Acts 17 – 18

Verse 17:6 shows the constant attack Paul was under:

 Seeing this movement growing, the unconvinced Jewish people became protective and angry. They found some ruffians hanging out in the marketplaces and convinced them to help start a riot. Soon a mob formed, and the whole city was seething with tension. The mob was going street by street, looking for Paul and Silas—who were nowhere to be found. Frustrated, when the mob came to the house of a man named Jason, now known as a believer, they grabbed him and some other believers they found there and dragged them to the city officials.

Mob: These people—they’re political agitators turning the world upside down! They’ve come here to our fine city,

We tend to look at this as Satan trying to disrupt Jesus’ movement. Also, people tend to dislike change and will fight it always. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new way of looking to God or a new traffic signal at your local intersection, people don’t like change. Through the years I have learned to “go with the flow” which includes a change in plans this week and a cross country move starting in a few day. So while I fight it I also have learned to accept change and go with the flow.

Verse 17:23 discusses and interesting point:

 I have stopped again and again to examine carefully the religious statues and inscriptions that fill your city. On one such altar, I read this inscription: “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” I am not here to tell you about a strange foreign deity, but about this One whom you already worship, though without full knowledge.

In reality when you parse God into lesser gods of thunder, love, etc. you are worshiping aspects of God, but not the one true God. Now some would say the “lesser gods” are actually demonic entities that are trying to remove worship from God, but many could be just subdividing God into pieces they like. Either way it is wrong and misguided. We need to understand salvation through Jesus is the one true way and is easy to understand once you break your current paradigm.

Verse 18:25 is something we must all be aware of:

He was partially instructed in the way of the Lord, and he added to his native eloquence a burning enthusiasm to teach about Jesus. He taught accurately what he knew; but he had only understood part of the good news, specifically the ritual cleansing through baptism preached by John, the forerunner of Jesus.

They key to learning the Gospel of Jesus is to receive it, but also to diligently study it. With Apollos he had “burning enthusiasm” to teach but had not learn enough to completely teach the message. A responsibility of elders in a church is to ensure the complete message of Jesus is being taught. The preachers who teach say prosperity without talking about all the suffering is missing the point of Jesus. The message is not “worship Jesus and get rich”, but rather “worship Jesus for help through all the trials and successes”, basically “real life” here in this world. Diluted messages can kill ones faith more than anything else when riches or healing don’t immediately follow!!

NOTE – The one thing to think of with Jesus as the path vs all other religions … Jesus offers a gift, where others require work and money to gain salvation. Think about it … why would God exclude so many?