Day 41: Controversies, Arguments, Imprisonment: The Grace of God

So Paul and his companions have been finding some success preaching the gospel of Jesus among the Gentiles, when there appears a competing group who also preach Jesus -- plus circumcision.  This development leads to the first church convention, where the topic at hand is:  What should we do with all these non-Jewish people who want to be Christian?  Some people thought they ought to be circumcised; others (including Paul) did not.

Success has its price.

As well, note that even at this early date, there were disagreements among believers.  In this case, after heated discussions, the church came to an agreement about what they would ask from the Gentile believers:  not circumcision, but abstaining from eating blood, and food sacrificed to idols, and sexual immorality.

Having dodged this bullet, however, Paul and Barnabas somehow couldn't fix a rift that developed between the two of them.  We really don't know much about the rift, except that it had to do with John Mark.  Barnabas wanted to take him along with them; Paul did not.  On the basis of something as simple as this, Paul and Barnabas part ways.  Paul teams up with Silas, and eventually Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman and a Greek father (interesting that he has Timothy circumcised because of the company with whom he expects to be traveling.)

It's sort of sad that the church could come to an agreement with respect to the first controversial issue they faced, but that Paul and Barnabas couldn't come to an agreement with regard to John Mark.  But that's the way it is in churches sometimes, isn't it?  It is the (seemingly) little things, the rifts between individuals, that catch us up, oftentimes more than the big and controversial theological issues of the day.  it is the arguments about which songs we sing and who distrusts who that end up generating the heat, even now.

That being said, Luke is still pretty clear that it is the Holy Spirit that directs or impedes their progress.  The Holy Spirit leads them to Macedonia, where Lydia hears the message of Jesus and believes.  Later on, though, Paul casts an evil spirit out of a young woman.  This good deed is rewarded with time in prison for Paul and Silas.  (it seems that the evil spirit was a source of revenue for the owners of the young woman.)

As has happened before, a way for the apostle to escape from jail presents itself:  an earthquake!  but this time, instead of escaping, Paul and his friends stay put, and in this way confess their faith in the one who has set them free.

There is more than one kind of captivity
And more than one way to be free.

The Acts of the Apostles..... are to be continued.