Acts 18 v 1-21

Have you ever noticed that when somebody asks you how you are, you inevitably base your reply upon what has happened to you in the very recent past? Thus for example “I’m feeling great!” (Because I have just had a tax rebate!) or “I’m feeling awful!”  (Because the aforementioned tax rebate has just gone on paying a parking ticket!) “We bear the indelible outline of the last situation to sit upon us,” as my granny used to say!

If we were to ask Paul and his friends how they were feeling based upon today’s reading it might be a hard one for them to answer. We see both good things and bad things happening sometimes within 1 or 2 verses of each other. We read about new friends, conversions, rejection from the Jews, visions from God, a court appearance, a beating up of the synagogue ruler and a haircut at Cenchrea!

Personally, I love this passage because I think that it reflects many people’s experience that life is a mixture of good and bad, of successes and failures, of tax rebates and parking tickets. However the one thing that remains constant in all of this is God’s love for us and His purposes for His creation. And that is why whether we are going through hard times or good times as individuals or as a Parish the good news is that our God is constant and will be with us whatever may come our way.

Revd Robert Legge