How much do we need to know about what is really going on?
As I’ve mentioned before, Philip is one of the characters in the Bible who fascinates me the most. In Acts 8 we see him involved in three different mission outreaches.
Firstly, fleeing persecution, he went to Samaria. While he was there he taught people about Jesus, worked miracles and saw many people respond to his message. There doesn’t appear to have been any advance planning about his going to Samaria, he went there to save his skin, but he made the best of the circumstances.
While things were still going well in Samaria, an angel told Philip to go down to the desert road where he met an Ethiopian official who had just been to visit Jerusalem. Philip got the Ethiopian involved in an evangelistic Bible study and led him to the Lord.
The next thing we see is that Philip ‘appeared in Azotus’ where he preached about Jesus. We know less about this incident than the other two – though every time I stand in an airport security queue the idea of ‘appearing’ somewhere becomes very attractive.
Philip was guided by an angel to meet the Ethiopian, while he ended up in Samaria apparently at random. However, there was something that linked these two events; the people he spoke to were not Jews. The Samaritans were closely related to the Jewish people, but there was a significant degree of hostility between them. The Ethiopian was obviously interested in Jewish religion and very sympathetic to it – but he wasn’t a Jew. In each case, the people had some link to Judaism, but, crucially, they weren’t Jewish.
This is important, because up till this point all of the believers had been Jews. Even on the day of Pentecost, the crowds who became believers were from the Jewish diaspora. In Acts 8, we have the first people who were not Jewish coming to faith in Jesus. This was a radical step and its no wonder that Peter and John came from Jerusalem to Samaria to check on what Philip was getting up to.
More importantly, God was slowly and patiently opening up the Christian community to the idea of Gentiles being a part of it. A couple of chapters later, God gave Peter a vision and led him to the family of Cornelius a God fearing Roman and then in chapter 11, we finally have people spontaneously reaching out to Gentiles.
Philip, who was a gifted evangelist was simply doing what evangelists do. He told people about Jesus. What he didn’t know was that he was part of God’s bigger, overarching, plan to bring people from every nation into the Christian community.
This is a good illustration of a tension which exists in all Christian mission work. Should we try to discern how God is at work in our situation so that we can orientate our efforts in the best way or should we simply get on with whatever tasks we see in front of us and let God take care of the big picture. Some personalities prefer one approach to the other and some of us drift between them according to the situation.
Which do you tend to do?
11 replies on “The Big Picture”
I had a strange experience recently in which someone seemed to ‘appear’ directly in front of me three times within a very short period. When I tried to find him again he was nowhere to be found!
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Nev McCormack liked this on Facebook.
I have always just tried to get on with what is in front of me. I sometimes wonder if that was wrong and I should have been
Much more intentional in engaging with the bigger picture
Good thought … I think we should do both – and trust God with the tension that seems to produce. I seem to remember reading a quote something along the lines of ‘pray like a Calvinist, as if everything depends on God and work like a Methodist as if everything depends on man’ … That seems a good rule for life!
As I read Acts my overriding impression is of people, not really sure what is going on, but full of passion and zeal for the growth of the kingdom. We do well not to manage the life out of mission by our elaborate strategic plans … But overarching aims and direction are important because we aren’t the only ones at work in the vineyard … so we do what God has given us to do.
Interestingly enough, I have just put the phone down on someone who was talking about Philip in the context of discernment who was not aware of this post.
Miriam Cowpland liked this on Facebook.
RT @kouya: How much do we need to know about what is really going on before serving God?? … https://t.co/jntLVzHDPe
The Big Picture https://t.co/l6dFZZ7oz4 via @kouya
Caroline Patricia liked this on Facebook.
I think I spend far too much time trying to figure out what God is doing in my life as well as trying to predict what he’s going to do. So far, I’ve never been right.