…does that mean for my family?
Where in the
Word? Acts 18:1-23 Corinth
Cross Reference
Verse: Acts 18: 6
“But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he
shook out his clothes in protest and said to them,
‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’”
…do we need? Somewhere to
gather …can we talk
about? You can lead a
horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You can give a
man a piece of bread, but you can’t make him eat. You can throw
someone a life ring, but you can’t make them take hold. You can tell
someone about Christ, but you can’t make him believe. God gave us an amazing
thing when He gave us choice. In a
way, choice is power. We choose
whether to wear a red shirt or a blue shirt, high heels or flip flops. We choose whether we go to church in the
morning or in the evening or not at all.
We choose our mates, our life’s occupation, and our children’s
names. We
even attempt to make choices for other people: trying to convince a friend
to stop smoking, a father to come home on time, a sister to share her
favorite sweater. The attempts at
making other people’s choices for them don’t always work very well. Sometimes our loved ones listen to our
reasoning and sometimes they don’t.
Oh yeah, God gave them choice, too!
It
can be quite painful to watch a loved one make choices that are hurtful to
themselves and others. We can try
and try again to reason, bribe, and force them to make better choices, but
in the long run the decision is theirs alone. Talk
with your family about the choices each of you has made throughout the
day. Did you also try to help
someone make a choice for themselves?
There may have been frustration.
Paul felt the same thing in this passage. However, his frustration wasn’t over a toy or a sweater. Paul
had the life-giving message, an opportunity for the listeners to
make the choice of all choices.
Yet many refused and even became “abusive.” In shaking “out his
clothes in protest,” he was acknowledging that there was only so much that
was in his control. Paul couldn’t
force each person who heard his message to believe it. We can’t force a friend to stop
smoking. The decision is
theirs. But Paul could fulfill his
responsibility to preach the gospel.
And we can fulfill our responsibility to do the same. God calls us to answer to Him alone for
ourselves alone. We do what we can
do, and then we pray. Actually, we
should pray, do what we can do, and then pray some more. God is the one in charge of
the results. He’s in charge of the destinations. Let’s do the work He is calling us to do and leave the
steering wheel where it belongs, in the hands of the only One who really
knows where all the roads are going in the first place. …can we pray for? God, grant us
the serenity to accept the
things we cannot change, courage to
change the things we can, and wisdom to
know the difference. The
Serenity Prayer