Acts 18:18-28 gives us an unusual glimpse into Paul’s life, telling us that before he left Corinth and sailed for Syria, he had his hair cut off at Cenchreae because of a vow he had taken. (Acts 18:18) This was presumably something like the Nazirite vow (see Numbers 6:1-21), which involved abstinence from drinking wine and from cutting one’s hair for a period, at the end of which the hair was first cut and then burned along with other sacrifices, as a symbol of self-offering to God. Such vows were made either in thankfulness for God’s protection in the past (which Paul had definitely experienced!) or as a request for future safe-keeping.

Making vows before God was a serious business (see Deut 23:21 and Eccl 5:4-5), and in the Old Testament, we see several examples of those who made vows before God (including Samson whose parents were instructed to bring him up as a Nazirite and whose strength was bound up in his uncut hair, and Hannah, who vowed to give the son God gave her back to Him to serve Him.) Others made foolish vows (see Jephthah, whose vow to sacrifice whatever came out of his house as a burnt offering resulted in the death of his beloved daughter.) We do not fully know why Paul made a vow to God or what that vow entailed, and some have even felt it unlikely that Paul would have held fast to Jewish practices of this kind, but Paul was probably simply expressing gratitude to God and wanted to be ‘as a Jew’ to the Jews (see 1 Cor 9:20).

The Psalms remind us to fulfil our vows to God (see Ps 50:14, Ps 65:1) and Jonah says, ‘what I have vowed I will make good.’ (Jonah 2:9) Jesus talked about not making oaths or vows lightly (see Matt 5:33-38) and reminded us that we should be people of our word. Don’t make rash promises, but keep the ones you make!

Acts 18:18-28 offers us a whistle-stop tour: we see Paul travel from Corinth to Ephesus, Caesarea, Jerusalem, Antioch and back through Galatia to Ephesus again. The narrative is very condensed, either because Luke’s information was limited (since he was still in Philippi himself), or because his narrative purpose was to get Paul from Achaia to Asia (where he had previously been forbidden by the Spirit to preach), from his two years in Corinth to his three years in Ephesus without dwelling on his intervening months of travel.

Some time after the events narrated in the earlier part of Acts 18, therefore, Paul sailed for Syria (Acts 18:18a), presumably intending to report back to the church of Syrian Antioch which had sent him out. He was accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila who may well have financed his trip. Paul left Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus.  He went to the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews there. (Acts 18:19) From Caesarea (Palestine’s chief port), he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch. After spending some time in Antioch (probably from the early summer of AD 52 to the early spring of AD 53), and having doubtless given its church a full account of his second missionary expedition, Paul set out from there on what proved to be his third and last journey. He travelled from place to place throughout the regions of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples. (Acts 18:23) – revisiting the churches of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, which he had established on his first missionary journey and consolidated during his second.

In this passage, Luke compresses a considerable amount of journeying by Paul which took him from Corinth via Ephesus to Jerusalem and Antioch, and then back to Ephesus where he entered upon the next main phase of his missionary work. We may feel it’s a bit of a whistle-stop tour (rather like some holidays where people want to cram as much sightseeing into a fortnight as possible!), but Luke is preparing us for the extended period Paul spent in Ephesus and as such, we realise that not everything we do needs to be recorded in minute detail! Getting an overview is important in life as well as in storytelling; sometimes we need to understand ‘the bigger picture.’

Stephen spoke on Sunday evening about pies, likening our lives to a pie. Some of us prefer savoury pies (steak pie, mince and onion pies etc.) and others prefer sweet pies (apple pies being perhaps the most popular.) Whatever our preference, one of the things about pies is that they can be divided up and shared between different people.

We often use the idea of a ‘pie chart’ to think about the different aspects of our lives (how much time we spend sleeping, working, with friends, going to church and so on.) Such an idea can be a good checklist for our priorities, and Stephen challenged us not to think of God as simply a part, portion or segment of our lives but to give Him all that we are and have – in effect, to give Him the whole pie! Gen 12:1-3 gives us a glimpse of what this looks like in a person’s life as we see God calling Abram and Abram obeying whole-heartedly, going wherever God called, giving Him full control of his life.

We might wonder how we will survive life if we give God everything: won’t we lose out on our pie?! In fact, the opposite is true. Gen 22:18 reminds us that God promised to bless all nations on earth because of Abram’s willingness to give Him control. What Abram received back was blessing – blessings far more than he could have ever anticipated, blessings that were more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach. (Gen 32:2) If we let God have the full pie of our life, we too will know blessings greater than we could ever expect by holding on to the pie. It’s God’s law that when we let go and yield or surrender to Him, we actually find we receive more than we could get by holding on to life. Jer 29:11-13 reminds us both of God’s good plans and intentions for our lives and the need to seek Him with all our hearts.

So often, we are selfish and greedy when it comes to literal pies, wanting more than others, wanting to satisfy our hunger and appetite. We can act in similar ways with God, trying to look after ourselves and being reluctant to give to Him. The truth is we don’t need the safety net of our solutions and actions; we don’t need to ‘sort life’ ourselves. It’s not really about sharing our pie with God, giving him a tiny portion of our lives, but about giving Him the whole pie and finding that we are then blessed beyond all measure.

This morning we looked at Phil 3:10-21, seeing the need to continue to grow in Christ throughout our lives. This can be done by fixing our eyes on Jesus and also by following the example of those who follow Christ (see also 1 Cor 11:1, Phil 3:17, Eph 5:1, 1 Thess 1:5-6). We all need role models, people who are not perfect (since no one is sinless, as 1 John 1:8-10 reminds us) but who are authentic, whose lives match their beliefs. Eugene Peterson calls this ‘congruence’, saying “The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence—congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh.” – Eugene H. Peterson, ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God’ (New York: Waterbrook, 2017), xviii. The Message version’s translation of Rom 14:23 captures what this means: ‘If the way you live isn’t consistent with what you believe, then it’s wrong.’

Many of us are quite good at living wildly divided lives, without really thinking about how odd this is! We say we believe God, but the minute an impossible situation crops up in our lives, we collapse internally and start to look for ways we can manage without Him. We say we trust God, but when we face redundancy or unemployment, we panic about how the bills are going to get paid without thinking about His promises to provide for us. We say God is our healer, but when the first ache or pain hits us, we reach out for the painkillers or doctors to help us. Our lives can survive such inconsistencies for many years, but they make life much more stressful than it needs to be and they diminish our witness, because people are ultimately drawn to authenticity and integrity. We need to learn how to move from ‘holey‘ (with holes, sins or imperfections) to ‘wholly’ (entirely given over to God) to ‘holy’ (set apart for God.)

Paul reminds us that we make this progress by realising our citizenship is in heaven, not earth. (Phil 3:20) We have an eternal hope to look forward to, the transformation of our lowly bodies into immortal ones (see also 1 Cor 15:37-40). God is in control and is able to bring everything under His control (Phil 3:21), and therefore we have an eternal hope that will never perish or fade.

Apart from our usual Sunday services at 10.30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and midweek meeting on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., we have a couple of extra meetings coming up this week.

On Wednesday 16th September we’ll be hosting a ‘Dearne Churches Together’ prayer meeting at GPCC at 10.45 a.m. This will also be livestreamed on Facebook from the ‘Dearne Churches Together’ Facebook page. Join us to pray together for our community, especially for local businesses, schools and families this coming Wednesday.

On Saturday 19th September we’ll be having our ‘Take Back The Streets’ prayer meeting at 10 a.m., leaving the building to walk and pray on the streets of Goldthorpe in small socially-distanced groups and will be holding a cleaning session at the church building after this at 11.30 a.m. There is quite a bit of cleaning, sorting and weeding to do, so if you can come along to help, we’d be really grateful!

We’ll also be holding our annual update (for 2018-2019) at the end of the services in the morning and evening on Sunday 20th September to fulfil Charity Commission guidelines.

Dave spoke from Matt 14:13-21 last Sunday morning, looking at the heart of Jesus. Jesus, being fully man, experienced emotions just as we do (weeping at the death of his friend, Lazarus, and experiencing anger at the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees, for example.) In this passage, we often focus on the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, but Dave looked at the emotions experienced by Jesus at this time and how he wants to involve us in meeting the needs of other people, regardless of how we may be feeling at any particular time.

Jesus had just learned of his cousin’s death and wanted to be alone, but when followed by crowds, he had compassion on them. He put their needs before his own needs for privacy and time to grieve. He did not act in a selfish way, but involved his disciples in this great miracle of feeding which is recorded in all four gospels. Jesus always wants to involve us in his works, but sometimes we don’t want to get involved. If we respond, however, to his invitations, we can find ourselves in a life of ministry and service which far exceeds anything we can do on our own. Every one of us, without exception, does come across situations in which we can help. In such situations, we should have the heart of Jesus, the heart that puts aside our hurts and our needs and meets the needs of others. Are we willing to be used by Jesus to help others?