How little Gallio knew of what a possibility was opened out before him!
Angels were hovering unseen. We seldom recognise the fateful moments of
our lives till they are past.
The offer of salvation in Christ is ever a crisis. It may never be
repeated. Was Gallio ever again brought into contact with Paul or
Paul's Lord? We know not. He passes out of sight, the search-light is
turned in another direction, and we lose him in the darkness. The
extent of his criminality is in better hands than ours, though we
cannot but let our thoughts go forward to the time when he, like us
all, will stand at the judgment bar of Jesus, no longer a judge but
judged. Let us hope that before he passed hence, he learned how full of
spirit and of life the message was, which he once took for a mere
squabble about 'words and names,' and thought too trivial to occupy his
court. And let us remember that the Jesus, whom we are sometimes
tempted to judge as of little importance to us, will one day judge us,
and that His judgment will settle our fate for evermore.