Paul Exits, but the Kingdom Continues

This the only speech in Acts that's delivered to those who are already Christians. The others are sermons preached to non-Christian audiences, if you can believe it. Surely that tells us something about how receptive first-century audiences were compared to audiences in the contemporary West! But though there is much to lament about our culture these days, the reason we're here is not to lament the decline of the West. We are here to hear from the living God, who is not in decline. Today we are going to look at Paul's speech to the Ephesian elders as a whole; over the next three weeks, we will proceed to look at each part of it in detail. What the speech as a whole says is that though Paul is leaving the stage, the Kingdom of God is not leaving the stage. Paul is steadily moving toward Jerusalem; like his Savior, he has to go and confront the cross there. But though he is going to die, not necessarily in Jerusalem but definitely at some point, and likely soon, his speech, and the frame in which Luke has put it, make it abundantly clear that God's will is not going away, and His plan is not going to be frustrated. The Kingdom is still coming, even though Paul is going.