NT40 Convictions for Acts 14-17
This reading takes us though the tremendous expansion of the gospel during Paul's first missionary journey. The great church in Antioch sends out Paul and later endures the threat of Judaizers from Judea. Paul returns to Antioch to strengthen this pillar church.
1. About God. He continues to orchestrate the expansion of the gospel. He's the one who arranges times, places, boundaries so we might seek him, reach out for him, and find him though he is not far from anyone of us. As the gospel expands into Macedonia, the Spirit (here described as the Spirit of Christ) opens the way for the disciples.
2. About NT Christianity. Throughout these chapters, the disciples were stripped, beaten with rods, imprisoned, stoned and left for dead, and yet they keep getting up, keep going back, keep advancing the gospel, keep winning more and more disciples. Moreover, they face real threats for a split in the fellowship from the Jew Gentile controversy. Yet they never split!
3. DWIS. Paul was distressed at what he saw in the agora of Athens. Time to get distressed by immodesty, materialism, coarse joking, profanity!