On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to leave the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting on the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep; and as Paul kept on talking, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and fell upon him, and after embracing him, he said, "Do not be troubled, for his life is in him." When he had gone back up and had broken the bread and eaten, he talked with them a long while until daybreak, and then left. They took away the boy alive, and were greatly comforted.
My thoughts -
When people drift off to sleep while the preacher is speaking it doesn't usually kill them. Poor Eutychus just happened to be listening to Paul from the upper room's window sill.
It must have been quite startling to the people below when we fell from there and died. It must have been far more startling when Paul rushed down and raised him from the dead.
It appears that, with death and resurrection, young Eutychus's attention was captured. He talked with Paul, without sleeping, falling, or dying again until after daybreak.
So what can we take from this. If I were preaching it may be that you should stay awake while the preacher is talking. To do otherwise could kill you.
It is pretty cool to see God at work even in strange little passages like this one. This could have been a tragedy. It ended up being something of a miracle. It just passed by so quickly it's hard to process.
Would Eutychus had fallen out the window and died if Paul weren't there? Who is to say? But Paul was there. Maybe Paul bored him to death. Maybe the young man was just that tired. Either way everyone involved had a story to tell. And God is glorified in that story.
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