Tag: <span>philippi</span>

Summary: The book of Acts can prompt us to ask what makes for authentic Christian witness, rooted in the discoveries and amazement of Easter. Acts describes Jesus’ followers as his “witnesses” (Acts 1:8), and their words and activities help us reflect on the various ways in which we enact or speak testimony about the new realities God has declared. Preachers who work with Acts during Easter might look at the lectionary’s assigned texts as examples of how believers can understand who they are and what they do.

Read the full article at Working Preacher.

Bible commentary: preachers & teachers

Summary: The book of Acts tells a story about two traveling evangelists, Paul and Silas, as they encounter severe resistance in Philippi, a Roman colony. After the pair are dubiously accused, savagely beaten, and shamefully incarcerated, an earthquake miraculously frees them from their chains and cells. What might look like a story of supernaturally aided escape is really a story about vindication, a means of God exposing the futility of Roman attempts to obstruct the preaching of the gospel. The whole scene has a burlesque quality to it, for its aim is to expose the powerlessness and peevishness of an imperial culture that sets itself up to resist God’s presence, with violence if necessary. The passage speaks about more than ancient Roman realities, however, for its portrait of imperial abuses looks uncomfortably similar to the ways in which modern societies protect their interests and prerogatives. In the end, the story suggests that God offers a different reality, one beyond our ways of suppressing outsiders and clinging desperately onto our attempts at self-preservation.

Read the full article, which is part of the ON Scripture–The Bible project, on The Huffington PostDay1, and Patheos.

Bible commentary: general audience ON Scripture--The Bible