The Gospel is on the Move

Acts 15:25b-26 says, “...our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Men who have risked their lives literally means to hand something over, to surrender it, to place it in someone else’s hands without any guarantee of getting it back.  

When the church in Jerusalem used this phrase to describe what Paul and Barnabas had done, they were describing men who had, in a very literal sense, placed their physical lives in God’s hands and set off into the world with the Gospel. 

Acts 14 is the chapter that earned them that description. By the time this chapter is over, Paul will have been stoned by an angry mob, left for dead outside the city gates, and then (this is the shocking part) he will have gotten up, walked back into the city with Barnabas, and continued the mission. What drives a person to do something like that? 

Please find Acts 14:1-28.