Tuesday 16 August, 2016

2 Comments/in /by

Acts 20:1-6

20 All the trouble came to an end. Then Paul sent for the believers. After encouraging them, he said goodbye. He then left for Macedonia. 2 He traveled through that area, speaking many words of hope to the people. Finally he arrived in Greece. 3 There he stayed for three months. He was just about to sail for Syria. But some Jews were making plans against him. So he decided to go back through Macedonia. 4 Sopater, son of Pyrrhus, from Berea went with him. Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from Derbe, and Timothy went too. Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia Minor also went with him. 5 These men went on ahead. They waited for us at Troas. 6 But we sailed from Philippi after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Five days later we joined the others at Troas. We stayed there for seven days.

Travelling companions… Paul gathered them along his way – here we see 6 listed and can safely assume that mentoring and leadership development was going on. Planting churches means growing leaders and the best way to learn is “alongside”. This is what we are called to do as we “build people in Jesus” at Carlingford in readiness for all that God is calling us to do, planting services, churches, whatever God has for us. The same God that was with Paul as he preached the good news about Jesus is with us.

Lord who am I bringing alongside – building up in faith, so that the church can grow and spread across this community, this nation and the world we live in? May I be obedient to make time to invest in the wonderful people you have placed around me and who I may not even have talked to yet! Open my eyes…

Written by Ps. Linda Quinn

2 replies
  1. David Newton says:

    It amazes me how gifted people can pull such great insights out of such simple verses. In this case seemingly no more than a few lines from what amounts to a travel diary. Well done Linda!

  2. Justin Ware says:

    The Author of Acts is the Historian and Physician, Luke. In this section of Scripture in verse 5 the language goes from talking about Paul in the 3rd person to talking about “we” in the first person. This is the second time that Luke has joined Paul (the first time in Acts 16).

    God had called Paul to be a dedicated traveller for the Gospel, going from town to town on a mission to personally lead and encourage all the churches of the day, face to face.

    Luke, however was planted. He did travel with Paul a considerable distance to Phillipi, but here we see that Luke had returned to his home town of Troas, presumably to start work on his writing of the historical accounts of Luke and Acts we now read in the bible.

    Thankyou Lord that you call each person in your church uniquely. Thankyou Lord that you have called me to be planted here in Sydney in this church.

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