The faith that can’t be shipwrecked

As Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, the apostles ask Jesus: What’s next? What’s the plan from here? And they are given their instructions:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The gospel message needs to be preached to all the nations. And so the Lord recruits a special apostle or messenger to the nations: Paul. God’s new recruit is completely committed to the mission—willing, in fact, to die in Jerusalem as long as it means he has fulfilled his job to “testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). 

The Jewish leaders are very happy to oblige Paul’s willingness to be a martyr—they want him dead. But Paul doesn’t actually want to die in Jerusalem. He wants to get to Rome. In fact he says he “must” get to Rome (19:21). Why?

Jerusalem was the capital city for the Jews, but if your job was to preach the gospel to the Gentiles you needed to get to their capital city. In those days, that was Rome. So that’s where Paul simply must head. 

However, the Jewish leaders hand Paul over to the Gentiles (as predicted by Agabus in Acts 21:11) and, in a series of kangaroo courts, they seek to convince the authorities to have Paul ‘terminated’.

So is this the end of God’s plan for Paul to preach the gospel to the Gentiles?

Not a chance! Just think about what happens: as the Jews bring false charges against him, Paul ends up testifying to Governor Felix, Governor Festus, and then King Agrippa. He hopes ultimately to testify to Caesar in Rome. Those are some pretty influential leaders. The Jews think they are impeding Paul’s quest to preach to the Gentiles, but God is already using their efforts to achieve the mission. In fact, they are so completely controlled by God that their efforts to cause problems for Paul result in exactly what he wants: being sent to Rome.

But the journey to Rome seems doomed to fail in Acts 27. All sorts of things go wrong on the journey. By verse 19 most of Paul’s companions have given up all hope. So is the gospel mission going down with the ship? Has yet another obstacle frustrated God’s purposes?

Not a chance. Miraculously, as God promised Paul (27:23), all the people on the ship survive.

But then—can you believe it?—a snake bite (28:3). Surely this time it’s curtains for Paul? Wrong again. Somehow he survives. 

Ultimately Paul arrives in Rome (28:16), and preaches to… er… not the Gentiles, but the Jews. It seems he hasn’t completely given up on his Jewish brothers after all. Then for two years, while under house arrest, Paul “welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (28:30-31).

Let’s review… The Jewish leaders wanted to kill the man leading God’s mission to take the gospel to the nations. Governor Festus calls Paul “out of his mind”. Paul is kept in prison or under house arrest for four years without charge. And we’re told in verse 22 that “with regard to this sect [Christianity] we know that everywhere it is spoken against”.

In other words, Christians are being insulted, silenced, threatened with legal action, and treated with great suspicion. Does that sound at all familiar? I could be describing the situation in Australia and across the world with the current heat over the same-sex marriage debate, couldn’t I?

It’s easy to despair and think that there is an immovable obstacle in the way of the gospel going forward in our countries. What unbeliever is ever going to listen to the real message we want to share with them when there is so much apparent distaste for and hostility towards anything vaguely connected to Christianity? 

But what we’ve been shown in the book of Acts—time and again—is that God finds a way to break through all obstacles in achieving his mission. Language barrier? No problem (Acts 2). Jewish opposition? God just turns it to achieving his purpose. Hurricane? God saves the passengers, even when all seems hopeless. Snake bite? God takes all the venom out of that situation.

So can God overcome the obstacle of the same-sex marriage fight to see the gospel go forward? And the obstacle coming after it? And the one after that? 

Of course! God is in charge. His plans will prevail. His message will get out… not in spite of the suffering of his people, but often as a direct result of our suffering and the opportunity it affords us to testify in those trials. 

But you know, in reality, not many of us are actually going to end up in court like Paul. More often, the message is still going to get out without all that much drama—through the seemingly mundane method of, like Paul, sitting down in our lounge rooms and talking about the Lord Jesus with anyone willing to do that with us.

So let’s keep carrying out Jesus’ instructions.