Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

When I only hear one side of an argument I usually find myself agreeing with the person who’s talking to me. They seem totally sincere and lay out their case carefully and I have no reason to doubt that they’re telling me the truth, so I tend to accept their conclusions, which, if they happen to be upset with another person or group of people, leaves me feeling the same way. I pick up their offense and make it my own. This kind of transfer happens all the time, and all of us are vulnerable to being drawn in. No one is trying to be unfair, but the verdict seems so clear. What other conclusion can we reach? That is, until the other person gets to present their side. Then, almost always, we find we’re hearing new information that the first person didn’t give us, but which changes the picture rather dramatically. What at first appeared so obvious, now looks more complicated, or in some cases, radically different. Solomon warned us about this. He said, “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him” (Pr 18:17). He’s warning us that it’s always wise to hear both sides of an argument before making a judgment. And I think all of us would agree. Of course we should. It’s only fair. But in practice we often don’t, because it’s awkward to tell someone we aren’t ready to join them in their judgment against another person and it takes courage to tell someone else what’s been said about them. People might get angry, and we don’t want to create an even bigger problem. So we quietly remind ourselves there’s probably another side to this story… but we remain silent, or maybe we choose the easier path, which is to ignore justice and embrace our friend’s anger. What we’re watching take place in this courtroom in Caesarea is Roman law at work. Their law insisted that a citizen had a right to answer accusers. No one could go to a judge and get a decision based on only their side of the story. If they accused someone of something, that person had the right to hear those charges, from them, and then to defend themselves. Only after hearing both sides would a judge or jury make a decision. We could read through this section of Acts and easily miss this basic, but profound, truth: a person has a right to answer their accusers. It was sad to watch how unjustly Paul was treated in Israel’s religious court. That “judge” ordered him to be struck in the mouth after he made his first statement (Ac 23:2). But he was a disgracefully corrupt man who didn’t care about truth. By contrast, Felix, the Roman governor, let Paul speak without interruption, and in doing so was simply practicing justice. The lesson for us today is to do the same, and to remember that justice isn’t reserved for courts of law. It should be at work every time we hear a bad report about someone else. We too should withhold judgment until we hear the other side.

We’re watching a proverb being lived out. Solomon wrote, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand” (Pr 19:21). The psalmist said the same thing this way, “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations, He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation” (Ps 33:8-11). On the same night when a group of men were forming a plot to kill Paul, Jesus appeared to him and told him to cheer up because he was going to Rome. No matter how careful these men were to hide their plans, or how determined they were to carry them out, God almost effortlessly overruled them. The turning point comes at verse 16. Somehow a young man heard information he should not have been able to hear. That simple fact changed everything. God can overrule humans so easily it’s almost laughable. We’ll never outwit Him. But, does God overrule in all situations? Obviously not, yet as we see time after time in the Bible He does overrule the evil attacks that come against His people so that they can fulfill the plan He has for them. Paul was in the middle of God’s will, doing what he believed God wanted him to do, but that didn’t mean it was an easy path. He suffered a great deal, and in the future he would die by execution. But not until God’s time arrived, until then, God’s hand repeatedly protected him. Or, maybe I should say, especially then, God’s hand protected him (2Ti 1:12; 4:6-8). Let’s watch God protect Paul, and then realize He will do the same for us.

Jesus appeared to Paul four times. The first time was at his conversion on the road to Damascus (Ac 9:5); the second was in the temple after he returned to Jerusalem (Ac 22:17-18); the third was in Corinth when he grew fearful because it looked like he was going to face another violent attack (Ac 18:9-10); and the fourth is here in a jail cell during his last visit to Jerusalem. The Lord is always watching over us. He knows when pressure becomes too great for us to bear, and because He is our Shepherd, there will always be special moments when He comes to strengthen us. But, you and I need to hear from Him much more often than that. Having Him show up occasionally in the midst of a crisis is not the same as walking with Him day by day. Yes, we need Him at our side in desperate situations, and it’s a joy to tell stories about those amazing encounters. But, Jesus promised much more. He said He would be with us always (Mt 28:20); that He would never leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5). He said He calls us His “friends” which means He will reveal to us “all things that I have heard from My Father…” (Jn 15:15). And each of us, when we have taken the time to press in and listen, can testify that He does speak to us, yet for some reason there seems to be obstacles, something in our old human nature, or maybe it’s something that opposes us in the spiritual dimension, which makes hearing His voice difficult at times. We can go through dark seasons when it’s very hard to hear from Him, when we feel alone, when we’re confused about which way to go. I believe this is what Paul was experiencing in that jail cell. But Jesus came… and spoke to him.

The crowd was actually standing in a place called the Court of the Gentiles when they heard Paul say he had been commanded to carry the message of salvation to the Gentiles. The purpose of that enormous courtyard which surrounded the temple was to provide a place where Gentiles could draw near to God, a place where they could pray and be taught about the true God. Over and over again Israel’s prophets declared a day would come when Gentile nations would travel from faraway places to Jerusalem to learn about Him. Yes, Israel was to separate itself from false religions and the immoral practices of these Gentiles, but nowhere in Scripture are they told to despise any group of human beings, or be indifferent to their spiritual destiny. In fact, one need only look at the list of King David’s ancestors to see the names of Gentiles whose faith had made a way for them to become part of God’s people (Mt 1:3-6). Yet, when Paul said God cared enough about Gentiles to send him to them, the reaction of the crowd was outrage. They said a man like Paul shouldn’t be allowed to live. How did this kind of prejudice get such a deep hold on their hearts, and what on earth made them think God felt the same way they did?

The early church had the luxury of not having an ugly legacy to undo. People were able to hear what they had to say without suspicion based on what other Christians had done in the past. But we don’t have that luxury. We stand at the end of 2,000 years of a history in which Christians did some wonderful things, but those years have also been filled with wildly un-Christlike behavior done by people who called themselves Christians. So-called Christians have burned people at the stake, drowned people for wanting to be baptized by immersion, sent armies on crusades to liberate the “holy land,” killing women & children and even Christians who didn’t look like them. So-called Christians put millions of defenseless people in slavery and sold their children to strangers. They celebrated Easter by driving Jews out of their villages and cities. They annihilated six million of them in the holocaust. They deliberately forced a nation of people to become addicted to heroin so they could sell them drugs. They broke promise after promise to native people, and slaughtered them and seized land that they had sworn was theirs forever… etc. etc. I mention some of these horrible things not to stir up collective guilt, but to put our task in perspective. No, most of those weren’t real Christians, but they were the fruit of Christian cultures. They often went to church… a lot, and “yes” those churches failed miserably to disciple them. But the problem is, the world doesn’t know the difference between a so-called Christian and a real one, and to be honest, neither do we at times. How often have we been shocked to discover someone was just playing a game? So, here we are today, trying to proclaim New Testament Christianity to a world that has watched “Christians” closely for 2,000 years. And if all we have to offer them is more of the same, they will continue to look for help elsewhere. They must see people who shatter the stereotype, who live differently, who act differently, who treat them differently… for a long enough period of time to prove it’s not just one more marketing attempt. We, as a church, but also we as individuals, have to live in such a way that people will be able to discern the difference between nominal and genuine Christianity. Words will mean very little in this process. People don’t believe our words anymore. It’s time to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:16).

Two people can do the same thing, and one of them pleases the Lord but the other does not, because two people can do the same thing for different reasons. And there is no area of life where this is more true than in religious matters. The difference between legalism and liberty is a very fine line, and it’s very easy to cross that line without even knowing it, and, in my opinion, that’s the root of the problem we’re reading about today. The threat of persecution was constantly hanging over the heads of the church in Jerusalem, and it was their desire to avoid persecution that pressed them to appear as obedient to the Law of Moses as possible. If the church in that city was perceived in any way to be a force that turned Jews away from Judaism, they would be, and were, attacked. They would face physical violence, people would lose their jobs, unbelieving spouses would divorce them, families would disinherit them, property would be seized; they would become outcasts. In fact, even if they themselves kept the Law, if they were suspected of being in relationship with people who had stopped keeping the Law, or if they had supported someone, like Paul, who was preaching salvation by grace rather than Law-keeping, they would be attacked. So to protect themselves, they tried to observe the Law as fervently as possible, while still believing in Jesus. But as the years went by, it appears some hearts, maybe many hearts, became so fervent for the Law that the truth that salvation comes by faith in Christ alone had grown weak, or possibly disappeared altogether. Some may have drifted across a fine line.

There are times we must obey what God shows us even though He has not revealed it to others. There are paths we must walk alone. Paul’s decision to go to Jerusalem is an example of this. At first glance it appears he was being unnecessarily stubborn, almost as though he had some sort of death wish. Time and again he had been warned prophetically. In place after place believers saw in the Spirit what was going to happen and tearfully begged him not to go. Yet he refused to turn aside. Why? Are we observing in his reaction a weak, foolish part of Paul, or are we seeing someone with the courage to obey a voice others have not heard? Are we watching a man walk out a lonely obedience? Everyone seemed to know what was going to happen to Paul, and everyone, except Paul, agreed on how he should respond. The difference lay in the interpretation of what they saw, not in the revelation itself. And who can blame Paul’s friends for their conclusion? If God showed us a life-threatening persecution ahead, who wouldn’t take that as a warning to flee? How many times in the Bible did God warn His servants this way? Yet, Paul had a different interpretation from everyone else, and each time another word came, he felt more resolved to go. In this passage, we’re watching some very mature believers have a profound difference of opinion… and everyone is trying to do the right thing. Yet, only one person interprets the revelation correctly.

If we really understand something, we can explain it to a child. Even if it’s something very difficult like the theory of relativity. But if all we can do is repeat the words or phrases someone said to us, we don’t understand, we’re simply parroting back what we heard. Particularly when it comes to religious matters, people seem content to dutifully repeat the right words without ever asking themselves the deeper question of, “What did I just say?” The problem is God is always looking at a person’s heart to see if certain attitudes and beliefs are really present. He’s not concerned whether or not we said it right, He wants it to be right. And above everything else, for a person to be saved, God is looking for two things: repentance and faith. Has that person really repented, and does that person really believe? Because if they haven’t, even if they say the right words, they’re still separated from God. And to make matters worse, the process has deceived them into thinking that because they said the right words, they’ve pleased God. As if he’d walked into a court of law and raised his right hand swearing to tell the truth, Paul called together the Ephesian elders to act as his witnesses, and as if he were under oath, he stood before them and gave an account of the years he spent in their city. This speech is Paul’s evaluation of his ministry among them. Had he faithfully done what God sent him there to do?

What an amazing 24 hours! From Sunday evening, when the church gathered in Troas, to Monday evening, when Paul reached Assos, he didn’t stop ministering the entire time. He lectured and dialogued all night, eating very little, and then at morning light, having had no sleep, he began a 30 mile walk which required at least 10-12 hours of strenuous walking over hilly terrain. This is almost 30 years after he was converted. Paul has to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s. He’s not a young man. And I think his eyesight was poor and he needed assistance when he traveled (Gal 4:15; 6:11). These few verses show us the depth to which Paul freely gave of himself, as well as any passage in Acts. He virtually denied his own physical needs for 24 hours in order to give everything he possibly could to these believers. And he hadn’t even planted this church. Most of them weren’t his converts, but they belonged to Jesus and they needed to be discipled. They hungrily listened and asked him questions all night. Then when it came time for his team to leave in order to board the ship, someone must have come up to him and said they desperately needed to talk with him, possibly a leader or a group of leaders, who were struggling with a situation in their church. But there was simply no more time. Or was there? What if the team went ahead and got on board the ship and told the captain that Paul would walk instead of sail to the next port? He could catch up to the ship in Assos. That would buy him an extra day so he could talk with these believers while they walked. So, of course he would. He would gladly forgo his own need of sleep to carve out a chunk of time from a hopelessly busy schedule…and give it to others who needed him. He said, “Walk with me!” Will we do the same?

The seven men Luke names here were representatives chosen from the different regions where Paul had planted churches. They were carrying a financial gift from their churches to the poor in Jerusalem, but Paul was bringing them to Jerusalem. They were his offering, they were the fruit of his labors, and when he arrived he would go into the Temple, the place where Jesus had spoken to him commanding him to go to the Gentiles (Ac 22:21), and there he would report to Him that he had obeyed. On the day of Pentecost, as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were being waved before the Lord to honor Him as the Source of the harvest and to declare that the harvest was holy and belonged to Him, Paul, in his heart, would present his “firstfruits,” to honor God as the Source of all that had taken place, and declaring that the entire harvest, the multiplied thousands of new believers from all around the eastern Mediterranean, belonged to Him. Yes, Paul ministered effectively among the Gentiles, and had become “all things to all men” (1Co 9:22) to reach them, but he was still a Jew inside, and this was his heart-language of worship. He wasn’t performing a ritual, he was coming home. He had observed Pentecost all his life, but never had he presented such precious gifts as these. In a sense, Paul is modeling that coming day in which all of us will present to Jesus the fruit of our lives. Not as a work needed to earn our way to heaven, though being fruitless is a dangerous symptom of detachment from Christ (Jn 15:2-6), but as the tangible evidence of our love for Him. When all is said and done, the only lasting treasure we will have to offer Him will be the people whose lives we have helped to draw closer to Him.

The church we read about in the Book of Acts was a tiny minority of people living in a dangerous world. We watch them in situation after situation face various forms of persecution, yet we also see them in situation after situation wisely handle whatever came at them, and continue to grow. Today, Christianity has become the largest religion on earth, yet we are still living in a dangerous world. Even though there are so many of us, we are persecuted more than any other religion. In some parts of the world believers face open persecution. It’s physical, violent and cruel. Here in the West, persecution is growing, but it’s still mainly a matter of changing attitudes. It’s primarily rejection and ridicule, but we’re beginning to experience what it feels like to be an unpopular minority. Our faith and moral values are being rejected by the dominant culture, and because this shift is only a few decades old, we’re still learning how to deal with it. The good news is, we don’t have to look far for help. The Bible is a handbook on how to live successfully as an embattled minority. We find there, one example after another of men and women living wisely in the midst of danger. Today’s lesson is no exception. We’ll watch Paul and the believers in Ephesus navigate a city-wide riot that occurred because so many people had become real disciples of Jesus Christ. The sooner we learn from them, the safer we’ll be.

Discovering God’s call is only the first step in a life of service. Enduring in that call is the second and most difficult step. Staying focused and continuing to do what God called us to do never goes unchallenged. The enemy never ignores a fruitful ministry, but will use every method at his disposal to try to stop it. If a person refuses to give in to moral failure, the devil will try to get them to believe heresy. If they refuse to believe heresy, he will try to lure them with riches. If they refuse the deceitfulness of riches, he will raise up people to persecute them, and if they endure persecution, then he will use one of the cruelest weapons of all, he will attack those they love. Love makes a person vulnerable to worry. We worry when those we love are struggling. So if he can’t stop us, he’ll try to distract us. He’ll use misunderstandings, betrayals, or the agony of watching loved ones walking away from God to torment us. He’ll try to exhaust us by tormenting us in the hope that he can drain our energy away from the work we’re called to do. This is exactly what the devil was trying to do to Paul. He hadn’t been able to turn him away from his call. None of his methods had worked, so he used one church in particular, to try to distract him. And in some measure it worked (2Co 2:12, 13). Today we’ll cover only two verses in Acts. But if we look beyond the brief statements Luke makes here, and take into consideration the information Paul gives us elsewhere, we’ll discover that during those years in Ephesus, Paul was enduring an enormous amount of unseen pain. He was deeply worried about the church in Corinth. As we watch what happened to Paul, many of us will realize we, too, have had much of our energy drained away by worry over those we love. The good news is Paul wasn’t defeated by this. In fact, his patient love for that church ultimately gave God time to win the hearts of many of those whom the enemy had tried to deceive. Yes, we’ll see the devil attack Paul, but we’ll also see Paul triumph.

The real world has an ugly side to it. Just ask a policeman or an emergency room nurse. Beneath the surface of our society there’s a lot of suffering. People are capable of doing amazing things to themselves and others. And the same is true of the real spiritual world. It, too, has an ugly side. Many people don’t want to see that side, it frightens them. But pretending it’s not there doesn’t change reality, it just leaves us vulnerable to attack and unable to protect ourselves. The passage we’re studying today talks about evil spirits. It shows us the power they can have over a human being, but it also shows us the power of the name of Jesus Christ. We need to be bold enough to realize that the forces we’re watching at work in ancient Ephesus are still part of our world today, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not. Somewhere over the course of history, Christianity became spiritually powerless and very “scientific.” The church in the west followed our culture into a deep skepticism about the existence of a spiritual world. Even if we held onto a generic belief in God, the idea of angels or demons, or the devil himself, became something we associated with primitive, pre-scientific superstition. We thought of ourselves as enlightened, informed, increasingly in control of our own destiny. With the emergence of modern medicine and psychology, our need for God’s help grew smaller and smaller. If He wasn’t “dead,” He was at least unnecessary. But reality tends to be stubborn. It doesn’t cease to function just because we ignore it. Sooner or later we bump into it and are forced to acknowledge its existence. And the real world has a spiritual dimension just as certainly as it has a physical one. Not only does God exist, but so do angels and demons. They’re as real as you and I. So, today, let’s see the world the way Jesus and Paul saw it… and let’s discover the authority Jesus’ name has over that world.

Passages like this are both thrilling and frustrating. It thrills us to see God’s power work through an individual to this degree, but it can also frustrate us. When we recognize what is possible, some of us are painfully reminded of what didn’t happen. It confronts us with the question: Am I moving in all the power God has made available to me? And for some, that brings up feelings of guilt and shame, and even anger. For reasons I don’t fully understand, many Christians are committed to the idea that miracles, like these we see being performed through Paul, don’t happen anymore. They believe that at some point in time God stopped doing such miracles, so when they read passages like this they feel a great admiration for what God did during that early stage of church history, but feel no responsibility to try to do similar things today. There is another group of Christians who will tend to skip over a passage like this, not because they don’t believe it or think such things are still possible, but because it stirs up deep emotions they don’t want to feel. Seeing miracles happen for others only reminds them of miracles that didn’t happen for them or someone they love. It raises the painful question of “why?” And there are also those who’ve grown quietly cautious. In the past they allowed their expectations to be raised to a high level only to end up disappointed and embarrassed. They didn’t become angry or unbelieving, just confused and tired of trying. Knowing these things, and sometimes feeling the same emotions, I wanted to politely skip past these verses and move on. But I felt that displeased the Lord. Instead, He wanted us to look deeply at how He used Paul in Ephesus, so He could release us from confusion and condemnation, and teach us how to embrace more of His power, without ending up frustrated.

There is nothing that replaces the hearing or reading of the Word of God. There are a number of important spiritual disciplines, all of which need to be part of our lives, but nothing has a greater impact than a daily encounter with the Bible. The temptations of our flesh are strong, and our own mind keeps trying to lead us astray, so without constant correction, without being confronted again and again by the way God thinks, we unconsciously drift back into unbelief, entertain temptation, and return to loving the world. Someone once said, “When we pray, we talk to God, but when we read the Word, He talks to us.” Though I admit the Bible isn’t the only way God talks to us, it is undoubtedly the most trustworthy way. When I try to hear God directly, my own thoughts can at times deceive me, but the plain truths and commands in the Bible never change, and are never wrong. Whenever I test the Bible by actually doing what it says, it always works. And the Bible contains within itself a strange authority, one that’s hard to explain. If a person will pick it up and read it honestly, sooner or later they sense it’s speaking to them. How many committed atheists have tried to read it to prove to themselves it is filled with superstitious lies, only to find themselves convicted of their rebellion to a God who loves them and fearing a God who will someday bring them to judgment. It simply isn’t a silly, religious book. That’s why every vile form of human government outlaws the Bible. How often has it been labeled a dangerous book? Because it is! It’s a force to be dealt with. I believe the primary reason our society is failing, families are failing, individuals are failing, and many Christians are failing is because people are not interacting daily with the Word of God. They are “leaning on their own understanding” (Pr 3:5) and therefore God is not guiding them. Today, we’re going to let Apollos be an example to us once again. Last week we saw his passionate love for God, but this week we’ll see his passionate commitment to study and teach the Word of God.

There are those who believe in God and those who love God. Everyone who loves Him, believes in Him, but not everyone who believes in Him, loves Him. This is because God is real. He’s a person with a distinct personality. You’ll often hear people say things like this: “I can’t believe in a God who would…” In other words, they don’t like the God they see in the Bible, and they refuse to follow a god they can’t modify until He comes up to their high standards. One distinguishing fact about people who talk like this is that they have never personally met God. It’s all theory and philosophy, because people who’ve actually met Him talk differently. They speak about Him as if He’s a person, and He’s there watching, somewhere in the room. And to be honest there’s a bit of fear left in them because He was much bigger than they originally thought. Actually, He was downright intimidating. It was obvious He had come down to their level to talk with them. In that moment, it never even crossed their mind to tell Him ways they felt He needed to change. There are people who are looking for salvation and there are people who are looking for God. There are people who want to make sure they’ll go to heaven when they die, and people who long to be close to Him now. If you think about it, those are two wildly different motives. One is raw self-interest: “What do I have to do so God will let me into heaven?” The other is a hunger for relationship. Like a lover who feels lonely and empty apart from the one they love, this person never seems to get enough of God. They’re always pursuing Him, wanting more. They aren’t focused on His gifts or blessings, though those things seem to come along naturally for people like this, instead they’re focused on His presence. They want to sense that He’s close, they want to talk to Him. One person said it this way: “Some people seek God’s hand, others seek His face.” I would submit to you that Apollos was a man who was pursuing God, he was seeking His face.

By every appearance, the very thing Paul dreaded was happening. How many times had gangs of angry men surrounded him and dragged him to the police. In one situation after another government officials had conveniently sided with the mob. And here he was again being taken through the streets of Corinth to stand in front of the new Roman proconsul. It all felt horribly familiar. Would he be stripped and beaten publicly and then thrown into a filthy jail cell as he had in Philippi (Ac 16:19-24)? Or would the mob be allowed to take him out and stone him as they had in Lystra (Ac 14:19, 20)? But there was one thing that made this moment different from all the others. A year and a half earlier Paul had seen a vision of Jesus who told him not to be afraid, so when fear tried to surge up within Paul, he had a promise he could cling to. The real enemy The real enemy is fear. Most of the bad decisions we make are made in an effort to protect ourselves from something we fear. Fear weakens us, it breaks down our defenses, and actually seems to draw to us the very thing we’re trying to flee. You might say fear is a form of faith in reverse. When we’re afraid, we’re actively believing that bad things will happen. Fear’s almost like an odor or a magnetic field. If left unchallenged, sooner or later we tend to get the very thing we feared. The culture we live in is full of fear. If you listen to the way people talk you’ll hear it. They say, “You know what worries me is…,” or “I’m really frightened for…” Our news is full of horrible scenarios about what might happen. Books, films and music constantly envision coming catastrophes, and for that matter, so do religious materials. The effect all this has on us is to make us want to withdraw and hide. We can’t dream of great things or step out into bold, new ventures because we’re waiting for something bad to happen. And living in fear leaves people tired, sad and angry. Frightened people build walls. We limit our own possibilities, we reduce our own potential, because in our mind what we fear is as real as if it had already happened. It’s as real as if we had already seen it. So, we think of ourselves as being realistic, not fearful; as wise, not reactionary. And fearful thinking becomes a habit which gets more deeply ingrained in us as the years go by, until we’re not even aware it’s there.

When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia they brought with them a financial gift from the church in Philippi. Apparently, a man named Epaphroditus actually carried the money, and then stayed in Corinth for awhile to assist Paul. He was sent home after surviving a life-threatening illness (Php 2:25-30). The effect this gift had on Paul was not to change what he was doing, but to release him to do it more. Luke says, “Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word…” (v5). He had been working six days a week making tents in order to support himself and then, in what must have been a very weary condition, he would reason in the synagogue on the Sabbath. No one had to pay Paul to minister. He did what he did with or without support, but the gift from the Philippians released him to focus all his energy and time on doing what he was called to do.

Paul was a human being with strengths and weaknesses. He was incredibly brave. At times he seemed fearless in preaching the gospel. As we read through the Book of Acts we’ve often watched him pursued by angry mobs, and he didn’t always escape. On occasion they caught him and stoned or beat him badly. Yet he always seemed to get up and march off to the next city. So it might be hard for us to accept the fact that this great apostle could have moments when he too felt overwhelmed, when the pressure of it all grew too much for him, when he felt alone and afraid. But this was the condition he was in when he arrived in Corinth. So when he began to preach there, and that predictable pattern of anger began to emerge, when the threat of violence grew stronger by the day, he faithfully kept preaching, even though he wanted to run away. It almost hurts to say it, but he didn’t want to be hit again. He had been hit so hard, so often, it had begun to take its toll. But in that season of weakness Jesus didn’t scold Paul, He completely understood how he felt, He’d felt the same way. So He took care of him. He brought people who would stand beside him so he wouldn’t be alone. He prompted believers who loved him to send a timely gift, and above all He spoke to him. And that loneliness and fear left. Luke beautifully captures the change in Paul when he says, “and he sat down a year and six months, teaching among them the Word of God” (literal). He was at peace and able to finish his assignment. There are, undoubtedly, people among us today who, like Paul, have not stopped serving the Lord, but inside feel alone and afraid. So as we watch the way Jesus kindly and patiently cares for Paul, his weakness actually encourages us. If this great apostle can struggle this deeply, then surely we can too. And if Jesus will come and minister to him, then He’ll come and minister to us, too. Paul’s weakness becomes an invitation from the Lord to admit our own weakness, and receive His care

The culture around us is changing. What used to be “Jerusalem,” a society whose beliefs and morals were rooted in the Bible is becoming “Athens,” a society which is ignorant of God and the Bible, and looks for help elsewhere. It’s important that we understand this change and recognize where it has occurred, because God speaks to “Jerusalem” one way, but to “Athens” another. When He confronts “Jerusalem,” He speaks very directly, because these are people who know His Word and at some point in their history promised to serve Him. When it comes to spiritual matters, they’re not ignorant, when they sin it’s rebellion. But He speaks differently to “Athens.” It’s not filled with people who know God and have made a covenant with Him. Though they also do sinful things, their deeds are not done in direct rebellion to God. They don’t know Him (Mt 11:20-24). Today, as we watch Paul preach in Athens, he models a very important lesson for us. He shows us how to reach people who are ignorant of spiritual realities and who live in a world of self-made philosophies. As he passed through that city, he became deeply grieved at the demonic bondage which held those people in its grip. He knew they were deceived, and that knowledge stirred him to action. Luke says as he walked through the city and saw all those idols, he became very upset, yet notice how he responded. He didn’t march into the marketplace and angrily rant at the crowds about their sin. He began to look for people to lead to Christ, because he was confident that even in that deeply confused place there would be individuals whom God had been drawing to Himself and who were ready to hear the truth.