Series: Traditional Service

The travelling Apostle Paul has remarkable success establishing a new church in Corinth… but by the time he writes back to them three years later, there are some serious problems brewing from within. We will do well to learn from their mistakes!

As Paul arrives in Athens, he’s confronted by a bewildering array of options. Temples, idols, and intellectual and philosophical options are everywhere. Paul observes, he reasons, and he debates – but always the same thing remains central. The resurrection of Jesus is the way the one true God has made himself known.

“Our pastor rejuvenated this congregation . . . He grew our church from 1 to 1,000.” Easy to say but easily wrong. It’s not us but God who grows his church and gives us the opportunity to participate. He’s the source and standard of growth, and he grows us up together.

As we take a brief pause from our miniseries “Postcards from Paul,” Scots’ Church is excited to welcome special guest minister Rev. Colin Morrow this Sunday. He will be sharing insights on Psalm 105:1-5 and John 4:27-38 in a sermon titled “PIM’s Job Description!”

What makes someone a Christian? Do you think you’re one? If you say “Yes”, does it mean you’re arrogant? Do you need to have a mystical experience – or get a passing score in the Ten Commandment Test? This week we’ll get some very exciting answers to those questions as Paul the Apostle writes back fondly to the church he had recently established in the Greek city of Thessalonica.

They say ‘many a true word is spoken in jest,’ and maybe the same applies to words said in anger as well. This week we’re back in the book of Acts, as we pick up Paul’s trail in Thessalonica, where he’s accused of ‘Turning the world upside down’ with the message of King Jesus. Maybe though, he’s actually turning it ‘right way up’?

As we follow Paul’s missionary journey through Macedonia, we pause this week to look at the letter he later writes back to the church in Philippi. Now a prisoner in Rome, Paul writes to reaffirm the lesson he taught them when he visited – when facing opposition for proclaiming Jesus, ‘fight or flight’ are not the best options. Instead, we’re to calmly and constantly look to the best interests of others – even our opponents – as we press forward with the message of Christ.

As Paul and his team come to Philippi, in northern Greece, we meet three very disparate individuals – two women, one man – who are confronted and changed by his message, and gathered into ‘the church.’ But what exactly is it – or more precisely “Who is it” – that lies at the heart of his message? And ‘what must we do… to be saved’?

The Apostle Paul is sometimes accused of inconsistency, and as he sets out on mission through Syria and southern Turkey with his new team, freshly recruited Timothy faces the painful cost of Paul’s apparent pivot, all for the sake of ‘missional compromise.’ What will it look like to be “all things to all people” to reach our world today?