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Acts Challenge Chapter 18
Acts Challenge. In Chapter 18 Paul is frustrated in Corinth due to opposition in the form of arguing and contradicting him in all that he did. His response is to leave and go to the gentiles, an easier people group. Debating with an expert is difficult when they have stopped learning and have become unteachable. What God intended here is different than Paul's plan. Paul is to stay in a difficult situation because it is God's plan. Paul obey's God and is used here another year and a half. This fits the definition of Godly obedience as I begin to understand it. It is immediate, costly and radical. Immediate because he changed what he was about to do. Costly because he was to endure these exhausting people. Radical because it made him have to take his pride and swallow it in order to face them. I imagine he said something like I wanted to leave but could not for the obedience of God is the highest calling in my life. Any thoughts?
In Christ,
Dan
1 comment:
Also, often following God is opposite to human reason. We should be careful not to say that following God automatically means doing something radical. So often in our lives the little things we do on a daily basis are actions done in response to God moving in our lives. There's a popular opinion that says we have to be crazy all the time to be serving God, (true, we must be willing to do this), but it does not always mean this. For example: Apollos is preaching what he knows to be the truth.. but Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and set the record straight on some things. Then Apollos spoke the Truth with correctness, and debated the Jews using Scripture. That's not exactly radical or costly, maybe a little awkward and uncomfortable. But I would not describe it as all that radical. But maybe we need to redefine that word. If radical is simply doing something outside of the norm, then I totally agree! Because we as fallen beings are naturally not going to do what God desires... that's why we need His help through the Holy Spirit. But if radical is defined as doing something off-the-wall and beyond crazy, then we have the wrong view of how God moves in the more subtle details of our lives. True God often does some seemingly crazy things sometimes, but He can see the future, so it's not crazy at all. I guess I'm just saying we should be open to the commonplace ways of serving God, as well as those "radical" ways. In today's ministry atmosphere there's a pull toward "only the extreme is service" and that's just not true. If we are truly called of God, it won't matter what it looks like on the outside, because the purpose behind it is always the same: making God famous on this earth.
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