Eutychus: Edit history

Biblical Account

Eutychus appears only in Acts 20:7-12. His name means "fortunate" in Greek. While traveling to Jerusalem at the close of his third missionary journey, Paul stayed seven days in Troas. On the day before his departure, "upon the first day of the week," the disciples came together "to break bread." Because Paul was to leave the next day, he "continued his speech until midnight" (20:7).

The gathering took place in an upper chamber where many lights were burning. The young man Eutychus, who was sitting in a window, sank into a deep sleep and "fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead" (20:9). Paul went down, fell on him, embraced him, and said, "Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him" (20:10). Paul then went back up, broke bread and ate, talked a long while until daybreak, and departed. The people "brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted" (20:11-12). The passage belongs to the so-called "we passages," in which the narrator speaks in the first person plural. For this reason it has traditionally been regarded as an eyewitness account by its author, Luke.

Significance Within Scripture

The scene of Paul lying upon the dead man and restoring him to life recalls the accounts of Elijah and Elisha raising dead children (1 Kings 17; 2 Kings 4). Within Acts, many interpreters see it as a counterpart to Peter's raising of Tabitha (Acts 9), showing the continuity of God's power at work through the apostles. The passage is also frequently cited as a record of early believers gathering on the first day of the week to break bread and hear the word.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• Was he actually dead? Most church traditions accept at face value the text's statement that he "was taken up dead" and therefore read the event as a miracle of raising the dead. Some scholars, appealing to Paul's words "his life is in him," interpret Eutychus as having only appeared to be dead.
• The breaking of bread: Some interpret the "breaking of bread" at this gathering as the Lord's Supper, while others regard it as an ordinary meal (or an agape feast).
• The first day of the week: Many denominations cite this passage as one of the grounds for the early church's gathering on the Lord's Day. Sabbath-keeping bodies such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church either understand it, following the Jewish reckoning of days, as a Saturday-night meeting or argue that the passage does not establish regular Sunday worship. This issue is discussed further in the article The Sabbath and the Lord's Day.
• Details not in the text: Some explanations hold that Eutychus was a slave who had come after a day's work, or that he grew drowsy from the smoke of the lamps. These are commentators' conjectures, not statements of the text. His exact age is likewise unknown; the text calls him only a "young man."

In the Korean Church

In sermons and Sunday school lessons in Korean churches, Eutychus is often mentioned lightheartedly as an illustration of dozing off during worship. His story is also presented as an account of the grace that restored a young man after his accident, and of the comfort the community received as a result.