Category: Band

Last night, I was talking with my friend who is studying Islam. He is a Christian but in his attempt to understand Islam and help others to know Christ, he is studying Islam to help these people exit and follow Jesus.

In the course of the conversation, my friend looked up from his studies and simply said:

If I was a Muslim and knew what is in the book that I was following, in the religion that I was following, I would be in despair. I would be so sad.

I won’t go into the detail of what he meant by that at this point, but I was reminded of that this morning when I read what Paul wrote to the Galatians as they were seeking to know God by following the Law.

As I wrote previously, the Judaizers had come into the Galatian churches preaching that, Yes, these Christians must follow Christ, but they must also follow the Law. They must do everything that Moses had commanded them to do. They must follow the commandments that God had given all of the way back to Moses if they truly wanted to follow God. For example, God had commanded Abraham that the men of his people must be circumcised, so all Israelite men would then subsequently be circumcised.

Some of the Galatians began to believe and follow what the Judaizers had been teaching them. There were enough people that were doing this that it alarmed Paul enough to write a letter to pull them back from doing it. Paul had experience with where the Law would take them. Paul knew the futility of trying to keep the Law as a way to be justified by God. He knew that their attempts would lead to nothing but despair.

And so for this reason, and because many of the people that he was writing to were Gentiles and not Jews, thus not having all of the background that Paul had given that he was a Pharisaical Jew, Paul asks them: Do you even know what you are asking for by trying to follow the Law? Do you know what it says?

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

Galatians 4:21-23

Paul goes on to say that Abraham’s two wives represented two separate covenants, two agreements between God and his people. Hagar, the servant woman to Sarah, had come from Egypt, given to Abraham after Pharaoh had sent Abraham and his entire family away, out of Egypt. As he sent them out, he gave Abraham several servants and livestock. Hagar was one of these that came from Pharaoh, leaving Egypt with Abraham. In short, Hagar was a slave and would remain a slave. She only became a wife to Abraham because Sarah had given her to Abraham in an attempt to have a child, given that it seemed that Sarah was no longer able to have children.

Hagar represented the covenant that God made with his people through the Law. He gave the Israelites the Law and said that, if they will follow the Law, God would be their God and they would be his people. If they kept the Law…

So like Hagar, the Israelites were slaves to the Law. If they wanted to be God’s people, they must follow the Law. And of course they didn’t follow the Law, and in fact they found that it was impossible to follow the Law. No one was able to follow it completely. No human was able to fulfill the Law completely.

On the other hand, Sarah was Abraham’s one, legitimate wife. She represented freedom. She represented the promise. God had given Abraham a promise that his descendents would be like the stars in the sky, but he didn’t even have a son. He didn’t even have one descendent, let alone his descendents being numbered like the stars in the sky.

Yet God had given a promise, and his promise would be fulfilled. In fact, God told Abraham that it would be fulfilled through Sarah, not through Hagar. Even though God would bless Hagar’s son Ishmael, God would make his covenant with Isaac, not with Ishmael. God would be the God of Isaac, Sarah’s son. She was the free woman. She was the one through whom God’s promise would be fulfilled. Not the slave woman, but the free woman.

In the same way, God made a new covenant with his people. Jesus said that his blood would be poured out as a sign of the new covenant. It would be for the forgiveness of all people. And this forgiveness would allow people to enter into the presence of God. Not because they have somehow been good religious people, but because they have received the promise that has been given to them by faith in the blood of Christ which allows them to enter into God’s kingdom.

Paul therefore asks the Galatian church: Is that really what you want? Do you really want to enter back into slavery by the Law? Do you even know what that means?

Of course they don’t understand it! Otherwise, they would have never chosen that particular path. Otherwise, they would have rejected the Judaizer’s message immediately. They would have said that they were God’s people as a result of the promise that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, not as a result of being good religious people.

The good news – in fact, the best news! – is that this promise is for all people. It was available to the Galatians, but it is also available to us today. We can be God’s people by believing God. We can be God’s people by receiving the promise, by placing our faith in Christ, that his death and resurrection will allow us to live, allow us to receive the promise that God has given. In this way, we will not be children born to the slave woman, but instead, children of the promise born to be free.

One of the greatest challenges, I believe, for those that seek God, is to understand how to reach him. In fact, that is the central issue, the one primary question.

Here are some examples of responses that I have heard to this question: How can we reach God? How can we come to him?

1. Well, I believe that if I am a good person, then someday God will judge me and allow me to enter heaven.

In this case, the person is trying to be “good”. Of course, the problem with this way of reaching God is that it is based on our sense of what the word good means, not God’s sense of what good means. God is a perfect God. He is a holy God, completely righteous and without so much as a blemish. So for each of us, even with one blemish, we are no longer holy. We are no longer perfect, so we cannot be with God.

2. We must pray to him five times a day. We must offer money to the poor. We must take a trip to a holy city and walk around a stone several times…

Or said another way, we must do the good works that our religion requires. This is what will allow us to come to God.

In this second case, you have a person who is trying to reach God by their good religious works. They want to not just be a good person, but they want to be a good religious person, doing lot of good religious works. Their religion has said that they need to do X to reach God, so they do X. Their religion has said that they need to do Y to reach God, so they do Y.

But of course, the question in this case is whether or not we have done enough religious works. Have I really followed everything that my religion requires? Is there more that I should do? And the answer is always, invariably, yes. There is more that I could do. There is more that I should do. This person is left with doubt and continues to struggle in their attempt to reach God through their religious works.

3. I believe. I have faith. And because of this, God will allow me to come to him.

In this case, the main question is this: What is it that you believe in? In what are you placing your faith? You say you have faith, but in what?

This is the primary question of our day for those who seek God, and not surprisingly, it was the same question that the people of Biblical times struggled with as well. The Apostle Paul risked his life, over and over, to be able to communicate the answer to his question to people everywhere that he went and even when they had believed what he had said, they continued to struggle.

Case in point: Paul had taken the message of Christ to the Galatian churches, those in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Paul spoke of the kingdom of God and our ability to come to God through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Paul told them that they must put their faith in that sacrifice so that they would be purified, that we may be forgiven so that we may be seen by God as clean, holy and perfect in the eyes of God.

Many people in those cities had believed and followed Paul’s teaching, and yet now there Judaizers who were coming to those churches, telling them that they must, essentially, also become Jewish, following all of the the Law given by God to the Israelites.

In short, the Judaizers were saying that these new believers needed to do all of the good religious works to be saved. They needed to follow the Law. They needed to do all of the things that the Law requires. And some of the Galatians were convinced.

Why?

Because there is something within us that wants to tell God how we will reach him. Not listen to God tell us what we must do or how we can know him. No, we want to continue to listen to the lie that Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden, that we can be like him. We can call the shots. We can be our own gods.

So we create our own religions, and we invent our own ways, and we create our own promises. We do everything except what God himself has told us to do.

God has called us to receive the promise that he has given to us. Paul says it this way:

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Galatians 3:14

God blessed Abraham with the blessing of knowing him. God would be Abraham’s God, and Abraham would be the first amongst God’s people. God would be Abraham’s inheritance, his great reward and that promise would be given not only to him but also to his seed. Not seeds, but seed, and that promise would culminate in the promise arriving to the point of the Seed of Abraham, namely Jesus, who would fulfill the promise of God, making God known to all people.

God did all of the work. It is his plan, and it is all for his glory. Not ours. Nothing happened in our relationship with God because we made it happen. Believing this would nullify the death of Christ on the cross.

But that is exactly the intent of many people today. They prefer to nullify God’s plan. They prefer to nullify the death of Christ on the cross and instead become their own god. But this is not the plan of the one, true God. No, this plan will pass away along with the people that believe their own lies and pass them along to others. The only plan that will last forever is the promise that was originally given to Abraham and that which has reached us even today. It is the promise of the Spirit that we receive by faith in Christ, our creator, redeemer, and king, the one that has saved us and whom we will serve forever.

Paul had been shipwrecked on the island of Malta along with the rest of the people from the ship on which he was being taken to Rome. After three months, he left and started moving north, stopping in Syracuse and then passing to the north, just off of the coast of where we live today. They made a couple of other stops on their way north to Rome and then finally arrived in Rome where he intentionally connects with the local Jewish leaders, even calling them to his house to talk with them.

They were willing to listen for a time, but when Paul brought them to teach them about Christ, he emphasized the teaching of the kingdom of God:

They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus.

Acts 28:23

Paul explains to the Jewish leaders the kingdom of God, the Law of Moses, and the Prophets. But why are these points the emphasis of Paul’s discussion with the Jews? Two main reasons:

First, the Jews believed, and in fact many still believe, that the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants are the covenants that they had with God. But Paul is explaining that there is now a different reality, a different way in which they must come to God. God had told Abraham and Moses both that he would be their God and they would be his people. To Abraham, God said that they must circumcise their males as a sign of their people, and to Moses, God reminded him that he and all of the people must obey his commandements. And if they will do that, then the covenant would remain in effect.

Of course, the Israelites had not only disobeyed God’s commandments, but they had also renounced their allegiance to God as their king. They said that they wanted a human king just like all of the nations around them. And right along with that desire came their ongoing worship of the other “gods” of the other nations.

So as Jesus came, he came preaching the kingdom of God. Why? Because in Christ, Jesus came to reclaim what was rightly his, his kingdom of people on the earth.

Of course, as the Israelites heard him, they assumed that the kingdom of God meant the nation of Israel. They were still thinking about the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. But those covenants had been broken long ago, and at the Last Supper, Jesus explained that there was now a new covenant, a covenant that was established by his blood. Those that placed their faith in Jesus’s blood would be his people. And in fact, his blood would be offered to all people, not just to the Israelites. The offering of the covenant was now expanded to everyone, not just the Israelites any longer.

Paul also explained the Law and the Prophets to the Jewish leaders. He did this to help the Jews understand that Jesus is the king in the kingdom of God. The Law and the Prophets spoke of the Messiah, the one who would come to rule over his people. This Messiah was predicted to have done many amazing things, whether to have been born of a virgin, to have been killed despite being innocent, and to have been resurrected from the dead.

Of course, the only person to have fulfilled all of these prophecies, and many more, was Jesus. And so Paul explained all of these things to the Jews. They would hear and decide whether or not they would believe.

Some would believe. Unfortunately, others would not. Those that would not would reject Israel’s true king, the one Messiah, Jesus Christ. They would reject becoming part of true kingdom of God, where all are welcome who would follow him.

Instead, those that would believe by placing their faith in his blood as a payment for their sins, they would become part of the kingdom of God. They would live for Christ as their king, doing all that he had commanded the people of his kingdom to do.

This was the teaching of Jesus, inviting people to enter into his kingdom, the kingdom of God, through his blood. And this also was the teaching of Paul, that we all, both Israelites and Gentiles, can enter into the kingdom through Christ and the payment of sins. The blood of Jesus is the blood of the new covenant and the new covenant establishes those that are part of God’s kingdom and those that are not. Those that place their faith in Christ’s blood and make him the king of their lives become a part of the kingdom of God.

But unfortunately, those that do not will become like the Jews who reject Paul, and ultimately reject Christ. In fact, Paul quotes Isaiah back to the Jews as they reject his message, and it should continue to be a warning to us even today:

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.

Acts 28:26-27

Paul was headed to Rome. Following his hearings with Felix, Festus, and subsequently also with King Agrippa, Paul was headed to Rome with the centurion Julius, whose job it was to make sure that he made it.

They had left in a bad season in which to be sailing and had run into a storm that would eventually force them and the boat that they were on, which included 276 people on board, to run aground on the island of Malta, off course from where they had intended to turn right to go along the coast of Sicily and through the Strait of Messina.

But despite the fact that they would run aground, an angel had appeared to Paul and told him that they would all live. They would all be saved:

But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.”

Acts 27:22-26

As the angel came to give this message to Paul, he was simply confirming the message that Jesus had previously given. Paul would go to Rome, and just has he had testified before the other officials, he would also testify for Christ to the head of the Roman Empire himself, directly to Caesar.

God’s plan would not be stopped. Paul would go to Rome just as Jesus had said that he would. Paul would speak of Christ, the King of kings before the king himself. He would tell him of God’s anointed one, the one who would truly rule, not only over Israel, not only over the Roman empire, but over the entire earth.

This is the same one that we are waiting upon even today. God was not late when he sent Jesus and he will not be late when he sends him again. He will come at precisely the right time, just as he did before. God’s plan for Paul was fulfilled just as he said it would be, and his plan for the return of the King will be fulfilled. We do not know yet when, but we must continue to wait for the Lord to complete his plan because his will will be done.

Paul had been taken before Felix, the governor of the area, to stand trial and avoid the lynching that the Jews had planned for him. After some time, Ananias, the high priest, and some of the elders came to level their accusations at him and accused him of starting riots and desecrating the temple, neither of which had Paul actually done.

As Paul took his turn at his defense, he took the opportunity to speak of what he believed, explaining even that he was actually not opposed to what the Jews spiritually believed, but instead whole-heartedly agreed with them. So much so that he looked all of the way back into the beginning and foundations of both their faith and his, that which we call the Old Testament today, but which Paul simply referred to as the Law and the Prophets:

However, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

Matthew 24:14-15

Paul is explaining that he, as a Pharisee, but also a follower of the Way – a way of saying that he is a Christian – believed what they believed as well. He believed in the resurrection. He believed that the Law the Prophets were not opposed to what he believed. Instead, he believed that they specifically pointed toward Jesus!

The Sadducees and the Pharisees were the ruling parties within the Sanhedrin. They had many differences, but for context and to highlight what Paul is saying, some of the most notable were these:

The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife. The Pharisees believed in a punishment or reward by God for the life that you lived on earth.

The Sadducees, therefore, neither believed in the possibility of the resurrection, but the Pharisees did.

The Sadducees did not believe in a spiritual world with angels and demons, whereas the Pharisees did.

Paul had a background as a Pharisee. He grew up a Pharisee and most certainly believed in the afterlife, but based on his encounter with Jesus and understanding of the reason that Jesus had come, Paul had broken with the Pharisaical view that a person’s reward or punishment in the afterlife was simply based on whether they were good or bad people, or whether they had committed too many sins that God wouldn’t forgive and allow the person to enter heaven.

Instead, Paul followed the Way, a name presumably taken from Jesus’s statement in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life. This group went well beyond the Pharisees, believing that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses, to which the Pharisees and Sadducees supposedly adhered. Jesus, unlike any other person ever to walk the earth, never sinned. He followed the Law completely and was therefore perfect. No man could do this, yet Jesus was not only a man. He was born of the Holy Spirit, not from a man, and so he was both a man and God himself.

Paul said that he also believed the Prophets. The Prophets made many claims about what the Messiah would do, and those claims, those prophecies, were fulfilled, both in the purpose and in the specific actions of Jesus. The Prophets claimed that the Messiah would be, for example, born from a virgin, would be killed, and would rise again from the dead, among many other actions. Of course, each of these things came true in Jesus Christ.

So Paul claims that he is in direct agreement with the Law and the Prophets. In fact, he might have even thought that he believed them even more than the other Pharisees because he believed that they were both true, and that the prophecies had actually come true! The books of the Law and the Prophets had become true in the person of Jesus, and this is what Paul based both his faith and all of the rest of his life.

Paul wasn’t above using political or religious systems to work that particular system to his advantage. Paul routinely found himself in trouble, whether it was before the local soldiers, governors, and magistrates or, as we see here in Acts 23, before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.

Having been hit on the orders of the high priest as a result of having said that he had fulfilled his duty to God, Paul was off to a pretty bad start as he stood before this council. However, he had an idea, a plan about how he could bring the council itself to a deadlock and get out of this situation:

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)

Acts 23:6-8

Paul spoke both well and truthfully. He was right. He was on trial because of his hope of the resurrection of the dead. As a Pharisee, he had believed in the idea that there would one day be a resurrection. However, he had also lived this truth because he had encountered Jesus first-hand. He knew that Jesus had been killed on the cross and yet Jesus had also subsequently confronted Paul as he was on the road to Damascus.

Paul knew that God resurrected men because he had experienced it. He had seen it. He saw Jesus, and he placed his faith in him such that God would one day resurrect him, through Christ, as well.

So this was Paul’s true conviction, that he was there as a result of his hope. His hope was based on Christ’s resurrection and that one day he would be resurrected as well.

But it wasn’t just his spiritual conviction that caused Paul to say that he was on trial for his hope in the resurrection. Paul had grown up studying to be a Pharisee, so he was well-versed in the differences between being a Pharisee and a Sadducee. He knew very well that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, while both Jewish leaders, were in heavy disagreement on the question of the resurrection.

Paul also knew that, by saying that he was on trial for his hope in the resurrection, he would immediately bring this disagreement to the surface between his accusers. The members of the Sanhedrin were generally united in their opposition against Paul as a result of his preaching and teaching of Jesus as the Messiah, but as soon as Paul introduced the idea of the resurrection of the dead, they were suddenly divided, a situation that was definitely to Paul’s advantage because now they were no longer focused on him, but instead focused upon one another. Their argumentative fire was aimed within and not at Paul.

Given this situation and Paul’s cleverness, I can’t help but remember in this situation what Jesus had told his disciples as he sent them out to testify about him:

But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 10:19-20

Jesus was specifically speaking, at that time, about the disciples being brought before governors and kings, but it seems to me that this is a pretty similar situation. Paul was on trial for his life. And how does he handle the situation? He seems to have incredible insight, supernatural insight and quick-wittedness, especially given the situation. His ability to think clearly allowed him to speak an important spiritual truth while also using the spiritual arguments that were also political lines that were drawn between the Pharisees and Sadducees, enough to quickly be taken away by the Roman guard who was overseeing his fate before these Jewish leaders.

To me, this all points back to an important truth: Our role is to speak of the reality of Christ, but as we do so, we must continually remember that he is with us as we do. Jesus is there with us as we go, in power as well as wisdom, and he calls upon us to use what he has given to us. He has given us hope. He has given us the story that we are to take to others. But most importantly, he has given us himself, going with us in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit living within us to take the message that we can be reconciled back to God in Jesus through our hope of the resurrection of the dead.

It was important for Paul to take some time to work, making tents with Priscilla and Aquila. After having traveled through Macedonia, then down to Athens, and now over to Achaia to the city of Corinth, he was by himself, and I surmise that he had run out of money. He needed a way to eat. He needed a way to find shelter, but his resources had run low.

In that case, it made sense for him to stop evangelizing, stop preaching and teaching as his full-time work. He needed to resupply himself, so he started working alongside of Priscilla and Aquila.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

Acts 18:1-5

Yet God used this time as well. Paul stayed with them and worked with them and this time became very fruitful. We see Priscilla and Aquila go on to be instrumental in the start of the church in Ephesus, and then they are mentioned later in Paul’s letter to the Romans, so they had later returned to Rome, where they were from originally, to be part of starting and the church there as well. Beyond this, they also taught and discipled Apollos, who would himself end up back in Corinth to continue to teach the same people where Paul had met Priscilla and Aquila.

Even while Paul was making tents, he would still go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He was still teaching and preaching. He was still doing the work of the Lord.

But the point that I want to make here is that there came a time when Silas and Timothy arrived to find Paul there in Corinth. They had followed his footsteps from Macedonia down to Athens and then over to Corinth, finally reaching him there. But when they arrived, what did Paul do? He returned back to preaching and teaching full time.

Why was he able to do that? While it doesn’t say it here specifically in Acts 18, Silas and Timothy had brought an offering from the Macedonian churches, probably specifically from Philippi. Paul makes reference to this offering in both his letter to the Philippians as well as his later letter back to the Corinthians:

Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.

Philippians 4:15-16

And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

2 Corinthians 11:9

So there came a time at which Paul stopped making tents. He was able to do that because of the financial support that he received from the church in Philippi. And when he did receive that support, he stopped making tents and returned back to doing that which God had called him to do full-time.

Paul did what he needed to do for the time that he needed to do it, but he also knew the calling that he had received from the Lord, that the Holy Spirit had called him into service for a specific work to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. He would take the word of God across present-day Lebanon, Turkey, North Macedonia, and Greece, and his work would result in many others coming to know the Lord because his teaching would be repeated and spread into several other locations. He needed to do the work full-time, not holding to a notion that he must continue to make tents to support himself, but instead using the resources provided by the Lord, from the harvest field, for the work of continuing to see the kingdom of God continue to spread amongst those who had not yet heard.

In 2015, Gina and I came to Catania on a first trip to explore Sicily and the immigration situation from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and many other locations, into Europe. Shane Bennett, who had become a friend of ours through a shared history – Gina’s mom and Shane’s mom had been part of the same Bible study back in Indiana decades prior – and a shared work through the Perspectives course – we were hosting and coordinating the course at our church in Colorado and Shane was now living in Colorado and teaching the course – had asked us to come with him to consider the possibility of moving to Catania to be part of an outreach to immigrants and refugees here in Sicily.

That day that he asked if we would go with him, I thought the trip sounded like a nice little getaway for Gina and myself, a spring break trip, if you will. We could ask one of our parents to come to our home in Colorado to watch the kids and we could go see a part of the world where we hadn’t been previously.

Being a little more discerning than I was in the moment, Gina asked me why Shane had specifically asked us to go with him to Sicily.

“I don’t know…” I replied. “I guess he wants some company?”

“You’d better ask him,” she said.

So I called Shane back and told him we would go, but we were curious why he wanted us to go with him.

“Well, I want you to think about moving there,” he said.

Well, why not, I thought… I’m definitely not doing anything else right now!

You know, we just had our marriage with 4 little kids…

We had just bought a new house and had a new mortgage loan…

We were putting in a whole new yard, irrigation system, landscaping, walls, etc…

I had a a job with a LOT of responsibility…

Gina was now also starting to work, teaching at a local school…

We were helping to lead a church…

And truly about a hundred other things in the middle of our lives.

No, there was nothing really going on…. So, why not? Let’s go to Sicily and think about the possibility of moving there. We’re in a pretty good place to do that right now. It made a lot of sense for us at that moment! 😉

I was thinking those things fecitiously, and yet there was also something that was expectant within me as we prepared and subsequently traveled to Catania. Gina and I wondered together if God might be doing something, might be asking us, really and truly, to make a move like this. And if so, was Sicily really the right place?

Coming to Sicily on that first trip, Shane had invited a missions organization to join us, to have several people fly in to meet us from other parts of Europe. I remember that one of the leaders of that organization, as we drove across the island to explore and learn, shared a few verses from Acts 17. They were some of the same verses that I read this morning. They made a big impact on me at that time and became part of our story in moving to Catania. Here is what he read:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Acts 17:24-28

The context of these verses is that Paul is preaching at the Areopagus in Athens. He had been called into Macedonia, but was chased out of Thessalonica, and subsequently Berea, and had been taken down to Athens by the believers from Berea. He was waiting on Silas and Timothy to join him, but of course Paul, being Paul, couldn’t help himself from continuing to teach and preach, and as a result, he was invited to come speak at a meeting of the Areopagus. They regularly spoke about philosophies and new ideas, so as Paul began speaking, he offered to them an explanation and an understanding of the one true God, the one that they did not even know.

But Paul pointed out something incredibly interesting in the middle of this passage. He said that God appointed specific times and and boundries for all of the nations of the earth.

Specific times and boundries for the nations of the earth.

I can remember how that struck me as we were riding along in the car that day. I hadn’t ever thought about it that way. As I looked at a map, I just thought that the lines and boundry lines were just an indication of where the people landed, having then they set up their nations and laws, and…nothing more. Finished.

Honestly, I hadn’t really ever thought about it very much.

But here, Paul is saying that God himself appointed both the boundries and the times for each group of people, for each nation.

And there was a purpose for these appointments. The purpose was that the peoples of the nations would reach out to God, and that they might find him. God put the people in their specific lands, with the specific boundries, at specific times, so that they would find him.

Repeating that, it seems at a minimum a little strange, and at the most, maybe a little crazy… yet that is exactly what Paul is saying.

And what is more, that is exactly what we see as we examine the story that God is telling us through the scriptures, isn’t it? God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and the Israelites eventually take that land. Why? Is it not so that God would be known, not only amongst the Israelites, but also all of the other nations? That is what is written throughout both the Old Testament, and then subsequently reiterated in the New Testament. Here is just one example amongst many that show us God’s plan, having been quoted even at the Jerusalem council, recorded at this point in Acts 15:

The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:

“‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’ —
things known from long ago.

Acts 15:15-18

James is quoting the prophet Amos when he says these words to the rest of the people in the meeting. He is talking about the fact that Israel has been destroyed, and yet will be rebuilt and restored. The purpose of these people, of God’s people, is that the rest of mankind would seek God, would know him. All of the Gentiles. In fact, all peoples.

And again, this is one simple example of alignment with what Paul tells the Areopagus there in Athens. The rest of the Old Testament aligns with this same story. Over and over this same idea is repeated.

I remember sitting in the car that day, thinking about the idea that God appointed the times and the boundries of the lands of the people of the earth.

Then I thought about why I was riding along in that car in Sicily. We were there because there were people who were either willingly migrating from their home countries for a better life, or fleeing their home countries as a result of war or persecution. Either way, whether we call them migrants or refugees, we could still come back to what Paul proclaimed to the people of Athens:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Acts 17:26-27

And so, in that time, I had to ask myself: What does that mean for me? What does that mean for my family? We were there in that car, bumping along the roads of Sicily seemingly just as a result of an invitation from a friend of ours, but now I was beginning to think that this wasn’t a mistake nor a coincidence. The boundries of the lands of the people that were entering into Europe were moving, either seemingly by their own volition or that of the evil being perpetrated upon them within their own countries. And yet God wanted to use the movement of these peoples for them to know him. This is what Paul had explained at the Areopagus in Athens, and it was the reality of what we were seeing even today.

I believe that this is the same question that I continue to ask myself today and the same question that we should, as followers of Christ, be asking ourselves: What is the purpose of the movement of the peoples that we are seeing today? Immigration and the movement of peoples are happening everywhere. Is there a purpose for which God intends to use this movement of people? Is it not so that they should know him?

To be clear, I understand that this is a sticky political issue. And also to be clear, I believe that all immigration should be done legally, respecting the laws of the countries involved. But this is not the part that I want to necessarily focus upon. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that God has appointed the times and the boundries of the lands, and that reality has a very real implication, as followers of Christ, on each of us. God is intending to use the movement of the people, in those places and in those times, so that they will know him and I, like each of us, have a part to play in God’s plan.

About a year or so ago, we had received some visitors for the day. We knew that they wouldn’t be there very long, so we wanted to take them out to see a part of our city, especially some of the parts we have frequented on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it is probably the worst area of the city where there is prostitution, drug dealing, and just generally a lot of bad some happening. In addition, though, it is also one of the areas where you find concentrations of the west and north African immigrants in town, so we have gone there to pray for people or spend some time with them.

We went out to pray, and as we passed through this area, I saw a couple of men that I knew, so I turned and left the group for a moment to say Hello and ask them if there was anything for which we could pray since we were there to pray alongside of our friends and visitors.

We were just talking for a few minutes when, from my behind me, and then beside me, I heard this a couple of times…

These men are Christian missionaries who are here tell you about Jesus.

It was a woman’s voice, which is strange in that area to say the least. You rarely hear a woman’s voice except amongst the prostitute ladies, and they don’t speak English, only Spanish and Italian.

It didn’t really register with me the first time that she said it, at least not enough to make me turn around and look for her. The second time I heard it, I turned and looked. My friends were with me as well and we began to look around to understand what was happening. The visitors that we had with us started looking at us quizzingly as well.

She went on to say it 2 or 3 times, so as we walked away from the conversation with the people we knew, I looked for the lady. I hadn’t seen her before, nor have I seen her since. I asked her her name and she told me and asked her how she knew what she knew. She said she could just tell because she knows Jesus.

I asked her what she knows about him and she said that she knew that people called him the Son of God. I asked her if I could share a story with her and began to share the Gospel with her. Several times she interrupted me and lead the conversation in another direction, so it was clear that she didn’t want to hear what I was trying to say to her. We then simply asked if we could pray for her, so she was willing to quiet herself for a few moments while we did that.

I wish I could say that we drove a demon out of her that day. Aside from spiritual revelation, I have no way of knowing how she would have known who we were or what we were doing. It isn’t as if there aren’t many different types of people from around the world here where we live. You can’t necessarily just look at us and know who we are.

I was reminded of this story this morning as I read Acts 16, the story of Paul and his companions as they traveled to and from Philippi:

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

Acts 16:16-18

Paul spoke directly to this spirit, driving it out from this young lady. Unfortunately, that action actually led Paul to be thrown into prison as the woman was a slave and her owners no longer had a way to make money from the spirit that possessed her. But the woman was free from her possession and Paul’s word about Christ was confirmed by the work of his hands.

I explored the situation that day, having recognized what was happening. Looking back, I wish now that I would have stayed longer with the young lady that called us out in front of the rest of the group that stood around listening to the conversation we had with our friends. Honestly, I was thinking about other things. I was thinking about the visitors that we had with us. I was thinking about the schedule that we were keeping for the day, and it is a lesson that I need to remember so that as we see these types of situations in the future, they can be addressed for what they are, a spiritual confrontation and likely a cry for help.

These “Judaizers” from the Pharisees were pretty sure that they were right. In fact, they were so sure that they went so far as to say that you cannot be saved unless you follow the law of Moses.

Practically speaking, what did that mean? All of these Gentiles that had come to faith, all of these Gentiles that had already received the Holy Spirit, must also be circumcised.

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Acts 15:1

Ouch.

I say “ouch” in a couple of different ways. There is the physical “ouch” in that the Judaizers were saying that the Gentiles had to complete the physical act of circumcision. I cannot imagine that it would be an act that they would be looking forward to completing!

Then I also say “ouch” because the Judaizers have had the temerity to speak for God. The Gentiles had already received the Holy Spirit. Should these zealous religious men try to add something to the gift of God saying that the Gentiles aren’t really saved until we have also done X, or Y, or Z?

Of course, it was a tricky situation. If someone had converted to Judaism in the past, the first thing that needed to be done was for the person to follow all of the laws of Judaism, and that of course included the act of circumcision. Circumcising a man would show his allegiance to the covenant given by God, first through Abraham and then through subsequent leaders.

But Jesus offered his people, including all of us, a new covenant. The new covenant was given in his blood. Jesus fulfilled the law, meaning that he kept all of the laws. He was the only man ever to have done so, so he did not deserve to be punished. He was the only man to ever not deserve punishment for breaking God’s law, yet he was sent by God specifically to take the punishment for the sins of the people upon himself. It is an incredible gift of God through an amazing display of love and mercy for his people.

This is the offer of the new covenant, that by Jesus’s blood, God will be our God and we will be his people.

Nothing more. Nothing added. Nothing additional needed.

In fact, Peter is very clear about this as he addressed the council that considered this question:

We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

Acts 15:11

Yet even today, we see the “yoke” of additional rules and regulations of the church put upon people as leaders try to decide themselves who can be saved and who cannot. In fact, I have this same conversation with my Catholic friends on a regular basis. They insist to me that it must be Jesus + X or Jesus + Y. And why? Because they believe that the Catholic church has the right to impose rules from the top-down, from the Pope to all of us.

For some reason, they – and sometimes each of us as well – seem to think that we, as humans, have the right to overrule what God has said.

Of course we do not. Yet we often persist in this line of thinking. We insist that we know better than what Jesus has said. We frequently believe, like the Pharisees who became the Judaizers in the midst of the believing church, that we must add something to Jesus for others to be able to know God.

Let us, instead, simply tell others of the blood of Christ. It is through this blood that God has made his new covenant with us. It is through this blood that we can be made clean before the Lord. It is through this blood that we can be saved.

And as we are saved, we will receive the Holy Spirit, and by walking by the Spirit we will do the things that the law requires. Not because we have become a Jew and followed all of the Jewish laws, but because we have followed Christ, making him king over the entirety of our lives and we now live completely for him.