The lessons for each Sunday in the church year proclaim God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Also derived from a Sunday’s texts are lessons for the Christ-inspired and Christ-like life of God’s people. The comments here will help you find hunger-related threads –sermon starters – among the themes of this day’s texts. (We're presuming you have already done your exegetical work on the texts.) God bless your proclamation (and teaching) of what is most certainly true!

There is a shift from third person narrative to first person in this passage, the first for the book of Acts. The eyewitness quality puts the evangelical activity into a more communal context. As a result, the vision which Paul had (16:9) is not just the impetus for yet another of Paul’s trips, but it sweeps up the narrator in this mission to proclaim the gospel. Now the voice or urging of the Spirit is not something that only Paul has to discern. As Christians, we too are called to respond. In our congregations, small groups, or ministry teams, what are we relying on to help us discern the Spirit’s leading? And what is different about this kind of discerning than any other? How tuned in are we to the Spirit’s leading when we decide to do something or not?

The vision of fruitfulness and healing in the midst of the city is a promise of God that stands in stark contrast to the reality experienced in many cities around the world today. If the vision itself is not enough, the statement that nothing accursed will be found there ignites a sense of hopefulness. How does this vision translate for our contexts now? Is it evangelism material, the hope that we pray is realized in our work, or only a nice comfortable thought for the future?

Jesus assured his followers that those who love him and keep his word will find themselves loved by the Father, whose home will be made among them. What does it mean if God’s home is made among us? The reading from Revelation pairs well with this promise by Jesus. Both passages seem to lead to a realization of God healing, empowering, and providing for us, not in some far off place, but here on earth. If we envision the home of God to be a place where a feast is provided (Isaiah 25:6), death swallowed up (Is. 25:8) and tears wiped away (Revelation 21:4), shouldn’t our ministries in some way reflect the health and restoration of these actions? Furthermore, if our ministry is informed by God’s home being made in our midst, it hints at a deep impact that goes beyond one time relief efforts.

The context of this passage is also important, as Jesus is instructing his disciples in the work of the Spirit of truth. So this work is not something we have to do on our own, but it is a reality of living in the Spirit.