34 - Saul and Peter

Since its founding, the United States has been a predominantly Christian culture. Not that everybody was a good Christian, they weren’t, but by and large people did believe that Jesus is the Savior and the Bible is God’s Word. Obeying His Word was another matter. There was a consensus. We generally agreed on what we should or should not be doing. When opinions are polled today it seems there is still a majority who say they believe these things, though more and more qualifiers are being added. Yet in spite of what people may claim to believe, the United States as a culture is progressively rejecting its historical faith. And a growing number of people are becoming hostile to that faith. What may have worked in the past to bring “lost sheep” back to the fold doesn’t work with secular skeptics. With these, old fashioned evangelism often produces mockery or verbal abuse. The question many believers are asking today is, “Has America become hard ground? Are the days of soul winning here drawing to an end?”

The examples of Saul and Peter help us answer that question. During its first decades of life the church in Israel faced a culture much more resistant to the gospel than we do. They might have angry mobs gather or an assassination squad plan their execution. And the government provided them no protection. In fact, some leaders joined the persecution, if they thought it benefitted their careers. This was the culture into which Saul of Tarsus and Peter went to preach. Both men faced a hostile environment, but the way they ministered to it was very different. Their message was the same, but the way they proclaimed it was not, and as we will see from this portion of Acts, the way the people in that resistant culture responded was also very different. And if we observe them carefully they will teach us how to reach a changing America.