Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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  "The Pandemic - Which should lead us to firm faith"

   Acts .11: 27-30
 

There are many important things to consider in these verses as the prophecy, the prophecy turned to reality, the cause of the famine, the unity and mission of the church, and finally the proper governing channel of the church. 
Firstly, the prophecy, in old testaments we can see many prophets and their prophecies. But in the New Testament, prophets are not very common and they don’t have much power. Agabus, one of these prophets, is signified by the spirit of God, not speculation taken by the stars, or some other natural causes.  He prophesied that a severe famine would come and spread over the entire Roman world.
Secondly, the prophecy turned to reality just a few months later.  This actually did happen during the reign of Claudius Caesar. 
Thirdly, the cause of the famine can be explained as the people have done the sins and God has given the punishments. Prophets show the space to repent that may prevent God’s punishment.   Now also, we know that people were destructing nature and nature punishing back as severe calamities. We celebrated “funerals” and planned how our marriage and other functions to be more colorful, varied, and extravagant. God saw our sin, punished us with a very small virus…CORONA
Fourthly, the unity and mission of the church, these early men of the Church had realized the unity of the Church. When there was famine, the first instinct of the Church at Antioch was to help. They had a vision that saw the Church as a whole. One part of the Church should be in trouble, it was the responsibility of another part to help them. When these disciples heard about the prophecy of famine, they began to prepare for it and did not wait for the requests from Judea. 
Fifthly, the proper governing channel of the church, it is to appreciate that the men of Antioch did choose faithful men, Barnabas and Saul of known honesty, to carry their blessing. They sent it unto the elders, that they might wisely donate the same to the needy.
The calamities and pandemics are not new.  We, as a church have to help each other manage it properly and be firm in faith by our prayers.

Prayer
God, give us strength to bear all the punishments from you and be strong in our faith, and lead us to help the needy in appropriate time. Amen


Thought for the Day

All the calamities and pandemics are happening not to terminate us, but we have to rise up strongly like phoenix bird.

 
Dr. Manju Thomas, 
Malayalam Christian Congregation, Tanzania, East Africa.

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