Joey Crandall
“... and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.”
Acts 14:19-20 NKJV
At the time presented here in the book of Acts, to stone someone, the condemned would be pushed from a height — generally at least twice the height of an average man – onto a stone surface.
If one survived the fall, then large stones would be heaped upon the body until the point of death.
So picturing this scene with Paul in that light, pinned beneath the stones thrown by those who hated him and pursued him and left him for dead — another picture comes to mind.
Altars of stone are presented at key moments throughout the Old Testament. God’s commandment was that such altars be built of unhewn stones, untouched by any man-made tool.
And in that, I think about the unhewn stones resting over Paul’s body. A cruel altar made with the worst of intentions by those who had no understanding of God’s heart, and hatred for those seeking to obey Him. By those who walked away when it was done, abandoning Paul to death.
Those stones would become a marker of God’s provision for each of the disciples gathered around Paul. Those who didn’t leave — who in that moment could only pray. And who, in the next moment, would witness a miracle.
It would seem that Paul referenced that moment in 2 Corinthians 12. Maybe he’d actually died. Maybe it was just a vision. He didn’t know. But he was “caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” Words that would sustain and carry him through the very much still to come.
It would have been perfectly understandable, if not completely justifiable, to say in that moment, “I died for this already! There’s a pile of rocks there with my blood on them. Look at it! I have done my part!”
But instead he rose, went back into city and dared to show what His Lord had done, even to those who had piled the rocks upon him – whether they’d ever receive the truth of it – the wonder of it – or not.
For Paul, there was a simple recognition: “This killed me! And it will continue to kill me — lashings and beatings and shipwrecks and snakebites and imprisonments and riotous mobs. But here I still stand, by the grace and power of my God.”
A living testament.
To live in this recognition that this altar – whatever it may be, whatever it may look like – isn’t just for me. For anyone who ever looks upon these rocks stained with my blood, this will speak that old, old truth ‘what you intended for evil, my God intended for good, to save many alive.’
For any of us in Jesus Christ: “I died there – but I wear His blood. Cleansed. Resurrected. Alive anew and forever.”
Everywhere we see an altar in scripture, it is there to point to something either that God has done. Or that He is doing. Or that He will do.
At every altar there is a death. But at every altar, there is also the breath and life of the Living God.
A reminder to us as we wander.
A witness to anyone else we encounter.
A testament to a mighty God “of all comfort, who comforts us in all tribulation” (2 Corinthians 1:3b-4a) and who gives to all “life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25b).
That being true, friend, rise up.
Walk back into where you have been called. Show the power and the goodness and the mercy and the faithfulness of your God.
And seek Him in where He will lead next. He is not done with the work He desires to do. And He is not done using your life in that work.
Joey Crandall is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Carson Valley.