New Sermon Series Outline: "The Way: The Post Jesus, Pre Paul Church"

Summer is the season for action movies at the cinema, and (increasingly frequently) their sequels, which may or may not be as good as the original/worth attending at all/a blatant money grab by movie studios (depending on just how bad the sequel is!).  And that is one of two reasons why I think this new sermon series is especially appropriate for a summer.  The Gospels, believe it or not, have their own sequel in the New Testament: Acts of the Apostles, commonly referred to simply as Acts. Acts is written by Luke (the writer of the Gospel which bears his name) precisely as a sequel in his two volume set of historical accountings of Christ’s ministry and the early church, and it is, to my way of thinking, far better than many of the sequels we are used to today!

The other reason I wanted this to be a sermon series for the summer is that we basically picked up yesterday where the Pentecost story leaves off: after Peter has delivered his sermon in Acts 2 after the arrival of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost fell on Sunday, June 8, this year, and oftentimes, we preachers (myself included) will preach on the Pentecost story on whichever Sunday it falls, but then move onto something else entirely, and I felt led this year to linger in Acts for a bit longer and go verse by verse through what follows.

And what follows in these chapters is an accounting of the church after Jesus has ascended, but before Paul (as Saul) enters the narrative, hence the sermon series title: "The Way: The Post Jesus, Pre Paul Church."  (And "The Way" is how the early church actually referred to itself, according to Acts 9.)

So, like I said, we kicked off this series yesterday after I returned from my wedding, and we will be continuing this series through the months of July and August as well, so for those of you who are following along, be it near or far, here is how the rest of this series is shaping up:

June 22 (yesterday): “The Three Thousand,” Acts 2:37-47
June 29: “The Beautiful Gate,” Acts 3:1-10
July 6: “The Message,” Acts 3:11-26
July 13: “The Cornerstone,” Acts 4:1-12
July 20: “The Challenge,” Acts 4:13-22
July 27: “The Prayer,” Acts 4:23-31
August 3: “The Ekklesia,” Acts 4:32-37
August 10: “The Writing on the Wall,” Acts 5:1-11
August 17: “The Hope,” Acts 5:12-16
August 24: “The Angel,” Acts 5:17-21

I hope you'll enjoy this series as much as I already am!

Yours in Christ,
Eric