Real Hope: A Study of Acts 6 -11Sample

Good Out Of Bad

READ ACTS 8

Good can come out of bad. Advance can come out of setbacks. Success can come out of failure. The early church had some apparent failures, lots of setbacks, and some pretty bad things happened to it. But, as always, God had the last word. Acts 8 says that the church suffered much persecution, so many members left Jerusalem and scattered for safety. They didn’t just run and hide. They took the opportunity to share their new-found faith with others they met. They didn’t complain about how hard it all was. They had good news, so they shared it. This led to some unusual encounters. With a local magician, with the despised Samaritans. This was God’s way of urging His people to share their faith with all and sundry, not just the chosen few. And a man called Philip was guided by God to speak to an Ethiopian royal official on a desert road. As a result, this official became a follower of Jesus. And so it was shown that the Gospel belonged to the Gentiles, or non-Jews, too. So the bad events in Jerusalem ended up having good results. If all had been safe in Jerusalem, perhaps the early church may have become too comfortable. It needed a setback to bring about an advance.

It reminds us that the good news of Jesus is not the property of a certain culture or geographical region. Sometimes, we need to be shaken out of our comfort zones for that message to sink in. That setback we experience may be the occasion for us to pray for opportunities to encounter surprising people. And to follow our holy hunches.

Written by DAVID REAY