Acts 19:11 God did extraordinary miracles through Sha’ul. 12 For instance, handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were brought to sick people; they would recover from their ailments; and the evil spirits would leave them.
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Acts 20:7 On Motza’ei-Shabbat, when we were gathered to break bread, Sha’ul addressed them. Since he was going to leave the next day, he kept talking until midnight. 8 Now there were many oil lamps burning in the upstairs room where we were meeting, 9 and there was a young fellow named Eutychus sitting on the window-sill. As Sha’ul’s drash went on and on, Eutychus grew sleepier and sleepier; until finally he went sound asleep and fell from the third story to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead. 10 But Sha’ul went down, threw himself onto him, put his arms around him and said, “Don’t be upset, he’s alive!” 11 Then he went back upstairs, broke the bread and ate. He continued talking with them till daylight, then left. 12 So, greatly relieved, they brought the boy home alive.
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Acts 24:28 After our escape, we learned that the island was called Malta. 2 Its people showed extraordinary kindness — it was cold and it had started to rain, so they lit a bonfire and welcomed us all. 3 Sha’ul had gathered a bundle of sticks and was adding them to the fire, when a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, fastened itself to his hand. 4 The islanders saw the creature hanging from Sha’ul’s hand and said to one another, “This man must be a murderer. Even though he escaped the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They waited, expecting him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing that nothing amiss was happening to him, they reversed their opinion and said he was a god.
7 Nearby were lands belonging to the governor of the island, whose name was Publius. He received us in a friendly manner and put us up for three days. 8 Now it so happened that Publius’ father was lying in bed, sick with fever attacks and dysentery. Sha’ul went in to him, prayed, placed his hands on him and healed him. 9 After this happened, the rest of those on the island who had ailments came and were healed. 10 They heaped honors on us; and when the time came for us to sail, they provided the supplies we needed.
It’s amazing how quickly Paul went from being a witness to Stephen’s death to now healing, delivering, and even bringing people back to life. It seems like just yesterday that he was a young and zealous up-and-comer in the religious ranks.
Then again, maybe this isn’t a quick as we thought:
We’re looking at roughly 20-25 years from Paul’s conversion until this point of EXERCISING extreme faith, trust and subsequent power.
For additional context, it was 10-15 years after the Road to Damascus when Saul was with Sergius Paulus and blinded his sorcerer/false prophet, Elymas (Bar Yeshua). It was about the same timeframe with his friends Barnabas and Silas.
Full-time confrontation. Not working a job and wedging in some spiritual practice on the weekends for an hour or two. His entire life is fully dedicated to bringing the Word to all of those scattered in the earth.
What do we need to do to be able to heal, deliver, and raise from the dead?
We all want to somehow level-up to the place of healing and deliverance, but what are we willing to do to get our faith and trust to that level?
We have way too many things to do so it isn’t practical for us to move into this degree of dedication on a normal schedule. Even if you work in ministry as your job, there is no way you’re doing Kingdom work anymore than those that are working a fully secular job. Organizing events and planning sermons takes far more time than we need to commit to spreading the Good News.
The good news (lowercase) for us is that we can still do it. If it took Paul 10-15 years to begin (and 20-25 years to blossom), and he was doing ~8-10 hours per day, 7 days per week, then all we need to do with our 2 hour dedication once per week is wait ~300 years to get started and ~600 years to blossom.
We just need to make sure we stay alive that long.