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The third missionary journey displays Paul at the height of his apostolic powers, fulfilling his calling as a guarantor of the church’s gospel and its mission. Through Paul God proclaims a powerful gospel and performs extraordinary miracles, the signs of an apostle. Paul embraces... Read More →

The prevailing philosophies of the West’s post-Christian era—secular humanism’s scientific empiricism and the New Age pantheistic type of postmodernism—are remarkably similar to the Epicureanism and Stoicism Paul encountered at Athens. Paul’s speech becomes a model for how to... Read More →

Part of St. Patrick’s benediction, “May the wind be always at your back,” well suits the experience of the Pauline missionary band at the beginning of its second journey. The wind is, of course, the wind of the Spirit, and it blows in some surprising directions. Hearing how this... Read More →

With poignant contrast Luke summarizes the Lord’s victory over political powers. Worms spread and devour Herod’s body, but the word of God, the Christian message, also spreads and multiplies. This should work confidence in our hearts. We need not cower before threatening... Read More →

To show the origin of the direct mission to the Gentiles, Luke picks up the thread of the story from Acts 8:4 and notes the geographical progress of Hellenistic Jewish Christians who spread the life-giving seed of the word (Lk 8:11) even as they were scattered by “affliction”... Read More →

After two thousand years of the successful spread of Christianity among nearly every major ethnic group except the Jews, the natural question for us is, Will the Jews ever come to Christ in large numbers? In the church’s earliest days the opposite question was the obvious one:... Read More →

The hostility to Christianity of pre-Christian Saul presents both challenge and hope to any non-Christian. The hope is that if God can turn the fiercest opponent of the Lord into his most willing servant, he has the ability to save anyone. The challenge is not to be deceived by... Read More →

How attractive is the father or mother of a newborn, glowing with joy over God’s good gift. Just as attractive is Stephen, a man full of the Holy Spirit. We are drawn to him.  What does a person “full of the Spirit” look like? By God’s grace, can I be such a person? Read More →

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“Admirable but impractical”—that’s what human beings through the ages have said about the communal ideal. Still, we wonder, Is there a way we can live together in harmony which at the same time liberates us from selfishness and assures us of support when we need it? Luke says a... Read More →