Share your requests and praises here…..

Read Acts 16:1-40. This occurred about 50A.D. on Paul’s 2nd missionary journey. The church had very humble beginnings. Since there was no synagogue, Paul encountered a few women by the river and later the jailer and his family believed. This reminds me of the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to find the one who was lost. 1 Corinthians 1:27  says God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the weak thing to shame the strong.

Do you feel weak or foolish? Take heart! That won’t stop God from using you. Did God impress anything upon your heart as you read about this brand new church?

I was surprised to find a lot more references to Timothy than I expected. Paul first met Timothy in Acts 16:1-4. He is also mentioned in 1:Timothy 2-3, 2 Timothy 1:2-5, 1 Thessalonians 3;2 and in Hebrews 13:23 we learn that Timothy had been imprisoned.  Timothy’s mother and grandmother were women of faith and prayer. You can see how Timothy moves from following along with Paul to becoming a leader in the Church of Ephesus.

Do you have a story to share about praying for your children/grandchildren or about your praying mother or grandmother ?

Tell us about about others who invested in your life or you invested in the lives of others to enable them to become the leaders God had called them to be? 

Please share any observations/questions/answers/comments below

1:1 Paul and Timothy, bond servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi

Who is Paul?

Acts 9:1-30 , Acts 22, Acts 26 and Galatians 1:13-24 contain details about Paul’s’ conversion and early life as a follower of Jesus. Read these and consider…. In Acts 9:15-16 God called Paul to be His chosen instrument for the Gentiles .

What has God called you to do? 

How do you feel knowing that, like Paul  in Gal 1:16, God set you apart from your mother’s womb?

In Galatians 1:16, Paul said he did not immediately consult with “flesh and blood” but sought God. Do you seek God’s wisdom before you ask what others think?

Acts 28:16-24 tells us about Paul’s circumstances during the time he wrote this letter. I am sure he never imagined a handful of ladies thousands of miles apart, 2000 years later, reading and discussing his letter. Isn’t God amazing?

Before moving on to the next section. please share observations, comments or answers…..

No one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have – Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11)

My dear friend Adela wants to begin an on-line Bible study and I agreed. I love to study God’s word and hear the insights from others and share what God is doing in their lives, and pray with them through life’s struggles. So we begin, appropriately, the week after Resurrection Sunday knowing in Christ we are new creations.

Philippians is a short book of four chapters so the first week we will  look at Paul, Timothy and how the church began. The next four weeks we will examine one chapter. Since I feel the value of inductive study is great ( I  highly recommend Precept upon Precept studies by Kay Arthur ), we will study God’s word as our primary source by  observing, interpreting  and then applying.

If you want to join the discussion, please introduce yourself and jump right in. Obviously, it is a work in progress and we will earn what works best as we go. My prayer is that each of us will grow more in love with Jesus and His love will spill out from us into the world who desperately needs Him.