Each chapter in the book of Acts brings us further proof (if it were needed) that we serve a God of miracles. Stephen spoke on this subject last Sunday, so it seems God definitely wants to underline this fact to us, stoking our faith to believe Him for the ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’ (Eph 3:20). When we see God moving in miraculous ways, our appetite for God grows and our faith muscle develops to ask and imagine even more!
As we journey through Acts (and through the world, starting in Jerusalem, moving on to Judea and Samaria and now reaching Philippi in Greece), we have seen people healed, delivered from impure spirits, raised from the dead and led by the Holy Spirit (being transported without transport to the desert in the case of Philip, being led to bring the gospel to Gentiles in the case of Peter through miraculous visions). We have seen the fiercest opponent of Christianity (Saul of Tarsus) become its greatest missionary (Paul), and now continue to see God moving in ways that cannot be explained naturally. Just as Peter was delivered from prison in Acts 12, now we see Paul and Silas given the opportunity to preach the gospel as an earthquake causes prison doors to open and chains to fall off. (Acts 16:16-40) The truth we find as we continue through this book isn’t that hardship and suffering don’t occur (in fact, as Jesus warned us, they are the constant companions of God’s people), but that God is in sovereign control and ‘hope is marching on.’ (Matt Redman) Time after time we see God’s miraculous interventions in people’s lives and we continue to believe He will do the same for us, demonstrating His power not simply to show us His reality but to draw other people into a living relationship with Him, as happened with the Philippian jailer and his family as a result of this latest miracle.
