Early Christians face many challenges, but despite them all, they "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). How can we emulate them today?
Early Christians face many challenges, but despite them all, they "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6). How can we emulate them today?
It will obviously take longer than we want to develop effective medical treatments for COVID-19, assuming researchers can develop them at all. But we are not the first people to wait for help in the future while suffering in the present.
The Asian “murder hornets” making headlines these days are apparently not as dangerous as their nickname suggests. An entomologist writing in the Conversation states that Asian giant hornets will defend their nests, but “in most cases, they will not do anything if people aren’t aggressive toward them.”
In Acts 10, Simon Peter was shown a vision of “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air” (v. 12). He was told to “kill and eat” but refused, citing his commitment to Jewish dietary restrictions (vv. 13–14). This was the response: “What God has made clean, do not call common” (v. 15).
Just then, he received Gentile visitors asking him to accompany them to see a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Before his vision, Peter would have refused to speak with these men, but as he later testified, “God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (v. 28). He discovered his prejudice and learned to love all people as does his Lord.
Christians know that praying for others is both biblically commanded (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17) and the pathway to experiencing God’s best (Matthew 7:7-11). But we also know that our Lord often calls us to be the answer to the prayers we offer.
A Gallup poll found that a majority of those now working from home would prefer to continue doing so “as much as possible” after the pandemic.
Like teachers and baseball players, you and I were made to serve others by a God who serves us. Jesus testified that he “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
We can trust God to use people to defeat our viral enemy. We can encourage our healthcare heroes as they care for patients and scientists as they develop therapies and vaccines against the virus. We can work together to restart the economy while striving to keep down infections. And we can pray for God to do what no mortals can. We can ask him to protect our families and those on the frontlines of this battle. We can ask him to work medically and miraculously. We can know that as we work, God works.
