Please read Numbers 3-4 and Acts 25 if you're interested in reading through the Bible in a year. Tomorrow's reading are Numbers 5-6 and Acts 25
They requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way. -Acts 25:3 (NIV)
Nothing. That's what I got. Nothing.
I've spent all morning reading and re-reading the assigned scriptures for today, looking for some great insight to apply to my own life or to yours. I'm sure it's there. I'm sure you probably see it. But I got nothing.
So I came into the office. Surely a commentary would shed some new light on what I'd read. Nothing. So I looked online. Surely someone has preached a sermon on these texts that would inspire me. Nothing. I was about to give up when I noticed a Bible with notes from Eugene Peterson. It's called Conversations. I opened it up and there it was: a word that brought life to the readings for me. I hope this quote will bring life to you:
"The trials of Acts 24-26 force us, if we're to stay true to the story we're reading, to give up the notion that the Christian community can catch the admiring eye of the world if we just live rightly and obediently. We have ample documentation by now to disabuse us of such thinking. God's revelation is rejected far more often than it is accepted, is dismissed by far more people than embrace it, and has been either attacked or ignored by every major culture or civilization in which it has given its witness."
All Paul had done was be faithful to what Christ had called him to do. He had done nothing wrong. And yet he kept being unfairly accused. He'd been in jail for two years and that wasn't good enough for some: they still wanted him dead. But Paul did not waver. He remained true to his call.
May God grant you the grace to stand firm in your faith. You will be rejected. You will be dismissed. You will be attacked. You will be ignored. But God hasn't called you to be popular. God has called you to be faithful.
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