Who gets to determine how the message is to be understood? Who is right? HOW DO I KNOW??

Is it a sense of peace? Is it the majority vote? Is it the thing that makes me happy?

Are there principles found in the Bible that can help us determine for ourselves if what we’re hearing is from the Spirit or not? I believe there are - and I want to share a few of them:

Associate Pastor Andy Buchanan

Associate Pastor Andy Buchanan

Learning and growing. Also called DISCIPLESHIP. Remember Jesus didn’t call us to make converts, but disciples. There’s a difference. “Want to be a Christian” is different than “Want to be a disciple?” Disciples are disciplined. They learn. They grow. They follow. They change.

Learning and growing. In other words, there’s no “arrival” in the Christian journey - not ‘til heaven, really. 

But even though we aren’t there, God’s design is that we continue on a journey towards “there.”

But check out Hebrews 6:1a "So let us go on to grown-up teaching. Let us not go back over the beginning lessons we learned about Christ." (NCV)

Or Ephesians 4:15  "...we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (ESV)

Or Colossians 1:9  "And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding" (RSV)

Today as we look at the last part of Acts 18, there is this account of a significant event in the life of the early Church.

 “Pull, Nellie, Pull”

Try pulling by yourself - it’s hard. Just like Ministry. Ministry is amazingly satisfying. Ministry is amazingly hard. And we tend to make it harder than it really should be.

When approached in the wrong way, ministry will burn us out. But God designed it differently. His design was to make it amazingly encouraging - but only when we approach it as the Ultimate Team Sport. No Lone Ranger Christians. Today as we come to Acts 18, there is a transition where we see Paul worn out by ministry - but God is good and reminds us how ministry SHOULD operate. And eventually, Paul would experience the equivalent to a Pastors Retreat...though the city in which it happens doesn’t seem the likeliest of places for a spiritual rejuvenation. Let’s talk a bit about Corinth.

As we have traced the 2nd Missionary Journey of Paul over the past couple of weeks, we now come to the city of Athens. And it’s a pretty amazing story we find in Acts 17. But first a little background:

Athens was the cultural center of the world:

• Politics (birthplace of democracy)
• Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Socrates)
• Art (Parthenon, statuary – think of Greece? You’re thinking of Athens)

This all leads Athens to be a place committed to PLURALISM

In many ways, 2000 years later, we still live in Athens - COEXIST

Trouble for Christians? Again, we have a Savior who claimed to be THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life

• How do you proclaim that in a post-modern world that values the “coexist” model?
• How does PAUL do it? Is there something here on this port of call that affects us?

We’ll find out in this next part of Acts 17, starting in verse 16, the WHY, the HOW, and the WHO of Paul’s famous sermon.

The Bible is GOD’S STORY - a full narrative arc; a beginning, middle, and end; You can’t just pop into the middle of it, expecting to understand.

What is Truth? You gotta learn how to REALLY read your Bible - not in part, but the whole.

Today we come to Acts 17. Paul and the Gospel are now in Greece, setting foot for the very first time on a brand new continent. Last week we studied his stop in at Philippi and learned something about worship on this first leg of the European Tour; and this week we’ll study the impact of God’s Truth as Paul makes his way Southwest  to the cities of Thessalonica and Berea.

Paul and Silas are in the dark this morning in our study in Acts. Paul set a demon-possessed girl free in the name of Jesus, and what does he get? 

 What do you do when life is unfair? Pout? Lash out? Close yourself off from the world? Get on Facebook, hoping to find people willing to join the pity party? How about singing?

Why sing? Does it matter when we do? And if so, to whom does it matter?

Why sing? Why worship? Because God desires it and he deserves it.

This morning, we are talking about freedom - and the opportunity to become freedom fighters in our world - not for civil liberties, but for spiritual liberties. In our country, where we are free to choose many things, unfortunately many people have chosen to give UP their spiritual freedom as they have walked into the enemy’s trap and find themselves in bondage. This is what happened in Acts 16, so let’s turn there and see what’s going on, and what inspiration we might gain from these events.

What do you do when God has other plans? You think you know which way is best; you even are pretty sure it’s not a matter of a sinful choice! You think this is the right direction, and God says, “NO”?

In our study in the book of Acts, Paul is now REALLY excited to take the message to the world (BTW, this happens… talk to ANYONE who has been used by God to make a difference in someone’s life, whether here in our own community, or overseas or across the border; kinda like a drug - hard to get them to NOT do it again...and again...and again; thus Paul). He’s got plans. Asia (not the continent, but that direction, at least! Central and Eastern Turkey, specifically... ). Huge mission field, right?

But at every point where Paul tests the waters, God keeps interfering… It begins, actually with the travelling companions.