Day Seventy-Eight -- "Who was I to think that I could oppose God?"

Acts 6:8 to Acts 16:37

Just as the infant Christian community begins to take hold, the persecution begins in Jerusalem.  The first to suffer martyrdom is Stephen, one of the seven chosen and ordained by the apostles to help care for the needy members of the community.  Following his death the believers, with the exception of the apostles who stayed in Jerusalem, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1b), and later as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch (11:19)  Those who fled did not leave their faith behind, for they began to tell the story of Jesus wherever they went.  We do not know exactly how they did this or what they said, but Acts does tell us about God's specific guidance to Peter and Paul.

Peter ventured outside of Jerusalem and was led to a broader understanding of his world and God's intentions to bring all people - both Jews and Gentiles - into relationship with him through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Paul, whose dramatic conversion from persecutor of the Church to proclaimer of the Gospel, is brought into the active ministry of teacher and evangelist by those who recognize the sincerity of his newfound faith in Christ.

Along the way both Peter and Paul find themselves thrown into prison by their opposition, and Paul gets himself stoned by an angry crowd in Lystra and later flogged by the city officials in Philippi.  And yet they keep going.  They certainly don't move in the same circles, or always agree or get along with other believers, but they never lose sight of the source of their redemption and their call under ever-difficult circumstances to proclaim the Good News.  It all makes me wonder:  Would I have had the strength of faith to stand up to the same challenges they faced?