WITH ALL BOLDNESS

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” —Acts 28:30, 31

To some readers, the book of Acts might seem to have an anticlimactic ending. We have a single picture of Paul under house arrest in Rome but continuing to preach and write and “boldly proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one tried to stop him” (Acts 28:31, NLT). And then the picture simply fades to black. Yet this picture represented the gospel going “to the ends of the earth”—as Jesus had predicted (Acts 1:8). This was Paul in the capital of the then-known world.

And the good news about Jesus was continuing to spread without hindrance. This picture also presents believers and churches continuing to boldly proclaim the kingdom in Jerusalem and Samaria, in Antioch and Cyprus, in Philippi, Corinth, and Ephesus, and in places as far away as Ethiopia, Iran, and India. The good news of the kingdom of God truly had spread to the ends of the earth within the first generation of the church.

However, in another sense, the story remains incomplete even today. The ending of the book of Acts begs for another chapter—and another and still another until we reach today, until the gospel of the kingdom reaches your nation, your city, town or village, your family, until it reaches you and your encounter with the resurrected Jesus, who transformed the disciples and Paul and countless others throughout the Christian story. There was a boldness and courage in Paul’s continuing proclamation of the good news about Jesus, even as he drew near the end of his life. That boldness has continued wherever and whenever the story has been proclaimed since. There is boldness and courage when we share it today.