audio by artist brent diggs

Today's "substitute preacher" Brent Diggs, carries us into Paul and Barnabas' peaching in Antioch of Pisidia. It was  a long an uphill climb to a city of Jews and God fearing Gentiles. Here they preach Jesus and are initially well received until jealousy divides the city into angry mobs and joy-filled believers. Bents encourages us to guard ourselves from that same jealousy in our own lives and to look to Jesus as the "star" of the Church. 

Today Brent Diggs uses the division of Paul and Barnabas at the begining of their second missionary journey to preach on conflict management. Different personalities have different approaches towards conflict. Brent talked about the "bowling ball" and the "ledge walker", those who run to or run from conflict. This was in fact a "big deal" conflict between Paul and Barnabas and Brent teaches on what we can learn from this incident in the Church. 

Brent Diggs relays another tough but well known story from the book of Acts, the imprisonment of Paul and Silas. They were imprisoned by a corrupt system but were themselves always free. Paul and Silas' response to their circumstance was evidence of their freedom as was the jailers response evidence of his enslavement to the system. God's heart is liberation for both the oppressed and the oppressor.