Scattering beyond our comfort zone

“Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. A nd on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.”‭‭Acts‬ ‭8:1‬ ‭NASB‬‬In the last lesson we looked at how the church moved into Judea. We saw how God changed the Saul and Peter. For Saul, he had a radical transformation to conversion. For Peter, he had a change in the way that he saw conversion. They both came to understand salvation by grace through Christ alone.

In this lesson, we are going to see how God used Philip in Samaria. This lesson comes from Acts 8.

Before we go into the lesson, it’s important that we understand something that happened back in the Old Testament. The northern kingdom of Israel split off from the southern kingdom of Judah. This split caused a Civil War with the people of God. The capital city of Judah was Jerusalem and the capital city of Israel was Samaria. When the Romans came in to occupy the territory they called Judah, “Judea.” Also, they called the former region of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, “ Samaria.“ The Jews of Judea did not want to have anything to do with the people of Samaria. What I just explained is the basic root of the problem. Although there is more to it than that, that is the basic essence of the problem.

The fact that Philip went into Samaria to do ministry is a huge deal! I know that Jesus had already gone into the region and met with a woman at a well. During that time he explained the whole thing. But, this was still a big stretch for a Jewish man to go into Samaria and tell them the way to salvation.

We are going to learn about doing ministry beyond our comfort zone. B-E-Y-O-N-D