No Favourites (Acts 9:32–43)

Well, look, today we return after something of a break to our studies in Acts.

We've been in a series of studies in the book, and we pick up again today after an interval.

Look, second volume, as you know, which tells the remarkable story of the growth of the early church.

And it's quite a page-turner.

We've found that.

We've thought a number of times already of that key verse in chapter 1, verse 8, in which, in Jesus' words, the scene is set for the whole story.

You'll remember the verse, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And we've been reflecting on that remarkable progression outwards that followed.

And it's a story that continues right up to today as the gospel of Christ continues to go global.

2.4 billion people are said to be Christian today, and we're part of that story.

It's a story that's not done yet.

It's an extraordinary privilege.

Well, sometimes it feels as if the book of Acts and the whole Christian life indeed is just one dramatic event after another.

There's Pentecost itself at the beginning of the book, the 120 in Jerusalem become 3,000.

There's growth, excitement, expectancy.

It's all happening.

And Pentecost itself signaled right from day one the reality of the gospel's universal scope.

But there's also, we know, pushback and opposition and danger.

In those early days, the faith was almost exclusively a Jewish phenomenon.

And look, if Satan can't extinguish the forest fire of faith in Jesus, at least he can try to limit its spread.

And Acts tells that story too.

If only Satan could somehow ring fence the flames of the gospel, then he might hold on to the souls of the non-Jewish people, the Gentiles, the vast majority of the world's population, including, I suspect, most of us.

That's why I say this is, in a way, part of our story today.

Chapter 7 of Acts, we saw Stephen become the first martyr for his faith and the persecution that followed in itself paradoxically led to further spread of the word into enemy territory of Samaria.

Then in chapter 8, we read of Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian court official.