The Beginning of the Trail
Read: Psalm 138 I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; before “the gods” I will sing your praise. (v. 1 NIV) It was 1958. Sam, my future husband, was a third-year student at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, and I was finishing my last year in the same town at Hope College. […]
And So We Came to Rome
Read: Acts 28:11-31 And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him. (v. 16) Paul’s fourth missionary journey was a wild one. As a result of having been blown off course by a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, Paul and his companions found themselves shipwrecked […]
Blessed Assurance
Read: Acts 27:1-11; 14-18; 21-25 An angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship . . . said, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar.” (vv. 23-24) Last autumn, as mentioned earlier, my wife and I went on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a beautiful […]
Powerful Testimony of a Changed Man
Read: Acts 26:1-18 I not only locked up many of the saints in prison . . . but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. (v. 10) The Roman governor Festus honestly didn’t know what to do with Paul. He had heard his story, but it seemed to him that […]
Paul Appeals to Caesar
Read: Acts 25:1-12 Then Festus, when he had conferred with his council, answered, “To Caesar you have appealed; to Caesar you shall go.” (v. 12) What a gift to the church was the apostle Paul! Thanks to his big vision, he would not back down. We saw earlier that he desired to go to Rome […]
Testifying before Felix
Read: Acts 24:1-27 And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed. (v. 25) It seems amazing to me that Paul wrote most of the New Testament. Where indeed did he find the time? When we read of his life in the book of Acts, it seems that he […]
The Challenge of Ministry in Niger
The country of Niger has an overwhelmingly Muslim majority. In fact, 99% of the population self-identifies as Islamic. Niger does maintain separation between church and state, meaning that legally individuals are free to worship as they please. However, in some parts of the country, radical Islamist sects continue to target Christians, subjecting them to acts […]
Paul Reveals His Roman Citizenship
Read: Acts 22:22-30 Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” (v. 25) Paul had once again run into trouble in Jerusalem. In many ways, his experiences in Jerusalem mirror the experiences that Jesus had toward the end […]
The Family of God
Read: Acts 21:1-16 And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. (v. 4) Paul was on his way back to Jerusalem. But he had a ways to go. So, on the way he made a number of stops, finding believers to stay with each time. It was a great blessing to […]