The Bible Study Podcast, episode 153.

Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Acts with Acts chapter 16.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast.

I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

We continue the study of acts with what is known as

Paul's second missionary journey. He came to Derby, then to Listra, where a disciple named Timothy

lived, whose mother was a Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The brothers at Listra and

Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him

along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they

all knew that his father was a Greek. As they traveled from town to town, they delivered

the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey, so the

church was strengthened in faith and grew

daily in numbers. So two important things are going on in this particular opening section here.

One is that Paul meets Timothy for the first time. And Paul will have a wonderful father,

son kind of relationship with Timothy. And two books in the Bible are written from Paul

to Timothy, obviously first and second Timothy, as Timothy goes on to become a shepherd or a pastor

in a particular congregation after Paul leaves and moves on. The second one being they're going to

the churches that Paul and Barnabas had been to on the first journey, and they are strengthening the churches,

and they're bringing back this word from the first council of Jerusalem what the elders had

decided relative to Gentiles and whether they needed to be Jewish.

And continuing on, Paul and his companions traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia,

having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Micea, they turned to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Micea and went down to Troas. During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia, standing and begging him, come over to Macedonia and help us.

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