Shaken Foundations
This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Sunday, May 29. The text was Acts 16:16-34. We live in violent, scary times. Don’t we sometimes want to throw up our hands and give up when we hear about yet another mass casualty event? Last week it was the Buffalo shooting and now another school shooting, this time in Uvalde, TX. Doesn’t it seem like week after week we hear of another disaster affecting so many people—a shooting rampage, fires, floods and let’s not forget COVID, which is not finished wreaking its havoc. Our hearts break within us as we cry out with the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?” Life is hard today, but it was a difficult world that Paul and Silas found themselves in in the Book of Acts. Today’s text consists of four scenes: Paul and Silas’ exchange with a girl controlled by a spirit, the disciples get thrown into prison, their miraculous release from prison and the conversion of the jailer and family. We take up the story with our her