For some time now, after finishing Matthew’s gospel, I began preaching through Acts. We have arrived at chapter 19 now. The reason it has taken so long is not just that the book is so full of help for us, but also because I have been stopping and getting distracted. For example,
I arrived at chapter eight which describes the persecution of the Church in Jerusalem and how the people were scattered as far as Syria and Cyprus. This was the situation that James, pastor of the Church in Jerusalem addresses in his letter to the ‘Twelve Tribes scattered’, so we spent some time preaching through James. Then, returning to Acts we came to Acts 15, the first great theological controversy to affect the early Church, the very subject Paul wrote his letters to the Galatians to address, and you guessed, we read that. You can listen to some of the messages we have had along the way on our sermon page.
This has been a very helpful way to go about things, but, the danger is that one can lose sight of the original book – Acts, when spending a while in one of the letters. We are about to start looking at the letters Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth from his base in Ephesus, it will take a while. So…tonight we are doing an Acts refresher. Do come along. I produced the graphic at the top of this page today as a help, which I used to get some key factors down on paper.
Acts is a deeply important book in regards to what it tells us about the Holy Spirit, about our mission, God’s plan and pattern for the Church and much more.
