Events

If you pray for wisdom about a particular decision, and then find yourself coming to a conclusion you hadn’t expected, you either go with it or you decide that you didn’t really mean that prayer in the first place. It is likely that Paul went through such a process before he chose Timothy as a Read More →

Acts 15 is about controversy in the early church. We can understand Paul and Peter, who insist that God has granted Gentiles repentance that leads to life without the Gentiles needing to be circumcised (as we saw in Acts 11). And we can understand the circumcision faction, who are named more Read More →

As long as our churches are places where we struggle to sustain an hour or two of public worship per week, with “real life” only minimally affected by it, we will be like a bunch of vaguely religious cows in a field, mooing on Sunday mornings and chewing the cud the rest of the time. But if we Read More →

Luke now comes to a turning point in his story. Here we are at the start of an extraordinary triple journey which will take Paul across Turkey and Greece and back again, then again once more, and finally off to Rome itself. We would much prefer the story to be one of gentle persuasion rather Read More →

After initial opposition from the chief priests and then persecution initiated by a zealous young Pharisee, the followers of Jesus now at last come in for royal attention. Herod Agrippa I was thought of by the Jewish population as “their man,” trusted more or less by the Romans but also popular Read More →