|
CHRISTIANITY OASIS
DAILY BREAD DEVOTIONAL
|
PAUL’S SECOND JOURNEY
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER 16
A very warm welcome back, and glad you could join us for today’s Daily
Bread. Our study today takes us with Paul and Silas on Paul’s second journey
of sharing the Gospel and the news of salvation through Christ to the
Gentiles.
When they went to
Derbe and Lystra, there was a disciple there named Timotheus, whose mother
was a Jewess believer, but his father was Greek, who was well respected by
the brethren in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timotheus to go out with him
to preach, and because of the Jewish people in that area, Timotheus was
circumcised because everyone knew that his father was Greek. (So, think
about this through the Jewish people’s eyes. You’ve been raised to disregard
the Gentiles. You’ve got a half Jewish/half Gentile man, trying to convert
you, and he doesn’t even follow the law of Moses, why would you believe
anything he said? However, if the Jewish people saw that Timotheus followed
the law of Moses, he’d be much more credible in the eyes of the Jewish
people, and Paul, being chosen as an Apostle of the Gentiles, can apprentice
Timotheus, and gain Jewish people for Christ.) So in order for Timotheus for
be able to reach the Jewish peoples he came across he was gonna have to
follow the Jewish customs.
As they went
through the cities, they delivered the letters that were written by the
apostles and elders in Jerusalem of the decrees to keep. So the churches
were established in the faith and increased in number, daily. You gotta
imagine how Paul went abroad to many places and in each place those that
believed became a sect and would gather to worship. This became a CHURCH.
Paul would make his rounds as he was spreading the Word when he would pass
one of the cites that established a Church cuz of his sharing of the Truth
on an earlier journey, would stop in and hang out with the brethren.
They went
throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the
Holy Ghost
to preach the Word in Asia. (This is the area where the seven churches in
Asia are, that are written about in chapters 2 & 3 of the book of
Revelation). After they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but
the Holy Spirit didn’t allow them to, so they passed by Mysia, and went to
Troas. Isn't that just so cool that they were warned about which cities they
were NOT to enter by the Holy Spirit?
In Troas, Paul had a
vision one night. A man of Macedonia stood and asked him, Come over into
Macedonia and help us. After he had seen the vision, they immediately set
out to go into Macedonia, confidently perceiving that the Lord wanted them
to preach the Gospel there.
I’ve got a couple
of little Daily Bread Crumbs for you here. At this point in the book of
Acts, Luke, our author, makes it clear that he was WITH Paul at this point,
using the words we and us, in his descriptions when he did not
before. So Luke is with Paul now. Also, Macedonia, which you’ll hear about
many more times in the New Testament, is what is now modern day Greece.
Well, they set
sail and went directly to Samothracia (Samothrace is a Greek island in the
Aegean Sea), and the next day they sailed to Neapolis. From there they went
to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony
(newly inhabited), and they stayed in that city for a while.
On the Sabbath,
they went outside the city by a riverside, where prayer was known to be
made, and they sat down and talked to the women who were there. A certain
woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, from the city of Thyatira, who
worshipped God, heard them talk, and the Lord opened her heart and she
understood the things that Paul spoke of. When she and her family were
baptized, she asked them, If you have found me to be faithful to the Lord,
come into my house and stay there. And she insisted.
Here’s another
little Daily Bread Crumb! You often hear of
purple in the Bible. This is referring to
Tyrian purple, which comes from the area of Tyre in Lebanon. It is a crimson
or purple dye obtained by the ancient Greeks and Romans from snails. The
color purple was also used to represent imperial or regal power in those
times. Most times, the term purple in the Bible is referring to cloth that
was dyed with Tyrian purple.
One day when they went to
prayer, a slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met them, who
brought her masters a lot of money by fortune telling. In other words the
spirit within her would give her the ability to tell the future and her
masters made money off that power. She followed Paul and his men saying,
These men are the servants of the most high God, who show us the way of
salvation. She did this for many days and being disturbed by it, Paul turned
around and said to the spirit within her, I command you in the name of Jesus
Christ to come out of her. And it came out in the same hour. When her
masters saw that their hope of making money was gone, they caught Paul and
Silas, and took them into the marketplace to the rulers to be judged.
They told the officials,
These men, being Jews, greatly disrupt our city and teach customs that are
against our law, being Romans. The people spoke against them and the
officials tore their clothes, and commanded to beat them. After they were
beaten, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailor to lock them up
safely, so he put them into the inner prison and anchored their feet
securely.
At midnight Paul
and Silas prayed, and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them.
Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so strong that the foundations of the
prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every
one's chains were loosed. The keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep,
and seeing the prison doors open, drew out his sword, and would have killed
himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped and he would be put to
death. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Don’t harm yourself, we’re
still here.
He called for a light,
and rushed in, trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought
them out, asking, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They answered,
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your family will be saved.
They spoke to him the Word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.
He took them that same hour of the night, and washed their stripes (wounds
from being whipped); and he was baptized, he and all his family,
immediately.
When he had
brought them into his house, he prepared a meal for them, and rejoiced,
believing in God with all his house. When it was day, the officials sent the
sergeants, saying, Let those men go. The keeper of the prison said to Paul,
The magistrates have ordered to let you go: so go now, and go in peace. But
Paul said to them, They’ve beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and
they threw us into prison; and now they want us to just leave quietly so
nobody will know? No way, but let them come themselves and bring us out.
(That Paul was a quick thinker. Though he wasn’t really Roman, he was from a
town that was under Roman rule, was he not? Millions of immigrants came from
overseas to America in the olden days, (and even today) and call themselves
Americans. Using the Romans to Christ’s advantage was really a very wise
move on Paul’s part, you must say.)
The sergeants told
the magistrates: and they were afraid, when they heard that they were
Romans. They came and got them, and brought them out, and asked them to
leave the city. So, Paul and Silas went out of the prison, and went back to
the house of Lydia: and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted
them, and departed.
Now, that was
truly an adventurous time for Paul and Silas. You see, amazing things can
happen when you’re just on your way to deliver a letter in the name of the
Lord. More adventures are ahead, so be sure to come back and join us for
more interesting stories, right here at your Daily Bread.
Search the entire Christianity Oasis Website
|
|
|
|
IF you believe
that JESUS CHRIST is working in this Ministry and you have
felt the presence of the HOLY SPIRIT:
PROVE HIS PROMISE
OF BLESSINGS
|
|
|
|
|
