AP

“On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.”

Acts 8:1-3

Acts 8:1-3 And Saul was there, giving approval to [Stephen’s] death.  On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.  But Saul began to destroy the church.  Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.

One of the really exciting and encouraging things about the book of Acts – and indeed the whole story-line of the Bible – is the way we see God’s sovereign hand at work in his world, working out his purposes with perfect timing and fruitful application, in spite of sinful Man’s futile efforts to undermine these purposes!  What a wonderful example of this is the life of the Pharisee Saul, aka the Apostle Paul!

We perhaps we can’t even start to imagine how discouraging the situation and the future would have been for the infant Christian Church at this point of God’s story.  What possible hope could there be to fulfil Jesus’ Great Commission to evangelise the WHOLE WORLD (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8)? – Stephen’s martyrdom would only be the beginning of the devastation that the opponents of their Gospel message could cause!  With the devout Pharisee, Saul, on the warpath, what hope did they have?

We can’t really put ourselves in their shoes because we know where God takes the story from here.  Or perhaps we can identify with them a bit as we survey the situation the Church is in today, with so much, including powerful, hostile media, against us, engendering a widespread culture that has NO PLACE for a Sovereign God and his ‘solus Christus’ Good News or his ‘sola Scriptura’ Authoritative revelation of his character and will.

Let us therefore be encouraged and take heart as we read these verses.  Rather than being a problem, the forced scattering of the disciples of Jesus was an integral part of God’s Plan A for fulfilling his purposes!  And who could have thought that the man who ‘began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison’, was actually about to become (in the very next chapter of the story) the most powerful instrument in the achieving of God’s purposes?

I think that next time I feel discouraged about the future (as I’m too easily wont to do) I will reflect on these verses and the way they dovetail into Jesus’ firm promise in Matthew 16:18: “I WILL build my church, and the gates of Hades WILL NOT overcome/withstand it.”  Soli Deo Gloria.