By Jessica Patchett
Have you ever been tempted to give up hope in someone or some mission that was very important to you? After several years on the road, multiple beatings, imprisonment, being run out of town and forced to leave his fledgling communities of faith behind, Paul gets fed up with the most recent group of Jewish people who give him grief.
Paul shakes the dust off his clothes and says, “No more! I will not attempt to share the good news of Jesus Christ with any more Jewish folk. They've hurt me one too many times. I've done all I can do”.
But it seemed good to the Spirit that Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household be baptized and bring others to listen to Paul. And the Lord said to Paul in a dream, “I won’t let the troublemakers hurt you. Keep speaking. I have many people in this city.”
When a group of Jewish people garnered enough support to take Paul before the local officials, it was a Roman governor, Gallio, who helped make good on God’s promise. Gallio refused to recognize Paul’s behavior as criminal, calling it instead a quarrel internal to the family of faith.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to call it like it is. No matter how much some Jewish people had hurt Paul or how offensive Paul’s new teachings were to some of his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, Jews and Jesus-followers were still of one family of faith. And God and the powers of the world seemed to conspire to ensure that they didn't give up on one another.
- Reflect on situations or people or groups of people who seem beyond hope or with whom you can’t seem to reconcile.
- How do you respond to people, circumstances and groups that disappoint you or disagree with you?
- How might you look to God for encouragement to persist in hope for these people and situations? Who else might be able to help you see a way forward with these people or situations?
Prayer: Reconciling God, you make ways when there are no ways. Help us to open our lives and imaginations to the possibilities for hope and reconciliation for which you work in the world. Amen.
