Abundant Grace Series

A little bit of background just to bring you up to speed. We are still in the book of Acts. We looked at the early chapters where we saw initially the day of Pentecost where the spirit came down and filled the believers and followers of Christ with the spirit of God. They went out with boldness and confidence and began to preach the word of God and thousands of people came to faith and were baptized, many the same particular day. It was an exciting time. The church began to really expand and people began to move throughout Jerusalem and meet in different houses and get together for fellowship, teaching, and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. As I said last week, along with that growth came a lot of persecution in many ways. So much so that by the end of chapter 7 we get exposed to the first Christian martyr, a martyr by the name of Stephen. The interesting thing about that story is the very first line of chapter 8 introduces us to a man who goes by the name of Saul and eventually by the name of Paul. So our first introduction to Paul, who is, next to Jesus, one of the most popular guys in the Bible, is this. It says that Saul, also known as Paul, was at the stoning of Stephen giving approval to his death. That is our first introduction to St. Paul. We will talk about Paul next week. In the meantime, we know that following the stoning death of Stephen the story goes on to say that “On that (the day of Stephen’s stoning) a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” This passage is giving you a hint that the original words by Jesus in chapter 1, verse 8 are beginning to play out. In chapter 1, verse 8, before he ascended up into heaven, he told the gathered disciples that they would receive power from on high and then they would go out and be witnesses, which is actually where we get the name martyr. They would be witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and all the way to the ends of the earth. We see this beginning to play out following Stephen’s death. First it goes out into the Judean countryside and eventually makes it way up into Samaria. That is the first place that we are introduced to a disciple by the name of Philip. Philip is not the same Philip that was one of the apostles. Philip was believed possibly to be one of the deacons or just another disciple. We don’t know exactly his background there, but we do know that he ended up in Samaria. When he was in Samaria, he began to do the same type of things that James and John were doing in Jerusalem, performing miracles, casting out demons, and healing the sick. Amazing things were happening and people began to be saved. A lot of people began to be saved including a very popular magician by the name of Simon. Philip spent some time in Samaria and then he ended up back in Jerusalem. What happened next was he was sitting in Jerusalem and it says an angel of the Lord showed up and began telling him that he needs to go southwest down toward the city of Gaza. He didn’t tell him why, he just said to go. That is where we pick up the story. We pick it up in Acts 8:26. I am going to read from 8:26 down to verse 40 and then we will come back and talk a bit about it. (Scripture read here.)