_ The sermons in our morning services this term follow on from what Ian Coffey spoke about at our Ashburnham Weekend last September. We join Paul (and his companions Silas, Timothy and Luke) as they cross over from Asia into Europe. We will be following them in their travels and work through Greece and Turkey. We share in the good times and the bad experiences they had. We will be covering Acts chapters 15 to 20; why not take the opportunity to read these chapters through, perhaps with an atlas to follow their route.

These five years were a vital stage in the spread of Christianity, and they have much to teach us:

v    A key moment: as the Gospel reaches Europe for the first time, and so would eventually come to Britain and even Sussex!

v    A key strategy: as Paul establishes bases in the major cities of Athens (the intellectual capital), in Corinth (the commercial capital) and Ephesus (the religious capital). From here the gospel would spread out into the surrounding areas.

v    A key lesson: we’ll see the way in which Paul had to work out how the Gospel could cross cultural boundaries, reaching folk who knew little or nothing about the scriptures or what God had done for his people.

We too live at a time when many people know little of the background to the good news about Jesus, so these events will challenge us to think about how we can effectively share our faith and bring the Kingdom of God to a post-Christian generation. At Thessalonica Paul and his team were accused of ‘turning the world upside down’ (Acts 17.6); could that accusation be made against us, I wonder?
Jeremy Taylor