Mike’s lesson for us today was about teaching others about God’s Word and how that can be done. The title is “Three Sabbaths in the Synagogue” and we being in Acts 17 verses 1-4 and here we see how Paul went about trying to each both Jews and Greeks in a place where people were discussing spiritual things.
We sometimes forget that the early church did not have a New Testament just lying around to be used for teaching others about Christ and the church, the church was still in progress! So these men like Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and others spent most of their time in the Old Testament yet still taught Christ
Mike shows us what Paul’s approach was… to reason with those assembled from the scriptures, to explain the mission of Christ, and to give evidence that Jesus was Who He said He was! He “proclaimed Christ” as noted in Acts 17:4.
Perhaps one of the biggest take-away from Mike’s lesson is what the goal was for Paul. He was supposed to proclaim the gospel (the good news). He was not supposed to force people to agree with him or to accept what he was trying show them, he was just supposed to present it and let them determine a reaction. This is what Christians today are expected to do too. We are not to force anyone to be obedient to Christ. If they accept, we support them, if they do not, we support them too (but never give up on them).
Mike concludes his lesson by stating that success in the proclamation of the gospel is not measured by the response of the hearers. Success consists of making the proclamation.
You can see and hear Mike’s lesson below.
Recording:
