Keep On Telling Your Story

In one paragraph

Acts 25:13 through 26:32 gave Pastor Ray a chance to walk through Paul's third and most detailed telling of his conversion, this time before a room full of powerful people in Caesarea Maritima. The sermon traced Paul's willingness to keep telling his story no matter the audience, and what it looks like to trust God's promises in the middle of circumstances that look threatening. Before getting...

Read together

1. Psalm 107 opening encouragement about God's steadfast love satisfying the longing soul
2. Acts 25:13-26:32 the main passage read and preached through
3. Acts 12 referenced to describe Herod Agrippa the first's pomp, killing of James, and arrest of Peter
4. Matthew 10 Jesus sending disciples as sheep among wolves, warning they would be brought before governors and kings, and that the Spirit would give them words
5. Acts 1:8 Paul's preaching in Damascus, Jerusalem, Judea, and to the Gentiles described as fulfilling the witnesses-to-the-uttermost-parts commission

Talk about it

1. Pastor John spent time walking through the Herod family tree before getting into Paul's defense. Why do you think that background matters for reading this part of Acts, and how does knowing who Agrippa and Bernice were change how you hear the scene?
2. Festus tells Agrippa that the whole dispute comes down to 'a dead man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted to be alive.' What does it tell us that a Roman governor, with no stake in the argument, reduced the entire case to the resurrection?
3. When Jesus confronts Saul on the road to Damascus, he asks 'Why are you persecuting me?' even though Saul was persecuting Christians, not Jesus directly. What does that identification between Jesus and his people mean to you personally?
4. Paul tells Agrippa he considers himself fortunate to make his defense before him, and then essentially preaches the gospel to a room full of powerful people in chains. What do you think made it possible for Paul to speak that freely in that moment, and what does that stir up in you about your own hesitation to share your story?
5. Agrippa responds to Paul by asking whether Paul is trying to make a Christian of him in such a short time, and Paul says he wishes everyone in that room would come to faith. As far as we know, Agrippa never did. How do you sit with the reality that you can tell your story faithfully and still not see the outcome you hoped for?