Jacquie

Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women. (Acts 17:4) Like Christ, Paul was threatening the status quo. The traditional Jews didn’t want to hear what he had to say. They had got rid of Christ for blasphemy – they didn’t believe He was their promised messiah. They had expected a king who would roar in, guns blazing and rid them of their continual captors, this time the Romans. When Christ didn’t do that they arranged his Crucifixion, probably thinking that after that, no-one would challenge their traditional teaching and the Pharisees in particular would be able to continue as they had before this nuisance ‘Jesus’ turned up. But when Paul arrived, it started all over again. To make it worse, Paul was reaching the women and even the ‘dirty’ gentiles. Paul kept on because he knew that he was supposed to. God wanted him to. Acts 26:15-25 describes how Paul knows that he must carry on and the Holy Spirit will protect him. No. we should not stop, but Paul set examples for us. He did not ask for money, and he did not expect the synagogue to provide a living for him. Instead, he humbled himself and worked for a living. I’m pretty sure that while doing manual labour he behaved kindly and gently toward others. He wouldn’t have preached at the people, but worked with them gently showing them how to love their neighbours. If he managed to convert women, he might have had to disagree with their husbands. So, he would have gone gently. The tone of his entire letter is one of love and kindness. Yes, he advised them against sin, but not in an authoritative way. He gave the impression of walking beside the people he spoke to and not shoving them. Perhaps if we find we receive a violent reaction to our ministry, we should examine ourselves and consider how we are behaving.