<p>20:7 <i>And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart the next day; and prolonged his speech until midnight</i>- Paul is presented as a man in a rush- to get to Jerusalem by Pentecost. He was using every hour of the night to deliver his teaching. And this led to Eutychus falling from the window. Yet again we get the impression that everything went wrong on this journey to Jerusalem and thence to Rome. It was not God's ideal plan for Paul, and yet he insisted upon it. And God went along with him. God is open to man; He may know the trillions of possible futures we face, and agonize over our poor decision making; but we are not out of His game plan altogether by making them. He will still work with us. But we shall &quot;have trouble in the flesh&quot; as a result; life doesn't go well, the blessings for obedience, the peace possible in Christ, is not realized on a human level. Frequently young believers come to me to discuss a plan to marry an unbeliever, e.g. a Moslem. I cannot say that they are out of God's game plan if they go ahead. But life will not go well, and the path to the Kingdom will be so much harder for them- even though God works with them through the Spirit on that path they chose to take. For He passionately wishes their salvation. When Paul sailed the same route before, it took him two days, with the wind of the Spirit behind him; he had a straight course, alluding to the straight path of the feet of the cherubim in Ezekiel 1. But now, it took him five days, with the wind against him. Finally Paul achieved his aim, with God's help; he survived at least one shipwreck on the journey, and probably the time he spent a day and night in the sea was also sometime on this journey to Jerusalem (2 Cor. 11:25). And there he was in Rome. But in prison. And he died there. Festus and Agrippa had truly commented that if it were not for his dogged insistence on appealing to Caesar, he could have been set free (Acts 26:32). His loss of freedom was terribly painful for him: &quot;Apart from these chains...&quot; (Acts 26:29). God of course used Paul's time in prison, and his prison letters are proof enough of that. And he did spread the Gospel throughout the Roman soldiers there and even into Caesar's palace: &quot;The things which happened to me have turned out for the progress of the gospel; so that my bonds made Christ manifest throughout the whole Praetorian guard, and to all the rest; and further, most of the believers in the Lord, being made confident through my bonds, are more abundantly bold to speak the word of God without fear&quot; (Phil. 1:12-14). God will use our less than ideal choices; for without the saving action of God's Spirit, Paul's body would have been washed up on the shores of Malta, or he would have fallen down dead on the beach from the viper sting. </p><p><em>&ldquo;Intending to depart the next day&rdquo; is</em> language reminiscent of Passover; awake all night, with lamps burning (:8), and ready to leave the next day, breaking bread together, re-living the first Passover. Seeing this was just after Passover time (:6), we wonder if Paul was re-enacting a Passover meal with these Gentile believers.</p>