Read 331.) Acts 15:36-17:4. It's about AD 50, and nearly 20 years since Jesus ascended back up into Heaven. The Jerusalem Council has been held, Acts 15, and Paul's letter to the Galatians has been written. Within the chapters of this Second Missionary Journey, a most monumental event is going to take place… The biggest thing to happen since Christ died, rose again, and ascended. Watch for it!
Ending Acts 15, a second missionary journey is proposed, and we read of the falling out between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark. That rift must have been somewhat healed by AD 64 or so, when Paul was nearing the very end of his life and ministry; as he speaks highly of John Mark in II Timothy 4:11, about 14 years later.
This event of great occasion takes place here in Acts 16. With verses 6 thru 12, Paul is sovereignly and supernaturally directed by God thru the Holy Spirit not to take the Gospel deeper into Asia or to backtrack and remain any longer in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. Rather, the Spirit's guidance and the vision Paul received in the night, resulted in Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles to take the Gospel further west, into the continent of Europe! This was huge, as the Gospel gained a foothold in Europe according to 16:13 and all that follows on this trip. Europe, known as The West, and the home of all that is called Western Civilization, owes its current existence (though this is now called the post-Christian era), to this event we read of right here. The West was more greatly evangelized first, with this missionary journey by Paul and his companions. The result, these 2,000 years later, is that Christianity and the Bible can be rightly stated as having been laid right in the very foundation of the formative years of Western Civilization because God caused it to be so… right from His direction and subsequent results recorded for us in Acts 16:6 and following. The United States of America, and all that is good about it, and all that its goodness means to all the rest of the world since its founding, goes right back to this event as well. Christian America was in the heart and mind of God… and we can trace our origin as Americans, to God's work in Paul in Acts 16. Paul's first European converts were likely among Jewish women! However, with the rest of chapter 16, some of the first European Gentile converts appear to be the Philippian jailer and his family! With 16:29-34 and 17:2-4 we see more of the Apostle's message, that we may know that we are understanding and believing it correctly. We read that Jesus is the Christ who suffered and rose from the dead; that it is by being persuaded to believe upon Him that we are immediately saved. This conversion should result in an obedience to be baptized, as a first step in the New Life in Christ, which ought to be characterized by joy! See all that? It's what the Book is all about!
ForeverKingdom,
Harold F Crowell
No comments:
Post a Comment