Week 17 Day 7
Finding God in the Mysteries of every day
Acts 18: 11 And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.
Everything seemed against Paul. The Jews hated him, the merchants hated him, but God had told him to remain. Corinth was a turning point in Paul’s life and ministry. Although he knew he was to spread the good news far and wide it is only here that he came to understand that his mission to the gentiles was to take precedence over all else in his life. That he was willing to remain for a year and a half speaks volumes to me about the idea of persistent obedience.
Paul had no idea how far reaching his ministry in Corinth would be. The impact of his time there reaches to each one of us who call on the Name of Jesus. We find in Paul a pattern of obedience, truth telling, affirmative and corrective ministry which has become a pattern for the entire Body of Christ.
Often times we are slow to rebuke aberrant behavior or willful self-centeredness, but in Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians we can find not only the corrective, but the freeing grace and willingness to let people choose to follow Christ openly and honestly, or to walk away rejecting not Paul, but Christ himself. (recommended reading Acts 18, I and II Corinthians)
Larry M Lawrence- Mysteries 