Luke who carefully investigated the stories, and recorded all the details so that we might have certainty concerning the things we have been taught, noticed the small acts of kindness. Not random acts of kindness, but deliberate outpouring acts of unusual kindness that were vaguely inexplicable and undeserved but important in the flow of life.
And once again, it was the heathens who received them with hospitality. Their minds and hearts were open, and all who had diseases came and were healed. While the big religious leaders, not so much; their hearts had grown dull, and their ears that could barely hear. And really, all of the expounding in the world was not going to change a thing. Their eyes were closed. And they would not receive the healing held out by the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Paul, who welcomed all who came to him, reminds me once again that the big table in the backyard under the strings of twinkling lights is a good thing, and that the other stuff, not so much.
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