Stay Here
Scripture Text: Acts 18
Application Questions
Does being present with Jesus in any way conflict with ambition?
As you read the narrative, what do you find most valuable about Paul’s year and a half in Corinth?
How might God be calling you to ‘stay here’, whatever that might mean?
Quotes for Reflection
Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot
“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us....The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.... To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone
“One of the many lessons Acts teaches quietly, as it goes along, is that you tend to get the guidance you need when you need it, not before, and not in too much detail. Enough to know that the Lord Jesus has many people in this city, and that he wants you, Paul, to stay here and work with them.”
Wendell Berry, “A Native Hill”, What Are People For?
“It is possible, as I have learned again and again, to be in one’s place, in such company, wild or domestic, and with such pleasure, that one cannot think of another place that one would prefer to be—or of another place at all. One does not miss or regret the past, or fear or long for the future. Being there is simply all, and is enough. Such times give one the chief standard and the chief reason for one’s work.”
Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary
“He shakes the dust from his clothes. He pronounces judgment on his Jewish opposition. He claims he has done all he can, and he announces his attention has shifted to the Gentiles (v. 6). He gives up. His energy collapses, and this is completely understandable and paradigmatic. Jesus himself drew near this collapse, echoing God’s ancient frustration with a sojourning people created by God’s own mighty hand and outstretched arm. Love will sometimes threaten to abandon, but it never does. Paul is caught in the threat of an action that God will not follow. God does not follow abandonment, because God has brought abandonment into the divine life. The abandoned now have a home in God if they want it.”