Grace Church San Diego

How does the Gospel advance?  What were the details of the daily lives of the early church?  It would be easy to think of them as living heroically, never having a dull day, never facing routines.  But God wants us to see otherwise.  

Acts 20 records a travelogue.  This has all the excitement of showing someone your vacation pictures.  And it keeps going on and on -- we sailed from here, we stopped here, we took a few days to hang out here. 

Acts 20 records an all night church service, complete with a longwinded preacher and someone who falls asleep in the sermon. 

Acts 20 tells us the names of the people in the travel group -- and where they were from.

Why?

Luke is telling us about a two year trip by Paul, as he wraps up his work in the Eastern Mediterranean and heads to Jerusalem then Rome.  It is a conclusion.  It is a time of encouragement.  It involved lots of meetings with the churches.  Believers were strengthened.  Congregations were commended to God.  Lots of sermons were delivered.  Prayers wereoffered.  God did signs and wonders. It was the stuff of ministry.

And we find a list of the saints who are going with Paul to Jerusalem, as visible examples of Gospel salvation among the Gentiles.

But it involved ordinary people doing ordinary work too.  I think we have a clear picture in these words of the very ordinary work of the Gospel mission.  No one gets transported from one location to another -- no they have to do what everyone else does -- travel, walk, get on and off ships.  No one becomes a superhero -- able to listen to three hour sermons without lapses of concentration. No, they fall asleep.

Read past the lines of travel and read the hearts of the people. See their faith in Christ behind all the effort it took to do the work of ministry.  See their weary backs and sore feet -- and see God at work.  Ordinary people doing ordinary things is the means of Christ to accomplish his extraordinary mission.

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