Welcome to Studies with Stearman.

Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.

Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching.

And now, here's Gary.

One of the things that has impressed me on this trip through Acts is that the Holy Spirit

often takes us to places that we don't necessarily want to go, and he keeps us from going

in places we do want to go, called the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But he does it for his purposes, which are much higher than ours,

and they are so high, in fact, that we have trouble understanding them sometime.

And that's why we have to have faith.

Paul's third missionary journey, we traveled with him all the way around the Aegean Sea, back down the east coast of the Aegean Sea, around Meletus, over to Tyre, south to Caesarea, down to Jerusalem.

People said all the way, Paul, don't go, don't go, you're going to be bound, you're going to be imprisoned, they're going to try to kill you.

And Paul said, no, I'm going, I'm going. Don't try to stop me. It's necessary that I go up to

Jerusalem. Last week, we were in chapter 22 of Acts. It's about the year AD 58 at this time.

Nero has been in power for four years. The political situation in Rome is very

stable after Claudius. The first four to six years of Nero's reign were actually quite good,

quite peaceful. Nero was a good guy.

Everybody thought, wow, after a series of rotten emperors like Caligula and Claudius, who

really had it in for the Jews, Nero comes along, and Nero is not only kind to the Jews,

he's kind to the Christians.

And so things look peaceful, but out on the frontier in Asia Minor and all the way over into Israel,

things are bad politically.

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