God is at work in natural and human forces to fulfill his promises
Scripture Text: Acts 27
Quotes for Reflection
C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
For now that I am myself I can remember that enchanted life, though while I was enchanted I could not remember my true self.
Rodney Stark, Cities of God
At the time Christianity arose, he said, “Men were looking in certain directions and couched their religious aspirations and beliefs in certain terms. Christianity spoke the language which they understood and set its theology and its ritual in the forms which to its own generation seemed natural[;]…the Gospel [could not] have won its way if it had not found an echo in the religious searchings and even the religious beliefs of the time.”
Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary
Jesus has placed his life inside Paul, and what now unfolds for Paul is his life within the life of Christ Jesus. Paul offers a radical becoming, one that speaks a future that King Agrippa cannot see trapped as he is within the mechanisms of Roman assimilation. He cannot and will not imagine a new identity (worth having) witnessed by Paul, and so the only response is the common response that reaches through time to our present. They all rose to their feet and left. There is nothing here they want.
Application Questions
In appearing before Agrippa, why does Paul chose testimony rather than defense and how can this shape how we talk with others about Jesus?
Why can it be said that the resurrection of the dead, a reality only true in Jesus, is the hope of all humanity?
How might apathy be a barrier to embracing a new identity in Christ Jesus?