Christian Living

Paul had been thinking of Rome a long time. He recognized that if the Gospel was to become a world religion—if Christianity was going to expand everywhere, as he understood from the teachings of Jesus Christ it was going to do—then the time would come when it would have to be proclaimed in the capital.

When Paul’s ship was wrecked, all on board got to shore, as the Lord had revealed to Paul they would. Paul had explained this to the centurion who was in charge of the prisoners, and this man, who had certainly developed great respect for Paul during the time he had been in his custody, made sure Paul and the others were spared when the soldiers, in conformity with Roman custom, wanted to kill them lest any should escape.

The Bible gives a number of reasons why believers suffer. It speaks of common suffering, corrective suffering, constructive suffering, cosmic suffering, and Christ-glorifying suffering.

In today’s lesson we continue our look at five possible explanations for why believers suffer. We discussed the first three in yesterday’s study.

Luke includes an interesting item as the group journeys to Rome, saying that when they arrived on the mainland word quickly spread that Paul had come. We remember that Paul had written to the Romans quite a few years before, saying that it was his intention to come to Rome. He seemed to have been preparing for his visit, asking for a good reception and carefully suggesting that the Roman Christians might help him with his plans to plant churches farther to the west in Spain.