Many of us are not able to discern God’s will to the extent that Paul was able. What would it take to move closer to that?Great discussion last night. Let's continue that discussion here. Have a great week!!
Do we usually equate being in God’s will with everything working out happily?
Have we ever been dissuaded from doing God’s will by someone else? Have we dissuaded others?
The misunderstanding and ensuing riot was the result of gossip and misinformation about Paul on the part of “church folks.” What do we learn from this?
What other questions does this raise?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Acts 21:1-36
We continued our walk through the book of Acts with "most of" the 21st chapter. We talked about how we often misinterpret God's message when we filter it thorough our own lenses. We talked about how we hope that God's will is comfortable for us to swallow. Etc. Here are the talk points that we began with. Please chime in...
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I thought about this after the fact, but the part of the story where Paul tells the people that they are "breaking his heart" is really a parallel to Jesus and Peter in Matthew 16.
This was the first time Jesus outright told his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem and he was going to suffer and be killed, but he would be raised again from the dead. Immediately, Peter takes Jesus aside and tells him not to say such things, and those things would never happen to him. Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You're seeing things from a human persepctive, not from God's" (partly my paraphrase).
This reminded me of Paul, because as soon as everyone heard what was going to happen to him, they started telling him not to do it. In a sense, when he told them they were breaking his heart, it was as if he was telling them they were being a dangerous trap to him. They were offering him the easy way out because they were seeing things from a human perspective and not from God's perspective.
I don't know that Paul entirely knew what the end result was going to be, like Jesus did, but I think he knew that God's will was for him to go to Jerusalem.
Anyway, that's just something I thought was interesting.
Blessings!
-Rachel
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