Hey, this is John at the Bible Project.

Today on the podcast we continue a conversation looking at the story in the book of Acts.

In the last chapters of Acts, Paul, the Apostle, the Jewish follower of Jesus who takes it

on himself to plant churches all over the Roman world, is now reaching the end of his

church planting career.

And he's taken it upon himself.

To put together an offering, a love offering of sorts, he's gone to churches all over the

Roman world and asked them to contribute, pull together money so that he can take that

cash and bring it to the believers in Jerusalem.

You see, in Jerusalem, there's been a famine and a drought and the Christians there are

suffering.

And for Paul, this offering is to help people who are suffering, but it's also much

more.

Paul, this offering is a symbol portraying the unity of the church.

For Paul, when you have a group of diverse ethnically, socio-economically diverse people

in one room worshiping Jesus, sharing a meal together and sharing their lives together,

you are tasting heaven, heaven on earth.

In this episode, Paul gets to Jerusalem and things reach a boiling point.

He goes to Jerusalem.

He shows up and a number of the Jewish Christian leaders say, hey, welcome to town.

Listen, there's a lot of people who want you dead around here.

For Paul being in trouble with local authorities, there's nothing new.

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