Acts 17 - The Good News - Part 1

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Introduction

The book of Acts or the Acts of Apostles gives an account of the second volume of Luke’s writing and it describes a new phase in the expansion of the Jesus following-movement – We see the work of evangelism broke out and the word of God continued to spread from Jerusalem with the effort put in by the Apostles after they encountered the power of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem [Acts 2]

Acts 17 highlights the activities and expressions of God’s word put to practice and the amazing replication of Jesus’ mission executed by the early church – put together by the Apostles proclaiming the Word of God from one region to the other.

Background

Let’s flash back to Act 1:7-9 Jesus said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.”

So, the very last words of Jesus before He was taken up into the cloud was a clear mission statement – which tells us that the coming of the Holy Spirit wasn’t for fun, the coming of the Holy Spirit is for a purpose.

And the major purpose is to empower us with Spirit of boldness, wisdom, authority and to direct and guide so we are able to proclaim the Gospel with power, effectiveness and accuracy starting from our home, environment, community, town, city, nation and uttermost part of the world.

What does this mean for us?

We are a chosen vessel of God (1 Peter 2:9, Jeremiah 29:11) and we are to bear His name on earth and we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance of for us to do. So, if we are going to reach out to our world, we need to start with people we know (our Jerusalem) – In Network Marketing, we call it Warm Market.

Acts 9 -10-19 - Paul for instance before he launched out his ministry, God inform Ananias about Paul while he was praying and fasting and God gave him his vision and mission particularly to the Gentiles but his part of ministry was also to the Jews and reason why he likes to visit the Synagogue where the Jews met.

Which brings us to Chapter 17 the scope of my message – which is when Paul came to Thessalonica – prior to Chap 17 we see Paul & Silas in Macedonia preaching the gospel and later got arrested and jailed and the passage showed us how God rescued them miraculously while they were praying and singing hymns to God which led to the Jailer also giving his life to Christ.

In Chap. 17 verse 1– When he came to Thessalonica which is a city in Greece, as it was his custom, he went into the synagogue preaching the gospel – Interestingly some people were persuaded and they joined Paul and Silas while some used his words against him saying he and his followers has defied Caesars decrees that there is another King and this caused a lot of uproar and turmoil.

Fast forward to verse 10 – At night, the believers sent Paul and Silas to a small city in Berea where they continued proclaiming the gospel and won many souls to Christ because the people were of a noble character and they received the message in great eagerness.

In verse 16, Paul made his way to Athens where he met with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks and even Philosophers had a debate with him, because they found the gospel strange in their ears (Jesus and the resurrection?) – the conversation became interesting that they brought him to meeting of the Areopagus ( this was the council of elders of the city)

Imagine you preached the gospel to a certain point and you were called to the House of Lords or Parliament house to come and explain your “latest ideas” about the gospel, I don’t know about you but I’m certain there will be some nervousness and fear but thank God for the Holy Spirit who gives boldness, fluency and courage to speak about what he stands and believes in.

See continuation in Part 2 -

Editor:@o_segunfunmi