Tag: Acts 20

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All Roads Lead to Jerusalem

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Leviticus 25 Listen: (7:41) Read: Acts 21 Listen: (5:55)

Scripture Focus: Acts 21.12-15

12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.” 15 After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem.

Luke 24.13-16, 27

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him…27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Acts 20.22-24

22 “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

Reflection: All Roads Lead to Jerusalem

By John Tillman

Traveling to or from Jerusalem can mean many things, good or bad. Jesus often meets people on the road to or from Jerusalem.

On the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, Cleopas and another disciple encountered the resurrected Jesus. On their way home in disillusionment and discouragement, Jesus joined them. Through scripture, he restored their faith and reversed their journey’s direction.

On the road from Jerusalem to Damascus, Paul encountered the resurrected Jesus. On his way to persecute Jesus’ followers, Jesus confronted him. Through miracles and the ministry of the church, he reversed the direction of Paul’s pursuits. Paul returned to Jerusalem a follower of Jesus.

On Paul’s final road to Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit spoke to him. On his way to testify about Jesus, prayer and prophecies warned Paul of persecution and pain, not to turn him back, but to prepare him.

His arrest set Paul on the road away from Jerusalem to Rome. On this journey, an angel of the Lord stood beside him, promising to fulfill God’s purpose in Paul’s life. (Acts 27.22-24)

Jesus is with us on whatever road we walk. He knows what it is like to walk to and from Jerusalem that kills the prophets. (Matthew 23.37) Jesus knows what it is like to both love your city and nation and know the dangerous wickedness within them.

All roads for the Christian lead to Jerusalem and all of the potential glory, danger, sacrifice, and suffering that means. We must face our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria, and our Rome. (Acts 1.8) Prison and hardship may await us. (Acts 20.23) We must prepare to be bound or to die for the name of Jesus. (Acts 21.13) What shall we say, “Deliver us from this hour?” No. We must say, as Jesus did, “Father, glorify your name!” (John 12.26-28)

Our road to or from Jerusalem can mean difficulty or danger or doubt or depression. Is your Jerusalem road one of mourning and defeat? Anger and retribution? Fear and ominous warnings? Slander and accusations? Persecution or prosecution?

Jesus will meet us, join us, confront us, comfort us, protect us, and prepare us. Let him open scripture to us, challenge us when we are wrong, warn us to prepare us for the future, and promise us that his purpose in us will be fulfilled.

The road through a Jerusalem of suffering, leads to the new Jerusalem of glory. This is the way and there is no other.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Then they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven assembled together with their companions, who said to them, “The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognized him at the breaking of bread. — Luke 24.32-35

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Read more: Following Through Jerusalem

The path leading to glory with Christ is the path leading through suffering to death.

Following Through Jerusalem
Read more: Now Jerusalem and Not-Yet Jerusalem

Nehemiah lived in Now-Jerusalem and pointed to Not-Yet-Jerusalm. So do we.

Now Jerusalem and Not-Yet Jerusalem

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None Excluded or Excused

Scripture Focus: Acts 20.4-6
4 He was accompanied by Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia. 5 These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. 6 But we sailed from Philippi after the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others at Troas, where we stayed seven days.

Reflection: None Excluded or Excused
By John Tillman

Paul was rarely alone and rarely did his work alone.

In Acts 18, we see that a group of believers accompanied Paul. Many of them are representatives from the communities he has just visited. Believers from Berea, Thessalonica, and Asia, as well as others, joined Paul. They left their own cities and situations to travel and work with Paul, taking the gospel to other communities.

We can sometimes forget that Paul’s ministry was never a one-man show. Seven of the thirteen “Pauline letters” open saying, “from Paul AND…” Paul and Sosthenes sent 1 Corinthians. Paul and Timothy sent 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Paul, Timothy, and Silas sent 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Bible nerds debate whether these men were co-authors or scribes or letter carriers. To me, it seems scribes and letter carriers were typically mentioned at the end, not at the beginning and co-authorship does not threaten the quality of the letters or their authority or inspiration. Paul is, undeniably, the main voice but what the others might have contributed is a fun topic to think about.

More important than the question of co-authorship is recognizing the importance of teamwork in Paul’s ministry. If we have an idea of ministry as a top-down power structure, we’ve misread the book of Acts and Paul’s letters. We need to reimagine what ministry looks like in our heads. 

People often talk about “red flags” when visiting churches but when we first visited our current church, we saw a “green flag.” Instead of saying, “I’m the lead pastor” or “the senior pastor” or even “the teaching pastor,” the pastor said, “I’m one of the pastors at this church.” Those other phrases wouldn’t be sinful and would all be truthful. But consistently referring to himself as a collaborative leader was a sign of good things.

For Paul, ministry was collaborative. Paul’s ministry team included all races, men and women, young people and elders, slaves and free, rich and poor. Paul brought others with him because he valued them and their contributions. Not only was no one excluded from sharing the gospel, no one was excused from doing so. 

Are you one of those sharing the gospel? Who are you bringing along? Who are you collaborating with? Who is learning from you and from whom are you learning? 

Are you collaborating through funding, preaching, prophesying, serving, writing, traveling, or other means?

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Your testimonies are very sure, and holiness adorns your house, O Lord, forever and forevermore. — Psalm 62.6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Reading
Leviticus 24 (Listen 2:58)
Acts 20 (Listen 5:22)

Read more about Embrace Your Mission
Paul’s mission brought others together and molded diverse people into unified disciples.

Embrace Your Mission

Read more about Facing Wolves
In hunting for “wolves” we can injure a lot of sheep. People who hunt wolves often become wolf-like themselves.

Facing Wolves
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Facing Wolves

Scripture Focus: 1 Timothy 4.1-5
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

Acts 20.29-31a
29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!…

Reflection: Facing Wolves
By John Tillman

Paul’s warning about false teachers echoes the words of Jesus. (Matthew 24.10-11; Mark 13.22) Paul would give similar warnings to the Ephesian elders in person. (Acts 20.28–31)

These were leaders who loved Paul well enough to travel nearly 50 miles to see him for the last time, as he journeyed to Rome. Yet some of them would become false teachers. Paul described these false teachers as “savage wolves” who “will not spare the flock.” (Acts 20.29)

Passages like this can make us paranoid and conspiratorial. “Anyone could be a false teacher—a demonic influence!” We can become obsessed with rooting out “demonic” false teachers. It can be exciting to think you are fighting demons and hunting wolves. However, in hunting for “wolves” we can injure a lot of sheep. People who hunt wolves often become wolf-like themselves.

What makes a wolf?

“Things taught by demons” sounds spookily supernatural, and it may be, but the lessons are mundane. The demonic teaching Paul is worried about isn’t exotic child sacrifices. It’s rule-following legalism and salvation by works: “Don’t marry,” “Don’t eat certain food.” (1 Timothy 4.3)

Legalism always ends in hypocrisy because legalists, and everyone else, fail to live up to their own standards. Hypocrisy and lies burn away people’s consciences. This is what makes a wolf. 

With consciences burned away, wolves refuse correction and scoff at compassion. A lack of humility or sensitivity makes them brutish, savage, and proud of it. A wolf glories in his teeth. Blood on his lips is a badge of honor. 

Like Timothy, we face “wolves” today. With hypocritical pride and calloused hearts, they are unsparing and brutal. However, Paul doesn’t seem to suggest that Timothy should hunt the wolves. He certainly doesn’t say, “mercilessly troll them on Twitter” or any 1st-century equivalent. I don’t want to minimize the danger of false teaching. We should take Paul’s warning seriously. We can’t ignore wolves or pretend they don’t exist. However, we do not have to worry about “exposing” wolves. They will expose themselves.

Rather than hunting wolves, Paul’s warning, given with tears, is not to become one of these wolves ourselves. (Acts 20.31) Paul tells Timothy to just keep feeding the sheep. (1 Timothy 4.6) Let’s hunt our own wolfish tendencies. Let’s resist legalism and hypocrisy with grace, truth, humility, and compassion.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Morning Psalm
But as for me, this is my prayer to you, at the time you have set, O Lord:
In your great mercy, O God, answer me with your unfailing help.
Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters.
Let not the torrent of waters wash over me, neither let the deep swallow me up; do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me.
Answer me, O Lord, for your love is kind; in your great compassion, turn to me. — Psalm 69.14-18

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Ezekiel 32 (Listen 5:30)
1 Timothy 4 (Listen 2:05)

Read more about Praying for Repentance
As we think of these people Paul writes of, who will gather teachers to suit their own desires, we need to think about our desires.

Praying for Repentance :: A Guided Prayer

Read more about Learning from the Suffering
Deconstructing people are not wolves to be hunted but fellow sheep—often attacked and wounded sheep.

Learning from the Suffering
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Embrace Your Mission

Scripture Focus: Acts 20.1-2
1 When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia. 2 He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the people…

Reflection: Embrace Your Mission
By Carolyn Soto Jackson

After seventeen scorching days in Italy last month, the music ministry in which I serve came back with hundreds of testimonies, many of them my own. 
 
This was my first mission trip, and one on which I had much to learn. My prayer was two-fold. Lord, change as many lives as possible with the gospel, including my own. God answered my prayers beautifully.
 
This mission frequently brought Apostle Paul to mind. 
 
Paul is one of the most pivotal and influential leaders in Christian history. Paul’s frequent missionary journeys seemed to have similar goals to my own. In his letters, we read on many occasions how Jesus changed his life. Of course, his purpose was to share the gospel with as many people as possible. 
 
Other disciples often joined Paul in his adventures. His mission was rarely accomplished alone. Paul’s mission brought others together and molded diverse people into unified disciples. But how? 
 
One way was by making himself available for others. 
 
Often Paul “embraced” and “encouraged” others while ministering to them. Part of his journey involved enjoying others and their company, and offering encouragement when things turned bleak. 
 
Let me be candid, on a mission when you are hot, exhausted, and hungry, life becomes real. Emotions arise, complaints begin to surface, and you realize serving with others puts you in vulnerable places. So, after a long trip, even amidst frustrations and complex emotions, embracing and encouraging others is an example of serving others well. This spirit of hospitality shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is crucial to embrace others in love, especially when we do not want to. 
 
How imperative is it to encourage others with our words and prayers? Read through Paul’s incredible travels, and notice how often he traveled with others and broke bread with those he encountered. 
 
We are all on a mission. 
 
On this mission, we must bring love wherever we go. Whether we go overseas or across the street, let us bring light to every place of darkness.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you; show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you, — Psalm 143.8


Today’s Readings
Isaiah 62 (Listen -2:09)
Acts 20 (Listen – 5:22)

Read more about Humble, Welcoming Servants
Help us to serve all and humbly welcome those whom you place in the center of our gatherings.

Humble, Welcoming Servants :: A Guided Prayer
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A Recurring Nightmare

Scripture Focus: Nehemiah 10.39
We will not neglect the house of our God.

Acts 20.20-21
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. 

From John:
Again this year, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, we look back to a sermon from Dr. King

Like Dr. King, Paul was interested in actions which spring from the full implications of the gospel. Though racism and slavery took centuries to fall, it was Paul’s theology that struck the killing blow in the 1st century. Dr. King drew from Paul’s teaching, which demolished the cultural and theological foundations of racism and made actions of racial bias and inequity indefensible. (Though some will still try to defend them…)

The gospel is the only theology or philosophy which poisons racism at its root.

When we speak of spreading the gospel, may it be with the purpose of eradicating the scourge of racism, rather than apathetically denying its existence or mitigating our responsibility to oppose it.

Reflection: A Recurring Nightmare
By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

In 1963, on a sweltering August afternoon, we stood in Washington, D.C. and talked to the nation about many things. Toward the end of that afternoon, I tried to talk to the nation about a dream that I had had—and I must confess to you today that not long after talking about that dream I started seeing it turn into a nightmare.

I remember the first time I saw that dream turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I had talked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. I watched that dream turn into a nightmare as I moved through the ghettos of the nation and saw my black brothers and sisters perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity, and saw the nation doing nothing to grapple with the Negroes’ problem of poverty.

I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched my black brothers and sisters in the midst of anger and understandable outrage, in the midst of their hurt, in the midst of their disappointment, turn to misguided riots to try to solve that problem. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched the war in Vietnam escalating, and as I saw so-called military advisors, sixteen thousand strong, turn into fighting soldiers until today over five hundred thousand American boys are fighting on Asian soil.

Yes, I am personally the victim of deferred dreams, of blasted hopes, but in spite of that I close today by saying I still have a dream, because, you know, you can’t give up in life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have a dream.…

I still have a dream today that one day every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill will be made low, the rough places will be made smooth and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. I still have a dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism.

With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward men. It will be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy.

*Abridged from A Christmas Sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — audio on YouTube (29:52)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord when he comes, when he comes to judge the earth. — Psalm 96.12

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Nehemiah 10 (Listen -4:41)
Acts 20 (Listen -5:22)