Home-schooling
Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him (Acts 28:30-31).
How our lives have changed over the past year. One of the most significant changes has been our confinement in our homes. If we are used to travelling extensively, to be suddenly restricted in our movements can be challenging. It is trying, if we live alone. And illness can compound our sense of confinement. It is particularly testing to be restricted to our homes, especially if they are small and we have to home-school our children.
Home-schooling was once limited to children living remotely or when parents chose to educate their children at home. Now, like the word “furlough”, it is part of our COVID language. But hasn’t the Lord always home-schooled us? Before going to the cross, He spoke about going to His Father’s house. Our Saviour teaches us from the glory of that home, our home. The Spirit of God, who glorifies Christ in our lives, came from the Father’s home. It is normal Christianity to be home-schooled from heaven.
Paul travelled so extensively, fulfilling the ministry Christ had given him. What remarkable things he had been part of and how effective his service had been! The Book of Acts records all these events and how the Holy Spirit had established the Church of Christ. The Lord had said, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). Paul must have had a sense of what the Lord meant as he travelled, was driven from place to place, and was beaten and imprisoned. He had also been welcomed into many Christian homes (Acts 16:15, 34). But in the final verse of the wonderful record of Acts we read, “Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house.” As his service drew to a close, the Lord in grace gave him the experience of having a home on earth before he reached his home in heaven.
June and I can remember, when we were married, the excitement of renting our first home. It was an unusual flat. To give you a sense of its ‘quality’ facilities: when you went to the shared bathroom, you had to take your own light bulb with you. And outside our front door was a key inside a glass-fronted box so that, in case of fire, other tenants could use our home as a fire escape! But we still remember the joy of our first home where we learned to express Christian hospitality. And Paul delighted to share his home in Rome. He was not diminished in his service by the walls of his house. It was where, like Daniel, he was in fellowship with God, where he remembered in prayer all the saints he had served and who had rejoiced his own heart. It was his new mission field. It was where he was home-schooled at the end of his life, and where he home-taught others. And it was where he expressed the hope he had in Christ.
May the Lord fill us with gratitude at the outset or in the twilight of our lives for the experience of Christian homes and all that we learn in them of the love and grace of God, and may God use them to share what we have in Christ with others.
